Random permutations of a regular lattice

Spatial random permutations were originally studied due to their connections to Bose-Einstein condensation, but they possess many interesting properties of their own. For random permutations of a regular lattice with periodic boundary conditions, we prove existence of the infinite volume limit under fairly weak assumptions. When the dimension of the lattice is two, we give numerical evidence of a Kosterlitz-Thouless transition, and of long cycles having an almost sure fractal dimension in the scaling limit. Finally we comment on possible connections to Schramm-L\"owner curves.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figure

Precise coupling terms in adiabatic quantum evolution

It is known that for multi-level time-dependent quantum systems one can construct superadiabatic representations in which the coupling between separated levels is exponentially small in the adiabatic limit. For a family of two-state systems with real-symmetric Hamiltonian we construct such a superadiabatic representation and explicitly determine the asymptotic behavior of the exponentially small coupling term. First order perturbation theory in the superadiabatic representation then allows us to describe the time-development of exponentially small adiabatic transitions. The latter result rigorously confirms the predictions of Sir Michael Berry for our family of Hamiltonians and slightly generalizes a recent mathematical result of George Hagedorn and Alain Joye.Comment: 24 page

Gibbs measures with double stochastic integrals on a path space

We investigate Gibbs measures relative to Brownian motion in the case when the interaction energy is given by a double stochastic integral. In the case when the double stochastic integral is originating from the Pauli-Fierz model in nonrelativistic quantum electrodynamics, we prove the existence of its infinite volume limit.Comment: 17 page

Breaking the chain

We consider the motion of a Brownian particle in $\mathbb{R}$, moving between a particle fixed at the origin and another moving deterministically away at slow speed $\epsilon>0$. The middle particle interacts with its neighbours via a potential of finite range $b>0$, with a unique minimum at $a>0$, where $b<2a$. We say that the chain of particles breaks on the left- or right-hand side when the middle particle is greater than a distance $b$ from its left or right neighbour, respectively. We study the asymptotic location of the first break of the chain in the limit of small noise, in the case where $\epsilon = \epsilon(\sigma)$ and $\sigma>0$ is the noise intensity.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures. v2: Corrected a mistake in proof of second part of main theore

Stable states of perturbed Markov chains

Given an infinitesimal perturbation of a discrete-time finite Markov chain, we seek the states that are stable despite the perturbation, \textit{i.e.} the states whose weights in the stationary distributions can be bounded away from $0$ as the noise fades away. Chemists, economists, and computer scientists have been studying irreducible perturbations built with exponential maps. Under these assumptions, Young proved the existence of and computed the stable states in cubic time. We fully drop these assumptions, generalize Young's technique, and show that stability is decidable as long as $f\in O(g)$ is. Furthermore, if the perturbation maps (and their multiplications) satisfy $f\in O(g)$ or $g\in O(f)$, we prove the existence of and compute the stable states and the metastable dynamics at all time scales where some states vanish. Conversely, if the big-$O$ assumption does not hold, we build a perturbation with these maps and no stable state. Our algorithm also runs in cubic time despite the general assumptions and the additional work. Proving the correctness of the algorithm relies on new or rephrased results in Markov chain theory, and on algebraic abstractions thereof

Phase transition for loop representations of Quantum spin systems on trees

We consider a model of random loops on Galton-Watson trees with an offspring distribution with high expectation. We give the configurations a weighting of $\theta^{\#\text{loops}}$. For many $\theta>1$ these models are equivalent to certain quantum spin systems for various choices of the system parameters. We find conditions on the offspring distribution that guarantee the occurrence of a phase transition from finite to infinite loops for the Galton-Watson tree.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figur