Encoding and processing of sensory information in neuronal spike trains

Recently, a statistical signal-processing technique has allowed the information carried by single spike trains of sensory neurons on time-varying stimuli to be characterized quantitatively in a variety of preparations. In weakly electric fish, its application to first-order sensory neurons encoding electric field amplitude (P-receptor afferents) showed that they convey accurate information on temporal modulations in a behaviorally relevant frequency range (<80 Hz). At the next stage of the electrosensory pathway (the electrosensory lateral line lobe, ELL), the information sampled by first-order neurons is used to extract upstrokes and downstrokes in the amplitude modulation waveform. By using signal-detection techniques, we determined that these temporal features are explicitly represented by short spike bursts of second-order neurons (ELL pyramidal cells). Our results suggest that the biophysical mechanism underlying this computation is of dendritic origin. We also investigated the accuracy with which upstrokes and downstrokes are encoded across two of the three somatotopic body maps of the ELL (centromedial and lateral). Pyramidal cells of the centromedial map, in particular I-cells, encode up- and downstrokes more reliably than those of the lateral map. This result correlates well with the significance of these temporal features for a particular behavior (the jamming avoidance response) as assessed by lesion experiments of the centromedial map

Exact analytic results for the Gutzwiller wave function with finite magnetization

We present analytic results for ground-state properties of Hubbard-type models in terms of the Gutzwiller variational wave function with non-zero values of the magnetization m. In dimension D=1 approximation-free evaluations are made possible by appropriate canonical transformations and an analysis of Umklapp processes. We calculate the double occupation and the momentum distribution, as well as its discontinuity at the Fermi surface, for arbitrary values of the interaction parameter g, density n, and magnetization m. These quantities determine the expectation value of the one-dimensional Hubbard Hamiltonian for any symmetric, monotonically increasing dispersion epsilon_k. In particular for nearest-neighbor hopping and densities away from half filling the Gutzwiller wave function is found to predict ferromagnetic behavior for sufficiently large interaction U.Comment: REVTeX 4, 32 pages, 8 figure

Correlated hopping of electrons: Effect on the Brinkman-Rice transition and the stability of metallic ferromagnetism

We study the Hubbard model with bond-charge interaction (`correlated hopping') in terms of the Gutzwiller wave function. We show how to express the Gutzwiller expectation value of the bond-charge interaction in terms of the correlated momentum-space occupation. This relation is valid in all spatial dimensions. We find that in infinite dimensions, where the Gutzwiller approximation becomes exact, the bond-charge interaction lowers the critical Hubbard interaction for the Brinkman-Rice metal-insulator transition. The bond-charge interaction also favors ferromagnetic transitions, especially if the density of states is not symmetric and has a large spectral weight below the Fermi energy.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures; minor changes, published versio

Estimating the Sampling Error: Distribution of Transition Matrices and Functions of Transition Matrices for Given Trajectory Data

The problem of estimating a Markov transition matrix to statistically describe the dynamics underlying an observed process is frequently found in the physical and economical sciences. However, little attention has been paid to the fact that such an estimation is associated with statistical uncertainty, which depends on the number of observed transitions between metastable states. In turn, this induces uncertainties in any property computed from the transition matrix, such as stationary probabilities, committor probabilities, or eigenvalues. Assessing these uncertainties is essential for testing the reliability of a given observation and also, if possible, to plan further simulations or measurements in such a way that the most serious uncertainties will be reduced with minimal effort. Here, a rigorous statistical method is proposed to approximate the complete statistical distribution of functions of the transition matrix provided that one can identify discrete states such that the transition process between them may be modeled with a memoryless jump process, i.e., Markov dynamics. The method is based on sampling the statistical distribution of Markov transition matrices that is induced by the observed transition events. It allows the constraint of reversibility to be included, which is physically meaningful in many applications. The method is illustrated on molecular dynamics simulations of a hexapeptide that are modeled by a Markov transition process between the metastable states. For this model the distributions and uncertainties of the stationary probabilities of metastable states, the transition matrix elements, the committor probabilities, and the transition matrix eigenvalues are estimated. It is found that the detailed balance constraint can significantly alter the distribution of some observables

What are spin currents in Heisenberg magnets?

