2,828 research outputs found
Sign Rules for Anisotropic Quantum Spin Systems
We present new and exact ``sign rules'' for various spin-s anisotropic
spin-lattice models. It is shown that, after a simple transformation which
utilizes these sign rules, the ground-state wave function of the transformed
Hamiltonian is positive-definite. Using these results exact statements for
various expectation values of off-diagonal operators are presented, and
transitions in the behavior of these expectation values are observed at
particular values of the anisotropy. Furthermore, the effects of sign rules in
variational calculations and quantum Monte Carlo calculations are considered.
They are illustrated by a simple variational treatment of a one-dimensional
anisotropic spin model.Comment: 4 pages, 1 ps-figur
Audio-haptic interfaces for digital audio workstations: A participatory design approach
We examine how auditory displays, sonification and haptic interaction design can support visually impaired sound engineers, musicians and audio production specialists access to digital audio workstation. We describe a user-centred approach that incorporates various participatory design techniques to help make the design process accessible to this population of users. We also outline the audio-haptic designs that results from this process and reflect on the benefits and challenges that we encountered when applying these techniques in the context of designing support for audio editing
Controversies in Neurology: why monoamine oxidase B inhibitors could be a good choice for the initial treatment of Parkinson's disease
Thermodynamics of quantum Heisenberg spin chains
Thermodynamic properties of the quantum Heisenberg spin chains with S = 1/2,
1, and 3/2 are investigated using the transfer-matrix renormalization-group
method. The temperature dependence of the magnetization, susceptibility,
specific heat, spin-spin correlation length, and several other physical
quantities in a zero or finite applied field are calculated and compared. Our
data agree well with the Bethe ansatz, exact diagonalization, and quantum Monte
Carlo results and provide further insight into the quantum effects in the
antiferromagnetic Heisenberg spin chains.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figure
Nanometer-scale ablation with a table-top soft x-ray laser
Includes bibliographical references (page 3617).Ablation of holes with diameters as small as 82 nm and very clean walls was obtained in poly(methyl methacrylate) focusing pulses from a Ne-like Ar 46.9 nm compact capillary-discharge laser with a freestanding Fresnel zone plate diffracting into third order. These results demonstrate the feasibility of using focused soft x-ray laser beams for the direct nanoscale patterning of materials and the development of new nanoprobes
Multiproxy bioarchaeological data reveals interplay between growth, diet and population dynamics across the transition to farming in the central Mediterranean
The transition to farming brought on a series of important changes in human society, lifestyle, diet and health. The human bioarchaeology of the agricultural transition has received much attention, however, relatively few studies have directly tested the interrelationship between individual lifestyle factors and their implications for understanding life history changes among the first farmers. We investigate the interplay between skeletal growth, diet, physical activity and population size across 30,000 years in the central Mediterranean through a ‘big data’ cross-analysis of osteological data related to stature (n = 361), body mass (n = 334) and long bone biomechanics (n = 481), carbon (δ 13C) and nitrogen (δ 15N) stable isotopes (n = 1986 human, n = 475 animal) and radiocarbon dates (n = 5263). We present the observed trends on a continuous timescale in order to avoid grouping our data into assigned ‘time periods’, thus achieving greater resolution and chronological control over our analysis. The results identify important changes in human life history strategies associated with the first farmers, but also highlight the long-term nature of these trends in the millennia either side of the agricultural transition. The integration of these different data is an important step towards disentangling the complex relationship between demography, diet and health, and reconstruct life history changes within a southern European context. We believe the methodological approach adopted here has broader global implications for bioarchaeological studies of human adaptation more generally
Absence of string order in the anisotropic S=2 Heisenberg antiferromagnet
We study an AFM Heisenberg S=2 quantum spin chain at T=0 with both
interaction and on-site anisotropy, H = \sum_{i}
{1/2}(S^{+}_{i}S^{-}_{i+1}+S^{-}_{i}S^{+}_{i+1})
+J^{z}S^{z}_{i}S^{z}_{i+1}+D(S^{z}_{i})^{2}. Contradictory scenarios exist for
the S=2 anisotropic phase diagram, implying different mechanisms of the
emergence of the classical limit. One main AKLT-based scenario predicts the
emergence of a cascade of phase transitions not seen in the S=1 case. Another
scenario is in favor of an almost classical phase diagram for S=2; the S=1 case
then is very special with its dominant quantum effects. Numerical studies have
not been conclusive. Using the DMRG, the existence of hidden topological order
in the anisotropic S=2 chain is examined, as it distinguishes between the
proposed scenarios. We show that the topological order is zero in the
thermodynamical limit in all disordered phases, in particular in the new phase
interposed between the Haldane and large- phases. This excludes the
AKLT-model based scenario in favor of an almost classical phase diagram for the
spin chains.Comment: 9 pages, 9 eps figures, uses RevTeX, submitted to PR
Three Millisecond Pulsars in FERMI LAT Unassociated Bright Sources
We searched for radio pulsars in 25 of the non-variable, unassociated sources
in the Fermi LAT Bright Source List with the Green Bank Telescope at 820 MHz.
We report the discovery of three radio and gamma-ray millisecond pulsars (MSPs)
from a high Galactic latitude subset of these sources. All of the pulsars are
in binary systems, which would have made them virtually impossible to detect in
blind gamma-ray pulsation searches. They seem to be relatively normal, nearby
(<=2 kpc) millisecond pulsars. These observations, in combination with the
Fermi detection of gamma-rays from other known radio MSPs, imply that most, if
not all, radio MSPs are efficient gamma-ray producers. The gamma-ray spectra of
the pulsars are power-law in nature with exponential cutoffs at a few GeV, as
has been found with most other pulsars. The MSPs have all been detected as
X-ray point sources. Their soft X-ray luminosities of ~10^{30-31} erg/s are
typical of the rare radio MSPs seen in X-rays.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter
Beyond element-wise interactions: identifying complex interactions in biological processes
Background: Biological processes typically involve the interactions of a number of elements (genes, cells) acting on each others. Such processes are often modelled as networks whose nodes are the elements in question and edges pairwise relations between them (transcription, inhibition). But more often than not, elements actually work cooperatively or competitively to achieve a task. Or an element can act on the interaction between two others, as in the case of an enzyme controlling a reaction rate. We call “complex” these types of interaction and propose ways to identify them from time-series observations.
Methodology: We use Granger Causality, a measure of the interaction between two signals, to characterize the influence of an enzyme on a reaction rate. We extend its traditional formulation to the case of multi-dimensional signals in order to capture group interactions, and not only element interactions. Our method is extensively tested on simulated data and applied to three biological datasets: microarray data of the Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast, local field potential recordings of two brain areas and a metabolic reaction.
Conclusions: Our results demonstrate that complex Granger causality can reveal new types of relation between signals and is particularly suited to biological data. Our approach raises some fundamental issues of the systems biology approach since finding all complex causalities (interactions) is an NP hard problem
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