Image and Volume Segmentation by Water Flow

A general framework for image segmentation is presented in this paper, based on the paradigm of water flow. The major water flow attributes like water pressure, surface tension and capillary force are defined in the context of force field generation and make the model adaptable to topological and geometrical changes. A flow-stopping image functional combining edge- and region-based forces is introduced to produce capability for both range and accuracy. The method is assessed qualitatively and quantitatively on synthetic and natural images. It is shown that the new approach can segment objects with complex shapes or weak-contrasted boundaries, and has good immunity to noise. The operator is also extended to 3-D, and is successfully applied to medical volume segmentation

Conductance of Quantum Impurity Models from Quantum Monte Carlo

The conductance of two Anderson impurity models, one with two-fold and another with four-fold degeneracy, representing two types of quantum dots, is calculated using a world-line quantum Monte Carlo (QMC) method. Extrapolation of the imaginary time QMC data to zero frequency yields the linear conductance, which is then compared to numerical renormalization group results in order to assess its accuracy. We find that the method gives excellent results at low temperature (T<Tk) throughout the mixed valence and Kondo regimes, but it is unreliable for higher temperature.Comment: 5 pages, 7 figure

Quantum Phase Transition and Dynamically Enhanced Symmetry in Quadruple Quantum Dot System

We propose a system of four quantum dots designed to study the competition between three types of interactions: Heisenberg, Kondo and Ising. We find a rich phase diagram containing two sharp features: a quantum phase transition (QPT) between charge-ordered and charge-liquid phases, and a dramatic resonance in the charge liquid visible in the conductance. The QPT is of the Kosterlitz-Thouless type with a discontinuous jump in the conductance at the transition. We connect the resonance phenomenon with the degeneracy of three levels in the isolated quadruple dot and argue that this leads to a Kondo-like dynamical enhancement of symmetry from U(1) x Z_2 to U(1) x U(1).Comment: 4 pages main text + 4 pages supplementary materia

Time-Dependent Transport Through Molecular Junctions

We investigate transport properties of molecular junctions under two types of bias--a short time pulse or an AC bias--by combining a solution for the Green functions in the time domain with electronic structure information coming from ab initio density functional calculations. We find that the short time response depends on lead structure, bias voltage, and barrier heights both at the molecule-lead contacts and within molecules. Under a low frequency AC bias, the electron flow either tracks or leads the bias signal (capacitive or resistive response) depending on whether the junction is perfectly conducting or not. For high frequency, the current lags the bias signal due to the kinetic inductance. The transition frequency is an intrinsic property of the junctions.Comment: 5 pages, 9 figure

Mesoscopic Anderson Box: Connecting Weak to Strong Coupling

Both the weakly coupled and strong coupling Anderson impurity problems are characterized by a Fermi-liquid theory with weakly interacting quasiparticles. In an Anderson box, mesoscopic fluctuations of the effective single particle properties will be large. We study how the statistical fluctuations at low temperature in these two problems are connected, using random matrix theory and the slave boson mean field approximation (SBMFA). First, for a resonant level model such as results from the SBMFA, we find the joint distribution of energy levels with and without the resonant level present. Second, if only energy levels within the Kondo resonance are considered, the distributions of perturbed levels collapse to universal forms for both orthogonal and unitary ensembles for all values of the coupling. These universal curves are described well by a simple Wigner-surmise type toy model. Third, we study the fluctuations of the mean field parameters in the SBMFA, finding that they are small. Finally, the change in the intensity of an eigenfunction at an arbitrary point is studied, such as is relevant in conductance measurements: we find that the introduction of the strongly-coupled impurity considerably changes the wave function but that a substantial correlation remains.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figure

Small-angle x-ray-scattering study of phase separation and crystallization in the bulk amorphous Mg62Cu25Y10Li3 alloy

We report on a small-angle x-ray-scattering (SAXS) and differential scanning calorimetry study of phase separation and crystallization in rapidly quenched amorphous Mg62Cu25Y10Li3 alloy samples. Differential scanning calorimetry demonstrates the occurrence of crystallization and grain growth upon isothermal annealing of these samples at 135 °C. The SAXS studies show the presence of large inhomogeneities even in the rapidly quenched as-prepared Mg62Cu25Y10Li3 alloy that is attributed to phase separation in the undercooled liquid during the cooling process. After isothermal annealing at 135 °C for longer than 30 min the samples exhibit a strong SAXS intensity that monotonically increases with increasing annealing time. During heat treatment, crystallization and growth of a nanocrystalline bcc-Mg7Li3 phase occurs in the Y-poor and MgLi-rich domains. The initially rough boundaries of the nanocrystals become sharper with increasing annealing time. Anomalous small-angle x-ray-scattering investigations near the Cu K edge indicate that while Cu is distributed homogeneously in the as-prepared sample, a Cu composition gradient develops between the matrix and the bcc-Mg7Li3 nanocrystals in the annealed sample

No spin-localization phase transition in the spin-boson model without local field

We explore the spin-boson model in a special case, i.e., with zero local field. In contrast to previous studies, we find no possibility for quantum phase transition (QPT) happening between the localized and delocalized phases, and the behavior of the model can be fully characterized by the even or odd parity as well as the parity breaking, instead of the QPT, owned by the ground state of the system. Our analytical treatment about the eigensolution of the ground state of the model presents for the first time a rigorous proof of no-degeneracy for the ground state of the model, which is independent of the bath type, the degrees of freedom of the bath and the calculation precision. We argue that the QPT mentioned previously appears due to unreasonable treatment of the ground state of the model or of the infrared divergence existing in the spectral functions for Ohmic and sub-Ohmic dissipations.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure. Comments are welcom