27 research outputs found
Rigorous Probabilistic Analysis of Equilibrium Crystal Shapes
The rigorous microscopic theory of equilibrium crystal shapes has made
enormous progress during the last decade. We review here the main results which
have been obtained, both in two and higher dimensions. In particular, we
describe how the phenomenological Wulff and Winterbottom constructions can be
derived from the microscopic description provided by the equilibrium
statistical mechanics of lattice gases. We focus on the main conceptual issues
and describe the central ideas of the existing approaches.Comment: To appear in the March 2000 special issue of Journal of Mathematical
Physics on Probabilistic Methods in Statistical Physic
Inflammatory skin diseases and the risk of chronic kidney disease: population-based case-control and cohort analyses.
BACKGROUND: Emerging evidence suggests an association between common inflammatory skin diseases and chronic kidney disease (CKD). OBJECTIVES: To explore the association between CKD stages 3-5 (CKD3-5) and atopic eczema, psoriasis, rosacea and hidradenitis suppurativa. METHODS: We undertook two complementary analyses; a prevalent case-control study and a cohort study using routinely collected primary care data [UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD)]. We matched individuals with CKD3-5 in CPRD in March 2018 with up to five individuals without CKD for general practitioner practice, age and sex. We compared the prevalence of CKD3-5 among individuals with and without each inflammatory skin disease. We included individuals in CPRD with diabetes mellitus (2004-2018) in a cohort analysis to compare the incidence of CKD3-5 among people with and without atopic eczema and psoriasis. RESULTS: Our study included 56 602 cases with CKD3-5 and 268 305 controls. Cases were more likely than controls to have a history of atopic eczema [odds ratio (OR) 1·14, 99% confidence interval (CI) 1·11-1·17], psoriasis (OR 1·13, 99% CI 1·08-1·19) or hidradenitis suppurativa (OR 1·49, 99% CI 1·19-1·85), but were slightly less likely to have been diagnosed with rosacea (OR 0·92, 99% CI 0·87-0·97), after adjusting for age, sex, practice (matching factors), index of multiple deprivation, diabetes, smoking, harmful alcohol use and obesity. Results remained similar after adjusting for hypertension and cardiovascular disease. In the cohort with diabetes (N = 335 827), there was no evidence that CKD3-5 incidence was associated with atopic eczema or psoriasis. CONCLUSIONS: Atopic eczema, psoriasis and hidradenitis suppurativa are weakly associated with CKD3-5. Future research is needed to elucidate potential mechanisms and the clinical significance of our findings
The Alexander-Orbach conjecture holds in high dimensions
We examine the incipient infinite cluster (IIC) of critical percolation in
regimes where mean-field behavior has been established, namely when the
dimension d is large enough or when d>6 and the lattice is sufficiently spread
out. We find that random walk on the IIC exhibits anomalous diffusion with the
spectral dimension d_s=4/3, that is, p_t(x,x)= t^{-2/3+o(1)}. This establishes
a conjecture of Alexander and Orbach. En route we calculate the one-arm
exponent with respect to the intrinsic distance.Comment: 25 pages, 2 figures. To appear in Inventiones Mathematica
Cooperative Behavior of Kinetically Constrained Lattice Gas Models of Glassy Dynamics
Kinetically constrained lattice models of glasses introduced by Kob and
Andersen (KA) are analyzed. It is proved that only two behaviors are possible
on hypercubic lattices: either ergodicity at all densities or trivial
non-ergodicity, depending on the constraint parameter and the dimensionality.
But in the ergodic cases, the dynamics is shown to be intrinsically cooperative
at high densities giving rise to glassy dynamics as observed in simulations.
The cooperativity is characterized by two length scales whose behavior controls
finite-size effects: these are essential for interpreting simulations. In
contrast to hypercubic lattices, on Bethe lattices KA models undergo a
dynamical (jamming) phase transition at a critical density: this is
characterized by diverging time and length scales and a discontinuous jump in
the long-time limit of the density autocorrelation function. By analyzing
generalized Bethe lattices (with loops) that interpolate between hypercubic
lattices and standard Bethe lattices, the crossover between the dynamical
transition that exists on these lattices and its absence in the hypercubic
lattice limit is explored. Contact with earlier results are made via analysis
of the related Fredrickson-Andersen models, followed by brief discussions of
universality, of other approaches to glass transitions, and of some issues
relevant for experiments.Comment: 59 page
Phase Transitions on Nonamenable Graphs
We survey known results about phase transitions in various models of
statistical physics when the underlying space is a nonamenable graph. Most
attention is devoted to transitive graphs and trees
Metastable lifetimes in a kinetic Ising model: Dependence on field and system size
The lifetimes of metastable states in kinetic Ising ferromagnets are studied
by droplet theory and Monte Carlo simulation, in order to determine their
dependences on applied field and system size. For a wide range of fields, the
dominant field dependence is universal for local dynamics and has the form of
an exponential in the inverse field, modified by universal and nonuniversal
power-law prefactors. Quantitative droplet-theory predictions are numerically
verified, and small deviations are shown to depend nonuniversally on the
details of the dynamics. We identify four distinct field intervals in which the
field dependence and statistical properties of the lifetimes are different. The
field marking the crossover between the weak-field regime, in which the decay
is dominated by a single droplet, and the intermediate-field regime, in which
it is dominated by a finite droplet density, vanishes logarithmically with
system size. As a consequence the slow decay characteristic of the former
regime may be observable in systems that are macroscopic as far as their
equilibrium properties are concerned.Comment: 18 pages single spaced. RevTex Version 3. FSU-SCRI-94-1
Glauber Dynamics for the mean-field Potts Model
We study Glauber dynamics for the mean-field (Curie-Weiss) Potts model with
states and show that it undergoes a critical slowdown at an
inverse-temperature strictly lower than the critical
for uniqueness of the thermodynamic limit. The dynamical critical
is the spinodal point marking the onset of metastability.
