Book Review: The Human Icon: A Comparative Study of Hindu and Orthodox Christian Beliefs

Book review of The Human Icon: A Comparative Study of Hindu and Orthodox Christian Beliefs. By Christine Mangala Frost. Cambridge, UK: James Clarke & Co, 2017, xv + 368 pages

Book Review: \u3ci\u3eHis Hiding Place is Darkness: A Hindu-Catholic Theopoetics of Divine Absence.\u3c/i\u3e

Book review of, His Hiding Place is Darkness: A Hindu-Catholic Theopoetics of Divine Absence. by Francis X. Clooney

The Limits of Theodicy: An Eastern Orthodox Perspective on Evil and Interreligious Theology

This essay is written from the vantage point of a comparative theologian who is personally steeped in the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition and who primarily specializes in Christian-Muslim comparative theology. It might seems curious, then, that the present essay employs the comparative theological method in order to focus on questions of theodicy in the Christian and Hindu traditions. Perhaps even more curious, however, is that I aim not at articulating a comparative Christian-Hindu theodicy, but rather at suggesting that the most productive path forward is a comparative theological rejection of theodicy as a productive enterprise. Drawing from resources within my own Orthodox Christian tradition, as well as from the thought of Paul Ricoeur, my essay will revolve around two primary arguments: first, theodicy functions primarily to reconcile human beings to evil’s existence, thus legitimizing it and reducing the need to counteract evil; and second, religious traditions more effectively encounter the question of evil by teaching a path by which practitioners can mourn, reject, combat, and transform evil. Accordingly, I will first briefly examine two salient instances of comparative Christian-Hindu theodicy in order to demonstrate how my approach differs. Next, I will engage with key critics of theodicy, some of whom are skeptical of religion (or even hostile to it), and some of whom are religious adherents who maintain theodicy is an inherently deleterious mode of thought. I will conclude by drawing from both Fyodor Dostoevsky and Paul Ricoeur in order to suggest a more productive trajectory for comparative theology and the challenges posed by the existence of evil and suffering

Ground state entanglement in quantum spin chains

A microscopic calculation of ground state entanglement for the XY and Heisenberg models shows the emergence of universal scaling behavior at quantum phase transitions. Entanglement is thus controlled by conformal symmetry. Away from the critical point, entanglement gets saturated by a mass scale. Results borrowed from conformal field theory imply irreversibility of entanglement loss along renormalization group trajectories. Entanglement does not saturate in higher dimensions which appears to limit the success of the density matrix renormalization group technique. A possible connection between majorization and renormalization group irreversibility emerges from our numerical analysis.Comment: 26 pages, 16 figures, added references, minor changes. Final versio

Loops and Strings in a Superconducting Lattice Gauge Simulator

We propose an architecture for an analog quantum simulator of electromagnetism in 2+1 dimensions, based on an array of superconducting fluxonium devices. The encoding is in the integer (spin-1 representation of the quantum link model formulation of compact U(1) lattice gauge theory. We show how to engineer Gauss' law via an ancilla mediated gadget construction, and how to tune between the strongly coupled and intermediately coupled regimes. The witnesses to the existence of the predicted confining phase of the model are provided by nonlocal order parameters from Wilson loops and disorder parameters from 't Hooft strings. We show how to construct such operators in this model and how to measure them nondestructively via dispersive coupling of the fluxonium islands to a microwave cavity mode. Numerical evidence is found for the existence of the confined phase in the ground state of the simulation Hamiltonian on a ladder geometry.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures. Published versio

Symmetry and optical selection rules in graphene quantum dots

Graphene quantum dots (GQD's) have optical properties which are very different from those of an extended graphene sheet. In this Article we explore how the size, shape and edge--structure of a GQD affect its optical conductivity. Using representation theory, we derive optical selection rules for regular-shaped dots, starting from the symmetry properties of the current operator. We find that, where the x- and y-components of the current operator transform with the same irreducible representation (irrep) of the point group - for example in triangular or hexagonal GQD's - the optical conductivity is independent of the polarisation of the light. On the other hand, where these components transform with different irreps - for example in rectangular GQD's - the optical conductivity depends on the polarisation of light. We find that GQD's with non-commuting point-group operations - for example dots of rectangular shape - can be distinguished from GQD's with commuting point-group operations - for example dots of triangular or hexagonal shape - by using polarized light. We carry out explicit calculations of the optical conductivity of GQD's described by a simple tight--binding model and, for dots of intermediate size, \textcolor{blue}{($10 \lesssim L \lesssim 50\ \text{nm}$)} find an absorption peak in the low--frequency range of the spectrum which allows us to distinguish between dots with zigzag and armchair edges. We also clarify the one-dimensional nature of states at the van Hove singularity in graphene, providing a possible explanation for very high exciton-binding energies. Finally we discuss the role of atomic vacancies and shape asymmetry.Comment: 24 pages, 15 figure

Inventario preliminar de la familia Aneuraceae en Venezuela

Con base en registros de literatura investigada se presenta un listado preliminar de 23 especies de la familia Aneuracea (Hepatophyta) para Venezuela, de las cuales 1 corresponde al género Aneura y 22 al género Riccardia. Los Andes y la región al sur del río Orinoco, son las áreas con mayor información disponible.A preliminary inventory of 23 species of Aneuraceae (Hepatophyta) is given for Venezuela. One of this records belongs to the genus Aneura and 22 to Riccardia. Los Andes and the region to the south of the Orinoco River, are the areas with more available information

Fine-grained entanglement loss along renormalization group flows

We explore entanglement loss along renormalization group trajectories as a basic quantum information property underlying their irreversibility. This analysis is carried out for the quantum Ising chain as a transverse magnetic field is changed. We consider the ground-state entanglement between a large block of spins and the rest of the chain. Entanglement loss is seen to follow from a rigid reordering, satisfying the majorization relation, of the eigenvalues of the reduced density matrix for the spin block. More generally, our results indicate that it may be possible to prove the irreversibility along RG trajectories from the properties of the vacuum only, without need to study the whole hamiltonian.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures; minor change