Power-Law Inflation in Spacetimes Without Symmetry

We consider models of accelerated cosmological expansion described by the Einstein equations coupled to a nonlinear scalar field with a suitable exponential potential. We show that homogeneous and isotropic solutions are stable under small nonlinear perturbations without any symmetry assumptions. Our proof is based on results on the nonlinear stability of de Sitter spacetime and Kaluza-Klein reduction techniques.     

Influence of porous-coating thickness on the stability and transition of flat-plate supersonic boundary layer

In the present study, we examined, both experimentally and theoretically, the influence of porouscoating thickness on the stability and laminar-turbulent transition of flat-plate supersonic boundary layer at free-stream Mach number M_∞ = 2. A qualitative agreement between the data calculated by the linear theory of stability and the experimental data on the transition obtained for models with different porous-coating thicknesses was established. We show that with decreasing (within a certain interval) the porouscoating thickness the boundary layer becomes more stable to perturbations, and the laminar-turbulent transition, more delayed.     

Stable Quasicrystalline Ground States

We give strong evidence that noncrystalline materials such as quasicrystals or incommensurate solids are not exceptions, but rather are generic in some regions of phase space. We show this by constructing classical lattice-gas models with translation-invariant finite-range interactions and with a unique quasiperiodic ground state which is stable against small perturbations of two-body potentials. More generally, we provide a criterion for stability of nonperiodic ground states.     

Stability of global monopoles revisited

We analyze the stability of global O(3) monopoles in the infinite cutoff (or scalar mass) limit. We obtain the perturbation equations and prove that the spherically symmetric solution is classically stable (or neutrally stable) to axially symmetric, square integrable, or power-law decay perturbations. Moreover, we show that, in spite of the existence of a conserved topological charge, the energy barrier between the monopole and the vacuum is finite even in the limit where the cutoff is taken to infinity. This feature is specific of global monopoles and independent of the details of the scalar potential.     

Scarring on Invariant Manifolds for Perturbed Quantized Hyperbolic Toral Automorphisms

We exhibit scarring for the quantization of certain nonlinear ergodic maps on the torus. We consider perturbations of hyperbolic toral automorphisms preserving certain co-isotropic submanifolds. The classical dynamics is ergodic, hence, in the semiclassical limit almost all quantum eigenstates converge to the volume measure of the torus. Nevertheless, we show that for each of the invariant submanifolds, there are also eigenstates which localize and converge to the volume measure of the corresponding submanifold.     

Torus destruction in a nonsmooth noninvertible map

We consider here a nonsmooth noninvertible map and report new route to chaos from a resonance loop torus which is not homeomorphic to circle but only endomorphic to it. We have found that cusp torus cannot develop before the onset of chaos, though the loop torus appears. The destruction of the loop torus occurs through homoclinic bifurcation in the presence of an infinite number of nonsmooth loops. We show that owing to the nonsmooth noninvertible nature of the map, the stable sets can bifurcate to form nonsmooth closed loops. However, that cannot be interpreted directly as basin bifurcation.     

Stability of bumps in piecewise smooth neural fields with nonlinear adaptation

We study the linear stability of stationary bumps in piecewise smooth neural fields with local negative feedback in the form of synaptic depression or spike frequency adaptation. The continuum dynamics is described in terms of a nonlocal integrodifferential equation, in which the integral kernel represents the spatial distribution of synaptic weights between populations of neurons whose mean firing rate is taken to be a Heaviside function of local activity. Discontinuities in the adaptation variable associated with a bump solution means that bump stability cannot be analyzed by constructing the Evans function for a network with a sigmoidal gain function and then taking the high-gain limit. In the case of synaptic depression, we show that linear stability can be formulated in terms of solutions to a system of pseudo-linear equations. We thus establish that sufficiently strong synaptic depression can destabilize a bump that is stable in the absence of depression. These instabilities are dominated by shift perturbations that evolve into traveling pulses. In the case of spike frequency adaptation, we show that for a wide class of perturbations the activity and adaptation variables decouple in the linear regime, thus allowing us to explicitly determine stability in terms of the spectrum of a smooth linear operator. We find that bumps are always unstable with respect to this class of perturbations, and destabilization of a bump can result in either a traveling pulse or a spatially localized breather.     

Coupling and stability of bright holographic soliton pairs

The coupling effect and stability property of symmetric bright holographic soliton pairs have been investigated numerically. Results show that when any one of the two solitary beams from a pair is perturbed in amplitude or width, both beams will be affected by such a perturbation via the coupling effect between the beams, thus resulting in both beams propagating in the medium without a constant shape; however, these two solitary beams are still stable against small perturbations. When both solitary beams from a pair are perturbed simultaneously in amplitude, for some given absolute values of the perturbations, the two beams are stable against these perturbations if both beams are perturbed with the same sign, whereas are unstable with the different signs. When the two beams are simultaneously perturbed in width, both beams exhibit their stability property similar to that when only one beam is perturbed no matter whether both perturbations have the same or different signs.     

parafermionic current algebras of torus/orbifold models

We study the quantum field theory of bosons on the torus and the orbifold. When the torus is in special moduli, the representations of the theory are equivalent to those of some rational conformal field theories. We show that there are parafermonic current algebras in Z_N orbifold models.     

