113 research outputs found
Functional specialization within rostral prefrontal cortex (Area 10): a meta-analysis
One of the least well understood regions of the human brain is rostral prefrontal cortex, approximating Brodmann's area 10. Here, we investigate the possibility that there are functional subdivisions within this region by conducting a meta-analysis of 104 functional neuroimaging studies (using positron emission tomography/functional magnetic resonance imaging). Studies involving working memory and episodic memory retrieval were disproportionately associated with lateral activations, whereas studies involving mentalizing (i.e., attending to one's own emotions and mental states or those of other agents) were disproportionately associated with medial activations. Functional variation was also observed along a rostral-caudal axis, with studies involving mentalizing yielding relatively caudal activations and studies involving multiple-task coordination yielding relatively rostral activations. A classification algorithm was trained to predict the task, given the coordinates of each activation peak. Performance was well above chance levels (74% for the three most common tasks; 45% across all eight tasks investigated) and generalized to data not included in the training set. These results point to considerable functional segregation within rostral prefrontal cortex
Conductance Fluctuations of Open Quantum Dots under Microwave Radiation
We develop a time dependent random matrix theory describing the influence of
a time-dependent perturbation on mesoscopic conductance fluctuations in open
quantum dots. The effect of external field is taken into account to all orders
of perturbation theory, and our results are applicable to both weak and strong
fields. We obtain temperature and magnetic field dependences of conductance
fluctuations. The amplitude of conductance fluctuations is determined by
electron temperature in the leads rather than by the width of electron
distribution function in the dot. The asymmetry of conductance with respect to
inversion of applied magnetic field is the main feature allowing to distinguish
the effect of direct suppression of quantum interference from the simple
heating if the frequency of external radiation is larger than the temperature
of the leads .Comment: 7 pages, 5 figure
Universality of Parametric Spectral Correlations: Local versus Extended Perturbing Potentials
We explore the influence of an arbitrary external potential perturbation V on
the spectral properties of a weakly disordered conductor. In the framework of a
statistical field theory of a nonlinear sigma-model type we find, depending on
the range and the profile of the external perturbation, two qualitatively
different universal regimes of parametric spectral statistics (i.e.
cross-correlations between the spectra of Hamiltonians H and H+V). We identify
the translational invariance of the correlations in the space of Hamiltonians
as the key indicator of universality, and find the connection between the
coordinate system in this space which makes the translational invariance
manifest, and the physically measurable properties of the system. In
particular, in the case of localized perturbations, the latter turn out to be
the eigenphases of the scattering matrix for scattering off the perturbing
potential V. They also have a purely statistical interpretation in terms of the
moments of the level velocity distribution. Finally, on the basis of this
analysis, a set of results obtained recently by the authors using random matrix
theory methods is shown to be applicable to a much wider class of disordered
and chaotic structures.Comment: 16 pages, 7 eps figures (minor changes and reference [17] added
Universal Correlations of Coulomb Blockade Conductance Peaks and the Rotation Scaling in Quantum Dots
We show that the parametric correlations of the conductance peak amplitudes
of a chaotic or weakly disordered quantum dot in the Coulomb blockade regime
become universal upon an appropriate scaling of the parameter. We compute the
universal forms of this correlator for both cases of conserved and broken time
reversal symmetry. For a symmetric dot the correlator is independent of the
details in each lead such as the number of channels and their correlation. We
derive a new scaling, which we call the rotation scaling, that can be computed
directly from the dot's eigenfunction rotation rate or alternatively from the
conductance peak heights, and therefore does not require knowledge of the
spectrum of the dot. The relation of the rotation scaling to the level velocity
scaling is discussed. The exact analytic form of the conductance peak
correlator is derived at short distances. We also calculate the universal
distributions of the average level width velocity for various values of the
scaled parameter. The universality is illustrated in an Anderson model of a
disordered dot.Comment: 35 pages, RevTex, 6 Postscript figure
Phase coherence phenomena in superconducting films
Superconducting films subject to an in-plane magnetic field exhibit a gapless
superconducting phase. We explore the quasi-particle spectral properties of the
gapless phase and comment on the transport properties. Of particular interest
is the sensitivity of the quantum interference phenomena in this phase to the
nature of the impurity scattering. We find that films subject to columnar
defects exhibit a `Berry-Robnik' symmetry which changes the fundamental
properties of the system. Furthermore, we explore the integrity of the gapped
phase. As in the magnetic impurity system, we show that optimal fluctuations of
the random impurity potential conspire with the in-plane magnetic field to
induce a band of localized sub-gap states. Finally, we investigate the
interplay of the proximity effect and gapless superconductivity in thin normal
metal-superconductor bi-layers.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures include
Statistics of pre-localized states in disordered conductors
The distribution function of local amplitudes of single-particle states in
disordered conductors is calculated on the basis of the supersymmetric
-model approach using a saddle-point solution of its reduced version.
