A model for anomalous directed percolation

We introduce a model for the spreading of epidemics by long-range infections and investigate the critical behaviour at the spreading transition. The model generalizes directed bond percolation and is characterized by a probability distribution for long-range infections which decays in d spatial dimensions as . Extensive numerical simulations are performed in order to determine the density exponent and the correlation length exponents and for various values of . We observe that these exponents vary continuously with , in agreement with recent field-theoretic predictions. We also study a model for pairwise annihilation of particles with algebraically distributed long-range interactions. Received: 4 September 1998 / Accepted: 22 September 1998     

Specific heat jump in non-Fermi superconductors

We derive the jump in the specific heat at T=T _c for a superconductor in a non-Fermi liquid model. We took into consideration the two possible limits in this problem: the spin-charge separation model for a Fermi liquid and the usual non-Fermi liquid model which satisfies the homogeneity relation for the spectral function , ). We also derive the order parameter behavior for these two cases in the vecinity of the critical temperature. Received: 25 January 1998 / Revised: 25 March 1998 / Accepted: 25 March 1998     

Persistent currents in mesoscopic rings and conformal invariance

The effect of point defects on persistent currents in mesoscopic rings is studied in a simple tight-binding model. Using an analogy with the treatment of the critical quantum Ising chain with defects, conformal invariance techniques are employed to relate the persistent current amplitude to the Hamiltonian spectrum just above the Fermi energy. From this, the dependence of the current on the magnetic flux is found exactly for a ring with one or two point defects. The effect of an aperiodic modulation of the ring, generated through a binary substitution sequence, on the persistent current is also studied. The flux-dependence of the current is found to vary remarkably between the Fibonacci and the Thue-Morse sequences. Received: 4 March 1998 / Revised: 20 April 1998 / Accepted: 30 April 1998     

Time distribution and loss of scaling in granular flow

Two cellular automata models with directed mass flow and internal time scales are studied by numerical simulations. Relaxation rules are a combination of probabilistic critical height (probability of toppling p) and deterministic critical slope processes with internal correlation time t_c equal to the avalanche lifetime, in model A, and ,in model B. In both cases nonuniversal scaling properties of avalanche distributions are found for , where is related to directed percolation threshold in d=3. Distributions of avalanche durations for are studied in detail, exhibiting multifractal scaling behavior in model A, and finite size scaling behavior in model B, and scaling exponents are determined as a function of p. At a phase transition to noncritical steady state occurs. Due to difference in the relaxation mechanisms, avalanche statistics at approaches the parity conserving universality class in model A, and the mean-field universality class in model B. We also estimate roughness exponent at the transition. Received: 29 May 1998 / Revised: 8 September 1998 / Accepted: 10 September 1998     

First and second order transition in frustrated XY systems

The nature of the phase transition for the XY stacked triangular antiferromagnet (STA) is a controversial subject at present. The field theoretical renormalization group (RG) in three dimensions predicts a first order transition. This prediction disagrees with Monte-Carlo (MC) simulations which favor a new universality class or a tricritical transition. We simulate by the Monte-Carlo method two models derived from the STA by imposing the constraint of local rigidity which should have the same critical behavior as the original model. A strong first order transition is found. Following Zumbach we analyze the second order transition observed in MC studies as due to a fixed point in the complex plane. We review the experimental results in order to clarify the critical behavior observed. Received: 18 February 1998 / Revised: 24 April 1998 / Accepted: 30 April 1998     

Lévy-flight spreading of epidemic processes leading to percolating clusters

We consider two stochastic processes, the Gribov process and the general epidemic process, that describe the spreading of an infectious disease. In contrast to the usually assumed case of short-range infections that lead, at the critical point, to directed and isotropic percolation respectively, we consider long-range infections with a probability distribution decaying in d dimensions with the distance as . By means of Wilson's momentum shell renormalization-group recursion relations, the critical exponents characterizing the growing fractal clusters are calculated to first order in an -expansion. It is shown that the long-range critical behavior changes continuously to its short-range counterpart for a decay exponent of the infection . Received: 17 July 1998 / Revised: 20 July 1998 / Accepted: 28 July 1998     

High-temperature series analysis of the p-state Potts glass model on d-dimensional hypercubic lattices