Stability of the curvature perturbation in dark sectors' mutual interacting models

We consider perturbations in a cosmological model with a small coupling between dark energy and dark matter. We prove that the stability of the curvature perturbation depends on the type of coupling between dark sectors. When the dark energy is of quintessence type, if the coupling is proportional to the dark matter energy density, it will drive the instability in the curvature perturbations; however if the coupling is proportional to the energy density of dark energy, there is room for the stability in the curvature perturbations. When the dark energy is of phantom type, the perturbations are always stable, no matter whether the coupling is proportional to the one or the other energy density.     

Dynamics of simple one-dimensional maps under perturbation

It is known that the one-dimensional discrete maps having single-humped nonlinear functions with the same order of maximum belong to a single class that shows the universal behaviour of a cascade of period-doubling bifurcations from stability to chaos with the change of parameters. This paper concerns studies of the dynamics exhibited by some of these simple one-dimensional maps under constant perturbations. We show that the “universality” in their dynamics breaks down under constant perturbations with the logistic map showing different dynamics compared to the other maps. Thus these maps can be classified into two types with respect to their response to constant perturbations. Unidimensional discrete maps are interchangeably used as models for specific processes in many disciplines due to the similarity in their dynamics. These results prove that the differences in their behaviour under perturbations need to be taken into consideration before using them for modelling any real process.     

Rigorous three-dimensional theory of the parametric excitation of space-charge waves in semiconductors

We analyze the stability against parametric excitation of space-charge waves of the space-charge field induced in a semiconducting crystal by a traveling light grating. We show that when the grating velocity is low, an important element of the analysis is the allowance for higher Fourier harmonics of the field. By combining analytic and numerical methods we study the stability against an increase in the amplitude of small three-dimensional perturbations of a general type. We find that instability is possible only within a single range of light-pattern velocities and that it leads to selective excitation of one-dimensional perturbations. Finally, we use the results of our analysis to interpret experiments on the generation of spatial subharmonics in sillenite crystals. Zh. éksp. Teor. Fiz. 114, 1034–1046 (September 1998)     

Stability of closed timelike curves in the Gödel universe

We study, in some detail, the linear stability of closed timelike curves in the Gödel universe. We show that these curves are stable. We present a simple extension (deformation) of the Gödel metric that contains a class of closed timelike curves similar to the ones associated to the original metric. This extension correspond to the addition of matter whose energy-momentum tensor is analyzed. We find the conditions to have matter that satisfies the usual energy conditions. We study the stability of closed timelike curves in the presence of usual matter as well as in the presence of exotic matter (matter that does satisfy the above mentioned conditions). We find that the closed timelike curves in the Gödel universe with or without the inclusion of regular or exotic matter are stable under linear perturbations. We also find a sort of structural stability.     

Entropic effects in the very low temperature regime of diluted Ising spin glasses with discrete couplings

We study link-diluted +/-J Ising spin glass models on the hierarchical lattice and on a three-dimensional lattice close to the percolation threshold. We show that previously computed zero temperature fixed points are unstable with respect to temperature perturbations and do not belong to any critical line in the dilution-temperature plane. We discuss implications of the presence of such spurious unstable fixed points on the use of optimization algorithms, and we show how entropic effects should be taken into account to obtain the right physical behavior and critical points.     

Diffusion of magnetic field lines in a confined RFP plasma

Summary  A volume-preserving symplectic map is proposed to describe the magnetic field lines when the Taylor equilibriumis perturbed in a generic way. The standard scenario is observed by varying the perturbation strength, but the statistical properties in the chaotic regions are not simple due to the presence of boundaries and remnants of invariant structures. Simpler models of volume-preserving maps are proposed. The slowly modulated standard map captures the basic topological and statistical features. The diffusion is analytically described for large perturbations (above the break-up of the last KAM torus) in terms of correlation functions and for small perturbations using the adiabatic theory, provided that the modulation is sufficiently slow.     

Oscillations and island evolution in radiating diffusion flames

We show how an island (isola) evolves out of the usual S-curve of steady states of diffusion flames when radiation losses are accounted for and how it eventually disappears when radiation increases further. At small activation temperatures there are never any islands. We show that stable oscillations evolve first out of perturbations of steady states on the S-curve at large Damköhler numbers. Only if the activation temperature is large enough do they also appear on the islands. The region of the stable oscillations grows larger as activation temperature decreases.     

