Highlights of 2017

We present an equivalence theorem to unify the two classes of uncertainty relations, i.e. the variance-based ones and the entropic forms, showing that the entropy of an operator in a quantum system can be built from the variances of a set of commutative operators. This means that an uncertainty relation in the language of entropy may be mapped onto a variance-based one, and vice versa. Employing the equivalence theorem, alternative formulations of entropic uncertainty relations are obtained for the qubit system that are stronger than the existing ones in the literature, and variance-based uncertainty relations for spin systems are reached from the corresponding entropic uncertainty relations.

Kuramoto and Battogtokh (2002 Nonlinear Phenom. Complex Syst. 5 380) discovered chimera states represented by stable coexisting synchrony and asynchrony domains in a lattice of coupled oscillators. After a reformulation in terms of a local order parameter, the problem can be reduced to partial differential equations. We find uniformly rotating, spatially periodic chimera patterns as solutions of a reversible ordinary differential equation, and demonstrate a plethora of such states. In the limit of neutral coupling they reduce to analytical solutions in the form of one- and two-point chimera patterns as well as localized chimera solitons. Patterns at weakly attracting coupling are characterized by virtue of a perturbative approach. Stability analysis reveals that only the simplest chimeras with one synchronous region are stable.

We study the large deviations of additive quantities, such as energy or current, in stochastic processes with intermittent reset. Via a mapping from a discrete-time reset process to the Poland–Scheraga model for DNA denaturation, we derive conditions for observing first-order or continuous dynamical phase transitions in the fluctuations of such quantities and confirm these conditions on simple random walk examples. These results apply to reset Markov processes, but also show more generally that subleading terms in generating functions can lead to non-analyticities in large deviation functions of ‘compound processes’ or ‘random evolutions’ switching stochastically between two or more subprocesses.

We provide a manifestly topological classification scheme for generalised Weyl semimetals, in any spatial dimension and with arbitrary Weyl surfaces which may be non-trivially linked. The classification naturally incorporates that of Chern insulators. Our analysis refines, in a mathematically precise sense, some well-known 3D constructions to account for subtle but important global aspects of the topology of semimetals. Using a fundamental locality principle, we derive a generalized charge cancellation condition for the Weyl surface components. We analyse the bulk-boundary correspondence under a duality transformation, which reveals explicitly the topological nature of the resulting surface Fermi arcs. We also analyse the effect of moving Weyl points on the bulk and boundary topological semimetal invariants.

Local scale-invariance theory is tested by extensive dynamical simulations of the driven dimer lattice gas model, describing the surface growth of the 2  +  1 dimensional Kardar–Parisi–Zhang surfaces. Very precise measurements of the universal autoresponse function enabled us to perform nonlinear fitting with the scaling forms, suggested by local scale-invariance (LSI). While the simple LSI ansatz does not seem to work, forms based on logarithmic extension of LSI provide satisfactory description of the full (measured) time evolution of the autoresponse function.

We investigate the existence and propagation of solitons in a long-range extension of the quartic Fermi–Pasta–Ulam (FPU) chain of anharmonic oscillators. The coupling in the linear term decays as a power-law with an exponent . We obtain an analytic perturbative expression of traveling envelope solitons by introducing a non linear Schrödinger equation for the slowly varying amplitude of short wavelength modes. Due to the non analytic properties of the dispersion relation, it is crucial to develop the theory using discrete difference operators. Those properties are also the ultimate reason why kink-solitons may exist but are unstable, at variance with the short-range FPU model. We successfully compare these approximate analytic results with numerical simulations for the value which was chosen as a case study.

In the theory of extreme values of Gaussian processes, many results are expressed in terms of the Pickands constant . This constant depends on the local self-similarity exponent α of the process, i.e. locally it is a fractional Brownian motion (fBm) of Hurst index . Despite its importance, only two values of the Pickands constant are known: and . Here, we extend the recent perturbative approach to fBm to include drift terms. This allows us to investigate the Pickands constant around standard Brownian motion ( ) and to derive the new exact result .

Hypergraph states form a family of multiparticle quantum states that generalizes cluster states and graph states. We study the action and graphical representation of nonlocal unitary transformations between hypergraph states. This leads to a generalization of local complementation and graphical rules for various gates, such as the CNOT gate and the Toffoli gate. As an application, we show that already for five qubits local Pauli operations are not sufficient to check local equivalence of hypergraph states. Furthermore, we use our rules to construct entanglement witnesses for three-uniform hypergraph states.

Type II supergravity admits an solution with fluxes depending on several free parameters. We determine the constraints on these parameters imposed by the requirement of (classical) integrability of the superstring sigma model. To do this we analyze the low-energy effective action for the spinning GKP string. The absence of particle production in the tree-level S-matrix of bosonic excitations is shown to imply the vanishing of two of the four parameters in the NSNS three-form flux. This reduces the supergravity background to either the one-parameter background preserving eight supersymmetries, or a non-supersymmetric branch, which differs only by flipping a sign in the RR flux. We show that both these branches can be obtained from by T-dualities on the (Hopf) circle fibers of the three-spheres and therefore the integrability of the string in these backgrounds follows.

A new formalism is introduced to treat problems in quantum field theory, using coherent functional expansions rather than path integrals. The basic results and identities of this approach are developed. In the case of a Bose gas with point-contact interactions, this leads to a soluble functional equation in the weak interaction limit, where the perturbing term is part of the kinetic energy. This approach has the potential to prevent the Dyson problem of divergence in perturbation theory.

Bandlimited functions can vary faster than their highest Fourier component. Such ‘superoscillations’ result from near-perfect destructive interference among the Fourier components and correspond to large values of the phase gradient (local wavenumber). Superoscillations that are strong and extend over a large interval occur where functions are exponentially small. The associated interference is vulnerable to noise, in particular random phases. Averaging over the phases, modelled as independent Gaussian variables with a specified rms value, enables the suppression of superoscillations to be described quantitatively; very weak phase noise suffices. Strong noise generates functions that are essentially random, and the remaining well-understood superoscillations are localised in small intervals. The theory is illustrated by computations with an explicit superoscillatory function.

We consider the Beta polymer, an exactly solvable model of directed polymer on the square lattice, introduced by Barraquand and Corwin (BC) (2016 Probab. Theory Relat. Fields 1– 16). We study the statistical properties of its point to point partition sum. The problem is equivalent to a model of a random walk in a time-dependent (and in general biased) 1D random environment. In this formulation, we study the sample to sample fluctuations of the transition probability distribution function (PDF) of the random walk. Using the Bethe ansatz we obtain exact formulas for the integer moments, and Fredholm determinant formulas for the Laplace transform of the directed polymer partition sum/random walk transition probability. The asymptotic analysis of these formulas at large time t is performed both (i) in a diffusive vicinity, , of the optimal direction (in space-time) chosen by the random walk, where the fluctuations of the PDF are found to be Gamma distributed; (ii) in the large deviations regime, , of the random walk, where the fluctuations of the logarithm of the PDF are found to grow with time as t ^1/3 and to be distributed according to the Tracy–Widom GUE distribution. Our exact results complement those of BC for the cumulative distribution function of the random walk in regime (ii), and in regime (i) they unveil a novel fluctuation behavior. We also discuss the crossover regime between (i) and (ii), identified as . Our results are confronted to extensive numerical simulations of the model.

We compare the time evolution of entanglement measures after local operator excitation in the critical Ising model with predictions from conformal field theory. For the spin operator and its descendants we find that Rényi entropies of a block of spins increase by a constant that matches the logarithm of the quantum dimension of the conformal family. However, for the energy operator we find a small constant contribution that differs from the conformal field theory answer equal to zero. We argue that the mismatch is caused by the subtleties in the identification between the local operators in conformal field theory and their lattice counterpart. Our results indicate that evolution of entanglement measures in locally excited states not only constraints this identification, but also can be used to extract non-trivial data about the conformal field theory that governs the critical point. We generalize our analysis to the Ising model away from the critical point, states with multiple local excitations, as well as the evolution of the relative entropy after local operator excitation and discuss universal features that emerge from numerics.

We determine the site and bond percolation thresholds for a system of disordered jammed sphere packings in the maximally random jammed state, generated by the Torquato–Jiao algorithm. For the site threshold, which gives the fraction of conducting versus non-conducting spheres necessary for percolation, we find , consistent with the 1979 value of Powell 0.310(5) and identical within errors to the threshold for the simple-cubic lattice, 0.311 608, which shares the same average coordination number of 6. In terms of the volume fraction ϕ, the threshold corresponds to a critical value . For the bond threshold, which apparently was not measured before, we find . To find these thresholds, we considered two shape-dependent universal ratios involving the size of the largest cluster, fluctuations in that size, and the second moment of the size distribution; we confirmed the ratios’ universality by also studying the simple-cubic lattice with a similar cubic boundary. The results are applicable to many problems including conductivity in random mixtures, glass formation, and drug loading in pharmaceutical tablets.

For disordered interacting quantum systems, the sensitivity of the spectrum to twisted boundary conditions depending on an infinitesimal angle ϕ can be used to analyze the many-body-localization transition. The sensitivity of the energy levels is measured by the level curvature , or more precisely by the Thouless dimensionless curvature , where is the level spacing that decays exponentially with the size L of the system. For instance in the middle of the spectrum of quantum spin chains of L spins, while the Drude weight studied recently by Filippone et al (arxiv:1606.07291v1) involves a different rescaling. The sensitivity of the eigenstates is characterized by the susceptibility of the fidelity . Both observables are distributed with probability distributions displaying power-law tails and , where β is the level repulsion index taking the values in the ergodic phase and in the localized phase. The amplitudes and of these two heavy tails are given by some moments of the off-diagonal matrix element of the local current operator between two nearby energy levels, whose probability distribution has been proposed as a criterion for the many-body-localization transition by Serbyn et al (2015 Phys. Rev. X 5 041047).

We obtain exact analytical results for the joint statistics of the gap and time interval between the first two maxima of long, one-dimensional, random walks (RWs) with bounded jumps. Both discrete and continuous time settings are considered. For discrete time RWs, we find that the joint distribution exhibits a concentration effect in the sense that a gap close to its maximum possible value is much more likely to be achieved by a single jump (i.e. by realizations with adjacent first two maxima) rather than by a long walk between the first two maxima. We show that a similar, albeit slightly different, concentration phenomenon also occurs for continuous time random walks (CTRWs). Our numerical simulations confirm this concentration effect.

We consider one dimensional diffusive search strategies subjected to external potentials. The location of a single target is drawn from a given probability density function (PDF) and is fixed for each stochastic realization of the process. We optimize the quality of the search strategy as measured by the mean first passage time (MFPT) to the position of the target. For a symmetric but otherwise arbitrary distribution we find the optimal potential that minimizes the MFPT. The minimal MFPT is given by a nonstandard measure of the dispersion, which can be related to the cumulative Rényi entropy. We compare optimal times in this model with optimal times obtained for the model of diffusion with stochastic resetting, in which the diffusive motion is interrupted by intermittent jumps (resets) to the initial position. Additionally, we discuss an analogy between our results and a so-called square-root principle.

We study the phase diagram of the triangular-lattice Q-state Potts model in the real -plane, where is the temperature variable. Our first goal is to provide an obviously missing feature of this diagram: the position of the antiferromagnetic critical curve. This curve turns out to possess a bifurcation point with two branches emerging from it, entailing important consequences for the global phase diagram. We have obtained accurate numerical estimates for the position of this curve by combining the transfer-matrix approach for strip graphs with toroidal boundary conditions and the recent method of critical polynomials. The second goal of this work is to study the corresponding RSOS model on the torus, for integer . We clarify its relation to the corresponding Potts model, in particular concerning the role of boundary conditions. For certain values of p, we identify several new critical points and regimes for the RSOS model and we initiate the study of the flows between the corresponding field theories.

The spin transport in the isotropic Heisenberg model in the sector with zero magnetization is generically super-diffusive. Despite that, we here demonstrate that for a specific set of domain-wall-like initial product states it can instead be diffusive. We theoretically explain the time evolution of such states by showing that in the limiting regime of weak spatial modulation they are approximately product states for very long times, and demonstrate that even in the case of larger spatial modulation the bipartite entanglement entropy grows only logarithmically in time. In the limiting regime we derive a simple closed equation governing the dynamics, which in the continuum limit and for the initial step magnetization profile results in a solution expressed in terms of Fresnel integrals.

We study in this paper the structure of solutions in the random hypergraph coloring problem and the phase transitions they undergo when the density of constraints is varied. Hypergraph coloring is a constraint satisfaction problem where each constraint includes K variables that must be assigned one out of q colors in such a way that there are no monochromatic constraints, i.e. there are at least two distinct colors in the set of variables belonging to every constraint. This problem generalizes naturally coloring of random graphs ( ) and bicoloring of random hypergraphs ( ), both of which were extensively studied in past works. The study of random hypergraph coloring gives us access to a case where both the size q of the domain of the variables and the arity K of the constraints can be varied at will. Our work provides explicit values and predictions for a number of phase transitions that were discovered in other constraint satisfaction problems but never evaluated before in hypergraph coloring. Among other cases we revisit the hypergraph bicoloring problem ( ) where we find that for and the colorability threshold is not given by the one-step-replica-symmetry-breaking analysis as the latter is unstable towards more levels of replica symmetry breaking. We also unveil and discuss the coexistence of two different 1RSB solutions in the case of , . Finally we present asymptotic expansions for the density of constraints at which various phase transitions occur, in the limit where q and/or K diverge.

We study a regular two-dimensional network of individuals playing the Prisonner’s Dilemma game with their neighbors, assigning to each individual the adoption of two different criteria to make a choice between cooperation and defection. For a fraction q  <  1 of her time the individual makes her choice by imitating those done by the nearest neighbors, with no payoff consideration. For a fraction the choice between cooperation and defection of an individual depends on the payoff difference between the most successful neighbor and her payoff. When q  =  1 for a special value of the imitation strength K, denoted as K _c, the model of social pressure generates criticality. When q  =  0 a large incentive to cheat yields the extinction of cooperation and a modest one leads to the survival of cooperation. We show that for the adoption of a very small value of ϵ exerts a bias in favor of either cooperation or defection, as a form of criticality-induced intelligence, which leads the system to select either the cooperation or the defection branch, when . Intermediate values of ϵ annihilated criticality-induced cognition and, as consequence, may favor defection choice even in the case when a wise payoff consideration is expected to yield the emergence of cooperation.

Accurate calculation of heteroclinic and homoclinic orbits can be of significant importance in some classes of dynamical system problems. Yet for very strongly chaotic systems initial deviations from a true orbit will be magnified by a large exponential rate making direct computational methods fail quickly. In this paper, a method is developed that avoids direct calculation of the orbit by making use of the well-known stability property of the invariant unstable and stable manifolds. Under an area-preserving map, this property assures that any initial deviation from the stable (unstable) manifold collapses onto them under inverse (forward) iterations of the map. Using a set of judiciously chosen auxiliary points on the manifolds, long orbit segments can be calculated using the stable and unstable manifold intersections of the heteroclinic (homoclinic) tangle. Detailed calculations using the example of the kicked rotor are provided along with verification of the relation between action differences and certain areas bounded by the manifolds.

We study an ensemble of random waves subject to the Aharonov–Bohm effect. The introduction of a point with a magnetic flux of arbitrary strength into a random wave ensemble gives a family of wavefunctions whose distribution of vortices (complex zeros) is responsible for the topological phase associated with the Aharonov–Bohm effect. Analytical expressions are found for the vortex number and topological charge densities as functions of distance from the flux point. Comparison is made with the distribution of vortices in the isotropic random wave model. The results indicate that as the flux approaches half-integer values, a vortex with the same sign as the fractional part of the flux is attracted to the flux point, merging with it in the limit of half-integer flux. We construct a statistical model of the neighbourhood of the flux point to study how this vortex-flux merger occurs in more detail. Other features of the Aharonov–Bohm vortex distribution are also explored.

Chaos is widely understood as being a consequence of sensitive dependence upon initial conditions. This is the result of an instability in phase space, which separates trajectories exponentially. Here, we demonstrate that this criterion should be refined. Despite their overall intrinsic instability, trajectories may be very strongly convergent in phase space over extremely long periods, as revealed by our investigation of a simple chaotic system (a realistic model for small bodies in a turbulent flow). We establish that this strong convergence is a multi-facetted phenomenon, in which the clustering is intense, widespread and balanced by lacunarity of other regions. Power laws, indicative of scale-free features, characterize the distribution of particles in the system. We use large-deviation and extreme-value statistics to explain the effect. Our results show that the interpretation of the ‘butterfly effect’ needs to be carefully qualified. We argue that the combination of mixing and clustering processes makes our specific model relevant to understanding the evolution of simple organisms. Lastly, this notion of convergent chaos, which implies the existence of conditions for which uncertainties are unexpectedly small, may also be relevant to the valuation of insurance and futures contracts.

We use statistical mechanical techniques to model the adaptive immune system, represented by lymphocyte networks in which B cells interact with T cells and antigen. We assume that B- and T-clones evolve in different thermal noise environments and on different timescales, and derive stationary distributions and study expansion of B clones for the case where these timescales are adiabatically separated. We compute characteristics of B-clone sizes, such as average concentrations, in parameter regimes where T-clone sizes are modelled as binary variables. This analysis is independent of the network topology, and its results are qualitatively consistent with experimental observations. To obtain the full distributions of B-clone sizes we assume further that the network topologies are random and locally equivalent to trees. This allows us to compete these distributions via the Bethe–Peierls approach. As an example we calculate B-clone distributions for immune models defined on random regular networks.

A major question in cell biology concerns the biophysical mechanism underlying delivery of newly synthesized macromolecules to specific targets within a cell. A recent modeling paper investigated this phenomenon in the context of vesicular delivery to en passant synapses in neurons (Bressloff and Levien 2015 Phys. Rev. Lett.). It was shown how reversibility in vesicular delivery to synapses could play a crucial role in achieving uniformity in the distribution of resources throughout an axon, which is consistent with experimental observations in C. elegans and Drosophila. In this work we generalize the previous model by investigating steady-state vesicular distributions on a Cayley tree, a disk, and a sphere. We show that for irreversible transport on a tree, branching increases the rate of decay of the steady-state distribution of vesicles. On the other hand, the steady-state profiles for reversible transport are similar to the 1D case. In the case of higher-dimensional geometries, we consider two distinct types of radially-symmetric microtubular network: (i) a continuum and (ii) a discrete set. In the continuum case, we model the motor-cargo dynamics using a phenomenologically-based advection-diffusion equation in polar (2D) and spherical (3D) coordinates. On the other-hand, in the discrete case, we derive the population model from a stochastic model of a single motor switching between ballistic motion and diffusion. For all of the geometries we find that reversibility in vesicular delivery to target sites allows for a more uniform distribution of vesicles, provided that cargo-carrying motors are not significantly slowed by their cargo. In each case we characterize the loss of uniformity as a function of the dispersion in velocities.

The speciation model proposed by Derrida and Higgs demonstrated that a sexually reproducing population can split into different species in the absence of natural selection or any type of geographic isolation, provided that mating is assortative and the number of genes involved in the process is infinite. Here we revisit this model and simulate it for finite genomes, focusing on the question of how many genes it actually takes to trigger neutral sympatric speciation. We find that, for typical parameters used in the original model, it takes the order of 10 ⁵ genes. We compare the results with a similar spatially explicit model where about 100 genes suffice for speciation. We show that when the number of genes is small the species that emerge are strongly segregated in space. For a larger number of genes, on the other hand, the spatial structure of the population is less important and the species distribution overlap considerably.

We study a model of interacting run-and-tumble random walkers operating under mutual hardcore exclusion on a one-dimensional lattice with periodic boundary conditions. We incorporate a finite, poisson-distributed, tumble duration so that a particle remains stationary whilst tumbling, thus generalising the persistent random walker model. We present the exact solution for the nonequilibrium stationary state of this system in the case of two random walkers. We find this to be characterised by two lengthscales, one arising from the jamming of approaching particles, and the other from one particle moving when the other is tumbling. The first of these lengthscales vanishes in a scaling limit where the continuous-space dynamics is recovered whilst the second remains finite. Thus the nonequilibrium stationary state reveals a rich structure of attractive, jammed and extended pieces.

Systems composed of large numbers of interacting agents often admit an effective coarse-grained description in terms of a multidimensional stochastic dynamical system, driven by small-amplitude intrinsic noise. In applications to biological, ecological, chemical and social dynamics it is common for these models to posses quantities that are approximately conserved on short timescales, in which case system trajectories are observed to remain close to some lower-dimensional subspace. Here, we derive explicit and general formulae for a reduced-dimension description of such processes that is exact in the limit of small noise and well-separated slow and fast dynamics. The Michaelis–Menten law of enzyme-catalysed reactions, and the link between the Lotka–Volterra and Wright–Fisher processes are explored as a simple worked examples. Extensions of the method are presented for infinite dimensional systems and processes coupled to non-Gaussian noise sources.

We construct a model of cell reprogramming (the conversion of fully differentiated cells to a state of pluripotency, known as induced pluripotent stem cells, or iPSCs) which builds on key elements of cell biology viz. cell cycles and cell lineages. Although reprogramming has been demonstrated experimentally, much of the underlying processes governing cell fate decisions remain unknown. This work aims to bridge this gap by modelling cell types as a set of hierarchically related dynamical attractors representing cell cycles. Stages of the cell cycle are characterised by the configuration of gene expression levels, and reprogramming corresponds to triggering transitions between such configurations. Two mechanisms were found for reprogramming in a two level hierarchy: cycle specific perturbations and a noise induced switching. The former corresponds to a directed perturbation that induces a transition into a cycle-state of a different cell type in the potency hierarchy (mainly a stem cell) whilst the latter is a priori undirected and could be induced, e.g. by a (stochastic) change in the cellular environment. These reprogramming protocols were found to be effective in large regimes of the parameter space and make specific predictions concerning reprogramming dynamics which are broadly in line with experimental findings.

