Random Magnetic Impurities and the Landau Problem

The 2-dimensional density of states of an electron is studied for a Poissonian random distribution of point vortices carrying $\alpha$ flux in unit of the quantum of flux. It is shown that, for any given density of impurities, there is a transition, when $\alpha\simeq 0.3-0.4$, from an "almost free" density of state -with only a depletion of states at the bottom of the spectrum characterized by a Lifschitz tail- to a Landau density of state with sharp Landau level oscillations. Several evidences and arguments for this transition -numerical and analytical- are presented.Comment: 22 pages, latex, 4 figures upon reques

Excursions of diffusion processes and continued fractions

It is well-known that the excursions of a one-dimensional diffusion process can be studied by considering a certain Riccati equation associated with the process. We show that, in many cases of interest, the Riccati equation can be solved in terms of an infinite continued fraction. We examine the probabilistic significance of the expansion. To illustrate our results, we discuss some examples of diffusions in deterministic and in random environments.Comment: 28 pages. Minor changes to Section

Exact Results on Sinai's Diffusion

We study the continuum version of Sinai's problem of a random walker in a random force field in one dimension. A method of stochastic representations is used to represent various probability distributions in this problem (mean probability density function and first passage time distributions). This method reproduces already known rigorous results and also confirms directly some recent results derived using approximation schemes. We demonstrate clearly, in the Sinai scaling regime, that the disorder dominates the problem and that the thermal distributions tend to zero-one laws.Comment: 14 pages Latex. To appear J. Phys.

Localization Properties in One Dimensional Disordered Supersymmetric Quantum Mechanics

A model of localization based on the Witten Hamiltonian of supersymmetric quantum mechanics is considered. The case where the superpotential $\phi(x)$ is a random telegraph process is solved exactly. Both the localization length and the density of states are obtained analytically. A detailed study of the low energy behaviour is presented. Analytical and numerical results are presented in the case where the intervals over which $\phi(x)$ is kept constant are distributed according to a broad distribution. Various applications of this model are considered.Comment: 43 pages, plain TEX, 8 figures not included, available upon request from the Authors

Enumeration by kernel positions for strongly Bernoulli type truncation games on words

We find the winning strategy for a class of truncation games played on words. As a consequence of the present author's recent results on some of these games we obtain new formulas for Bernoulli numbers and polynomials of the second kind and a new combinatorial model for the number of connected permutations of given rank. For connected permutations, the decomposition used to find the winning strategy is shown to be bijectively equivalent to King's decomposition, used to recursively generate a transposition Gray code of the connected permutations

Products of random matrices and generalised quantum point scatterers

To every product of $2\times2$ matrices, there corresponds a one-dimensional Schr\"{o}dinger equation whose potential consists of generalised point scatterers. Products of {\em random} matrices are obtained by making these interactions and their positions random. We exhibit a simple one-dimensional quantum model corresponding to the most general product of matrices in $\text{SL}(2, {\mathbb R})$. We use this correspondence to find new examples of products of random matrices for which the invariant measure can be expressed in simple analytical terms.Comment: 38 pages, 13 pdf figures. V2 : conclusion added ; Definition of function $\Omega$ change