The 2006 Kythira (Greece), Mw6.7 slab-pull event: tectonic implications and the geometry of the hellenic wadati-benioff zone

A strong (Mw=6.7) intermediate depth earthquake occurred on 8 January 2006 (11:34 UTC) in southwestern Aegean Sea (Greece) causing limited damage to structures on the nearby islands of Kythira and Antikythira, as well as western Crete Island. The epicentral area belongs to the SW segment of the Hellenic Arc, which is known to be associated with the occurrence of large shallow and intermediate depth earthquakes, mainly due to the subduction of the Eastern Mediterranean oceanic lithosphere under the Aegean microplate. The main shock occurred on a dextral strike slip fault at a depth of 75 km, within the descending slab, as it is revealed by both, the spatial distribution of the accurately located aftershocks and its fault plane solution determined in the present study and implying a slab-pull event. The aftershock activity from 8 to 31 January 2006 is distributed in depths ranging from 55 to 75 km, and being comprised in an almost rectangular and vertical plane with a length equal to 28 km and a width of 20 km, which adequately defines the dimensions of the rupture area. The geometry of the Wadati-Benioff zone in this area, namely the southwestern part of the Hellenic Arc, is explored by an exhaustive analysis of all the available phase arrivals gathered from the International Seismological Centre, and the relocation of the earthquakes occurred since 1964 in the South-West Aegean region

Velocity models inferred from p-waves travel time curves in south Aegean

Με σκοπό τη δημιουργία μοντέλων ταχύτητας στην περιοχή του νοτίου Αιγαίου, χρησιμοποιούμε τις καταγραφές σεισμών κατά τη χρονική περίοδο από 1η Ιανουαρίου έως 3Ιη Αυγούστου 2005 από ένα νέο τηλεμετρικό δίκτυο που εγκαταστάθηκε και λειτουργεί στην περιοχή της Κρήτης. Τα μοντέλα ταχύτητας κατασκευάζονται από τις καμπύλες χρόνων διαδρομής των επιμηκών κυμάτων και χρησιμοποιούνται σε συνδυασμό με τις χρονικές διορθώσεις στο χρόνο άφιξης των σεισμικών κυμάτων σε κάθε σεισμολογικό σταθμό του δικτύου για τον ακριβή προσδιορισμό των εστιακών παραμέτρων των σεισμών που έχουν καταγραφεί στην περιοχή του νοτίου Αιγαίου με τη χρήση του προγράμματος HYPOINVERSE. Συνδυάζοντας όλες τις διαθέσιμες πληροφορίες από τη βιβλιογραφία και τα αποτελέσματα της παρούσας μελέτης προσδοκούμε να συμβάλουμε στην αποσαφήνιση του σεισμοτεκτονικού προτύπου της περιοχής καθώς και της γεωμετρίας της καταδυόμενης λιθόσφαιρας της ανατολικής Μεσογείου.The seismicity recorded during Ist January to 31st August 2005 from a new telemetry network installed and operating on the island of Crete, is used in an effort to obtain new velocity models for the area of south Aegean. The models are constructed from the P-waves travel time curves and are later used for the events relocation with the HYPOINVERSE algorithm and station delays calculation. Furthermore, results are discussed and compared with the ones derived from other significant previous works presented the last years. We anticipate by combining all the available information from the literature and the analysis of our data set to contribute to the seismotectonic modeling of the study area and to construct a most complete image of the geometry of the subducted plate

Critical slowing down in polynomial time algorithms

Combinatorial optimization algorithms which compute exact ground state configurations in disordered magnets are seen to exhibit critical slowing down at zero temperature phase transitions. Using arguments based on the physical picture of the model, including vanishing stiffness on scales beyond the correlation length and the ground state degeneracy, the number of operations carried out by one such algorithm, the push-relabel algorithm for the random field Ising model, can be estimated. Some scaling can also be predicted for the 2D spin glass.Comment: 4 pp., 3 fig