We construct and study a version of the Berry–Keating operator corresponding to a classical Hamiltonian on a compact phase space, which we choose to be a two-dimensional torus. The operator is a Weyl quantisation of the classical Hamiltonian for an inverted harmonic oscillator, producing a difference operator on a finite, periodic lattice. We investigate the continuum and the infinite-volume limit of our model in conjunction with the semiclassical limit. Using semiclassical methods, we show that only a specific combination of the limits leads to a logarithmic mean spectral density as was anticipated by Berry and Keating.

We extend the so-called ‘single ring theorem’ (Feinberg and Zee 1997 Nucl. Phys. B 504 579), also known as the Haagerup–Larsen theorem (Haagerup and Larsen 2000 J. Funct. Anal. 176 331). We do this by showing that in the limit when the size of the matrix goes to infinity a particular correlator between left and right eigenvectors of the relevant non-hermitian matrix X, being the spectral density weighted by the squared eigenvalue condition number, is given by a simple formula involving only the radial spectral cumulative distribution function of X. We show that this object allows the calculation of the conditional expectation of the squared eigenvalue condition number. We give examples and provide a cross-check of the analytic prediction by the large scale numerics.

The quantum spin 1/2 XXZ chain with anisotropy parameter possesses a dynamic supersymmetry on the lattice. This supersymmetry and a generalisation to higher spin are investigated in the case of open spin chains. A family of non-diagonal boundary interactions that are compatible with the lattice supersymmetry and depend on several parameters is constructed. The cohomology of the corresponding supercharges is explicitly computed as a function of the parameters and the length of the chain. This cohomology is shown to be non-trivial for certain specific values of the parameters that lead to diagonal boundary interactions. For spin 1/2, they were previously studied by Fendley and Yang. The non-trivial cohomology implies that the spin-chain ground states are supersymmetry singlets. Special scalar products involving an arbitrary number of these supersymmetry singlets for chains of different lengths are exactly computed. In the case of spin 1/2, the scalar products are used to determine the logarithmic bipartite fidelity. Its scaling limit is shown to match the predictions of conformal field theory.

Motivated by the challenge of seeking a rigorous foundation for the bulk-boundary correspondence for free fermions, we introduce an algorithm for determining exactly the spectrum and a generalized-eigenvector basis of a class of banded block quasi-Toeplitz matrices that we call corner-modified. Corner modifications of otherwise arbitrary banded block-Toeplitz matrices capture the effect of boundary conditions and the associated breakdown of translational invariance. Our algorithm leverages the interplay between a non-standard, projector-based method of kernel determination (physically, a bulk-boundary separation) and families of linear representations of the algebra of matrix Laurent polynomials. Thanks to the fact that these representations act on infinite-dimensional carrier spaces in which translation symmetry is restored, it becomes possible to determine the eigensystem of an auxiliary projected block-Laurent matrix. This results in an analytic eigenvector Ansatz, independent of the system size, which we prove is guaranteed to contain the full solution of the original finite-dimensional problem. The actual solution is then obtained by imposing compatibility with a boundary matrix, whose shape is also independent of system size. As an application, we show analytically that eigenvectors of short-ranged fermionic tight-binding models may display power-law corrections to exponential behavior, and demonstrate the phenomenon for the paradigmatic Majorana chain of Kitaev.

The correlated Wishart model provides the standard benchmark when analyzing time series of any kind. Unfortunately, the real case, which is the most relevant one in applications, poses serious challenges for analytical calculations. Often these challenges are due to square root singularities which cannot be handled using common random matrix techniques. We present a new way to tackle this issue. Using supersymmetry, we carry out an anlaytical study which we support by numerical simulations. For large but finite matrix dimensions, we show that statistical properties of the fully correlated real Wishart model generically approach those of a correlated real Wishart model with doubled matrix dimensions and doubly degenerate empirical eigenvalues. This holds for the local and global spectral statistics. With Monte Carlo simulations we show that this is even approximately true for small matrix dimensions. We explicitly investigate the k-point correlation function as well as the distribution of the largest eigenvalue for which we find a surprisingly compact formula in the doubly degenerate case. Moreover we show that on the local scale the k-point correlation function exhibits the sine and the Airy kernel in the bulk and at the soft edges, respectively. We also address the positions and the fluctuations of the possible outliers in the data.

Recently, integrability conditions (ICs) in mutistate Landau-Zener (MLZ) theory were proposed [1]. They describe common properties of all known solved systems with linearly time-dependent Hamiltonians. Here we show that ICs enable efficient computer assisted search for new solvable MLZ models that span complexity range from several interacting states to mesoscopic systems with many-body dynamics and combinatorially large phase space. This diversity suggests that nontrivial solvable MLZ models are numerous. In addition, we refine the formulation of ICs and extend the class of solvable systems to models with points of multiple diabatic level crossing.

We study the semi-discrete directed polymer model introduced by O’Connell–Yor in its stationary regime, based on our previous work on the stationary q-totally asymmetric simple exclusion process ( q-TASEP) using a two-sided q-Whittaker process. We give a formula for the free energy distribution of the polymer model in terms of Fredholm determinant and show that the universal KPZ stationary distribution appears in the long time limit. We also consider the limit to the stationary KPZ equation and discuss the connections with previously found formulas.

We derive a closed formula for the Baker–Campbell–Hausdorff series expansion in the case of complex matrices. For arbitrary matrices A and B, and a matrix Z such that , our result expresses Z as a linear combination of A and B, their commutator , and the identity matrix I. The coefficients in this linear combination are functions of the traces and determinants of A and B, and the trace of their product. The derivation proceeds purely via algebraic manipulations of the given matrices and their products, making use of relations developed here, based on the Cayley–Hamilton theorem, as well as a characterization of the consequences of and/or its determinant being zero or otherwise. As a corollary of our main result we also derive a closed formula for the Zassenhaus expansion. We apply our results to several special cases, most notably the parametrization of the product of two matrices and a verification of the recent result of Van-Brunt and Visser (2015 J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 48 225207) for complex matrices, in this latter case deriving also the related Zassenhaus formula which turns out to be quite simple. We then show that this simple formula should be valid for all matrices and operators.

We generalize the method of computing functional determinants with a single excluded zero eigenvalue developed by McKane and Tarlie to differential operators with multiple zero eigenvalues. We derive general formulas for such functional determinants of matrix second order differential operators O with linearly independent zero modes. We separately discuss the cases of the homogeneous Dirichlet boundary conditions, when the number of zero modes cannot exceed r, and the case of twisted boundary conditions, including the periodic and anti-periodic ones, when the number of zero modes is bounded above by 2 r. In all cases the determinants with excluded zero eigenvalues can be expressed only in terms of the n zero modes and other or (depending on the boundary conditions) solutions of the homogeneous equation , in the spirit of Gel’fand–Yaglom approach. In instanton calculations, the contribution of the zero modes is taken into account by introducing the so-called collective coordinates. We show that there is a remarkable cancellation of a factor (involving scalar products of zero modes) between the Jacobian of the transformation to the collective coordinates and the functional fluctuation determinant with excluded zero eigenvalues. This cancellation drastically simplifies instanton calculations when one uses our formulas.

