Spreading lengths of Hermite polynomials

The Renyi, Shannon and Fisher spreading lengths of the classical or hypergeometric orthogonal polynomials, which are quantifiers of their distribution all over the orthogonality interval, are defined and investigated. These information-theoretic measures of the associated Rakhmanov probability density, which are direct measures of the polynomial spreading in the sense of having the same units as the variable, share interesting properties: invariance under translations and reflections, linear scaling and vanishing in the limit that the variable tends towards a given definite value. The expressions of the Renyi and Fisher lengths for the Hermite polynomials are computed in terms of the polynomial degree. The combinatorial multivariable Bell polynomials, which are shown to characterize the finite power of an arbitrary polynomial, play a relevant role for the computation of these information-theoretic lengths. Indeed these polynomials allow us to design an error-free computing approach for the entropic moments (weighted L^q-norms) of Hermite polynomials and subsequently for the Renyi and Tsallis entropies, as well as for the Renyi spreading lengths. Sharp bounds for the Shannon length of these polynomials are also given by means of an information-theoretic-based optimization procedure. Moreover, it is computationally proved the existence of a linear correlation between the Shannon length (as well as the second-order Renyi length) and the standard deviation. Finally, the application to the most popular quantum-mechanical prototype system, the harmonic oscillator, is discussed and some relevant asymptotical open issues related to the entropic moments mentioned previously are posed.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures. Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics (2009), doi:10.1016/j.cam.2009.09.04

Multiple Scattering Formulation of Two Dimensional Acoustic and Electromagnetic Metamaterials

This work presents a multiple scattering formulation of two dimensional acoustic metamaterials. It is shown that in the low frequency limit multiple scattering allows us to define frequency-dependent effective acoustic parameters for arrays of both ordered and disordered cylinders. This formulation can lead to both positive and negative acoustic parameters, where the acoustic parameters are the scalar bulk modulus and the tensorial mass density and, therefore, anisotropic wave propagation is allowed with both positive or negative refraction index. It is also shown that the surface fields on the scatterer are the main responsible of the anomalous behavior of the effective medium, therefore complex scatterers can be used to engineer the frequency response of the effective medium, and some examples of application to different scatterers are given. Finally, the theory is extended to electromagnetic wave propagation, where Mie resonances are found to be the responsible of the metamaterial behavior. As an application, it is shown that it is possible to obtain metamaterials with negative permeability and permittivity tensors by arrays of all-dielectric cylinders and that anisotropic cylinders can tune the frequency response of these resonances

Shannon Entropy as Characterization Tool in Acoustics

We introduce Shannon's information entropy to characterize the avoided crossing appearing in the resonant Zener-like phenomenon in ultrasonic superlattices made of two different fluidlike meta- materials. We show that Shannon's entropy gives a correct physical insight of the localization effects taking place and manifest the informational exchange of the involved acoustic states in the narrow region of parameters where the avoided crossing occurs. Results for ultrasonic structures consisting of alternating layers of methyl-metacrylate and water cavities, in which the acoustic Zener effect were recently demonstrated, are also reported.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. Submitted to Phys. Rev. Let

Entropy and complexity properties of the d-dimensional blackbody radiation

Space dimensionality is a crucial variable in the analysis of the structure and dynamics of natural systems and phenomena. The dimensionality effects of the blackbody radiation has been the subject of considerable research activity in recent years. These studies are still somewhat fragmentary, pos- ing formidable qualitative and quantitative problems for various scientific and technological areas. In this work we carry out an information-theoretical analysis of the spectral energy density of a d-dimensional blackbody at temperature T by means of various entropy-like quantities (disequilibrium, Shannon entropy, Fisher information) as well as by three (dimensionless) complexity measures (Cr\'amer-Rao, Fisher-Shannon and LMC). All these frequency-functional quantities are calculated and discussed in terms of temperature and dimensionality. It is shown that all three measures of complexity have an universal character in the sense that they depend neither on temperature nor on the Planck and Boltzmann constants, but only on the the space dimensionality d. Moreover, they decrease when d is increasing; in particular, the values 2.28415, 1.90979 and 1.17685 are found for the Cr\'amer-Rao, Fisher-Shannon and LMC measures of complexity of the 3-dimensional blackbody radiation, respectively. In addition, beyond the frequency at which the spectral density is maximum (which follows the well-known Wien displacement law), three further characteristic frequencies are defined in terms of the previous entropy quantities; they are shown to obey Wien-like laws. The potential usefulness of these distinctive features of the blackbody spectrum is physically discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure