Toward a Genealogy of a Discourse on Women’s Erotic Autonomy: Feminist and Queer-Feminist Critiques of Monogamy

References to the values of self-ownership and erotic autonomy figure prominently in women's accounts on why they are practicing consensual non-monogamy. Feminist critiques of monogamy demonstrate a long-standing endorsement of the value of erotic autonomy within feminist politics. In this paper, I sketch a genealogy of feminist and queer feminist work that explicitly or implicitly critics compulsory monogamy and/or defends women's non-monogamous ways of life to explore how the nexus of non/monogamy and erotic autonomy has been theorised across different periods and within different strands of feminist politics. I argue that the common concern within this work with systemic oppression, collective struggle and solidarity sustains politicised views of women's erotic autonomy as a relational phenomenon within a multiscalar framework that captures not only intersubjective, but also socio-political dimensions of relationality. Feminist critiques of monogamy thus provide a rich repertoire of political theorising that advocates for the conceptualisation of both autonomy and sexual politics in ways that avoid the shortfalls of individualistic or (liberal) humanistic/intersubjective models. The paper argues that a reappraisal these previous modes of feminist critiques of monogamy would highlight the significance to explore the multiplicity of structural power relations. While much of the early feminist critique of compulsory monogamy has focused on hetero-patriarchal practices of marriage and romantic love, contemporary queer feminist have used intersectional perspectives to highlight the implication of monogamy (or mononormativity) within structural power relations around gender, race, class, and sexuality. This paper aims to underscore the prominence of feminist and queer-feminist voices within the debates on nonmonogamy, contribute to restoring a focus on autonomy within feminist theorising and highlight the relevance of distinctly feminist and queer-feminist notions of relational autonomy for sexual politics and ethics

Marriage, Law and Polyamory. Rebutting Mononormativity with Sexual Orientation Discourse?

This paper traces the genealogy of sexual orientation discourse in US legal scholarship and explores potential drawbacks of the articulation of a sexual orientation argument in the field of relationship recognition. After a long period of refraining from campaigning for legal recognition of multi-partner relationships, polyamory activists have recently shown a stronger interest in litigation. This paper identifies reasons for this shift in recent successes of the campaign for same-sex marriage rights and critically discusses proposals to frame polyamory as a sexual orientation to achieve multi-partner marriage rights through litigation. I argue that advocating a sexual orientation model of polyamory is likely to reduce the complexity and transformative potential of poly intimacies, limit the scope and reach of potential litigation, obstruct the capacity of poly activism to form alliances and increase the likelihood of poly activism to settle for legal solutions (i.e. marriage) that are exclusive and reproductive of a culture of privilege

Approximate quantum error correction, random codes, and quantum channel capacity

We work out a theory of approximate quantum error correction that allows us to derive a general lower bound for the entanglement fidelity of a quantum code. The lower bound is given in terms of Kraus operators of the quantum noise. This result is then used to analyze the average error correcting performance of codes that are randomly drawn from unitarily invariant code ensembles. Our results confirm that random codes of sufficiently large block size are highly suitable for quantum error correction. Moreover, employing a lemma of Bennett, Shor, Smolin, and Thapliyal, we prove that random coding attains information rates of the regularized coherent information.Comment: 29 pages, final version to appear in Phys. Rev. A, improved lower bound for code entanglement fidelity, simplified proo

Correlation of eigenstates in the critical regime of quantum Hall systems

We extend the multifractal analysis of the statistics of critical wave functions in quantum Hall systems by calculating numerically the correlations of local amplitudes corresponding to eigenstates at two different energies. Our results confirm multifractal scaling relations which are different from those occurring in conventional critical phenomena. The critical exponent corresponding to the typical amplitude, $\alpha_0\approx 2.28$, gives an almost complete characterization of the critical behavior of eigenstates, including correlations. Our results support the interpretation of the local density of states being an order parameter of the Anderson transition.Comment: 17 pages, 9 Postscript figure