If a Hamiltonian of a quantum system is symmetric under space-time reflection, then the associated eigenvalues can be real. A conjugation operation for quantum states can then be defined in terms of space-time reflection, but the resulting Hilbert space inner product is not positive definite and gives rise to an interpretational difficulty. One way of resolving this difficulty is to introduce a superselection rule that excludes quantum states having negative norms. It is shown here that a quantum theory arising in this way gives an example of Kibble’s nonlinear quantum mechanics, with the property that the state space has a constant negative curvature. It then follows from the positive curvature theorem that the resulting quantum theory is not physically viable. This conclusion also has implications to other quantum theories obtained from the imposition of analogous superselection rules.

Any quantum resource theory is based on free states and free operations, i.e. states and operations which can be created and performed at no cost. In the resource theory of coherence free states are diagonal in some fixed basis, and free operations are those which cannot create coherence for some particular experimental realization. Recently, some problems of this approach have been discussed, and new sets of operations have been proposed to resolve these problems. We propose here the framework of genuine quantum coherence. This approach is based on a simple principle: we demand that a genuinely incoherent operation preserves all incoherent states. This framework captures coherence under additional constrains such as energy preservation and all genuinely incoherent operations are incoherent regardless of their particular experimental realization. We also introduce the full class of operations with this property, which we call fully incoherent. We analyze in detail the mathematical structure of these classes and also study possible state transformations. We show that deterministic manipulation is severely limited, even in the asymptotic settings. In particular, this framework does not have a unique golden unit, i.e. there is no single state from which all other states can be created deterministically with the free operations. This suggests that any reasonably powerful resource theory of coherence must contain free operations which can potentially create coherence in some experimental realization.

Dynamics and features of quantum systems can be drastically different from classical systems. Dissipation is understood as a general mechanism through which quantum systems may lose part or all of their quantum aspects. Here we discuss a method to analyze behaviors of dissipative quantum systems in an algebraic sense. This method employs a time-dependent product between system’s observables which is induced by the underlying dissipative dynamics. We argue that the long-time limit of the algebra of observables defined with this product yields a contractive algebra which reflects the loss of some quantum features of the dissipative system, and it bears relevant information about irreversibility. We illustrate this result through several examples of dissipation in various Markovian and non-Markovian systems.

Stators, which may be intuitively defined as ‘half states, half operators’ are mathematical objects which act on two Hilbert spaces and utilize entanglement to create remote operations and exchange information between two physical systems. In particular, they allow to induce effective dynamics on one physical system by acting on the other one, given they have properly been connected with the right stator. In this work, the concept of stators is generalized and formalized in a way that allows the utilization of stators for some physical problems based on symmetry groups, and in particular digital quantum simulation.

It is known that a necessary and sufficient condition for equality in the data processing inequality (DPI) for the quantum relative entropy is the existence of a recovery map. We show that equality in DPI for a sandwiched Rényi relative α-entropy with is also equivalent to this property. For the proof, we use an interpolating family of L _p -norms with respect to a state.

Two quantum channels are called compatible if they can be obtained as marginals from a single broadcasting channel; otherwise they are incompatible. We derive a characterization of the compatibility relation in terms of concatenation and conjugation, and we show that all pairs of sufficiently noisy quantum channels are compatible. The complement relation of incompatibility can be seen as a unifying aspect for several important quantum features, such as impossibility of universal broadcasting and unavoidable measurement disturbance. We show that the concepts of entanglement breaking channel and antidegradable channel can be completely characterized in terms compatibility.

We generalize techniques previously used to compute ground-state properties of one-dimensional noninteracting quantum gases to obtain exact results at finite temperature. We compute the order- n Rényi entropy to all orders in the fugacity in one, two, and three spatial dimensions. In arbitrary spatial dimensions, we provide closed-form expressions for its virial expansion up to next-to-leading order. In all of our results, we find explicit volume scaling in the high-temperature limit.

Different variants of a Bell inequality, such as CHSH and CH, are known to be equivalent when evaluated on nonsignaling outcome probability distributions. However, in experimental setups, the outcome probability distributions are estimated using a finite number of samples. Therefore the nonsignaling conditions are only approximately satisfied and the robustness of the violation depends on the chosen inequality variant. We explain that phenomenon using the decomposition of the space of outcome probability distributions under the action of the symmetry group of the scenario, and propose a method to optimize the statistical robustness of a Bell inequality. In the process, we describe the finite group composed of relabeling of parties, measurement settings and outcomes, and identify correspondences between the irreducible representations of this group and properties of outcome probability distributions such as normalization, signaling or having uniform marginals.

We present a quantum algorithm for simulating the dynamics of a first-quantized Hamiltonian in real space based on the truncated Taylor series algorithm. We avoid the possibility of singularities by applying various cutoffs to the system and using a high-order finite difference approximation to the kinetic energy operator. We find that our algorithm can simulate η interacting particles using a number of calculations of the pairwise interactions that scales, for a fixed spatial grid spacing, as , versus the time required by previous methods (assuming the number of orbitals is proportional to η), and scales super-polynomially better with the error tolerance than algorithms based on the Lie–Trotter–Suzuki product formula. Finally, we analyze discretization errors that arise from the spatial grid and show that under some circumstances these errors can remove the exponential speedups typically afforded by quantum simulation.

We give a separability criterion for three qubit states in terms of diagonal and anti-diagonal entries. This gives us a complete characterization of separability when all the entries are zero except for diagonal and anti-diagonals. The criterion is expressed in terms of a norm arising from anti-diagonal entries. We compute this norm in several cases, so that we get criteria with which we can decide the separability by routine computations.

Open quantum systems are often represented by non-Hermitian effective Hamiltonians that have complex eigenvalues associated with resonances. In previous work we showed that the evolution of tight-binding open systems can be represented by an explicitly time-reversal symmetric expansion involving all the discrete eigenstates of the effective Hamiltonian. These eigenstates include complex-conjugate pairs of resonant and anti-resonant states. An initially time-reversal-symmetric state contains equal contributions from the resonant and anti-resonant states. Here we show that as the state evolves in time, the symmetry between the resonant and anti-resonant states is automatically broken, with resonant states becoming dominant for and anti-resonant states becoming dominant for . Further, we show that there is a time-scale for this symmetry-breaking, which we associate with the ‘Zeno time’. We also compare the time-reversal symmetric expansion with an asymmetric expansion used previously by several researchers. We show how the present time-reversal symmetric expansion bypasses the non-Hilbert nature of the resonant and anti-resonant states, which previously introduced exponential divergences into the asymmetric expansion.

An integrable deformation of the well-known Neumann–Rosochatius system is studied by considering generalised bosonic spinning solutions on the η-deformed background. For this integrable model we construct a Lax representation and a set of integrals of motion that ensures its Liouville integrability. These integrals of motion correspond to the deformed analogues of the Neumann–Rosochatius integrals and generalise the previously found integrals for the η-deformed Neumann and geodesic systems. Finally, we briefly comment on consistent truncations of this model.

