372 research outputs found
Mathematical Foundations of Complex Tonality
Equal temperament, in which semitones are tuned in irrational ratios, is best seen as a serviceable compromise, sacrificing purity for flexibility. Just intonation, in which intervals are given by products of powers of 2, 3, and 5, is more natural, but of limited flexibility. We propose a new scheme in which ratios of Gaussian integers form the basis of an abstract tonal system. The tritone, so problematic in just temperament, given ambiguously by the ratios 45:32, 64:45, 36:25, 25:18, none satisfactory, is in our scheme represented by the complex ratio 1 + i : 1. The major and minor whole tones, given by intervals of 9/8 and 10/9, can each be factorized into products of complex semitones, giving us a major complex semitone 3/4 (1 + i) and a minor complex semitone 1/3 (3 + i). The perfect third, given by the interval 5/4 , factorizes into the product of a complex whole tone 1/2 (1 + 2i) and its complex conjugate. Augmented with these supplementary tones, the resulting scheme of complex intervals based on products of low powers of Gaussian primes leads naturally to the construction of a complete system of major and minor scales in all keys
On Twistors and Conformal Field Theories from Six Dimensions
We discuss chiral zero-rest-mass field equations on six-dimensional
space-time from a twistorial point of view. Specifically, we present a detailed
cohomological analysis, develop both Penrose and Penrose-Ward transforms, and
analyse the corresponding contour integral formulae. We also give twistor space
action principles. We then dimensionally reduce the twistor space of
six-dimensional space-time to obtain twistor formulations of various theories
in lower dimensions. Besides well-known twistor spaces, we also find a novel
twistor space amongst these reductions, which turns out to be suitable for a
twistorial description of self-dual strings. For these reduced twistor spaces,
we explain the Penrose and Penrose-Ward transforms as well as contour integral
formulae.Comment: v4: 66 pages, typos fixed, appendix B revise
Statistical Geometry in Quantum Mechanics
A statistical model M is a family of probability distributions, characterised
by a set of continuous parameters known as the parameter space. This possesses
natural geometrical properties induced by the embedding of the family of
probability distributions into the Hilbert space H. By consideration of the
square-root density function we can regard M as a submanifold of the unit
sphere in H. Therefore, H embodies the `state space' of the probability
distributions, and the geometry of M can be described in terms of the embedding
of in H. The geometry in question is characterised by a natural Riemannian
metric (the Fisher-Rao metric), thus allowing us to formulate the principles of
classical statistical inference in a natural geometric setting. In particular,
we focus attention on the variance lower bounds for statistical estimation, and
establish generalisations of the classical Cramer-Rao and Bhattacharyya
inequalities. The statistical model M is then specialised to the case of a
submanifold of the state space of a quantum mechanical system. This is pursued
by introducing a compatible complex structure on the underlying real Hilbert
space, which allows the operations of ordinary quantum mechanics to be
reinterpreted in the language of real Hilbert space geometry. The application
of generalised variance bounds in the case of quantum statistical estimation
leads to a set of higher order corrections to the Heisenberg uncertainty
relations for canonically conjugate observables.Comment: 32 pages, LaTex file, Extended version to include quantum measurement
theor
Spontaneous Collapse of Unstable Quantum Superposition State: A Single-Particle Model of Modified Quantum Dynamics
We propose a modified dynamics of quantum mechanics, in which classical
mechanics of a point mass derives intrinsically in a massive limit of a
single-particle model. On the premise that a position basis plays a special
role in wavefunction collapse, we deduce to formalize spontaneous localization
of wavefunction on the analogy drawn from thermodynamics, in which a
characteristic energy scale and a time scale are introduced to separate quantum
and classical regimes.Comment: 2figs., contribution to Xth ICQO 200
Non-Abelian Tensor Multiplet Equations from Twistor Space
We establish a Penrose-Ward transform yielding a bijection between
holomorphic principal 2-bundles over a twistor space and non-Abelian self-dual
tensor fields on six-dimensional flat space-time. Extending the twistor space
to supertwistor space, we derive sets of manifestly N=(1,0) and N=(2,0)
supersymmetric non-Abelian constraint equations containing the tensor
multiplet. We also demonstrate how this construction leads to constraint
equations for non-Abelian supersymmetric self-dual strings.Comment: v3: 23 pages, revised version published in Commun. Math. Phy
Quantum noise and stochastic reduction
In standard nonrelativistic quantum mechanics the expectation of the energy
is a conserved quantity. It is possible to extend the dynamical law associated
with the evolution of a quantum state consistently to include a nonlinear
stochastic component, while respecting the conservation law. According to the
dynamics thus obtained, referred to as the energy-based stochastic Schrodinger
equation, an arbitrary initial state collapses spontaneously to one of the
energy eigenstates, thus describing the phenomenon of quantum state reduction.
