The short-range van Hemmen model in a simple Kikuchi approximation: Comparison with the mean-field model and with spin-glasses

A simple first-order Kikuchi approximation is studied for the short-range (nearest-neighbour) version of the van Hemmen mean-field model originally proposed for spin-glasses. Although the approximation is very similar to the mean-field treatment, the phase diagrams from the two methods are drastically different. Previously reported results are reviewed and extended. The “reentrant” ferromagnetic to “spin-glass” transition found in zero magnetic field persists in small fields. The equilibrium magnetization displays a maximum as a function of temperature in the reentrance region. The characteristic S-shape of the magnetization versus field in the “spin-glass” region and magnetic hysteresis are observed. In addition, some exact results concerning the problem of the lower critical dimension of the short-range model are derived.     

Mean field approximation versus exact treatment of collisions in few-body systems

A variational principle for calculating matrix elements of the full resolvent operator for a many-body system is studied. Its mean field approximation results in nonlinear equations of Hartree (-Fock) type, with initial and final channel wave functions as driving terms. The mean field equations will in general have many solutions whereas the exact problem being linear, has a unique solution. In a schematic model with separable forces the mean field equations are analytically soluble, and for the exact problem the resulting integral equations are solved numerically. Comparing exact and mean field results over a wide range of system parameters, the mean field approach proves to be a very reliable approximation, which is not plagued by the notorious problem of defining asymptotic channels in the time-dependent mean field method.     

Optimizing the discrete-dipole approximation for sequences of scatterers with identical shapes but differing sizes or refractive indices

We study scattering of light by small particles with identical shapes but either moderately differing sizes or refractive indices by utilizing the discrete-dipole approximation (DDA). Assuming that accurate DDA solutions are available for either a sequence of sizes or refractive indices, we initialize the iterative conjugate gradient solver for a new size or refractive index by making “educated guesses” of the electric field vectors using classical Lagrange, rational-function, and modified Adams–Bashforth–Moulton extrapolation schemes. In the present pilot study, we assess the initialization schemes for spherical and cubic particles. As compared to the common initialization using the incident electric field, we show that careful extrapolation can significantly reduce the number of iterations. At best, the computing time can decrease by an order of magnitude whereas, typically, the improvement is some tens of percent for sizes comparable to the wavelength. In solving large numbers of single-particle scattering problems, initialization via extrapolation can yield substantial savings in computing time. In particular, the present approach should prove useful when the precise scatterer sizes and refractive indices are unknown, e.g., when interpreting astronomical observations of atmosphereless solar-system objects and experimental measurements.     

Unified derivation of soliton, polaron and soliton lattice solutions in polyacetylene

The trans-(CH)_x polyacetylene system is studied in the framework of mean field approximation. In this paper it is shown that the phonon field satisfies a differential equation, which admits as solutions, besides the well-known solutions. found by other authors, many others.     

Thermodynamical properties of the transverse Ising model

A new effective field theory is proposed and used to derive the thermodynamical properties of the transverse Ising model. The formalism is based on an exact formal spin identity for the two-state transverse Ising model and utilizes an exponential operator technique. The method, which can explicitly and systematically include correlation effects, is illustrated in several lattice structures by employing its simplest approximation version (in which spin-spin correlations are neglected). The lines of critical points in the Ω-T plane as well as the thermal behaviour of both transverse and longitudinal magnetizations are analysed for square and simple cubic lattices. It is shown that the present formalism, in spite of its simplicity, yields results which represent a remarkable improvement on the standard mean field treatment (MFA).     

Phase transitions of indirect excitons in coupled quantum wells: The role of disorder

The theory of what happens to a superfluid in a random field, known as the “dirty boson” problem, directly relates to a real experimental system presently under study by several groups, namely excitons in coupled semiconductor quantum wells. We consider the case of bosons in two dimensions in a random field, when the random field can be large compared to the repulsive exciton–exciton interaction energy, but is small compared to the exciton binding energy. The interaction between excitons is taken into account in the ladder approximation. The coherent potential approximation (CPA) allows us to derive the exciton Green's function for a wide range of the random field strength, and in the weak-scattering limit CPA results in the second-order Born approximation. For quasi-two-dimensional excitonic systems, the density of the superfluid component and the Kosterlitz–Thouless temperature of the superfluid phase transition are obtained, and are found to decrease as the random field increases.     