We prove that when the mixing time is asymptotically
and the dynamics exhibits the cutoff phenomena, a sharp
transition in mixing, with a window of order . At the
dynamics no longer exhibits cutoff and its mixing obeys a power-law of order
. For the mixing time is exponentially large in
. Furthermore, as with , the mixing time
interpolates smoothly from subcritical to critical behavior, with the latter
reached at a scaling window of around . These results
form the first complete analysis of mixing around the critical dynamical
temperature --- including the critical power law --- for a model with a first
order phase transition.Comment: 45 pages, 5 figure
Regularity Properties and Pathologies of Position-Space Renormalization-Group Transformations
We reconsider the conceptual foundations of the renormalization-group (RG)
formalism, and prove some rigorous theorems on the regularity properties and
possible pathologies of the RG map. Regarding regularity, we show that the RG
map, defined on a suitable space of interactions (= formal Hamiltonians), is
always single-valued and Lipschitz continuous on its domain of definition. This
rules out a recently proposed scenario for the RG description of first-order
phase transitions. On the pathological side, we make rigorous some arguments of
Griffiths, Pearce and Israel, and prove in several cases that the renormalized
measure is not a Gibbs measure for any reasonable interaction. This means that
the RG map is ill-defined, and that the conventional RG description of
first-order phase transitions is not universally valid. For decimation or
Kadanoff transformations applied to the Ising model in dimension ,
these pathologies occur in a full neighborhood of the low-temperature part of the first-order
phase-transition surface. For block-averaging transformations applied to the
Ising model in dimension , the pathologies occur at low temperatures
for arbitrary magnetic-field strength. Pathologies may also occur in the
critical region for Ising models in dimension . We discuss in detail
the distinction between Gibbsian and non-Gibbsian measures, and give a rather
complete catalogue of the known examples. Finally, we discuss the heuristic and
numerical evidence on RG pathologies in the light of our rigorous theorems.Comment: 273 pages including 14 figures, Postscript, See also
ftp.scri.fsu.edu:hep-lat/papers/9210/9210032.ps.
Atopic eczema in adulthood and risk of depression and anxiety: a population-based cohort study
BACKGROUND: Atopic eczema is a common and debilitating condition associated with depression and anxiety, but the nature of this association remains unclear. // OBJECTIVE: To explore the temporal relationship between atopic eczema and new depression/anxiety. // METHODS: A matched cohort study using routinely-collected data from the UK Clinical Practice Research Datalink, linked to hospital admissions data. We identified adults with atopic eczema (1998-2016) using a validated algorithm, and up to five individuals without atopic eczema matched on date of diagnosis, age, sex and general practice. We estimated the hazard ratio (HR) for new depression/anxiety using stratified Cox regression to account for age, sex, calendar period, Index of Multiple Deprivation, glucocorticoid treatment, obesity, smoking and harmful alcohol use. // RESULTS: We identified 526,808 adults with atopic eczema who were matched to 2,569,030 without. Atopic eczema was associated with increased incidence of new depression (HR 1.14; 99% confidence interval [CI] 1.12-1.16), and anxiety (HR 1.17; 99% CI 1.14-1.19). We observed a stronger effect of atopic eczema on depression with increasing atopic eczema severity (HR [99% CI] compared to no atopic eczema: mild 1.10 [1.08-1.13]; moderate 1.19 [1.15-1.23]; severe 1.26 [1.17-1.37]). A dose-response association, however, was less apparent for new anxiety diagnosis (HR [99% CI] compared to no atopic eczema: mild 1.14 [1.11-1.18]; moderate 1.21 [1.17-1.26]; severe 1.15; [1.05-1.25]). // CONCLUSIONS: Adults with atopic eczema are more likely to develop new depression and anxiety. For depression, we observed a dose-response relationship with atopic eczema severity