Domain wall dynamics in an optical Kerr cavity

An anisotropic (dichroic) optical cavity containing a self-focusing Kerr medium is shown to display a bifurcation between static --Ising-- and moving --Bloch-- domain walls, the so-called nonequilibrium Ising-Bloch transition (NIB). Bloch walls can show regular or irregular temporal behaviour, in particular, bursting and spiking. These phenomena are interpreted in terms of the spatio-temporal dynamics of the extended patterns connected by the wall, which display complex dynamical behaviour as well. Domain wall interaction, including the formation of bound states is also addressed.Comment: 15 pages Tex file with 11 postscript figures. Resubmitted to Phys. Rev.

Self-energy corrections to anisotropic Fermi surfaces

The electron-electron interactions affect the low-energy excitations of an electronic system and induce deformations of the Fermi surface. These effects are especially important in anisotropic materials with strong correlations, such as copper oxides superconductors or ruthenates. Here we analyze the deformations produced by electronic correlations in the Fermi surface of anisotropic two-dimensional systems, treating the regular and singular regions of the Fermi surface on the same footing. Simple analytical expressions are obtained for the corrections, based on local features of the Fermi surface. It is shown that, even for weak local interactions, the behavior of the self-energy is non trivial, showing a momentum dependence and a self-consistent interplay with the Fermi surface topology. Results are compared to experimental observations and to other theoretical results.Comment: 13 pages, 10 figure

Quadrature and polarization squeezing in a dispersive optical bistability model

We theoretically study quadrature and polarization squeezing in dispersive optical bistability through a vectorial Kerr cavity model describing a nonlinear cavity filled with an isotropic chi(3) medium in which self-phase and cross-phase modulation, as well as four--wave mixing, occur. We derive expressions for the quantum fluctuations of the output field quadratures as a function of which we express the spectrum of fluctuations of the output field Stokes parameters. We pay particular attention to study how the bifurcations affecting the non-null linearly polarized output mode squeezes the orthogonally polarized vacuum mode, and show how this produces polarization squeezing.Comment: 10 text pages + 12 figure

Nuisance tripping of residual current circuit breakers in circuits supplying electronic loads

[EN] Residual current circuit breakers (RCCBs) are often used to provide protection against indirect contacts in a grounded electrical installation. However, there are situations where the use of RCCBs presents certain problems. In circuits that feed electronic loads RCCBs often cause nuisance tripping. This article discusses the reasons why RCCBs trip in this type of circuit based on a previous case studied by the authors at 'La Fe' hospital in Valencia (Spain) and several tests performed in a power flexible laboratory. A theoretical circuit used to explain the phenomena is also presented.This research work has been made possible with the support of the Programa de Apoyo a la Investigacion y Desarrollo (PAID-06-12) de la Universitat Politecnica de Valencia (Spain), the GV/2015/068-Ayudas para la realizacion de proyectos de I + D para grupos de investigacion emergentes and the Flex Power Grid Lab Research Infrastructure at DNV KEMA, the Netherlands under the European FP7 project-DERri (grant agreement 228449).Escrivá-Escrivá, G.; Roldán Porta, C.; De Jong, ECW. (2016). Nuisance tripping of residual current circuit breakers in circuits supplying electronic loads. Electric Power Systems Research. 131:139-146. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.epsr.2015.10.012S13914613

Simplifying the mosaic description of DNA sequences

By using the Jensen-Shannon divergence, genomic DNA can be divided into compositionally distinct domains through a standard recursive segmentation procedure. Each domain, while significantly different from its neighbours, may however share compositional similarity with one or more distant (non--neighbouring) domains. We thus obtain a coarse--grained description of the given DNA string in terms of a smaller set of distinct domain labels. This yields a minimal domain description of a given DNA sequence, significantly reducing its organizational complexity. This procedure gives a new means of evaluating genomic complexity as one examines organisms ranging from bacteria to human. The mosaic organization of DNA sequences could have originated from the insertion of fragments of one genome (the parasite) inside another (the host), and we present numerical experiments that are suggestive of this scenario.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure, Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Renormalization group approach to anisotropic superconductivity

The superconducting instability of the Fermi liquid state is investigated by considering anisotropic electron-boson couplings. Both electron-electron interactions and anisotropic electron-boson couplings are treated with a renormalization-group method that takes into account retardation effects. Considering a non-interacting circular Fermi surface, we find analytical solutions for the flow equations and derive a set of generalized Eliashberg equations. Electron-boson couplings with different momentum dependences are studied, and we find superconducting instabilities of the metallic state with competition between order parameters of different symmetries. Numerical solutions for some couplings are given to illustrate the frequency dependence of the vertices at different coupling regimes.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures. Final version as published in Phys. Rev.

Tailoring discrete quantum walk dynamics via extended initial conditions: Towards homogeneous probability distributions

We study the evolution of initially extended distributions in the coined quantum walk on the line by analyzing the dispersion relation of the process and its associated wave equations. This allows us, in particular, to devise an initially extended condition leading to a uniform probability distribution whose width increases linearly with time, with increasing homogeneity.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Sexual selection on protamine and transition nuclear protein expression in mouse species

Post-copulatory sexual selection in the form of sperm competition is known to influence the evolution of male reproductive proteins in mammals. The relationship between sperm competition and regulatory evolution, however, remains to be explored. Protamines and transition nuclear proteins are involved in the condensation of sperm chromatin and are expected to affect the shape of the sperm head. A hydrodynamically efficient head allows for fast swimming velocity and, therefore, more competitive sperm. Previous comparative studies in rodents have documented a significant association between the level of sperm competition (as measured by relative testes mass) and DNA sequence evolution in both the coding and promoter sequences of protamine 2. Here,we investigate the influence of sexual selection on protamine and transition nuclear protein mRNA expression in the testes of eight mouse species that differ widely in levels of sperm competition.We also examined the relationship between relative gene expression levels and sperm head shape, assessed using geometric morphometrics. We found that species with higher levels of sperm competition express less protamine 2 in relation to protamine 1 and transition nuclear proteins. Moreover, therewas a significant association between relative protamine 2 expression and sperm head shape. Reduction in the relative abundance of protamine 2 may increase the competitive ability of sperm in mice, possibly by affecting sperm head shape. Changes in gene regulatory sequences thus seem to be the basis of the evolutionary response to sexual selection in these proteins. © 2014 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.This work was supported by the Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (grant no. CGL2011-26341)Peer Reviewe

Theory of quantum fluctuations of optical dissipative structures and its application to the squeezing properties of bright cavity solitons

We present a method for the study of quantum fluctuations of dissipative structures forming in nonlinear optical cavities, which we illustrate in the case of a degenerate, type I optical parametric oscillator. The method consists in (i) taking into account explicitly, through a collective variable description, the drift of the dissipative structure caused by the quantum noise, and (ii) expanding the remaining -internal- fluctuations in the biorthonormal basis associated to the linear operator governing the evolution of fluctuations in the linearized Langevin equations. We obtain general expressions for the squeezing and intensity fluctuations spectra. Then we theoretically study the squeezing properties of a special dissipative structure, namely, the bright cavity soliton. After reviewing our previous result that in the linear approximation there is a perfectly squeezed mode irrespectively of the values of the system parameters, we consider squeezing at the bifurcation points, and the squeezing detection with a plane--wave local oscillator field, taking also into account the effect of the detector size on the level of detectable squeezing.Comment: 10 figure