Hierarchical structure of Azbel-Hofstadter problem: Strings and loose ends of Bethe ansatz

We present numerical evidence that solutions of the Bethe anstaz equations for a Bloch particle in an incommensurate magnetic field (Azbel-Hofstadter or AH model), consist of complexes—“strings”. String solutions are well known from integrable field theories. They become asymptotically exact in the thermodynamic limit. The string solutions for the AH model are exact in the incommensurate limit, where the flux through the unit cell is an irrational number in units of the elementary flux quantum.We introduce the notion of the integral spectral flow and conjecture a hierarchical tree for the problem. The hierarchical tree describes the topology of the singular continuous spectrum of the problem. We show that the string content of a state is determined uniquely by the rate of the spectral flow (Hall conductance) along the tree. We identify the Hall conductances with the set of Takahashi-Suzuki numbers (the set of dimensions of the irreducible representations of U_q(sl₂2) with definite parity).In this paper we consider the approximation of non-interacting strings. It provides the gap distribution function, the mean scaling dimension for the bandwidths and gives a very good approximation for some wave functions which even captures their multifractal properties. However, it misses the multifractal character of the spectrum. © 1998 Elsevier Science B.V     

Variational bounds on shear-driven turbulence and turbulent Boussinesq convection

Based on earlier studies by Hopf (1941), Doering and Constantin (1992, 1994, 1995) have recently formulated a new “background” technique for obtaining upper bounds on turbulent fluid flow quantities. This method produces upper bounds on the limit supremum of long time averages, making no statistical assumptions about the flow in contrast to the well-known Howard-Busse approach. The full optimisation problems posed by this method for the momentum transport in turbulent Couette flow and the heat transport (with zero background flow) in turbulent Boussinesq convection are solved here for the first time at asymptotically large Reynolds number and Rayleigh number within Busse's multiple boundary layer approximation to extract the best (lowest) possible upper bounds available. Intriguingly, the original bounds isolated by Busse (1969, 1970) within the confines of statistical stationarity are recovered exactly using this new formalism. The optimal background velocity profile for turbulent Couette flow is found to be shearless in the interior thus differing from Busse's “ ” mean shear result. In the convective case, an interesting degeneracy in the formulation of the background variational problem leads to an indeterminacy in the optimal background temperature profile. Only for one special choice is the isothermal core feature of Busse's mean profile recovered.     

On a Class of Non-separable Quantum-Mechanical Eigenvalue Problems: Analytical and Technical Considerations within the Frame of a Born Expansion Method

An idea of Born is reviewed and elaborated to non-separable quantum-mechanical eigenvalue problems in which the Schrödinger equation can be solved exactly for a subconfiguration. (By subconfiguration we mean a subsystem in which one dynamic variable of the whole system is considered as parameter; derivations with respect to this variable are omitted.) The eigenfunctions in the subconfiguration (e.g., the eigenfunctions of a Born-Oppenheimer approximation) are used as a basis to expand the eigenfunction of the complete problem. By analytical methods it is shown how to construct the complete ensemble of solutions which can be systematically mapped and classified by their analytical behaviour in one of the singularities (in a regular singularity). A modification of the Numerov procedure is given to the numerical solution of the coupled second-order ordinary differential equations which arise from our treatment. The analytical asymptotic solutions are used to bridge over the asymptotic regions in which the error of the Numerov procedure is large. As a concrete example the comprehensive asymptotic analysis of the Schrödinger equation of a hydrogen-like ion in strong homogeneous magnetic field is presented, practical methods and computational aspects are discussed, and finally a few actual numerical results are reported: some energy levels are given as a function of field strength.     

On the weak‐field approximation of nonlinear vacuum electrodynamics of the Plebański class

Plebański's class of nonlinear vacuum electrodynamics is considered, which is for several reasons of interest at the present time. In particular, the question is answered under which circumstances Maxwell's original field equations are recovered approximately and which ‘post‐Maxwellian’ effects could arise. To this end, a weak field approximation method is developed, allowing to calculate ‘post‐Maxwellian’ corrections up to Nth order. In some respect, this is analogue of determining ‘post‐Newtonian’ corrections from relativistic mechanics by a low velocity approximation. As a result, we got a series of linear field equations that can be solved order by order. In this context, the solutions of the lower orders occur as source terms inside the higher order field equations and represent a ‘post‐Maxwellian’ self‐interaction of the electromagnetic field, which increases order by order. It becomes apparent that one has to distinguish between problems with and without external source terms because without sources also high frequency solutions can be approximately described by Maxwell's original equations. The higher order approximations, which describe ‘post‐Maxwellian’ effects, can give rise to experimental tests of Plebańksi's class. Finally, two boundary value problems are discussed to have examples at hand.     