We discuss the proper definition of the spin current operator in Heisenberg magnets subject to inhomogeneous magnetic fields. We argue that only the component of the naive "current operator" J_ij S_i x S_j in the plane spanned by the local order parameters and is related to real transport of magnetization. Within a mean field approximation or in the classical ground state the spin current therefore vanishes. Thus, finite spin currents are a direct manifestation of quantum correlations in the system.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, published versio

Comparison of Variational Approaches for the Exactly Solvable 1/r-Hubbard Chain

We study Hartree-Fock, Gutzwiller, Baeriswyl, and combined Gutzwiller-Baeriswyl wave functions for the exactly solvable one-dimensional $1/r$-Hubbard model. We find that none of these variational wave functions is able to correctly reproduce the physics of the metal-to-insulator transition which occurs in the model for half-filled bands when the interaction strength equals the bandwidth. The many-particle problem to calculate the variational ground state energy for the Baeriswyl and combined Gutzwiller-Baeriswyl wave function is exactly solved for the~$1/r$-Hubbard model. The latter wave function becomes exact both for small and large interaction strength, but it incorrectly predicts the metal-to-insulator transition to happen at infinitely strong interactions. We conclude that neither Hartree-Fock nor Jastrow-type wave functions yield reliable predictions on zero temperature phase transitions in low-dimensional, i.e., charge-spin separated systems.Comment: 23 pages + 3 figures available on request; LaTeX under REVTeX 3.

Fermion loops, loop cancellation and density correlations in two dimensional Fermi systems

We derive explicit results for fermion loops with an arbitrary number of density vertices in two dimensions at zero temperature. The 3-loop is an elementary function of the three external momenta and frequencies, and the N-loop can be expressed as a linear combination of 3-loops with coefficients that are rational functions of momenta and frequencies. We show that the divergencies of single loops for low energy and small momenta cancel each other when loops with permuted external variables are summed. The symmetrized N-loop, i.e. the connected N-point density correlation function of the Fermi gas, does not diverge for low energies and small momenta. In the dynamical limit, where momenta scale to zero at fixed finite energy variables, the symmetrized N-loop vanishes as the (2N-2)-th power of the scale parameter.Comment: 24 pages (including 3 EPS figures), LaTeX2e; submitted to Phys. Rev.

Application of the Density Matrix Renormalization Group in momentum space

We investigate the application of the Density Matrix Renormalization Group (DMRG) to the Hubbard model in momentum-space. We treat the one-dimensional models with dispersion relations corresponding to nearest-neighbor hopping and $1/r$ hopping and the two-dimensional model with isotropic nearest-neighbor hopping. By comparing with the exact solutions for both one-dimensional models and with exact diagonalization in two dimensions, we first investigate the convergence of the ground-state energy. We find variational convergence of the energy with the number of states kept for all models and parameter sets. In contrast to the real-space algorithm, the accuracy becomes rapidly worse with increasing interaction and is not significantly better at half filling. We compare the results for different dispersion relations at fixed interaction strength over bandwidth and find that extending the range of the hopping in one dimension has little effect, but that changing the dimensionality from one to two leads to lower accuracy at weak to moderate interaction strength. In the one-dimensional models at half-filling, we also investigate the behavior of the single-particle gap, the dispersion of spinon excitations, and the momentum distribution function. For the single-particle gap, we find that proper extrapolation in the number of states kept is important. For the spinon dispersion, we find that good agreement with the exact forms can be achieved at weak coupling if the large momentum-dependent finite-size effects are taken into account for nearest-neighbor hopping. For the momentum distribution, we compare with various weak-coupling and strong-coupling approximations and discuss the importance of finite-size effects as well as the accuracy of the DMRG.Comment: 15 pages, 11 eps figures, revtex