Wave-packet dynamics at the mobility edge in two- and three-dimensional systems

We study the time evolution of wave packets at the mobility edge of disordered non-interacting electrons in two and three spatial dimensions. The results of numerical calculations are found to agree with the predictions of scaling theory. In particular, we find that the $k$-th moment of the probability density $(t)$ scales like $t^{k/d}$ in $d$ dimensions. The return probability $P(r=0,t)$ scales like $t^{-D_2/d}$, with the generalized dimension of the participation ratio $D_2$. For long times and short distances the probability density of the wave packet shows power law scaling $P(r,t)\propto t^{-D_2/d}r^{D_2-d}$. The numerical calculations were performed on network models defined by a unitary time evolution operator providing an efficient model for the study of the wave packet dynamics.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX, 4 figures included, published versio

Universal Multifractality in Quantum Hall Systems with Long-Range Disorder Potential

We investigate numerically the localization-delocalization transition in quantum Hall systems with long-range disorder potential with respect to multifractal properties. Wavefunctions at the transition energy are obtained within the framework of the generalized Chalker--Coddington network model. We determine the critical exponent $\alpha_0$ characterizing the scaling behavior of the local order parameter for systems with potential correlation length $d$ up to $12$ magnetic lengths $l$. Our results show that $\alpha_0$ does not depend on the ratio $d/l$. With increasing $d/l$, effects due to classical percolation only cause an increase of the microscopic length scale, whereas the critical behavior on larger scales remains unchanged. This proves that systems with long-range disorder belong to the same universality class as those with short-range disorder.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, postsript, uuencoded, gz-compresse

Localization in non-chiral network models for two-dimensional disordered wave mechanical systems

Scattering theoretical network models for general coherent wave mechanical systems with quenched disorder are investigated. We focus on universality classes for two dimensional systems with no preferred orientation: Systems of spinless waves undergoing scattering events with broken or unbroken time reversal symmetry and systems of spin 1/2 waves with time reversal symmetric scattering. The phase diagram in the parameter space of scattering strengths is determined. The model breaking time reversal symmetry contains the critical point of quantum Hall systems but, like the model with unbroken time reversal symmetry, only one attractive fixed point, namely that of strong localization. Multifractal exponents and quasi-one-dimensional localization lengths are calculated numerically and found to be related by conformal invariance. Furthermore, they agree quantitatively with theoretical predictions. For non-vanishing spin scattering strength the spin 1/2 systems show localization-delocalization transitions.Comment: 4 pages, REVTeX, 4 figures (postscript

Coulomb drag between ballistic one-dimensional electron systems

The presence of pronounced electronic correlations in one-dimensional systems strongly enhances Coulomb coupling and is expected to result in distinctive features in the Coulomb drag between them that are absent in the drag between two-dimensional systems. We review recent Fermi and Luttinger liquid theories of Coulomb drag between ballistic one-dimensional electron systems, and give a brief summary of the experimental work reported so far on one-dimensional drag. Both the Fermi liquid (FL) and the Luttinger liquid (LL) theory predict a maximum of the drag resistance R_D when the one-dimensional subbands of the two quantum wires are aligned and the Fermi wave vector k_F is small, and also an exponential decay of R_D with increasing inter-wire separation, both features confirmed by experimental observations. A crucial difference between the two theoretical models emerges in the temperature dependence of the drag effect. Whereas the FL theory predicts a linear temperature dependence, the LL theory promises a rich and varied dependence on temperature depending on the relative magnitudes of the energy and length scales of the systems. At higher temperatures, the drag should show a power-law dependence on temperature, R_D \~ T^x, experimentally confirmed in a narrow temperature range, where x is determined by the Luttinger liquid parameters. The spin degree of freedom plays an important role in the LL theory in predicting the features of the drag effect and is crucial for the interpretation of experimental results.Comment: 25 pages, 14 figures, to appear in Semiconductor Science and Technolog