20,624 research outputs found
Assessing the performance of protective winter covers for outdoor marble statuary: pilot investigation
Outdoor statuary in gardens and parks in temperate climates has a tradition of being covered during the winter, to protect against external conditions. There has been little scientific study of the environmental protection that different types of covers provide. This paper examines environmental conditions provided by a range of covers used to protect marble statuary at three sites in the UK. The protection required depends upon the condition of the marble. Although statues closely wrapped and with a layer of insulation provide good protection, this needs to be considered against the potential physical damage of close wrapping a fragile deteriorated surface
Nodal domain distributions for quantum maps
The statistics of the nodal lines and nodal domains of the eigenfunctions of
quantum billiards have recently been observed to be fingerprints of the
chaoticity of the underlying classical motion by Blum et al. (Phys. Rev. Lett.,
Vol. 88 (2002), 114101) and by Bogomolny and Schmit (Phys. Rev. Lett., Vol. 88
(2002), 114102). These statistics were shown to be computable from the random
wave model of the eigenfunctions. We here study the analogous problem for
chaotic maps whose phase space is the two-torus. We show that the distributions
of the numbers of nodal points and nodal domains of the eigenvectors of the
corresponding quantum maps can be computed straightforwardly and exactly using
random matrix theory. We compare the predictions with the results of numerical
computations involving quantum perturbed cat maps.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures. Second version: minor correction
Geometric phases and hidden local gauge symmetry
The analysis of geometric phases associated with level crossing is reduced to
the familiar diagonalization of the Hamiltonian in the second quantized
formulation. A hidden local gauge symmetry, which is associated with the
arbitrariness of the phase choice of a complete orthonormal basis set, becomes
explicit in this formulation (in particular, in the adiabatic approximation)
and specifies physical observables. The choice of a basis set which specifies
the coordinate in the functional space is arbitrary in the second quantization,
and a sub-class of coordinate transformations, which keeps the form of the
action invariant, is recognized as the gauge symmetry. We discuss the
implications of this hidden local gauge symmetry in detail by analyzing
geometric phases for cyclic and noncyclic evolutions. It is shown that the
hidden local symmetry provides a basic concept alternative to the notion of
holonomy to analyze geometric phases and that the analysis based on the hidden
local gauge symmetry leads to results consistent with the general prescription
of Pancharatnam. We however note an important difference between the geometric
phases for cyclic and noncyclic evolutions. We also explain a basic difference
between our hidden local gauge symmetry and a gauge symmetry (or equivalence
class) used by Aharonov and Anandan in their definition of generalized
geometric phases.Comment: 25 pages, 1 figure. Some typos have been corrected. To be published
in Phys. Rev.
Nonclassical Degrees of Freedom in the Riemann Hamiltonian
The Hilbert-Polya conjecture states that the imaginary parts of the zeros of
the Riemann zeta function are eigenvalues of a quantum hamiltonian. If so,
conjectures by Katz and Sarnak put this hamiltonian in Altland and Zirnbauer's
universality class C. This implies that the system must have a nonclassical
two-valued degree of freedom. In such a system, the dominant primitive periodic
orbits contribute to the density of states with a phase factor of -1. This
resolves a previously mysterious sign problem with the oscillatory
contributions to the density of the Riemann zeros.Comment: 4 pages, no figures; v3-6 have minor corrections to v2, v2 has a more
complete solution of the sign problem than v
A simple and surprisingly accurate approach to the chemical bond obtained from dimensional scaling
We present a new dimensional scaling transformation of the Schrodinger
equation for the two electron bond. This yields, for the first time, a good
description of the two electron bond via D-scaling. There also emerges, in the
large-D limit, an intuitively appealing semiclassical picture, akin to a
molecular model proposed by Niels Bohr in 1913. In this limit, the electrons
are confined to specific orbits in the scaled space, yet the uncertainty
principle is maintained because the scaling leaves invariant the
position-momentum commutator. A first-order perturbation correction,
proportional to 1/D, substantially improves the agreement with the exact ground
state potential energy curve. The present treatment is very simple
mathematically, yet provides a strikingly accurate description of the potential
energy curves for the lowest singlet, triplet and excited states of H_2. We
find the modified D-scaling method also gives good results for other molecules.
It can be combined advantageously with Hartree-Fock and other conventional
methods.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. Letter
Nexus between quantum criticality and the chemical potential pinning in high- cuprates
For strongly correlated electrons the relation between total number of charge
carriers and the chemical potential reveals for large Coulomb
energy the apparently paradoxical pinning of within the Mott gap, as
observed in high- cuprates. By unravelling consequences of the non-trivial
topology of the charge gauge U(1) group and the associated ground state
degeneracy we found a close kinship between the pinning of and the
zero-temperature divergence of the charge compressibility , which marks a novel quantum criticality governed by
topological charges rather than Landau principle of the symmetry breaking.Comment: 4+ pages, 2 figures, typos corrected, version as publishe
- …