In this note we provide some details on the quasi-local field redefinitions which map interactions extracted from Vasiliev’s equations to those obtained via holographic reconstruction. Without loss of generality, we focus on the source to the Fronsdal equations induced by current interactions quadratic in the higher-spin linearised curvatures.

We revisit the problem of interactions of higher-spin fields in flat space. We argue that all no-go theorems can be avoided by the light-cone approach, which results in more interaction vertices as compared to the usual covariant approaches. It is stressed that there exist two-derivative gravitational couplings of higher-spin fields. We show that some reincarnation of the equivalence principle still holds for higher-spin fields—the strength of gravitational interaction does not depend on spin. Moreover, it follows from the results by Metsaev that there exists a complete chiral higher-spin theory in four dimensions. We give a simple derivation of this theory and show that the four-point scattering amplitude vanishes. Also, we reconstruct the quartic vertex of the scalar field in the unitary higher-spin theory, which turns out to be perturbatively local.

We address the question of how to represent an interacting action for a tower of conformal higher spin fields in a form covariant with respect to a background metric. We use the background metric to define the star product which plays a central role in the definition of the corresponding gauge transformations. By analogy with the kinetic term in the 4-derivative Weyl gravity action expanded near an on-shell background one expects that the kinetic term in such an action should be gauge-invariant in a Bach-flat metric. We demonstrate this fact to first order in expansion in powers of the curvature of the background metric. This generalizes the result of arXiv:1404.7452 for spin 3 case to all conformal higher spins. We also comment on a possibility of extending this claim to terms quadratic in the curvature and discuss the appearance of background-dependent mixing terms in the quadratic part of the conformal higher spin action.

The Taubes equation for Abelian Higgs vortices is generalised to five distinct U(1) vortex equations. These include the Popov and Jackiw–Pi vortex equations, and two further equations. The Baptista metric, a conformal rescaling of the background metric by the squared Higgs field, gives insight into these vortices, and shows that vortices can be interpreted as conical singularities superposed on the background geometry. When the background has a constant curvature adapted to the vortex type, then the vortex equation is integrable by a reduction to Liouville’s equation, and the Baptista metric has a constant curvature too, apart from its conical singularities. The conical geometry is fairly easy to visualise in some cases.

The quest to find a nonperturbative formulation of topological string theory has recently seen two unrelated developments. On the one hand, via quantization of the mirror curve associated to a toric Calabi–Yau background, it has been possible to give a nonperturbative definition of the topological-string partition function. On the other hand, using techniques of resurgence and transseries, it has been possible to extend the string (asymptotic) perturbative expansion into a transseries involving nonperturbative instanton sectors. Within the specific example of the local toric Calabi–Yau threefold, the present work shows how the Borel–Padé–Écalle resummation of this resurgent transseries, alongside occurrence of Stokes phenomenon, matches the string-theoretic partition function obtained via quantization of the mirror curve. This match is highly non-trivial, given the unrelated nature of both nonperturbative frameworks, signaling at the existence of a consistent underlying structure.

The lambda model is a one parameter deformation of the principal chiral model that arises when regularizing the non-compactness of a non-abelian T dual in string theory. It is a current–current deformation of a WZW model that is known to be integrable at the classical and quantum level. The standard techniques of the quantum inverse scattering method cannot be applied because the Poisson bracket is non ultra-local. Inspired by an approach of Faddeev and Reshetikhin, we show that in this class of models, there is a way to deform the symplectic structure of the theory leading to a much simpler theory that is ultra-local and can be quantized on the lattice whilst preserving integrability. This lattice theory takes the form of a generalized spin chain that can be solved by standard algebraic Bethe Ansatz techniques. We then argue that the IR limit of the lattice theory lies in the universality class of the lambda model implying that the spin chain provides a way to apply the quantum inverse scattering method to this non ultra-local theory. This points to a way of applying the same ideas to other lambda models and potentially the string world-sheet theory in the gauge-gravity correspondence.

We study operator insertions into the BPS Wilson loop in SYM theory and determine their two-point coefficients, anomalous dimensions and structure constants. The calculation is done for the first few lowest dimension insertions and relies on known results for the expectation value of a smooth Wilson loop. In addition to the particular coefficients that we calculate, our study elucidates the connection between deformations of the line and operator insertions and between the vacuum expectation value of the line and the CFT data of the insertions.

We compute genus two partition functions in two-dimensional conformal field theories at large central charge, focusing on surfaces that give the third Rényi entropy of two intervals. We compute this for generalized free theories and for symmetric orbifolds, and compare it to the result in pure gravity. We find a new phase transition if the theory contains a light operator of dimension . This means in particular that unlike the second Rényi entropy, the third one is no longer universal.

We consider the twistor description of conformal higher spin theories and give twistor space actions for the self-dual sector of theories with spin greater than two that produce the correct flat space-time spectrum. We identify a ghost-free subsector, analogous to the embedding of Einstein gravity with cosmological constant in Weyl gravity, which generates the unique spin- s three-point anti-MHV amplitude consistent with Poincaré invariance and helicity constraints.

By including interactions between the infinite tower of higher-spin fields we give a geometric interpretation to the twistor equations of motion as the integrability condition for a holomorphic structure on an infinite jet bundle. Finally, we conjecture anti-self-dual interaction terms which give an implicit definition of a twistor action for the full conformal higher spin theory.

We propose an alternative formulation for the exact relations in three-dimensional homogeneous turbulence using two-point statistics. Our finding is illustrated with incompressible hydrodynamic, standard and Hall magnetohydrodynamic turbulence. In this formulation, the cascade rate of an inviscid invariant of turbulence can be expressed simply in terms of mixed second-order structure functions. Besides the usual variables like the velocity , vorticity , magnetic field and the current , the vectors , and are also found to play a key role in the turbulent cascades. The current methodology offers a simple algebraic form which is specially interesting to study anisotropic space plasmas like the solar wind, with, a faster statistical convergence than the classical laws written in terms of third-order correlators.

We make a detailed comparison between the Navier–Stokes equations and their dynamically scaled counterpart, the so-called Leray equations. The Navier–Stokes equations are invariant under static scaling transforms, but are not generally invariant under dynamic scaling transforms. We will study how closely they can be brought together using the critical dependent variables and discuss the implications on the regularity problems. Assuming that the Navier–Stokes equations written in the vector potential have a solution that blows up at t = 1, we derive the Leray equations by dynamic scaling. We observe: (1) the Leray equations have only one term extra on top of those of the Navier–Stokes equations; (2) we can recast the Navier–Stokes equations as a Wiener path integral and the Leray equations as another Ornstein–Uhlenbeck path integral. Using the Maruyama–Girsanov theorem, both equations take the identical form modulo the Maruyama–Girsanov density, which is valid up to by the Novikov condition; (3) the global solution of the Leray equations is given by a finite-dimensional projection of a functional of an Ornstein–Uhlenbeck process and a probability measure. If remains smooth beyond t = 1 under an absolute continuous change of the probability measure, we can rule out finite-time blowup by contradiction. There are two cases: (A) given by a finite number of Wiener integrals, and (B) otherwise. Ruling out blowup in (A) is straightforward. For (B), a condition based on a limit passage in the Picard iterations is identified for such a contradiction to come out. The whole argument equally holds in for any .

