Stochastic symmetry-breaking in a gaussian Hopfield model

We study a ``two-pattern'' Hopfield model with Gaussian disorder. We find that there are infinitely many pure states at low temperatures in this model, and we find that the metastate is supported on an infinity of symmetric pairs of pure states. The origin of this phenomenon is the random breaking of a rotation symmetry of the distribution of the disorderComment: 31pp, AMSTe

Mathematical Aspects of Hopfield Models

Diese Dissertation behandelt zwei Modelle aus der statistischen Mechanik ungeordneter Systeme. Beide sind Varianten des Hopfield-Modells und gehören zur Klasse der Molekularfeldmodelle. Im ersten Teil behandeln wir den Fall mit p-Spin-Wechselwirkungen (p größer als 4 und gerade) und superextensiv vielen Mustern (deren Anzahl M wie die p-te Potenz der Systemgröße N wächst), wobei wir zwei verschiedene Energiefunktionen betrachten. Wir beweisen die Existenz einer kritischen Temperatur, bei welcher der sogenannte Replikaüberlapp von Null auf einen strikt positiven Wert springt. Wir geben obere und untere Schranken für ihren Wert an und zeigen, daß für die eine Wahl der Hamiltonfunktion beide gegen die kritische Temperatur (bis auf einen konstanten Faktor) des Random Energy Model konvergieren, falls p gegen Unendlich strebt. Diese kritische Temperatur fällt mit der kleinsten Temperatur zusammen, für welche die ausgeglühte freie Energie und der Erwartungswert der abgeschreckten freien Energie identisch sind. Der Zusammenhang zwischen diesen beiden Resultaten wird durch eine partielle Integrationsformel geliefert, welche mit Hilfe einer Störungsentwicklung der Boltzmannfaktoren bewiesen wird. Außerdem berechnen wir die Fluktuationen der freien Energie und erhalten, daß sie von der Ordnung Quadratwurzel von N sind. Weiterhin beweisen wir die Existenz einer kritischen Proportionalitätskonstanten für die Anzahl Muster, oberhalb welcher das Minimum der Hamiltonfunktion mit großer Wahrscheinlichkeit nicht in der Nähe eines der Muster angenommen wird. Dies bedeutet, daß, obwohl das Gibbsmaß sich bei kleinen Temperaturen auf einer kleinen Teilmenge des Zustandsraumes konzentriert, dies nicht in der Nähe der Muster geschieht. In einem zweiten Teil beweisen wir obere Schranken für die Norm von gewissen zufälligen Matrizen mit abhängigen Einträgen. Diese Abschätzungen werden im ersten Teil zur Berechnung der Fluktuationen der freien Energie benutzt. Sie werden mit der Chebyshev-Markov-Ungleichung, angewandt auf die Spur von hohen Potenzen der Matrizen, bewiesen. Das zentrale Resultat dazu ist eine Darstellung der Spur von diesen hohen Potenzen als Wege auf gewissen bipartiten Graphen. Dies transformiert das Berechnen des Erwartungswertes der Spur auf das kombinatorische Problem, die maximale Anzahl kreisförmiger Teilgraphen eines gegebenen Eulergraphen zu bestimmen. Die Resultate zeigen, dass die Abhängigkeit zwischen den Einträgen eine wichtige Rolle spielt und nicht vernachlässigt werden kann. Im letzten Teil schließlich betrachten wir ein Hopfield-Modell mit zwei Gauß'schen Mustern. Wir zeigen, da$szlig; überabzählbar viele extremale Gibbszustände existieren, welche durch den Einheitskreis indiziert werden. Diese Symmetrie wird zufällig gebrochen im Sinne, daß der Metazustand von einem Kontinuum von Paaren von extremalen Gibbsmaßen getragen wird, welche durch eine globale Spinsymmetrie verknüpft sind. Wir beweisen diese Resultate mit Hilfe der zufälligen Ratenfunktion des induzierten Maßes auf den Überlapparametern. Insbesondere zeigen wir, daß die Symmetriebrechung durch die Fluktuationen der Ratenfunktion auf den (entarteten) Minima ihrer Erwartung erzwungen wird. Diese Fluktuationen werden durch einen zufälligen Prozeß auf dem Einheitskreis beschrieben, dessen globale Minima die Menge (schlussendlich ein Paar) der extremalen Zustände auswählen.This thesis is concerned with two models from equilibrium statistical mechanics of disordered systems. Both of them are variants of the Hopfield model, and belong to the class of mean-field models. In the first part, we treat the case of p-spin interactions (with p larger than 4 and even) and super-extensively many patterns (their number M scaling as the (p-1)th power of the system size N). We consider two choices of the Hamiltonians. We find that there exists a critical temperature, at which the replica overlap changes from 0 to a strictly positive value. We give upper and lower bounds for its value, and show that for one choice of the Hamiltonian, both of them converge as p tends to infinity to the critical temperature (up to a constant factor) of the random energy model. This critical temperature coincides with the minimum temperature for which annealed free energy and mean of the quenched free energy are equal. The relation between the two results is furnished by an integration by parts formula that is proved by perturbative expansion of the Boltzmann factors. We also calculate the fluctuations of the free energy which are shown to be of the order of the square root of the system size N. Furthermore, we find that there exists a critical scaling constant for the number of patterns above which with large probability the minimum of the Hamiltonian is not realized in the vicinity of any of the patterns. This means that while there is a condensation for low temperatures, the Gibbs measure does not concentrate around the patterns. In a second part of the thesis, we prove upper bounds on the norm of certain random matrices with dependent entries. These estimates are used in Part I to prove the fluctuations of the free energy. They are proved by the Chebyshev-Markov inequality, applied to the trace of large powers of the matrices. The key ingredient is a representation of the trace of these large powers in terms of walks on an appropriate bipartite graph. This reduces the calculation of the expectation of the trace to the combinatorial problem of counting the maximum number of sub-circuits of a given circuit. The results show that the dependence between the entries cannot be neglected. Finally, in the last part, we consider a two pattern Hopfield model with Gaussian patterns. We show that there are uncountably many pure states indexed by the circle. This symmetry is randomly broken in the sense that the metastate is supported on a continuum of pairs of pure states that are related by a global (spin-flip) symmetry. We prove these results by studying the random rate function of the induced measure on the overlap parameters. In particular, the breaking of the symmetry is shown to be due to the fluctuations of this rate function at the (degenerate) minima of its expectation. These fluctuations are described by a random process on the circle whose global minima determine the chosen set (eventually a pair) of states

