Variational principle for non-linear wave propagation in dissipative systems

The dynamics of many natural systems is dominated by non-linear waves propagating through the medium. We show that the dynamics of non-linear wave fronts with positive surface tension can be formulated as a gradient system. The variational potential is simply given by a linear combination of the occupied volume and surface area of the wave front, and changes monotonically in time. Finally, we demonstrate that vortex filaments can be written as a gradient system only if their binormal velocity component vanishes, which occurs in chemical system with equal diffusion of reactants

Effective dynamics of twisted and curved scroll waves using virtual filaments

Scroll waves are three-dimensional excitation patterns that rotate around a central filament curve; they occur in many physical, biological and chemical systems. We explicitly derive the equations of motion for scroll wave filaments in reaction-diffusion systems with isotropic diffusion up to third order in the filament's twist and curvature. The net drift components define at every instance of time a virtual filament which lies close to the instantaneous filament. Importantly, virtual filaments obey simpler, time-independent laws of motion which we analytically derive here and illustrate with numerical examples. Stability analysis of scroll waves is performed using virtual filaments, showing that filament curvature and twist add as quadratic terms to the nominal filament tension. Applications to oscillating chemical reactions and cardiac tissue are discussed.Comment: 28 page

On the fidelity of mixed states of two qubits

We consider a single copy of a mixed state of two qubits and show how its fidelity or maximal singlet fraction is related to the entanglement measures concurrence and negativity. We characterize the extreme points of the convex set of states with constant fidelity, and use this to prove tight lower and upper bounds on the fidelity for a given amount of entanglement.Comment: 4 pages; part I of quant-ph/0203073v2; see quant-ph/0303007 for part I

Resolving the instability of the Savvidy vacuum by dynamical gluon mass

In this paper we apply the formalism of local composite operators as developed by Verschelde et al. in combination with a constant chromomagnetic field as considered in the seventies by Savvidy and others. We find that a nonzero minimizes the vacuum energy, as in the case with no chromomagnetic field, and that the chromomagnetic field itself is near-to zero. The Nielsen-Olesen instability, caused by the imaginary part in the action, also vanishes. We further investigate the effect of an external chromomagnetic field on the value of , finding that this condensate is destroyed by sufficiently strong fields. The inverse scenario, where is considered as external, results in analogous findings: when this condensate is sufficiently large, the induced chromomagnetic field is lowered to a perturbative value slightly below the applied .Comment: 11 pages, 8 figure

The Schwarzian Theory - A Wilson Line Perspective

We provide a holographic perspective on correlation functions in Schwarzian quantum mechanics, as boundary-anchored Wilson line correlators in Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity. We first study compact groups and identify the diagrammatic representation of bilocal correlators of the particle-on-a-group model as Wilson line correlators in its 2d holographic BF description. We generalize to the Hamiltonian reduction of SL(2,R) and derive the Schwarzian correlation functions. Out-of-time ordered correlators are determined by crossing Wilson lines, giving a 6j-symbol, in agreement with 2d CFT results.Comment: 28 pages + appendices, v3: corrected discussion on representation theory and improved discussion on higher-point functions in appendices, references added, typos corrected, matches published versio