The two-point correlation tensor of small-scale fluctuations of magnetic field in a two-dimensional chaotic flow is studied. The analytic approach is developed in the framework of the Kraichnan–Kazantsev model. It is shown that the growth of the field fluctuations takes place in an essentially resistive regime and stops at large times in accordance with the so-called anti-dynamo theorems. The value of is enhanced in the course of the evolution by the magnetic Prandtl number.

We study self-similar solutions of the kinetic equation for MHD wave turbulence derived in (Galtier S et al 2000 J. Plasma Phys. 63 447–88). Motivated by finding the asymptotic behaviour of solutions for initial value problems, we formulate a nonlinear eigenvalue problem comprising in finding a number such that the self-similar shape function would have a power-law asymptotic at low values of the self-similar variable η and would be the fastest decaying positive solution at . We prove that the solution of this problem has a tail decaying as a power-law, and not exponentially or super-exponentially. We present a relationship between the power-law exponents in the regions and , and an integral relation for and . We confirm these relationships by solving numerically the nonlinear eigenvalue problem, and find that .

We use Kaufman’s spinor method to calculate the bulk, surface and corner free energies of the anisotropic square lattice zero-field Ising model for the ordered ferromagnetic case. For our results of course agree with the early work of Onsager, McCoy and Wu. We also find agreement with the conjectures made by Vernier and Jacobsen (VJ) for the isotropic case. We note that the corner free energy f _c depends only on the elliptic modulus k that enters the working, and not on the argument v, which means that VJ’s conjecture applies for the full anisotropic model. The only aspect of this paper that is new is the actual derivation of f _c, but by reporting all four free energies together we can see interesting structures linking them.

Integrability is believed to underlie the correspondence with sixteen supercharges. We elucidate the role of massless modes within this integrable framework. Firstly, we find the dressing factors that enter the massless and mixed-mass worldsheet S matrix. Secondly, we derive a set of all-loop Bethe Equations for the closed strings, determine their symmetries and weak-coupling limit. Thirdly, we investigate the underlying Yangian symmetry in the massless sector and show that it fits into the general framework of Yangian integrability. In addition, we compare our S matrix in the near-relativistic limit with recent perturbative worldsheet calculations of Sundin and Wulff.

We review some of the techniques used to study the dynamics of disordered systems subject to both quenched and fast (thermal) noise. Starting from the Martin–Siggia–Rose/Janssen–De Dominicis–Peliti path integral formalism for a single variable stochastic dynamics, we provide a pedagogical survey of the perturbative, i.e. diagrammatic, approach to dynamics and how this formalism can be used for studying soft spin models. We review the supersymmetric formulation of the Langevin dynamics of these models and discuss the physical implications of the supersymmetry. We also describe the key steps involved in studying the disorder-averaged dynamics. Finally, we discuss the path integral approach for the case of hard Ising spins and review some recent developments in the dynamics of such kinetic Ising models.

We study integrable models with symmetry and solvable by nested algebraic Bethe ansatz. We obtain a determinant representation for scalar products of Bethe vectors, when the Bethe parameters obey some relations weaker than the Bethe equations. This representation allows us to find the norms of on-shell Bethe vectors and obtain determinant formulas for form factors of the diagonal entries of the monodromy matrix.

We review the structure of the conservation laws in noninteracting spin chains and unveil a formal expression for the corresponding currents. We briefly discuss how interactions affect the picture. In the second part, we explore the effects of a localized defect. We show that the emergence of spontaneous currents near the defect undermines any description of the late-time dynamics by means of a stationary state in a finite chain. In particular, the diagonal ensemble does not work. Finally, we provide numerical evidence that simple generic localized defects are not sufficient to induce thermalization.

Motivated by recent work on quantum integrable models without U(1) symmetry, we show that the sl(2) Hirota equation admits a Lax representation with inhomogeneous terms. The compatibility of the auxiliary linear problem leads to a new consistent family of Hirota-like equations.

The theory of quantum quenches in near-critical one-dimensional systems formulated in Delfino (2014 J. Phys. A: Math. Theor. 402001) yields analytic predictions for the dynamics, unveils a qualitative difference between non-interacting and interacting systems, with undamped oscillations of one-point functions occurring only in the latter case, and explains the presence and role of different time scales. Here we examine additional aspects, determining in particular the relaxation value of one-point functions for small quenches. For a class of quenches we relate this value to the scaling dimensions of the operators. We argue that the E ₈ spectrum of the Ising chain can be more accessible through a quench than at equilibrium, while for a quench of the plane anisotropy in the XYZ chain we obtain that the one-point function of the quench operator switches from damped to undamped oscillations at .

100 years after Smoluchowski introduced his approach to stochastic processes, they are now at the basis of mathematical and physical modeling in cellular biology: they are used for example to analyse and to extract features from a large number (tens of thousands) of single molecular trajectories or to study the diffusive motion of molecules, proteins or receptors. Stochastic modeling is a new step in large data analysis that serves extracting cell biology concepts. We review here Smoluchowski’s approach to stochastic processes and provide several applications for coarse-graining diffusion, studying polymer models for understanding nuclear organization and finally, we discuss the stochastic jump dynamics of telomeres across cell division and stochastic gene regulation.

This article presents a review of recent developments on various aspects of the quantum Rabi model. Particular emphasis is given on the exact analytic solution obtained in terms of confluent Heun functions. The analytic solutions for various generalisations of the quantum Rabi model are also discussed. Results are also reviewed on the level statistics and the dynamics of the quantum Rabi model. The article concludes with an introductory overview of several experimental realisations of the quantum Rabi model. An outlook towards future developments is also given.

We consider the Ising model between 2 and 4 dimensions perturbed by quenched disorder in the strength of the interaction between nearby spins. In the interval 2  <   d  <  4 this disorder is a relevant perturbation that drives the system to a new fixed point of the renormalization group. At d  =  2 such disorder is marginally irrelevant and can be studied using conformal perturbation theory. Combining conformal perturbation theory with recent results from the conformal bootstrap we compute some scaling exponents in an expansion around d  =  2. If one trusts these computations also in d  =  3, one finds results consistent with experimental data and Monte Carlo simulations. In addition, we perform a direct uncontrolled computation in d  =  3 using new results for low-lying operator dimensions and OPE coefficients in the 3d Ising model. We compare these new methods with previous studies. Finally, we comment about the O(2) model in d  =  3, where we predict a large logarithmic correction to the infrared scaling of disorder.

Complex physical dynamics can often be modeled as a Markov jump process between mesoscopic configurations. When jumps between mesoscopic states are mediated by thermodynamic reservoirs, the time-irreversibility of the jump process is a measure of the physical dissipation. We rederive a recently introduced inequality relating the dissipation rate to current fluctuations in jump processes. We then adapt these results to diffusion processes via a limiting procedure, reaffirming that diffusions saturate the inequality. Finally, we study the impact of spatial coarse-graining in a two-dimensional model with driven diffusion. By observing fluctuations in coarse-grained currents, it is possible to infer a lower bound on the total dissipation rate, including the dissipation associated with hidden dynamics. The tightness of this bound depends on how well the spatial coarse-graining detects dynamical events that are driven by large thermodynamic forces.