Harness processes and harmonic crystals

In the Hammersley harness processes the real-valued height at each site i in Z^d is updated at rate 1 to an average of the neighboring heights plus a centered random variable (the noise). We construct the process "a la Harris" simultaneously for all times and boxes contained in Z^d. With this representation we compute covariances and show L^2 and almost sure time and space convergence of the process. In particular, the process started from the flat configuration and viewed from the height at the origin converges to an invariant measure. In dimension three and higher, the process itself converges to an invariant measure in L^2 at speed t^{1-d/2} (this extends the convergence established by Hsiao). When the noise is Gaussian the limiting measures are Gaussian fields (harmonic crystals) and are also reversible for the process.Comment: 21 pages. Revised version with minor changes. Version almost identical to the one to be published in SP

Initial characterisation of commercially available ELISA tests and the immune response of the clinically correlated SARS-CoV-2 biobank "SERO-BL-COVID-19" collected during the pandemic onset in Switzerland

Background To accurately measure seroprevalance in the population, both the expected immune response as well as the assay performances have to be well characterised. Here, we describe the collection and initial characterisation of a blood and saliva biobank obtained after the initial peak of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in Switzerland.Methods Two laboratory ELISAs measuring IgA & IgG (Euroimmun), and IgM & IgG (Epitope Diagnostics) were used to characterise the biobank collected from 349 re- and convalescent patients from the canton of Basel-Landschaft.Findings The antibody response in terms of recognized epitopes is diverse, especially in oligosymptomatic patients, while the average strength of the antibody response of the population does correlate with the severity of the disease at each time point.Interpretation The diverse immune response presents a challenge when conducting epidemiological studies as the used assays only detect ∼90% of the oligosymptomatic cases. This problem cannot be rectified by using more sensitive assay setting as they concomitantly reduce specificity.Funding Funding was obtained from the "Amt für Gesundheit" of the canton Basel-Landschaft, Switzerland.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.Funding StatementThis study was sponsored by Jurg Sommer, head of the Amt fur Gesundheit, and the logistics of the sample collection were provided by the crisis staff and the civil protection service of the canton Basel-Landschaft.Author DeclarationsI confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained.YesThe details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below:This study is part of the project COVID-19 in Baselland Investigation and Validation of Serological Diagnostic Assays and Epidemiological Study of Sars-CoV-2 specific Antibody Responses (SERO-BL-COVID-19) approved by the ethics board Ethikkommission Nordwest- und Zentralschweiz (EKNZ), Hebelstrasse 53, 4056 Basel representative of Swissethics under the number (2020-00816).All necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived.YesI understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance).YesI have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines and uploaded the relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material as supplementary files, if applicable.YesData are available upon reques

The spin-glass phase-transition in the Hopfield . . .

Our approach follows that of Talagrand's analysis of the p-spin SK-model. The more complex structure of the random interactions necessitates, however, considerable technical modifications. In particular, various results that follow easily in the Gaussian case fro

Harness processes and harmonic crystals

We consider the long-term behaviour of infinite-volume Hammersley’s harness processes in continuous time. In this process, the height at each site is updated at rate 1 to an average of the neighboring heights plus a centered random variable (the noise). We show that the process started from the flat configuration and viewed from the height at the origin converges to an invariant measure. In dimension three and higher, the process itself converges to an invariant measure. When the noise is Gaussian the limiting measures are Gaussian fields (harmonic crystals) and are also reversible for the process. The construction is used to show almost sure and L² versions of the infinite volume limit of those fields