Low-temperature transport in Heisenberg chains

A technique to determine accurately transport properties of integrable and non-integrable quantum-spin chains at finite temperatures by Quantum Monte-Carlo is presented. The reduction of the Drude weight by interactions in the integrable gapless regime is evaluated. Evidence for the absence of a Drude weight in the gapless regime of a non-integrable system with longer-ranged interactions is presented. We estimate the effect of the non-integrability on the transport properties and compare with recent experiments on one-dimensional quantum-spin chains.Comment: accepted for publication (PRL

Can quantum regression theorem be reconciled with quantum fluctuation dissipation theorem ?

In the attempt to derive the regression theorem from the fluctuation dissipation theorem several authors claim the violation of the former theorem in the quantum case. Here we pose the question: does it exists a quantum fluctuation dissipation theorem (QFDT) in its conventional interpretation? It is shown that the relation usually called as the QFDT is the condition of detailed macroscopic energetic balance. Following this interpretation the existing conflict between the two theorems in the quantum case is removed.Comment: 13 pages, 3rd Int. Conf. on Unsolved Problems on Noise (will be published in Proceedings

Conductivity of quantum-spin chains: A Quantum Monte Carlo approach

We discuss zero-frequency transport properties of various spin-1/2 chains. We show, that a careful analysis of Quantum Monte-Carlo (QMC) data on the imaginary axis allows to distinguish between intrinsic ballistic and diffusive transport. We determine the Drude weight, current-relaxation life-time and the mean-free path for integrable and a non-integrable quantum-spin chain. We discuss, in addition, some phenomenological relations between various transport-coefficients and thermal response functions

Geometric Transitions, Flops and Non-Kahler Manifolds: I

We construct a duality cycle which provides a complete supergravity description of geometric transitions in type II theories via a flop in M-theory. This cycle connects the different supergravity descriptions before and after the geometric transitions. Our construction reproduces many of the known phenomena studied earlier in the literature and allows us to describe some new and interesting aspects in a simple and elegant fashion. A precise supergravity description of new torsional manifolds that appear on the type IIA side with branes and fluxes and the corresponding geometric transition are obtained. A local description of new G_2 manifolds that are circle fibrations over non-Kahler manifolds is presented.Comment: Harvmac, 79 pages, 1 .eps figure; v4: Text further expanded with additional results, typos corrected and references adde

Cloaking and anamorphism for light and mass diffusion

We first review classical results on cloaking and mirage effects for electromagnetic waves. We then show that transformation optics allows the masking of objects or produces mirages in diffusive regimes. In order to achieve this, we consider the equation for diffusive photon density in transformed coordinates, which is valid for diffusive light in scattering media. More precisely, generalizing transformations for star domains introduced in [Diatta and Guenneau, J. Opt. 13, 024012, 2011] for matter waves, we numerically demonstrate that infinite conducting objects of different shapes scatter diffusive light in exactly the same way. We also propose a design of external light-diffusion cloak with spatially varying sign-shifting parameters that hides a finite size scatterer outside the cloak. We next analyse non-physical parameter in the transformed Fick's equation derived in [Guenneau and Puvirajesinghe, R. Soc. Interface 10, 20130106, 2013], and propose to use a non-linear transform that overcomes this problem. We finally investigate other form invariant transformed diffusion-like equations in the time domain, and touch upon conformal mappings and non-Euclidean cloaking applied to diffusion processes.Comment: 42 pages, Latex, 14 figures. V2: Major changes : some formulas corrected, some extra cases added, overall length extended from 21 pages (V1) to 42 pages (present version V2). The last version will appear at Journal of Optic

Spin current swapping and Hanle spin Hall effect in the two dimensional electron gas

We analyze the effect known as "spin current swapping" (SCS) due to electron-impurity scattering in a uniform spin-polarized two-dimensional electron gas. In this effect a primary spin current $J_i^a$ (lower index for spatial direction, upper index for spin direction) generates a secondary spin current $J_a^i$ if $i \neq a$, or $J_j^j$, with $j\ne i$, if $i= a$. Contrary to naive expectation, the homogeneous spin current associated with the uniform drift of the spin polarization in the electron gas does not generate a swapped spin current by the SCS mechanism. Nevertheless, a swapped spin current will be generated, if a magnetic field is present, by a completely different mechanism, namely, the precession of the spin Hall spin current in the magnetic field. We refer to this second mechanism as Hanle spin Hall effect, and we notice that it can be observed in an experiment in which a homogeneous drift current is passed through a uniformly magnetized electron gas. In contrast to this, we show that an unambiguous observation of SCS requires inhomogeneous spin currents, such as those that are associated with spin diffusion in a metal, and no magnetic field. An experimental setup for the observation of the SCS is therefore proposed.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure