Spherical Tuples of Hilbert Space Operators

We introduce and study a class of operator tuples in complex Hilbert spaces, which we call spherical tuples. In particular, we characterize spherical multi-shifts, and more generally, multiplication tuples on RKHS. We further use these characterizations to describe various spectral parts including the Taylor spectrum. We also find a criterion for the Schatten $S_p$-class membership of cross-commutators of spherical $m$-shifts. We show, in particular, that cross-commutators of non-compact spherical $m$-shifts cannot belong to $S_p$ for $p \le m$. We specialize our results to some well-studied classes of multi-shifts. We prove that the cross-commutators of a spherical joint $m$-shift, which is a $q$-isometry or a $2$-expansion, belongs to $S_p$ if and only if $p > m$. We further give an example of a spherical jointly hyponormal $2$-shift, for which the cross-commutators are compact but not in $S_p$ for any $p <\infty$.Comment: a version close to final on

Grating-coupled excitation of multiple surface plasmon-polariton waves

The excitation of multiple surface-plasmon-polariton (SPP) waves of different linear polarization states and phase speeds by a surface-relief grating formed by a metal and a rugate filter, both of finite thickness, was studied theoretically, using rigorous coupled-wave-analysis. The incident plane wave can be either p or s polarized. The excitation of SPP waves is indicated by the presence of those peaks in the plots of absorbance vs. the incidence angle that are independent of the thickness of the rugate filter. The absorbance peaks representing the excitation of s-polarized SPP waves are narrower than those representing p-polarized SPP waves. Two incident plane waves propagating in different directions may excite the same SPP wave. A line source could excite several SPP waves simultaneously

Multi-site breathers in Klein-Gordon lattices: stability, resonances, and bifurcations

We prove the most general theorem about spectral stability of multi-site breathers in the discrete Klein-Gordon equation with a small coupling constant. In the anti-continuum limit, multi-site breathers represent excited oscillations at different sites of the lattice separated by a number of "holes" (sites at rest). The theorem describes how the stability or instability of a multi-site breather depends on the phase difference and distance between the excited oscillators. Previously, only multi-site breathers with adjacent excited sites were considered within the first-order perturbation theory. We show that the stability of multi-site breathers with one-site holes change for large-amplitude oscillations in soft nonlinear potentials. We also discover and study a symmetry-breaking (pitchfork) bifurcation of one-site and multi-site breathers in soft quartic potentials near the points of 1:3 resonance.Comment: 34 pages, 12 figure

Ab initio study of alanine polypeptide chains twisting

We have investigated the potential energy surfaces for alanine chains consisting of three and six amino acids. For these molecules we have calculated potential energy surfaces as a function of the Ramachandran angles Phi and Psi, which are widely used for the characterization of the polypeptide chains. These particular degrees of freedom are essential for the characterization of proteins folding process. Calculations have been carried out within ab initio theoretical framework based on the density functional theory and accounting for all the electrons in the system. We have determined stable conformations and calculated the energy barriers for transitions between them. Using a thermodynamic approach, we have estimated the times of characteristic transitions between these conformations. The results of our calculations have been compared with those obtained by other theoretical methods and with the available experimental data extracted from the Protein Data Base. This comparison demonstrates a reasonable correspondence of the most prominent minima on the calculated potential energy surfaces to the experimentally measured angles Phi and Psi for alanine chains appearing in native proteins. We have also investigated the influence of the secondary structure of polypeptide chains on the formation of the potential energy landscape. This analysis has been performed for the sheet and the helix conformations of chains of six amino acids.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figure

Modes of Oscillation in Radiofrequency Paul Traps

We examine the time-dependent dynamics of ion crystals in radiofrequency traps. The problem of stable trapping of general three-dimensional crystals is considered and the validity of the pseudopotential approximation is discussed. We derive analytically the micromotion amplitude of the ions, rigorously proving well-known experimental observations. We use a method of infinite determinants to find the modes which diagonalize the linearized time-dependent dynamical problem. This allows obtaining explicitly the ('Floquet-Lyapunov') transformation to coordinates of decoupled linear oscillators. We demonstrate the utility of the method by analyzing the modes of a small `peculiar' crystal in a linear Paul trap. The calculations can be readily generalized to multispecies ion crystals in general multipole traps, and time-dependent quantum wavefunctions of ion oscillations in such traps can be obtained.Comment: 24 pages, 3 figures, v2 adds citations and small correction

Central factorials under the Kontorovich-Lebedev transform of polynomials

We show that slight modifications of the Kontorovich-Lebedev transform lead to an automorphism of the vector space of polynomials. This circumstance along with the Mellin transformation property of the modified Bessel functions perform the passage of monomials to central factorial polynomials. A special attention is driven to the polynomial sequences whose KL-transform is the canonical sequence, which will be fully characterized. Finally, new identities between the central factorials and the Euler polynomials are found.Comment: also available at http://cmup.fc.up.pt/cmup/ since the 2nd August 201

Kramers-Kronig constrained variational analysis of optical spectra

A universal method of extraction of the complex dielectric function $\epsilon(\omega)=\epsilon_{1}(\omega)+i\epsilon_{2}(\omega)$ from experimentally accessible optical quantities is developed. The central idea is that $\epsilon_{2}(\omega)$ is parameterized independently at each node of a properly chosen anchor frequency mesh, while $\epsilon_{1}(\omega)$ is dynamically coupled to $\epsilon_{2}(\omega)$ by the Kramers-Kronig (KK) transformation. This approach can be regarded as a limiting case of the multi-oscillator fitting of spectra, when the number of oscillators is of the order of the number of experimental points. In the case of the normal-incidence reflectivity from a semi-infinite isotropic sample the new method gives essentially the same result as the conventional KK transformation of reflectivity. In contrast to the conventional approaches, the proposed technique is applicable, without readaptation, to virtually all types of linear-response optical measurements, or arbitrary combinations of measurements, such as reflectivity, transmission, ellipsometry {\it etc.}, done on different types of samples, including thin films and anisotropic crystals.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figure

Multi-transmission-line-beam interactive system

We construct here a Lagrangian field formulation for a system consisting of an electron beam interacting with a slow-wave structure modeled by a possibly non-uniform multiple transmission line (MTL). In the case of a single line we recover the linear model of a traveling wave tube (TWT) due to J.R. Pierce. Since a properly chosen MTL can approximate a real waveguide structure with any desired accuracy, the proposed model can be used in particular for design optimization. Furthermore, the Lagrangian formulation provides for: (i) a clear identification of the mathematical source of amplification, (ii) exact expressions for the conserved energy and its flux distributions obtained from the Noether theorem. In the case of uniform MTLs we carry out an exhaustive analysis of eigenmodes and find sharp conditions on the parameters of the system to provide for amplifying regimes

Instability of coherent states of a real scalar field

We investigate stability of both localized time-periodic coherent states (pulsons) and uniformly distributed coherent states (oscillating condensate) of a real scalar field satisfying the Klein-Gordon equation with a logarithmic nonlinearity. The linear analysis of time-dependent parts of perturbations leads to the Hill equation with a singular coefficient. To evaluate the characteristic exponent we extend the Lindemann-Stieltjes method, usually applied to the Mathieu and Lame equations, to the case that the periodic coefficient in the general Hill equation is an unbounded function of time. As a result, we derive the formula for the characteristic exponent and calculate the stability-instability chart. Then we analyze the spatial structure of the perturbations. Using these results we show that the pulsons of any amplitudes, remaining well-localized objects, lose their coherence with time. This means that, strictly speaking, all pulsons of the model considered are unstable. Nevertheless, for the nodeless pulsons the rate of the coherence breaking in narrow ranges of amplitudes is found to be very small, so that such pulsons can be long-lived. Further, we use the obtaned stability-instability chart to examine the Affleck-Dine type condensate. We conclude the oscillating condensate can decay into an ensemble of the nodeless pulsons.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Physical Review

Invariance Conditions for Nonlinear Dynamical Systems

Recently, Horv\'ath, Song, and Terlaky [\emph{A novel unified approach to invariance condition of dynamical system, submitted to Applied Mathematics and Computation}] proposed a novel unified approach to study, i.e., invariance conditions, sufficient and necessary conditions, under which some convex sets are invariant sets for linear dynamical systems. In this paper, by utilizing analogous methodology, we generalize the results for nonlinear dynamical systems. First, the Theorems of Alternatives, i.e., the nonlinear Farkas lemma and the \emph{S}-lemma, together with Nagumo's Theorem are utilized to derive invariance conditions for discrete and continuous systems. Only standard assumptions are needed to establish invariance of broadly used convex sets, including polyhedral and ellipsoidal sets. Second, we establish an optimization framework to computationally verify the derived invariance conditions. Finally, we derive analogous invariance conditions without any conditions