Detuning-dependent Properties and Dispersion-induced Instabilities of Temporal Dissipative Kerr Solitons in Optical Microresonators

Temporal-dissipative Kerr solitons are self-localized light pulses sustained in driven nonlinear optical resonators. Their realization in microresonators has enabled compact sources of coherent optical frequency combs as well as the study of dissipative solitons. A key parameter of their dynamics is the effective-detuning of the pump laser to the thermally- and Kerr-shifted cavity resonance. Together with the free spectral range and dispersion, it governs the soliton-pulse duration, as predicted by an approximate analytical solution of the Lugiato-Lefever equation. Yet, a precise experimental verification of this relation was lacking so far. Here, by measuring and controlling the effective-detuning, we establish a new way of stabilizing solitons in microresonators and demonstrate that the measured relation linking soliton width and detuning deviates by less than 1 % from the approximate expression, validating its excellent predictive power. Furthermore, a detuning-dependent enhancement of specific comb lines is revealed, due to linear couplings between mode-families. They cause deviations from the predicted comb power evolution, and induce a detuning-dependent soliton recoil that modifies the pulse repetition-rate, explaining its unexpected dependence on laser-detuning. Finally, we observe that detuning-dependent mode-crossings can destabilize the soliton, leading to an unpredicted soliton breathing regime (oscillations of the pulse) that occurs in a normally-stable regime. Our results test the approximate analytical solutions with an unprecedented degree of accuracy and provide new insights into dissipative-soliton dynamics.Comment: Updated funding acknowledgement

Ideology and the limits of self-interest: System justification motivation and conservative advantages in mass politics

It is commonly assumed that political attitudes are driven by self-interest and that poor people heavily favor policies aimed at redistributing wealth. This assumption fails to explain the popularity of economic conservatism and the degree of support for the capitalist system. Such outcomes are typically explained by the suggestion that most poor people believe they will become rich one day. In a representative sample of low-income Americans, we observed that less than one-fourth were optimistic about their economic prospects. Those respondents who believed that they would become rich one day were no more likely to endorse the legitimacy of the system and no more supportive of conservative ideology or the Republican Party, compared to those who did not believe they would become rich. From a system justification perspective, we propose that people are motivated to defend the social systems on which they depend, and this confers a psychological advantage to conservative ideology. Providing ideological support for the status quo serves epistemic motives to reduce uncertainty, existential motives to reduce threat, and relational motives to share reality with members of mainstream society. We summarize evidence from the United States, Argentina, Lebanon, and other countries bearing on these propositions—including a survey administered shortly before the 2016 U.S. Presidential election—and discuss political implications of system justification motivation.Fil: Jost, John T.. University of New York; Estados UnidosFil: Langer, Melanie. University of New York; Estados UnidosFil: Badaan, Vivienne. University of New York; Estados UnidosFil: Azevedo, Flávio. Universitat Zu Köln; AlemaniaFil: Etchezahar, Edgardo Daniel. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Centro Interdisciplinario de Investigaciones en Psicología Matemática y Experimental Dr. Horacio J. A. Rimoldi; ArgentinaFil: Ungaretti, Joaquín. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Oficina de Coordinación Administrativa Saavedra 15. Centro Interdisciplinario de Investigaciones en Psicología Matemática y Experimental Dr. Horacio J. A. Rimoldi; ArgentinaFil: Hennes, Erin P.. Purdue University; Estados Unido

Fear and institutions

Fear allowed early humans to adapt, evolve, and survive. When humans moved into settled communities, with more advanced means of production, the nature of fear-much like the nature of social relationships-changed. Once the means of social reproduction were secured, fear became less necessary as a survival instinct, and more useful as a heuristic device. Fear cannot be characterized as an essentially socially constructed phenomenon, or as the self-contained, individualized response to internalized traumas. The growth and nature of fear must be studied as a process that develops under its own inertia and as a phenomenon that is both shaped by and shapes its institutional setting. Fear should be understood as both structurally determined and socially transformative. This research examines fear, specifically, as it relates to neoliberalism and institutions. © 2013, Journal of Economic Issues/Association for Evolutionary Economics

Social psychological perspectives on the legitimation of social inequality: Past, present and future

This introductory article for the special issue entitled “Social Psychological Perspectives on the Legitimation of Social Inequality” reviews various theoretical frameworks applied to the study of this topic. Legitimation of social inequality occurs through individual-level, group-level, and system-level processes. In societies in which egalitarianism and fairness are core cultural values, legitimation permits differential treatment of people on the basis of their social group memberships while allowing people to maintain positive self-images, to reinforce group-based hierarchies and to justify a status quo that systematically benefits some individuals and groups more than others. In this article, we focus on three major theoretical perspectives in social psychology that have inspired most of the research featured in this special issue, and we offer a general overview of the articles to follow, expanding upon their connections to one another and to the theme of the issue. We highlight the promise of research on legitimation of social inequality not only for developing a deeper and more integrative theoretical understanding of intergroup relations but also for guiding interventions to achieve social equality in practic

