Clustering, Angular Size and Dark Energy

The influence of dark matter inhomogeneities on the angular size-redshift test is investigated for a large class of flat cosmological models driven by dark energy plus a cold dark matter component (XCDM model). The results are presented in two steps. First, the mass inhomogeneities are modeled by a generalized Zeldovich-Kantowski-Dyer-Roeder (ZKDR) distance which is characterized by a smoothness parameter $\alpha(z)$ and a power index $\gamma$, and, second, we provide a statistical analysis to angular size data for a large sample of milliarcsecond compact radio sources. As a general result, we have found that the $\alpha$ parameter is totally unconstrained by this sample of angular diameter data.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, accepted in Physical Review

Analysing and controlling the tax evasion dynamics via majority-vote model

Within the context of agent-based Monte-Carlo simulations, we study the well-known majority-vote model (MVM) with noise applied to tax evasion on simple square lattices, Voronoi-Delaunay random lattices, Barabasi-Albert networks, and Erd\"os-R\'enyi random graphs. In the order to analyse and to control the fluctuations for tax evasion in the economics model proposed by Zaklan, MVM is applied in the neighborhod of the noise critical $q_{c}$. The Zaklan model had been studied recently using the equilibrium Ising model. Here we show that the Zaklan model is robust and can be reproduced also through the nonequilibrium MVM on various topologies.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures, LAWNP'09, 200

Exact Lyapunov Exponent for Infinite Products of Random Matrices

In this work, we give a rigorous explicit formula for the Lyapunov exponent for some binary infinite products of random $2\times 2$ real matrices. All these products are constructed using only two types of matrices, $A$ and $B$, which are chosen according to a stochastic process. The matrix $A$ is singular, namely its determinant is zero. This formula is derived by using a particular decomposition for the matrix $B$, which allows us to write the Lyapunov exponent as a sum of convergent series. Finally, we show with an example that the Lyapunov exponent is a discontinuous function of the given parameter.Comment: 1 pages, CPT-93/P.2974,late

Tunable entanglement distillation of spatially correlated down-converted photons

We report on a new technique for entanglement distillation of the bipartite continuous variable state of spatially correlated photons generated in the spontaneous parametric down-conversion process (SPDC), where tunable non-Gaussian operations are implemented and the post-processed entanglement is certified in real-time using a single-photon sensitive electron multiplying CCD (EMCCD) camera. The local operations are performed using non-Gaussian filters modulated into a programmable spatial light modulator and, by using the EMCCD camera for actively recording the probability distributions of the twin-photons, one has fine control of the Schmidt number of the distilled state. We show that even simple non-Gaussian filters can be finely tuned to a ~67% net gain of the initial entanglement generated in the SPDC process.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figure

Accelerating Cold Dark Matter Cosmology (ΩΛ≡0\Omega_{\Lambda}\equiv 0)

A new kind of accelerating flat model with no dark energy that is fully dominated by cold dark matter (CDM) is investigated. The number of CDM particles is not conserved and the present accelerating stage is a consequence of the negative pressure describing the irreversible process of gravitational particle creation. A related work involving accelerating CDM cosmology has been discussed before the SNe observations [Lima, Abramo & Germano, Phys. Rev. D53, 4287 (1996)]. However, in order to have a transition from a decelerating to an accelerating regime at low redshifts, the matter creation rate proposed here includes a constant term of the order of the Hubble parameter. In this case, $H_0$ does not need to be small in order to solve the age problem and the transition happens even if the matter creation is negligible during the radiation and part of the matter dominated phase. Therefore, instead of the vacuum dominance at redshifts of the order of a few, the present accelerating stage in this sort of Einstein-de Sitter CDM cosmology is a consequence of the gravitational particle creation process. As an extra bonus, in the present scenario does not exist the coincidence problem that plagues models with dominance of dark energy. The model is able to harmonize a CDM picture with the present age of the universe, the latest measurements of the Hubble parameter and the Supernovae observations.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, typos corrected, references added, discussion in Appendix B extende