In this article, two such models are investigated: one that achieves state
reduction in infinite time, and the other in finite time. The properties of the
associated energy expectation process and the energy variance process are
worked out in detail. By use of a novel application of a nonlinear filtering
method, closed-form solutions--algebraic in character and involving no
integration--are obtained for both these models. In each case, the solution is
expressed in terms of a random variable representing the terminal energy of the
system, and an independent noise process. With these solutions at hand it is
possible to simulate explicitly the dynamics of the quantum states of
complicated physical systems.Comment: 50 page
Coherent chaos interest-rate models
Electronic version of an article published as International Journal of Theoretical and Applied Finance, 18, 3, 2015, pp. 1550016. doi:10.1142/S0219024915500168 © copyright World Scientific Publishing Company, https://www.worldscientific.com/doi/abs/10.1142/S0219024915500168The Wiener chaos approach to interest-rate modeling arises from the observation that in the general context of an arbitrage-free model with a Brownian filtration, the pricing kernel admits a representation in terms of the conditional variance of a square-integrable generator, which in turn admits a chaos expansion. When the expansion coefficients of the random generator factorize into multiple copies of a single function, the resulting interest-rate model is called «coherent», whereas a generic interest-rate model is necessarily «incoherent». Coherent representations are of fundamental importance because an incoherent generator can always be expressed as a linear superposition of coherent elements. This property is exploited to derive general expressions for the pricing kernel and the associated bond price and short rate processes in the case of a generic nth order chaos model, for eachn N. Pricing formulae for bond options and swaptions are obtained in closed form for a number of examples. An explicit representation for the pricing kernel of a generic incoherent model is then obtained by use of the underlying coherent elements. Finally, finite-dimensional realizations of coherent chaos models are investigated and we show that a class of highly tractable models can be constructed having the characteristic feature that the discount bond price is given by a piecewise-flat (simple) process
Quantization of Nonstandard Hamiltonian Systems
The quantization of classical theories that admit more than one Hamiltonian
description is considered. This is done from a geometrical viewpoint, both at
the quantization level (geometric quantization) and at the level of the
dynamics of the quantum theory. A spin-1/2 system is taken as an example in
which all the steps can be completed. It is shown that the geometry of the
quantum theory imposes restrictions on the physically allowed nonstandard
quantum theories.Comment: Revtex file, 23 pages, no figure
Martingale Models for Quantum State Reduction
Stochastic models for quantum state reduction give rise to statistical laws
that are in most respects in agreement with those of quantum measurement
theory. Here we examine the correspondence of the two theories in detail,
making a systematic use of the methods of martingale theory. An analysis is
carried out to determine the magnitude of the fluctuations experienced by the
expectation of the observable during the course of the reduction process and an
upper bound is established for the ensemble average of the greatest
fluctuations incurred. We consider the general projection postulate of L\"uders
applicable in the case of a possibly degenerate eigenvalue spectrum, and derive
this result rigorously from the underlying stochastic dynamics for state
reduction in the case of both a pure and a mixed initial state. We also analyse
the associated Lindblad equation for the evolution of the density matrix, and
obtain an exact time-dependent solution for the state reduction that explicitly
exhibits the transition from a general initial density matrix to the L\"uders
density matrix. Finally, we apply Girsanov's theorem to derive a set of simple
formulae for the dynamics of the state in terms of a family of geometric
Brownian motions, thereby constructing an explicit unravelling of the Lindblad
equation.Comment: 30 pages LaTeX. Submitted to Journal of Physics
Optimally Conclusive Discrimination of Non-orthogonal Entangled States Locally
We consider one copy of a quantum system prepared with equal prior
probability in one of two non-orthogonal entangled states of multipartite
distributed among separated parties. We demonstrate that these two states can
be optimally distinguished in the sense of conclusive discrimination by local
operations and classical communications(LOCC) alone. And this proves strictly
the conjecture that Virmani et.al. [8] confirmed numerically and analytically.
Generally, the optimal protocol requires local POVM operations which are
explicitly constructed. The result manifests that the distinguishable
information is obtained only and completely at the last operation and all prior
ones give no information about that state.Comment: 4 pages, no figure, revtex. few typos correcte
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