On closure schemes for polynomial chaos expansions of stochastic differential equations

The propagation of waves in a medium having random inhomogeneities is studied using polynomial chaos (PC) expansions, wherein environmental variability is described by a spectral representation of a stochastic process and the wave field is represented by an expansion in orthogonal random polynomials of the spectral components. A different derivation of this expansion is given using functional methods, resulting in a smaller set of equations determining the expansion coefficients, also derived by others. The connection with the PC expansion is new and provides insight into different approximation schemes for the expansion, which is in the correlation function, rather than the random variables. This separates the approximation to the wave function and the closure of the coupled equations (for approximating the chaos coefficients), allowing for approximation schemes other than the usual PC truncation, e.g. by an extended Markov approximation. For small correlation lengths of the medium, low-order PC approximations provide accurate coefficients of any order. This is different from the usual PC approximation, where, for example, the mean field might be well approximated while the wave function (which includes other coefficients) would not be. These ideas are illustrated in a geometrical optics problem for a medium with a simple correlation function.     

Evolution Strategy Optimization for Selective Pulses in NMR

We present a first set of improved selective pulses, obtained with a numerical technique similar to the one proposed by Geen and Freeman. The novelty is essentially a robust and efficient “evolution strategy” which consistently leads, in a matter of minutes, to “solutions” better than those published so far. The other two ingredients are a “cost function,” which includes contributions from peak and average radiofrequency power, and some understanding of the peculiar requirements of each type of pulse. For example, good solutions for self-refocusing pulses and “negative phase excitation pulses” (which yield a maximum signal well after the end of the pulse) are found, as may have been predicted, among amplitude modulated pulses with 270° tip angles. Emphasis is given to the search for solutions with low RF power for selective excitation, saturation, and inversion pulses. Experimental verification of accuracy and power requirements of the pulses has been performed with a 4.7 T Sisco imager.     

An integral equation approach to the fundamental frequency of vibrating beams

An approximation to the lowest natural frequency of vibrating beams is obtained analytically by applying eigenvalue, eigenfunction theory to the defining integral equation. The method produces successively closer values for both upper and lower bounds to the fundamental frequency. It is found that the second lower bound provides in itself a good approximation to published values and a graph is derived which provides a bound for the error in this approximation without further computation. The application of integral equations to the formulation of mechanical engineering problems is increasing and one aim of the paper is to draw attention to the possibility of obtaining analytical solutions.     

Multidomain spectral method for the helically reduced wave equation

We consider the 2+1 and 3+1 scalar wave equations reduced via a helical Killing field, respectively referred to as the 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional helically reduced wave equation (HRWE). The HRWE serves as the fundamental model for the mixed-type PDE arising in the periodic standing wave (PSW) approximation to binary inspiral. We present a method for solving the equation based on domain decomposition and spectral approximation. Beyond describing such a numerical method for solving strictly linear HRWE, we also present results for a nonlinear scalar model of binary inspiral. The PSW approximation has already been theoretically and numerically studied in the context of the post-Minkowskian gravitational field, with numerical simulations carried out via the “eigenspectral method.” Despite its name, the eigenspectral technique does feature a finite-difference component, and is lower-order accurate. We intend to apply the numerical method described here to the theoretically well-developed post-Minkowski PSW formalism with the twin goals of spectral accuracy and the coordinate flexibility afforded by global spectral interpolation.     

Tilted rotation of triaxial nuclei

The Tilted Axis Cranking theory is applied to the model of two particles coupled to a triaxial rotor. Comparing with the exact quantal solutions, the interpretation and quality of the mean field approximation is studied. Conditions are discussed when the axis of rotation lies inside or outside the principal planes of the triaxial density distribution. The planar solutions represent ΔI = 1 bands, whereas the aplanar solutions represent pairs of identical ΔI = 1 bands with the same parity. The two bands differ by the chirality of the principal axes with respect to the angular momentum vector. The transition from planar to chiral solutions is evident in both the quantal and the mean field calculations. Its physical origin is discussed.     

含弛豫项的广义光学Bloch方程的近似解

本文用叠代法求得了含弛豫项的广义光学Bloch方程的近似解。与计算机给出的数值积分解的比较表明,一阶叠代解具有足够好的精度。由此得出了上能级占有几率随时间变化的解析表达式及多光子吸收、Bloch-Siegert频移等有用结果。