Stability of Semiclassical Gravity Solutions with Respect to Quantum Metric Fluctuations

We discuss the stability of semiclassical gravity solutions with respect to small quantum corrections by considering the quantum fluctuations of the metric perturbations around the semiclassical solution. We call the attention to the role played by the symmetrized 2-point quantum correlation function for the metric perturbations, which can be naturally decomposed into two separate contributions: intrinsic and induced fluctuations. We show that traditional criteria on the stability of semiclassical gravity are incomplete because these criteria based on the linearized semiclassical Einstein equation can only provide information on the expectation value and the intrinsic fluctuations of the metric perturbations. By contrast, the framework of stochastic semiclassical gravity provides a more complete and accurate criterion because it contains information on the induced fluctuations as well. The Einstein–Langevin equation therein contains a stochastic source characterized by the noise kernel (the symmetrized 2-point quantum correlation function of the stress tensor operator) and yields stochastic correlation functions for the metric perturbations which agree, to leading order in the large N limit, with the quantum correlation functions of the theory of gravity interacting with N matter fields. These points are illustrated with the example of Minkowski space-time as a solution to the semiclassical Einstein equation, which is found to be stable under both intrinsic and induced fluctuations.     

Gravitational perturbations of spherically symmetric systems. II. Perfect fluid interiors

Methods developed in a previous paper on perturbations of the Schwarzschild metric are here extended to the treatment of perturbations of perfect fluid stellar models. The perturbations of a perfect fluid sphere are explicitly decomposed into their gauge invariant and gauge dependent parts and a variational principle for the perturbation equations is derived. The Hamiltonian for the perturbations is constructed and a sufficient condition for stability against nonradial, radiative perturbations is derived from it. The stability criterion is applied to two interesting classes of stellar models, polytropic white dwarf models and high-density neutron star cores with pressure proportional to energy density.     

A study on relativistic lagrangian field theories with non-topological soliton solutions

We perform a general analysis of the dynamic structure of two classes of relativistic lagrangian field theories exhibiting static spherically symmetric non-topological soliton solutions. The analysis is concerned with (multi-) scalar fields and generalized gauge fields of compact semi-simple Lie groups. The lagrangian densities governing the dynamics of the (multi-) scalar fields are assumed to be general functions of the kinetic terms, whereas the gauge-invariant lagrangians are general functions of the field invariants. These functions are constrained by requirements of regularity, positivity of the energy and vanishing of the vacuum energy, defining what we call “admissible” models. In the scalar case we establish the general conditions which determine exhaustively the families of admissible lagrangian models supporting this kind of finite-energy solutions. We analyze some explicit examples of these different families, which are defined by the asymptotic and central behaviour of the fields of the corresponding particle-like solutions. From the variational analysis of the energy functional, we show that the admissibility constraints and the finiteness of the energy of the scalar solitons are necessary and sufficient conditions for their linear static stability against small charge-preserving perturbations. Furthermore, we perform a general spectral analysis of the dynamic evolution of the small perturbations around the statically stable solitons, establishing their dynamic stability. Next, we consider the case of many-components scalar fields, showing that the resolution of the particle-like field problem in this case reduces to that of the one-component case. The study of these scalar models is a necessary step in the analysis of the gauge fields. In this latter case, we add the requirement of parity invariance to the admissibility constraints. We determine the general conditions defining the families of admissible gauge-invariant models exhibiting finite-energy electrostatic spherically symmetric solutions which, unlike the (multi-) scalar case, are not always stable. The variational analysis of the energy functional leads now to supplementary restrictions to be imposed on the lagrangian densities in order to ensure the linear stability of the solitons. We establish a correspondence between any admissible soliton-supporting (multi-) scalar model and a family of admissible generalized gauge models supporting finite-energy electrostatic point-like solutions. Conversely, for each admissible soliton-supporting gauge-invariant model there is an associated unique admissible (multi-) scalar model with soliton solutions. This shows the exhaustive character of the admissibility and stability conditions in determining the class of soliton-supporting generalized gauge models. The usual Born-Infeld electrodynamic theory and its non-abelian extensions are shown to be (very particular) examples of one of these families.     

Exponentially Small Splitting of Separatrices Under Fast Quasiperiodic Forcing

We consider fast quasiperiodic perturbations with two frequencies (1/ɛ,γ/$epsiv;) of a pendulum, where γ is the golden mean number. The complete system has a two-dimensional invariant torus in a neighbourhood of the saddle point. We study the splitting of the three-dimensional invariant manifolds associated to this torus. Provided that the perturbation amplitude is small enough with respect to ɛ, and some of its Fourier coefficients (the ones associated to Fibonacci numbers), are separated from zero, it is proved that the invariant manifolds split and that the value of the splitting, which turns out to be exponentially small with respect to ɛ, is correctly predicted by the Melnikov function. Received: 19 February 1996 / Accepted: 14 February 1997