Equations over free inverse monoids with idempotent variables

We introduce the notion of idempotent variables for studying equations in inverse monoids. It is proved that it is decidable in singly exponential time (DEXPTIME) whether a system of equations in idempotent variables over a free inverse monoid has a solution. The result is proved by a direct reduction to solve language equations with one-sided concatenation and a known complexity result by Baader and Narendran: Unification of concept terms in description logics, 2001. We also show that the problem becomes DEXPTIME hard , as soon as the quotient group of the free inverse monoid has rank at least two. Decidability for systems of typed equations over a free inverse monoid with one irreducible variable and at least one unbalanced equation is proved with the same complexity for the upper bound. Our results improve known complexity bounds by Deis, Meakin, and Senizergues: Equations in free inverse monoids, 2007. Our results also apply to larger families of equations where no decidability has been previously known.Comment: 28 pages. The conference version of this paper appeared in the proceedings of 10th International Computer Science Symposium in Russia, CSR 2015, Listvyanka, Russia, July 13-17, 2015. Springer LNCS 9139, pp. 173-188 (2015

Gauge fields, ripples and wrinkles in graphene layers

We analyze elastic deformations of graphene sheets which lead to effective gauge fields acting on the charge carriers. Corrugations in the substrate induce stresses, which, in turn, can give rise to mechanical instabilities and the formation of wrinkles. Similar effects may take place in suspended graphene samples under tension.Comment: contribution to the special issue of Solid State Communications on graphen

Exact Ground States of Large Two-Dimensional Planar Ising Spin Glasses

Studying spin-glass physics through analyzing their ground-state properties has a long history. Although there exist polynomial-time algorithms for the two-dimensional planar case, where the problem of finding ground states is transformed to a minimum-weight perfect matching problem, the reachable system sizes have been limited both by the needed CPU time and by memory requirements. In this work, we present an algorithm for the calculation of exact ground states for two-dimensional Ising spin glasses with free boundary conditions in at least one direction. The algorithmic foundations of the method date back to the work of Kasteleyn from the 1960s for computing the complete partition function of the Ising model. Using Kasteleyn cities, we calculate exact ground states for huge two-dimensional planar Ising spin-glass lattices (up to 3000x3000 spins) within reasonable time. According to our knowledge, these are the largest sizes currently available. Kasteleyn cities were recently also used by Thomas and Middleton in the context of extended ground states on the torus. Moreover, they show that the method can also be used for computing ground states of planar graphs. Furthermore, we point out that the correctness of heuristically computed ground states can easily be verified. Finally, we evaluate the solution quality of heuristic variants of the Bieche et al. approach.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures; shortened introduction, extended results; to appear in Physical Review E 7

Design principles for the future internet architecture

Design principles play a central role in the architecture of the Internet as driving most engineering decisions at conception level and operational level. This paper is based on the EC Future Internet Architecture (FIArch) Group results and identifies some of the design principles that we expect to govern the future architecture of the Internet. We believe that it may serve as a starting point and comparison for most research and development projects that target the so-called Future Internet Architecture

A faster pseudo-primality test

We propose a pseudo-primality test using cyclic extensions of $\mathbb Z/n \mathbb Z$. For every positive integer $k \leq \log n$, this test achieves the security of $k$ Miller-Rabin tests at the cost of $k^{1/2+o(1)}$ Miller-Rabin tests.Comment: Published in Rendiconti del Circolo Matematico di Palermo Journal, Springe

Microearthquake study of the broader Thessaloniki area (Northern Greece)

A temporary network of twelve portable digital seismological stations was operated around the city of Thessaloniki (Northern Greece) for a period of 19 months (from July 2001 to April 2002 and from October 2002 to August 2003), providing data that enabled the study of the interconnection between microseismicity and active tectonics in the area. During the operation period 277 microearthquakes that were recorded in more than four stations were accurately located and 64 fault plane solutions were determined. Seismic activity is associated with ENE-WSW, E-W and ESE-WNW striking normal faults and is nearly confined to the first 15 km, thus defining the seismogenic layer in the study area. The mean orientation of the axis of maximum extension (T-axis) is NS to NNE-SSW, determined from fault plane solutions, in agreement with the regional extensional stress pattern, which strikes perpendicular to the orientation of the main WNW-ESE active faults of the area

Complexity transitions in global algorithms for sparse linear systems over finite fields

We study the computational complexity of a very basic problem, namely that of finding solutions to a very large set of random linear equations in a finite Galois Field modulo q. Using tools from statistical mechanics we are able to identify phase transitions in the structure of the solution space and to connect them to changes in performance of a global algorithm, namely Gaussian elimination. Crossing phase boundaries produces a dramatic increase in memory and CPU requirements necessary to the algorithms. In turn, this causes the saturation of the upper bounds for the running time. We illustrate the results on the specific problem of integer factorization, which is of central interest for deciphering messages encrypted with the RSA cryptosystem.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figure