Motional narrowing effect in certain random binary lattices

We present a model for a class of random binary lattices by introducing a one-dimensional system where impurities are placed in one sublattice while host atoms lie on the other sublattice. The source of disorder is the stochastic fluctuation of the impurity energy from site to site. We study the optical absorption spectra and the peculiarities of the motional narrowing effect at the band edges for perturbative and nonperturbative degrees of disorder. Analytical results agree well with numerical simulations.Comment: 4 pages, REVTeX, 2 Postscript figures included. To appear in Physics Letters

Effect of local pumping on random laser modes

We have developed a numerical method based on the transfer matrix to calculate the quasimodes and lasing modes in one-dimensional random systems. Depending on the relative magnitude of the localization length versus the system size, there are two regimes in which the quasimodes are distinct in spatial profile and frequency distribution. In the presence of uniform gain, the lasing modes have one-to-one correspondence to the quasimodes in both regimes. Local excitation may enhance the weight of a mode within the gain region due to local amplification, especially in a weakly scattering system.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figure

Combining losing games into a winning game

Parrondo's paradox is extended to regime switching random walks in random environments. The paradoxical behavior of the resulting random walk is explained by the effect of the random environment. Full characterization of the asymptotic behavior is achieved in terms of the dimensions of some random subspaces occurring in Oseledec's theorem. The regime switching mechanism gives our models a richer and more complex asymptotic behavior than the simple random walks in random environments appearing in the literature, in terms of transience and recurrence

Forces on Bins - The Effect of Random Friction

In this note we re-examine the classic Janssen theory for stresses in bins, including a randomness in the friction coefficient. The Janssen analysis relies on assumptions not met in practice; for this reason, we numerically solve the PDEs expressing balance of momentum in a bin, again including randomness in friction.Comment: 11 pages, LaTeX, with 9 figures encoded, gzippe

Strongly Asymmetric Tricriticality of Quenched Random-Field Systems

In view of the recently seen dramatic effect of quenched random bonds on tricritical systems, we have conducted a renormalization-group study on the effect of quenched random fields on the tricritical phase diagram of the spin-1 Ising model in $d=3$. We find that random fields convert first-order phase transitions into second-order, in fact more effectively than random bonds. The coexistence region is extremely flat, attesting to an unusually small tricritical exponent $\beta_u$; moreover, an extreme asymmetry of the phase diagram is very striking. To accomodate this asymmetry, the second-order boundary exhibits reentrance.Comment: revtex, 4 pages, 2 figs, submitted to PR