Although the distribution of relatively small amplitudes can be approximated by
the universal Porter-Thomas formulae known from the random matrix theory, the
statistics of large amplitudes is strongly modified by localization effects. In
particular, we find a multifractal behavior of eigenstates in 2D conductors
which follows from the non-integer power-law scaling for the inverse
participation numbers (IPN) with the size of the system. This result is valid
for all fundamental symmetry classes (unitary, orthogonal and symplectic). The
multifractality is due to the existence of pre-localized states which are
characterized by power-law envelopes of wave functions, , . The pre-localized states in short quasi-1D wires have the
power-law tails , too, although their IPN's
indicate no fractal behavior. The distribution function of the
largest-amplitude fluctuations of wave functions in 2D and 3D conductors has
logarithmically-normal asymptotics.Comment: RevTex, 17 twocolumn pages; revised version (several misprint
corrected
Gap Fluctuations in Inhomogeneous Superconductors
Spatial fluctuations of the effective pairing interaction between electrons
in a superconductor induce variations of the order parameter which in turn lead
to significant changes in the density of states. In addition to an overall
reduction of the quasi-particle energy gap, theory suggests that mesoscopic
fluctuations of the impurity potential induce localised tail states below the
mean-field gap edge. Using a field theoretic approach, we elucidate the nature
of the states in the `sub-gap' region. Specifically, we show that these states
are associated with replica symmetry broken instanton solutions of the
mean-field equations.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures included. To be published in PRB (Sept. 2001
Alternative Technique for "Complex" Spectra Analysis
. The choice of a suitable random matrix model of a complex system is very
sensitive to the nature of its complexity. The statistical spectral analysis of
various complex systems requires, therefore, a thorough probing of a wide range
of random matrix ensembles which is not an easy task. It is highly desirable,
if possible, to identify a common mathematcal structure among all the ensembles
and analyze it to gain information about the ensemble- properties. Our
successful search in this direction leads to Calogero Hamiltonian, a
one-dimensional quantum hamiltonian with inverse-square interaction, as the
common base. This is because both, the eigenvalues of the ensembles, and, a
general state of Calogero Hamiltonian, evolve in an analogous way for arbitrary
initial conditions. The varying nature of the complexity is reflected in the
different form of the evolution parameter in each case. A complete
investigation of Calogero Hamiltonian can then help us in the spectral analysis
of complex systems.Comment: 20 pages, No figures, Revised Version (Minor Changes
A Solvable Regime of Disorder and Interactions in Ballistic Nanostructures, Part I: Consequences for Coulomb Blockade
We provide a framework for analyzing the problem of interacting electrons in
a ballistic quantum dot with chaotic boundary conditions within an energy
(the Thouless energy) of the Fermi energy. Within this window we show that the
interactions can be characterized by Landau Fermi liquid parameters. When ,
the dimensionless conductance of the dot, is large, we find that the disordered
interacting problem can be solved in a saddle-point approximation which becomes
exact as (as in a large-N theory). The infinite theory shows a
transition to a strong-coupling phase characterized by the same order parameter
as in the Pomeranchuk transition in clean systems (a spontaneous
interaction-induced Fermi surface distortion), but smeared and pinned by
disorder. At finite , the two phases and critical point evolve into three
regimes in the plane -- weak- and strong-coupling regimes separated
by crossover lines from a quantum-critical regime controlled by the quantum
critical point. In the strong-coupling and quantum-critical regions, the
quasiparticle acquires a width of the same order as the level spacing
within a few 's of the Fermi energy due to coupling to collective
excitations. In the strong coupling regime if is odd, the dot will (if
isolated) cross over from the orthogonal to unitary ensemble for an
exponentially small external flux, or will (if strongly coupled to leads) break
time-reversal symmetry spontaneously.Comment: 33 pages, 14 figures. Very minor changes. We have clarified that we
are treating charge-channel instabilities in spinful systems, leaving
spin-channel instabilities for future work. No substantive results are
change
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