1,510 research outputs found
Toward a Theory of Markov Influence Systems and their Renormalization
Nonlinear Markov chains are probabilistic models commonly used in physics, biology, and the social sciences. In "Markov influence systems" (MIS), the transition probabilities of the chains change as a function of the current state distribution. This work introduces a renormalization framework for analyzing the dynamics of MIS. It comes in two independent parts: first, we generalize the standard classification of Markov chain states to the dynamic case by showing how to "parse" graph sequences. We then use this framework to
carry out the bifurcation analysis of a few important MIS families.
In particular, we show that irreducible MIS are almost always
asymptotically periodic. We also give an example of "hyper-torpid" mixing, where a stationary distribution is reached in super-exponential time, a timescale that cannot be achieved by any Markov chain
From Knowledge, Knowability and the Search for Objective Randomness to a New Vision of Complexity
Herein we consider various concepts of entropy as measures of the complexity
of phenomena and in so doing encounter a fundamental problem in physics that
affects how we understand the nature of reality. In essence the difficulty has
to do with our understanding of randomness, irreversibility and
unpredictability using physical theory, and these in turn undermine our
certainty regarding what we can and what we cannot know about complex phenomena
in general. The sources of complexity examined herein appear to be channels for
the amplification of naturally occurring randomness in the physical world. Our
analysis suggests that when the conditions for the renormalization group apply,
this spontaneous randomness, which is not a reflection of our limited
knowledge, but a genuine property of nature, does not realize the conventional
thermodynamic state, and a new condition, intermediate between the dynamic and
the thermodynamic state, emerges. We argue that with this vision of complexity,
life, which with ordinary statistical mechanics seems to be foreign to physics,
becomes a natural consequence of dynamical processes.Comment: Phylosophica
New mathematical foundations for AI and Alife: Are the necessary conditions for animal consciousness sufficient for the design of intelligent machines?
Rodney Brooks' call for 'new mathematics' to revitalize the disciplines of artificial intelligence and artificial life can be answered by adaptation of what Adams has called 'the informational turn in philosophy' and by the novel perspectives that program gives into empirical studies of animal cognition and consciousness. Going backward from the necessary conditions communication theory imposes on cognition and consciousness to sufficient conditions for machine design is, however, an extraordinarily difficult engineering task. The most likely use of the first generations of conscious machines will be to model the various forms of psychopathology, since we have little or no understanding of how consciousness is stabilized in humans or other animals
A Global Workspace perspective on mental disorders
Recent developments in Global Workspace theory suggest that human consciousness can suffer interpenetrating dysfunctions of mutual and reciprocal interaction with embedding environments which will have early onset and often insidiously staged developmental progression, possibly according to a cancer model.
A simple rate distortion argument implies that, if an external information source is pathogenic, then sufficient exposure to it is sure to write a sufficiently accurate image of it on mind and body in a punctuated manner so as to initiate or promote simililarly progressively punctuated developmental disorder.
There can, thus, be no simple, reductionist brain chemical 'bug in the program' whose 'fix' can fully correct the problem. On the contrary, the growth of an individual over the life course, and the inevitable contact with a toxic physical, social, or cultural environment, can be expected to initiate developmental problems which will become more intrusive over time, most obviously according to some damage accumulation model, but likely according to far more subtle, highly punctuated, schemes analogous to tumorigenesis.
The key intervention, at the population level, is clearly to limit such exposures, a question of proper environmental sanitation, in a large sense, a matter of social justice which has long been understood to be determined almost entirely by the interactions of cultural trajectory, group power relations, and economic structure, with public policy. Intervention at the individual level appears limited to triggering or extending periods of remission, as is the case with most cancers
Contributions of plasma physics to chaos and nonlinear dynamics
This topical review focusses on the contributions of plasma physics to chaos
and nonlinear dynamics bringing new methods which are or can be used in other
scientific domains. It starts with the development of the theory of Hamiltonian
chaos, and then deals with order or quasi order, for instance adiabatic and
soliton theories. It ends with a shorter account of dissipative and high
dimensional Hamiltonian dynamics, and of quantum chaos. Most of these
contributions are a spin-off of the research on thermonuclear fusion by
magnetic confinement, which started in the fifties. Their presentation is both
exhaustive and compact. [15 April 2016
One-dimensional many-body entangled open quantum systems with tensor network methods
We present a collection of methods to simulate entangled dynamics of open
quantum systems governed by the Lindblad equation with tensor network methods.
Tensor network methods using matrix product states have been proven very useful
to simulate many-body quantum systems and have driven many innovations in
research. Since the matrix product state design is tailored for closed
one-dimensional systems governed by the Schr\"odinger equation, the next step
for many-body quantum dynamics is the simulation of open quantum systems. We
review the three dominant approaches to the simulation of open quantum systems
via the Lindblad master equation: quantum trajectories, matrix product density
operators, and locally purified tensor networks. Selected examples guide
possible applications of the methods and serve moreover as a benchmark between
the techniques. These examples include the finite temperature states of the
transverse quantum Ising model, the dynamics of an exciton traveling under the
influence of spontaneous emission and dephasing, and a double-well potential
simulated with the Bose-Hubbard model including dephasing. We analyze which
approach is favorable leading to the conclusion that a complete set of all
three methods is most beneficial, push- ing the limits of different scenarios.
The convergence studies using analytical results for macroscopic variables and
exact diagonalization methods as comparison, show, for example, that matrix
product density operators are favorable for the exciton problem in our study.
All three methods access the same library, i.e., the software package Open
Source Matrix Product States, allowing us to have a meaningful comparison
between the approaches based on the selected examples. For example, tensor
operations are accessed from the same subroutines and with the same
optimization eliminating one possible bias in a comparison of such numerical
methods.Comment: 24 pages, 8 figures. Small extension of time evolution section and
moving quantum simulators to introduction in comparison to v
Dynamics of cold bosons in optical lattices: Effects of higher Bloch bands
The extended effective multiorbital Bose-Hubbard-type Hamiltonian which takes
into account higher Bloch bands, is discussed for boson systems in optical
lattices, with emphasis on dynamical properties, in relation with current
experiments. It is shown that the renormalization of Hamiltonian parameters
depends on the dimension of the problem studied. Therefore, mean field phase
diagrams do not scale with the coordination number of the lattice. The effect
of Hamiltonian parameters renormalization on the dynamics in reduced
one-dimensional optical lattice potential is analyzed. We study both the
quasi-adiabatic quench through the superfluid-Mott insulator transition and the
absorption spectroscopy, that is energy absorption rate when the lattice depth
is periodically modulated.Comment: 23 corrected interesting pages, no Higgs boson insid
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