We study the second-order phase transition in the d-dimensional Ising model with long-range interactions decreasing as a power of the distance . For s below some known value , the transition is described by a conformal field theory without a local stress tensor operator, with critical exponents varying continuously as functions of s. At , the phase transition crosses over to the short-range universality class. While the location of this crossover has been known for 40 years, its physics has not been fully understood, the main difficulty being that the standard description of the long-range critical point is strongly coupled at the crossover. In this paper we propose another field-theoretic description which, on the contrary, is weakly coupled near the crossover. We use this description to clarify the nature of the crossover and make predictions about the critical exponents. That the same long-range critical point can be reached from two different UV descriptions provides a new example of infrared duality.

The two pillars of rational conformal field theory and rational vertex operator algebras are modularity of characters, and the interpretation of its category of modules as a modular tensor category. Overarching these pillars is the Verlinde formula. In this paper we consider the more general class of logarithmic conformal field theories and C ₂-cofinite vertex operator algebras. We suggest logarithmic variants of those pillars and of Verlinde’s formula. We illustrate our ideas with the -triplet algebras and the symplectic fermions.

In this review, we give a pedagogical introduction to a systematic framework for constructing and analyzing supersymmetric field theories on curved spacetime manifolds. The framework is based on the use of off-shell supergravity background fields. We present the general principles, which broadly apply to theories with different amounts of supersymmetry in diverse dimensions, as well as specific applications to theories in four dimensions and their three-dimensional cousins with supersymmetry.

We review exact results in supersymmetric gauge theories defined on S ⁴ and its deformation. We first summarize the construction of rigid SUSY theories on curved backgrounds based on off-shell supergravity, then explain how to apply the localization principle to supersymmetric path integrals. Closed formulae for partition function as well as expectation values of non-local BPS observables are presented.

We find and analyse the exact solution of two friendly walks, modelling polymers, confined between two parallel walls in a two-dimensional strip (or slit) where the polymers interact with each other via an attractive contact interaction. In the bulk, where the polymers are always far from any walls, there is an unzipping transition between phases where the two walks drift away for low attractive fugacity (high temperatures) and bind together for high attractive fugacities (low temperatures). Previously this has been used to model the denaturation of DNA. In a strip the transition is not sharp. However, we demonstrate that there is an abrupt change in the repulsive force exerted on the walls of the strip that can be calculated exactly. We suggest that this change in the force could be exploited to provide an experimental signature of the unzipping transition.

In this paper a comprehensive review is given on the current status of achievements in the geometric aspects of the Painlevé equations, with a particular emphasis on the discrete Painlevé equations. The theory is controlled by the geometry of certain rational surfaces called the spaces of initial values, which are characterized by eight point configuration on and classified according to the degeneration of points. We give a systematic description of the equations and their various properties, such as affine Weyl group symmetries, hypergeometric solutions and Lax pairs under this framework, by using the language of Picard lattice and root systems. We also provide with a collection of basic data; equations, point configurations/root data, Weyl group representations, Lax pairs, and hypergeometric solutions of all possible cases.

Stochastic fluctuations of molecule numbers are ubiquitous in biological systems. Important examples include gene expression and enzymatic processes in living cells. Such systems are typically modelled as chemical reaction networks whose dynamics are governed by the chemical master equation. Despite its simple structure, no analytic solutions to the chemical master equation are known for most systems. Moreover, stochastic simulations are computationally expensive, making systematic analysis and statistical inference a challenging task. Consequently, significant effort has been spent in recent decades on the development of efficient approximation and inference methods. This article gives an introduction to basic modelling concepts as well as an overview of state of the art methods. First, we motivate and introduce deterministic and stochastic methods for modelling chemical networks, and give an overview of simulation and exact solution methods. Next, we discuss several approximation methods, including the chemical Langevin equation, the system size expansion, moment closure approximations, time-scale separation approximations and hybrid methods. We discuss their various properties and review recent advances and remaining challenges for these methods. We present a comparison of several of these methods by means of a numerical case study and highlight some of their respective advantages and disadvantages. Finally, we discuss the problem of inference from experimental data in the Bayesian framework and review recent methods developed the literature. In summary, this review gives a self-contained introduction to modelling, approximations and inference methods for stochastic chemical kinetics.

Real-world systems can be strongly influenced by time delays occurring in self-coupling interactions, due to unavoidable finite signal propagation velocities. When the delays become significantly long, complicated high-dimensional phenomena appear and a simple extension of the methods employed in low-dimensional dynamical systems is not feasible. We review the general theory developed in this case, describing the main destabilization mechanisms, the use of visualization tools, and commenting on the most important and effective dynamical indicators as well as their properties in different regimes. We show how a suitable approach, based on a comparison with spatio-temporal systems, represents a powerful instrument for disclosing the very basic mechanism of long-delay systems. Various examples from different models and a series of recent experiments are reported.

The curse of dimensionality associated with the Hilbert space of spin systems provides a significant obstruction to the study of condensed matter systems. Tensor networks have proven an important tool in attempting to overcome this difficulty in both the numerical and analytic regimes.

These notes form the basis for a seven lecture course, introducing the basics of a range of common tensor networks and algorithms. In particular, we cover: introductory tensor network notation, applications to quantum information, basic properties of matrix product states, a classification of quantum phases using tensor networks, algorithms for finding matrix product states, basic properties of projected entangled pair states, and multiscale entanglement renormalisation ansatz states.

The lectures are intended to be generally accessible, although the relevance of many of the examples may be lost on students without a background in many-body physics/quantum information. For each lecture, several problems are given, with worked solutions in an ancillary file.

Stochasticity can play an important role in the dynamics of biologically relevant populations. These span a broad range of scales: from intra-cellular populations of molecules to population of cells and then to groups of plants, animals and people. Large deviations in stochastic population dynamics—such as those determining population extinction, fixation or switching between different states—are presently in a focus of attention of statistical physicists. We review recent progress in applying different variants of dissipative WKB approximation (after Wentzel, Kramers and Brillouin) to this class of problems. The WKB approximation allows one to evaluate the mean time and/or probability of population extinction, fixation and switches resulting from either intrinsic (demographic) noise, or a combination of the demographic noise and environmental variations, deterministic or random. We mostly cover well-mixed populations, single and multiple, but also briefly consider populations on heterogeneous networks and spatial populations. The spatial setting also allows one to study large fluctuations of the speed of biological invasions. Finally, we briefly discuss possible directions of future work.

One of the most widely known building blocks of modern physics is Heisenberg’s indeterminacy principle. Among the different statements of this fundamental property of the full quantum mechanical nature of physical reality, the uncertainty relation for energy and time has a special place. Its interpretation and its consequences have inspired continued research efforts for almost a century. In its modern formulation, the uncertainty relation is understood as setting a fundamental bound on how fast any quantum system can evolve. In this topical review we describe important milestones, such as the Mandelstam–Tamm and the Margolus–Levitin bounds on the quantum speed limit, and summarise recent applications in a variety of current research fields—including quantum information theory, quantum computing, and quantum thermodynamics amongst several others. To bring order and to provide an access point into the many different notions and concepts, we have grouped the various approaches into the minimal time approach and the geometric approach, where the former relies on quantum control theory, and the latter arises from measuring the distinguishability of quantum states. Due to the volume of the literature, this topical review can only present a snapshot of the current state-of-the-art and can never be fully comprehensive. Therefore, we highlight but a few works hoping that our selection can serve as a representative starting point for the interested reader.