Endogenous capital depreciation and technology shocks

I examine the dynamic impact of capital maintenance on key aggregates through the depreciation rate. I find that two factors are crucial for the short-run effects of Total Factor Productivity and Investment-Specific shocks: (i) the marginal efficiency of maintenance and its connection with the rate of utilization, and (ii) the interplay between the intertemporal effect of maintenance and the substitution effect between maintenance and utilization. The latter is expressed by the relative size of the elasticity of maintenance to the Hicksian elasticity of complementarity between maintenance and utilization. These theoretical results suggest that to match the observed responses of the macroeconomic aggregates the sign of the cross derivative should be negative and that the relative size of the Hicksian elasticity should be smaller than the maintenance elasticity of marginal depreciation. Finally, the model suggests that the main macroeconomic aggregates react procyclically, with the exception of maintenance, the behavior of which depends on the type of the shock

Coherent backscattering reveals the Anderson transition

We develop an accurate finite-time scaling analysis of the angular width of the coherent backscattering (CBS) peak for waves propagating in 3D random media. Applying this method to ultracold atoms in optical speckle potentials, we show how to determine both the mobility edge and the critical exponent of the Anderson transition from the temporal behavior of the CBS width. Our method could be used in experiments to fully characterize the 3D Anderson transition.Comment: Published versio

On the random neighbor Olami-Feder-Christensen slip-stick model

We reconsider the treatment of Lise and Jensen (Phys. Rev. Lett. 76, 2326 (1996)) on the random neighbor Olami-Feder-Christensen stik-slip model, and examine the strong dependence of the results on the approximations used for the distribution of states p(E).Comment: 6pages, 3 figures. To be published in PRE as a brief repor

Anderson Localization of Matter Waves in 3D Anisotropic Disordered Potentials

Using a cutoff-free formulation of the coherent transport theory, we show that the interference terms at the origin of localization strongly affect the transport anisotropy. In contrast to the common hypothesis, we then find that the anisotropies of incoherent and coherent diffusion are significantly different, in particular at criticality. There, we show that the coherent transport anisotropy is mainly determined by the properties of the disorder-averaged effective scattering medium while the incoherent transport contributions become irrelevant

Spectral correlations in disordered mesoscopic metals and their relevance for persistent currents

We use the Lanczos method to calculate the variance of the number of energy levels in an energy window of width E below the Fermi energy for non-interacting disordered electrons on a thin three-dimensional ring threaded by an Aharonov-Bohm flux . We find that for small E the flux-dependent part of the variance is well described by a well-known Feynman diagram involving two Cooperons. However, this result cannot be extrapolated to energies E where the energy-dependence of the average density of states becomes significant. We discuss consequences for persistent currents.Comment: minor modifications in the text, accepted for publication in Mod. Phys. Lett.

Engaging new dimensions in nonlinear optical spectroscopy using auxiliary beams of light

By applying a sufficiently intense beam of off-resonant light, simultaneously with a conventional excitation source beam, the efficiencies of one- and two-photon absorption processes may be significantly modified. The nonlinear mechanism that is responsible, known as laser modified absorption, is fully described by a quantum electrodynamical analysis. The origin of the process, which involves stimulated forward Rayleigh-scattering of the auxiliary beam, relates to higher order terms which are secured by a time-dependent perturbation treatment. These terms, usually inconsequential when a single beam of light is present, become prominent under the secondary optical stimulus – even with levels of intensity that are moderate by today’s standards. Distinctive kinds of behaviour may be observed for chromophores fixed in a static arrangement, or for solution- or gas-phase molecules whose response is tempered by a rotational average of orientations. In each case the results exhibit an interplay of factors involving the beam polarisations and the molecular electronic response. Special attention is given to interesting metastable states that are symmetry forbidden by one- or two-photon absorption. Such states may be accessible, and thus become populated, on input of the auxiliary beam. For example, in the one-photon absorption case, terms arise that are more usually associated with three-photon processes, corresponding to very different selection rules. Other kinds of metastable state also arise in the two-photon process, and measuring the effect of applying the stimulus beam to absorbances of such character adds a new dimension to the information content of the associated spectroscopy. Finally, based on these novel forms of optical nonlinearity, there may be new possibilities for quantum non-demolition measurements

Charmed signatures for phase transitions in heavy-ion collisions

The interplay of charmonium production and suppression in In+In and Pb+Pb reactions at 158 AGeV and in Au+Au reactions at sqrt(s)=200 GeV is investigated with the HSD transport approach within the hadronic comover model' and the QGP melting scenario'. The results for the J/Psi suppression and the Psi' to J/Psi ratio are compared to the recent data of the NA50, NA60, and PHENIX Collaborations. We find that, at 158 AGeV, the comover absorption model performs better than the scenario of abrupt threshold melting. However, neither interaction with hadrons alone nor simple color screening satisfactory describes the data at sqrt(s)=200 GeV. A deconfined phase is clearly reached at RHIC, but a theory having the relevant degrees of freedom in this regime (strongly interacting quarks/gluons) is needed to study its transport properties