Ultracold bosons in disordered superlattices: Mott-insulators induced by tunneling

We analyse the phase diagram of ultra-cold bosons in a one-dimensional superlattice potential with disorder using the time evolving block decimation algorithm for infinite sized systems (iTEBD). For degenerate potential energies within the unit cell of the superlattice loophole-shaped insulating phases with non-integer filling emerge with a particle-hole gap proportional to the boson hopping. Adding a small amount of disorder destroys this gap. For not too large disorder the loophole Mott regions detach from the axis of vanishing hopping giving rise to insulating islands. Thus the system shows a transition from a compressible Bose-glass to a Mott-insulating phase with increasing hopping amplitude. We present a straight forward effective model for the dynamics within a unit cell which provides a simple explanation for the emergence of Mott-insulating islands. In particular it gives rather accurate predictions for the inner critical point of the Bose-glass to Mott-insulator transition

Dynamics and evaporation of defects in Mott-insulating clusters of boson pairs

Repulsively bound pairs of particles in a lattice governed by the Bose-Hubbard model can form stable incompressible clusters of dimers corresponding to finite-size n=2 Mott insulators. Here we study the dynamics of hole defects in such clusters corresponding to unpaired particles which can resonantly tunnel out of the cluster into the lattice vacuum. Due to bosonic statistics, the unpaired particles have different effective mass inside and outside the cluster, and "evaporation" of hole defects from the cluster boundaries is possible only when their quasi-momenta are within a certain transmission range. We show that quasi-thermalization of hole defects occurs in the presence of catalyzing particle defects which thereby purify the Mott insulating clusters. We study the dynamics of one-dimensional system using analytical techniques and numerically exact t-DMRG simulations. We derive an effective strong-interaction model that enables simulations of the system dynamics for much longer times. We also discuss a more general case of two bosonic species which reduces to the fermionic Hubbard model in the strong interaction limit.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figures, minor update

Particle number conservation in quantum many-body simulations with matrix product operators

Incorporating conservation laws explicitly into matrix product states (MPS) has proven to make numerical simulations of quantum many-body systems much less resources consuming. We will discuss here, to what extent this concept can be used in simulation where the dynamically evolving entities are matrix product operators (MPO). Quite counter-intuitively the expectation of gaining in speed by sacrificing information about all but a single symmetry sector is not in all cases fulfilled. It turns out that in this case often the entanglement imposed by the global constraint of fixed particle number is the limiting factor.Comment: minor changes, 18 pages, 5 figure

Treating hummingbirds as feathered bees : a case of ethological cross-pollination

Hummingbirds feed from hundreds of flowers every day. The properties of these flowers provide these birds with a wealth of information about colour, space and time to guide how they forage. To understand how hummingbirds might use this information, researchers have adapted established laboratory paradigms for use in the field. In recent years, however, experimental inspiration has come less from other birds, and more from looking at other nectar-feeders, particularly honeybees and bumblebees, which have been models for foraging behaviour and cognition for over a century. In a world in which the cognitive abilities of bees regularly make the news, research on the influence of ecology and sensory systems on bee behaviour is leading to novel insights in hummingbird cognition. As methods designed to study insects in the laboratory are being applied to hummingbirds in the field, converging methods can help us identify and understand convergence in cognition, behaviour and ecology.PostprintPeer reviewe

A Robust and Universal Metaproteomics Workflow for Research Studies and Routine Diagnostics Within 24 h Using Phenol Extraction, FASP Digest, and the MetaProteomeAnalyzer

The investigation of microbial proteins by mass spectrometry (metaproteomics) is a key technology for simultaneously assessing the taxonomic composition and the functionality of microbial communities in medical, environmental, and biotechnological applications. We present an improved metaproteomics workflow using an updated sample preparation and a new version of the MetaProteomeAnalyzer software for data analysis. High resolution by multidimensional separation (GeLC, MudPIT) was sacrificed to aim at fast analysis of a broad range of different samples in less than 24 h. The improved workflow generated at least two times as many protein identifications than our previous workflow, and a drastic increase of taxonomic and functional annotations. Improvements of all aspects of the workflow, particularly the speed, are first steps toward potential routine clinical diagnostics (i.e., fecal samples) and analysis of technical and environmental samples. The MetaProteomeAnalyzer is provided to the scientific community as a central remote server solution at www.mpa.ovgu.de.Peer Reviewe

Reflection of a Lieb-Liniger wave packet from the hard-wall potential

Nonequilibrium dynamics of a Lieb-Liniger system in the presence of the hard-wall potential is studied. We demonstrate that a time-dependent wave function, which describes quantum dynamics of a Lieb-Liniger wave packet comprised of N particles, can be found by solving an $N$-dimensional Fourier transform; this follows from the symmetry properties of the many-body eigenstates in the presence of the hard-wall potential. The presented formalism is employed to numerically calculate reflection of a few-body wave packet from the hard wall for various interaction strengths and incident momenta.Comment: revised version, improved notation, Fig. 5 adde

Prediction with Expert Advice under Discounted Loss

We study prediction with expert advice in the setting where the losses are accumulated with some discounting---the impact of old losses may gradually vanish. We generalize the Aggregating Algorithm and the Aggregating Algorithm for Regression to this case, propose a suitable new variant of exponential weights algorithm, and prove respective loss bounds.Comment: 26 pages; expanded (2 remarks -> theorems), some misprints correcte

Limiting Behaviour of the Mean Residual Life

In survival or reliability studies, the mean residual life or life expectancy is an important characteristic of the model. Here, we study the limiting behaviour of the mean residual life, and derive an asymptotic expansion which can be used to obtain a good approximation for large values of the time variable. The asymptotic expansion is valid for a quite general class of failure rate distributions--perhaps the largest class that can be expected given that the terms depend only on the failure rate and its derivatives.Comment: 19 page