Polyakov conjecture and 2+1 dimensional gravity coupled to particles

A proof is given of Polyakov conjecture about the auxiliary parameters of the SU(1,1) Riemann-Hilbert problem for general elliptic singularities. Such a result is related to the uniformization of the the sphere punctured by n conical defects. Its relevance to the hamiltonian structure of 2+1 dimensional gravity in the maximally slicing gauge is stressed.Comment: Talk by P. Menotti at Int. Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics, Budapest 12-18 July 2001, 5 pages late

A semiclassical study of the Jaynes-Cummings model

We consider the Jaynes-Cummings model of a single quantum spin $s$ coupled to a harmonic oscillator in a parameter regime where the underlying classical dynamics exhibits an unstable equilibrium point. This state of the model is relevant to the physics of cold atom systems, in non-equilibrium situations obtained by fast sweeping through a Feshbach resonance. We show that in this integrable system with two degrees of freedom, for any initial condition close to the unstable point, the classical dynamics is controlled by a singularity of the focus-focus type. In particular, it displays the expected monodromy, which forbids the existence of global action-angle coordinates. Explicit calculations of the joint spectrum of conserved quantities reveal the monodromy at the quantum level, as a dislocation in the lattice of eigenvalues. We perform a detailed semi-classical analysis of the associated eigenstates. Whereas most of the levels are well described by the usual Bohr-Sommerfeld quantization rules, properly adapted to polar coordinates, we show how these rules are modified in the vicinity of the critical level. The spectral decomposition of the classically unstable state is computed, and is found to be dominated by the critical WKB states. This provides a useful tool to analyze the quantum dynamics starting from this particular state, which exhibits an aperiodic sequence of solitonic pulses with a rather well defined characteristic frequency.Comment: pdfLaTeX, 51 pages, 19 figures, references added and improved figure captions. To appear in J. Stat. Mec

Proof of Polyakov conjecture for general elliptic singularities

A proof is given of Polyakov conjecture about the auxiliary parameters of the SU(1,1) Riemann-Hilbert problem for general elliptic singularities. Its relevance to 2+1 dimensional gravity and to the uniformization of the sphere punctured by n conical defects is stressed

Semiclassical and quantum Liouville theory

We develop a functional integral approach to quantum Liouville field theory completely independent of the hamiltonian approach. To this end on the sphere topology we solve the Riemann-Hilbert problem for three singularities of finite strength and a fourth one infinitesimal, by determining perturbatively the Poincare' accessory parameters. This provides the semiclassical four point vertex function with three finite charges and a fourth infinitesimal. Some of the results are extended to the case of n finite charges and m infinitesimal. With the same technique we compute the exact Green function on the sphere on the background of three finite singularities. Turning to the full quantum problem we address the calculation of the quantum determinant on the background of three finite charges and of the further perturbative corrections. The zeta function regularization provides a theory which is not invariant under local conformal transformations. Instead by employing a regularization suggested in the case of the pseudosphere by Zamolodchikov and Zamolodchikov we obtain the correct quantum conformal dimensions from the one loop calculation and we show explicitly that the two loop corrections do not change such dimensions. We then apply the method to the case of the pseudosphere with one finite singularity and compute the exact value for the quantum determinant. Such results are compared to those of the conformal bootstrap approach finding complete agreement.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, Contributed to 5th Meeting on Constrained Dynamics and Quantum Gravity (QG05), Cala Gonone, Sardinia, Italy, 12-16 Sep 200

Innovative experiences in teaching conservation. Involving communities’ interests on preservationtopics by fast investigations and social media dissemination

Since 2019, the authors carried out a didactical experience trough the Preservation Studio workshop in the historical center of Vimercate, a town in the north east area of Milan, implementing a convention agreement between the Municipality and the Atheneum. The convention was arranged in order to set the relationship between the three academic courses of the Politecnico di Milano and the administration of Vimercate, supporting the teaching staff by providing ac- cessibility to various services and some public properties located in the city-cen- ter. Thanks to this kind of agreement, the courses could be supported in their activities by document centers, public associations and the members of the local community, while the teaching staff offered a constant sharing of the main activ- ities by social media and periodical disseminations through public lectures. After maturing several years of didactical workshops on the main buildings of the his- torical center of Vimercate, this paper shows the results collected with the stu- dios: the active class strategies, the on-site survey campaigns, the evolution of the results observed by year after year inspections, ND testing activities and local community involvement. The impact coming from the researches developed by the preservation classes and specific in depth studies realized by graduation thesis showed an increasing participation of the community to the topics connected to the city center: from conservation policies to future uses, historical buildings reached the attention of the people through the development of a new sensibility and perception of new values associated to the local architectural heritage

Digital Recording of Historical Defensive Structures in Mountainous Areas Using Drones: Considerations and Comparisons

Digital recording of historic buildings and sites in mountainous areas could be challenging. The paper considers and discusses the case of historical defensive structures in the Italian Alps, designed and built to be not accessible. Drone images and photogrammetric techniques for 3D modeling play a fundamental role in the digital documentation of fortified constructions with non-contact techniques. This manuscript describes the use of drones for reconstructing the external surfaces of some fortified structures using traditional photogrammetric/SfM solutions and novel methods based on NeRFs. The case of direct orientation based on PPK and traditional GCPs placed on the ground is also discussed, considering the difficulties in placing and measuring control points in such environments

Development of a tool to optimize the performance of a Maui Cluster Scheduler

The use of Linux cluster computing in a scientific and heterogeneous environment has been growing very fast in the past years. The often conflicting user’s requests of shared resources are quite difficult to satisfy for the administrators, and, usually, lower the overall system efficiency. In this scenario a new tool to study and optimize the Maui Cluster Scheduler has been developed together with a new set of metrics to evaluate any given configuration. The main idea is to use the Maui internal simulator, fed by workloads produced either by a real cluster than by an ad hoc one, to test several scheduler configurations and then, using a genetic algorithm, to choose the best solution. In this work the architecture of the proposed tool is described together with the first results