Poverty and Inequality in the UK: 2008

In this Commentary, we assess the changes to average incomes, inequality and poverty that have occurred under the first 10 years of the Labour government, with a particular focus on the changes that have occurred in the latest year of data. This analysis is based upon the latest figures from the DWP's Households Below Average Income (HBAI) series, published on 10 June 2008 (Department for Work and Pensions, 2008c). The HBAI series takes household income as its measure of living standards and is derived from the Family Resources Survey, a survey of around 28,000 households in the United Kingdom that asks detailed questions about income from a range of sources

Wigner surmise for Hermitian and non-Hermitian Chiral random matrices

We use the idea of a Wigner surmise to compute approximate distributions of the first eigenvalue in chiral Random Matrix Theory, for both real and complex eigenvalues. Testing against known results for zero and maximal non-Hermiticity in the microscopic large-N limit we find an excellent agreement, valid for a small number of exact zero-eigenvalues. New compact expressions are derived for real eigenvalues in the orthogonal and symplectic classes, and at intermediate non-Hermiticity for the unitary and symplectic classes. Such individual Dirac eigenvalue distributions are a useful tool in Lattice Gauge Theory and we illustrate this by showing that our new results can describe data from two-colour QCD simulations with chemical potential in the symplectic class

Poverty and inequality in the UK: 2009

In this Commentary, we assess the changes to average incomes, inequality and poverty that have occurred since Labour came to power in 1997, with a particular focus on the changes that have occurred in the latest year of data. This analysis is based upon the latest figures from the DWP's Households Below Average Income (HBAI) series, published on 7 May 2009 (Department for Work and Pensions, 2009). The HBAI series takes household income as its measure of living standards, and is derived from the Family Resources Survey, a survey of around 25,000 households in the United Kingdom that asks detailed questions about income from a range of sources

Gap probabilities in non-Hermitian random matrix theory

We compute the gap probability that a circle of radius r around the origin contains exactly k complex eigenvalues. Four different ensembles of random matrices are considered: the Ginibre ensembles and their chiral complex counterparts, with both complex (beta=2) or quaternion real (beta=4) matrix elements. For general non-Gaussian weights we give a Fredholm determinant or Pfaffian representation respectively, depending on the non-Hermiticity parameter. At maximal non-Hermiticity, that is for rotationally invariant weights, the product of Fredholm eigenvalues for beta=4 follows from beta=2 by skipping every second factor, in contrast to the known relation for Hermitian ensembles. On additionally choosing Gaussian weights we give new explicit expressions for the Fredholm eigenvalues in the chiral case, in terms of Bessel-K and incomplete Bessel-I functions. This compares to known results for the Ginibre ensembles in terms of incomplete exponentials. Furthermore we present an asymptotic expansion of the logarithm of the gap probability for large argument r at large N in all four ensembles, up to including the third order linear term. We can provide strict upper and lower bounds and present numerical evidence for its conjectured values, depending on the number of exact zero eigenvalues in the chiral ensembles. For the Ginibre ensemble at beta=2 exact results were previously derived by Forrester

Finite-Temperature Quasicontinuum: Molecular Dynamics without All the Atoms

Using a combination of statistical mechanics and finite-element interpolation, we develop a coarse-grained (CG) alternative to molecular dynamics (MD) for crystalline solids at constant temperature. The new approach is significantly more efficient than MD and generalizes earlier work on the quasicontinuum method. The method is validated by recovering equilibrium properties of single crystal Ni as a function of temperature. CG dynamical simulations of nanoindentation reveal a strong dependence on temperature of the critical stress to nucleate dislocations under the indenter

Plasma Processing of Large Curved Surfaces for SRF Cavity Modification

Plasma based surface modification of niobium is a promising alternative to wet etching of superconducting radio frequency (SRF) cavities. The development of the technology based on Cl2/Ar plasma etching has to address several crucial parameters which influence the etching rate and surface roughness, and eventually, determine cavity performance. This includes dependence of the process on the frequency of the RF generator, gas pressure, power level, the driven (inner) electrode configuration, and the chlorine concentration in the gas mixture during plasma processing. To demonstrate surface layer removal in the asymmetric non-planar geometry, we are using a simple cylindrical cavity with 8 ports symmetrically distributed over the cylinder. The ports are used for diagnosing the plasma parameters and as holders for the samples to be etched. The etching rate is highly correlated with the shape of the inner electrode, radio-frequency (RF) circuit elements, chlorine concentration in the Cl2/Ar gas mixtures, residence time of reactive species and temperature of the cavity. Using cylindrical electrodes with variable radius, large-surface ring-shaped samples and d.c. bias implementation in the external circuit we have demonstrated substantial average etching rates and outlined the possibility to optimize plasma properties with respect to maximum surface processing effect

Nonlinear Transport Near a Quantum Phase Transition in Two Dimensions

The problem of non-linear transport near a quantum phase transition is solved within the Landau theory for the dissipative insulator-superconductor phase transition in two dimensions. Using the non-equilibrium Schwinger round-trip Green function formalism, we obtain the scaling function for the non-linear conductivity in the quantum disordered regime. We find that the conductivity scales as $E^2$ at low field but crosses over at large fields to a universal constant on the order of $e^2/h$. The crossover between these two regimes obtains when the length scale for the quantum fluctuations becomes comparable to that of the electric field within logarithmic accuracy.Comment: 4.15 pages, no figure