Is There an Ideological Asymmetry in the Incumbency Effect? : Evidence From U.S. Congressional Elections

The electoral advantage that incumbent legislators enjoy over challengers in the U.S. Congress has been investigated extensively in political science. Very few studies, however, have considered the role of individual differences when it comes to incumbency preferences among voters. Based on theory and research in political psychology, we hypothesized that political conservatives would exhibit stronger preferences than liberals for incumbents over challengers from the same party. Extensive analyses based on more than 150,000 voters from seven election cycles in the United States from 2006 to 2018 support this hypothesis. A significant effect of conservatism on incumbency preferences was observed in the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives, and it was not attributable to Republican Party identification. This ideological asymmetry is consistent with system justification theory and prior research linking conservatism to risk aversion and status quo bias. Practical implications and directions for future research are discussed.Peer reviewe

Moral Realism and the Search for Ideological Truth: A Philosophical-Psychological Collaboration

Scholars of ideology in social-scientific disciplines, including psychology, sociology, and political science, stand to benefit from taking seriously the philosophical contributions of Professor Peter Railton. This is because Railton provides much-needed conceptual precision—and a rare sense of epistemological and moral clarity—to a topic that is notoriously slippery and prone to relativistic musing and the drawing of false equivalences. In an essay entitled “Morality, Ideology, and Reflection: Or, the Duck Sits Yet,” Railton (2000/2003) aptly identified the purpose of ideological analysis as the unmasking of “nonepistemic” interests—that is, interests other than truth-seeking, accuracy, or warrant —that contribute to the development, adoption, and dissemination of political and religious belief systems

The Paranoid Style in American Politics Revisited: An Ideological Asymmetry in Conspiratorial Thinking

It is often claimed that conspiracy theories are endorsed with the same level of intensity across the left‐right ideological spectrum. But do liberals and conservatives in the United States embrace conspiratorial thinking to an equivalent degree? There are important historical, philosophical, and scientific reasons dating back to Richard Hofstadter's book The Paranoid Style in American Politics to doubt this claim. In four large studies of U.S. adults (total N = 5049)—including national samples—we investigated the relationship between political ideology, measured in both symbolic and operational terms, and conspiratorial thinking in general. Results reveal that conservatives in the United States were not only more likely than liberals to endorse specific conspiracy theories, but they were also more likely to espouse conspiratorial worldviews in general (r = .27, 95% CI: .24, .30). Importantly, extreme conservatives were significantly more likely to engage in conspiratorial thinking than extreme liberals (Hedges' g = .77, SE = .07, p < .001). The relationship between ideology and conspiratorial thinking was mediated by a strong distrust of officialdom and paranoid ideation, both of which were higher among conservatives, consistent with Hofstadter's account of the paranoid style in American politics

Improved Poincare inequalities with weights

In this paper we prove that if $\Omega\in\mathbb{R}^n$ is a bounded John domain, the following weighted Poincare-type inequality holds: $$\inf_{a\in \mathbb{R}}\| (f(x)-a) w_1(x) \|_{L^q(\Omega)} \le C \|\nabla f(x) d(x)^\alpha w_2(x) \|_{L^p(\Omega)}$$ where $f$ is a locally Lipschitz function on $\Omega$, $d(x)$ denotes the distance of $x$ to the boundary of $\Omega$, the weights $w_1, w_2$ satisfy certain cube conditions, and $\alpha \in [0,1]$ depends on $p,q$ and $n$. This result generalizes previously known weighted inequalities, which can also be obtained with our approach

Right-Wing Authoritarianism and Antipathy Toward Immigrants and Sexual Minorities in the Early Days of the Coronavirus Pandemic in Italy

Theory and research in social, evolutionary, and political psychology indicates that subjective feelings of threat and exposure to objectively threatening circumstances—including pandemic diseases—may contribute to increased affinities for political conservatism, right-wing authoritarianism, and prejudice against out-group members. We investigated these possibilities in the context of Italy, which was the first Western country to be severely affected by the spread of COVID-19. Early on in the pandemic, from March 3–8, 2020, we surveyed 757 Italian adults ranging in age from 18 to 78 years. Results revealed that antipathy toward immigrants and sexual minorities was predicted by (male) sex, COVID-19 anxiety, RWA, and political distrust. Furthermore, COVID-19 anxiety magnified the effect of RWA on disliking of immigrants and sexual minorities (but not obese or disabled people). Contrary to prediction, political trust failed to attenuate the effects of COVID-19 anxiety or RWA on out-group antipathy. Implications for the theories of right-wing authoritarianism and political ideology as motivated social cognition, as well as the state of contemporary Italian politics are discussed