8,619 research outputs found
Critical Phenomena: An Introduction from a modern perspective
Our aim in this set of lectures is to give an introduction to critical
phenomena that emphasizes the emergence of and the role played by diverging
length-scales. It is now accepted that renormalization group gives the basic
understanding of these phenomena and so, instead of following the traditional
historical trail, we try to develop the subject in a way that emphasizes the
length-scale based approach.Comment: Revtex, 26 pages, 2 figures. Lectures given at the SERC School on
"Field theoretic methods in Condensed matter physics", held at MRI,
Allahabad, Indi
Financial LPPL Bubbles with Mean-Reverting Noise in the Frequency Domain
The log-periodic power law (LPPL) is a model of asset prices during
endogenous bubbles. A major open issue is to verify the presence of LPPL in
price sequences and to estimate the LPPL parameters. Estimation is complicated
by the fact that daily LPPL returns are typically orders of magnitude smaller
than measured price returns, suggesting that noise obscures the underlying LPPL
dynamics. However, if noise is mean-reverting, it would quickly cancel out over
subsequent measurements. In this paper, we attempt to reject mean-reverting
noise from price sequences by exploiting frequency-domain properties of LPPL
and of mean reversion. First, we calculate the spectrum of mean-reverting \ou
noise and devise estimators for the noise's parameters. Then, we derive the
LPPL spectrum by breaking it down into its two main characteristics of power
law and of log-periodicity. We compare price spectra with noise spectra during
historical bubbles. In general, noise was strong also at low frequencies and,
even if LPPL underlied price dynamics, LPPL would be obscured by noise
The Casimir Effect
After a review of the standard calculation of the Casimir force between two
metallic plates at zero and non-zero temperatures, we present the study of
microscopic models to determine the large-distance asymptotic force in the
high-temperature regime. Casimir's conducting plates are modelized by plasmas
of interacting charges at temperature T. The charges are either classical, or
quantum-mechanical and coupled to a (classical) radiation field. In these
models, the force obtained is twice weaker than that arising from standard
treatments neglecting the microscopic charge fluctutations inside the bodies.
The enforcement of inert boundary conditions on the field in the usual
calculations turns out to be inadequate in this regime.
Other aspects of dispersion forces are also reviewed. The status of
(non-retarded) van der Waals-London forces in a dilute medium of non-zero
temperature and density is investigated. In a proper scaling regime called the
atomic limit (high dilution and low temperature), one is able to give the exact
large-distance atomic correlations up to exponentially small terms as T->0.
Retarded van der Waals forces and forces between dielectric bodies are also
reviewed.
Finally, the Casimir effect in critical phenomena is addressed by considering
the free Bose gas. It is shown that the grand-canonical potential of the gas in
a slab at the critical value of the chemical potential has finite size
corrections of the standard Casimir type. They can be attributed to the
existence of long-range order generated by gapless excitations in the phase
with broken continuous symmetry.Comment: Lecture notes prepared for the proceedings of the 1st Warsaw School
of Statistical Physics, Kazimierz, Poland, June 2005. To appear in Acta
Physica Polonica (2006). 52 pages, 0 figures. Available at
http://th-www.if.uj.edu.pl/acta/vol37/pdf/v37p2503.pd
Time frequency analysis in terahertz pulsed imaging
Recent advances in laser and electro-optical technologies have made the previously under-utilized terahertz frequency band of the electromagnetic spectrum
accessible for practical imaging. Applications are emerging, notably in the biomedical domain. In this chapter the technique of terahertz pulsed imaging is
introduced in some detail. The need for special computer vision methods, which arises from the use of pulses of radiation and the acquisition of a time series at
each pixel, is described. The nature of the data is a challenge since we are interested not only in the frequency composition of the pulses, but also how these differ for different parts of the pulse. Conventional and short-time Fourier transforms and wavelets were used in preliminary experiments on the analysis of terahertz
pulsed imaging data. Measurements of refractive index and absorption coefficient were compared, wavelet compression assessed and image classification by multidimensional
clustering techniques demonstrated. It is shown that the timefrequency methods perform as well as conventional analysis for determining material properties. Wavelet compression gave results that were robust through compressions that used only 20% of the wavelet coefficients. It is concluded that the time-frequency methods hold great promise for optimizing the extraction of the spectroscopic information contained in each terahertz pulse, for the analysis of more complex signals comprising multiple pulses or from recently introduced acquisition techniques
Physics of the Riemann Hypothesis
Physicists become acquainted with special functions early in their studies.
Consider our perennial model, the harmonic oscillator, for which we need
Hermite functions, or the Laguerre functions in quantum mechanics. Here we
choose a particular number theoretical function, the Riemann zeta function and
examine its influence in the realm of physics and also how physics may be
suggestive for the resolution of one of mathematics' most famous unconfirmed
conjectures, the Riemann Hypothesis. Does physics hold an essential key to the
solution for this more than hundred-year-old problem? In this work we examine
numerous models from different branches of physics, from classical mechanics to
statistical physics, where this function plays an integral role. We also see
how this function is related to quantum chaos and how its pole-structure
encodes when particles can undergo Bose-Einstein condensation at low
temperature. Throughout these examinations we highlight how physics can perhaps
shed light on the Riemann Hypothesis. Naturally, our aim could not be to be
comprehensive, rather we focus on the major models and aim to give an informed
starting point for the interested Reader.Comment: 27 pages, 9 figure
Effective field theory
I give a brief review of effective field theory, disscussing the contribution
of Feza G\"ursey in particular and focusing on the literature I am most
familiar with.Comment: 17 pages, no figs, macros appended, plain te
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