We analyze recently extended high-temperature series expansions for the “Edwards-Anderson” spin-glass susceptibility of the p-state Potts glass model on d-dimensional hypercubic lattices for the case of a symmetric bimodal distribution of ferro- and antiferromagnetic nearest-neighbor couplings . In these star-graph expansions up to order 22 in the inverse temperature , the number of Potts states p and the dimension d are kept as free parameters which can take any value. By applying several series analysis techniques to the new series expansions, this enabled us to determine the critical coupling K_c and the critical exponent of the spin-glass susceptibility in a large region of the two-dimensional (p,d)-parameter space. We discuss the thus obtained information with emphasis on the lower and upper critical dimensions of the model and present a careful comparison with previous estimates for special values of p and d. Received: 25 May 1998 / Revised and Accepted: 11 August 1998     

Magnetic fluids in an external field

Within mean field approximation we investigate the phase diagrams of magnetic fluids in presence of a magnetic field. In a finite field the magnetic phase transition is absent, but instead a line of first order liquid-liquid transitions ending in a critical point occurs for a magnetic interaction, which is sufficiently strong. Varying the magnetic field these critical points extend from the tricritical point at H=0 to a critical endpoint. For a fluid with Ising spins we calculate the critical lines and several tricritical exponents analytically. For Heisenberg fluids we obtain the phase diagrams from a numerical solution of the mean field equations of state. Received 20 March 1998     

Classical dynamical simulation of spontaneous alloying

“Spontaneous alloying” observed by Yasuda, Mori et al. for metallic small clusters is simulated using classical Hamiltonian dynamics. Very rapid alloying occurs homogeneously and cooperatively starting from the solid phase of the cluster if the heat of solution is negative and the size of cluster is less than a critical size. Analysis of 2D models reveals that the alloying rate obeys an Arrhenius-type law, which predicts the alloying time much less than second at room temperature. Evidences manifesting that the spontaneous alloying proceeds in the solid phase without melting are also presented. The simulation reproduces the essential features of the experiments. Received: 2 March 1998 / Revised: 21 May 1998 / Accepted: 28 May 1998     

High-temperature series expansion for the relaxation times of the two dimensional Ising model

We derive the high temperature series expansions for the two relaxation times of the single spin-flip kinetic Ising model on the square lattice. The series for the linear relaxation time _l is obtained with 20 non-trivial terms, and the analysis yields 2.183±0.005 as the value of the critical exponent _l , which is equal to the dynamical critical exponentz in the two-dimensional case. For the non-linear relaxation time we obtain 15 non-trivial terms, and the analysis leads to the results _nl = 2.08 ± 0.07. The scaling relation _l – _nl = ( being the exponent of the order parameter) seems to be fulfilled, though the error bars of _nl are still quite substantial. In addition, we obtain the series expansion of the linear relaxation time on the honeycomb lattice with 22 non-trivial terms. The result for the critical exponent is close to the value obtained on the square lattice, which is expected from universality.     

Molecular photodynamics involved in multi-photon excitation fluorescence microscopy

We present a simple model for calculating the fluorescence generated by the multi-photon excitation (MPE) of molecules in solution. The model takes into account internal molecular dynamics such as ground-state depletion due to inter-system crossing (ISC), as well as external molecular dynamics associated with diffusion into and out of an excitation volume confined in 3-dimensions. Internal and external molecular dynamics are combined by using a technique of linearization of a modified diffusion equation which takes into account the possibility of concentration depletion due to photobleaching. In addition, we discuss the phenomenon of pulse saturation which effectively limits the molecular excitation rate constant in the case of short pulsed excitation. Our results are specifically applied in the context of fluorescence autocorrelation functions and single-molecule detection. In the latter case, we discuss some consequences of high-order multi-photon photobleaching. Finally, we include three appendices to rigorously define the temporal and spatial profiles of an arbitrary excitation beam, and also to discuss some properties of an exact evaluation of concentration depletion due to photobleaching. Received: 9 March 1998 / Accepted: 20 April 1998     

The new identity for the scattering matrix of exactly solvable models

We discovered a simple quadratic equation, which relates scattering phases of particles on Fermi surface. We consider one-dimensional Bose gas and XXZ Heisenberg quantum spin chain. Received: 4 December 1997 / Accepted: 17 March 1998     

Critical behavior of interacting surfaces with tension

Wetting phenomena, molecular protrusions of lipid bilayers and membrane stacks under lateral tension provide physical examples for interacting surfaces with tension. Such surfaces are studied theoretically using functional renormalization and Monte-Carlo simulations. The critical behavior arising from thermally-excited shape fluctuations is determined both for global quantities such as the mean separation of these surfaces and for local quantities such as the probabilities for local contacts. Received: 30 January 1998 / Accepted: 17 March 1998     

High-energy QCD as a topological field theory

We propose an identification of the conformal field theory underlying Lipatov's spin-chain model of high-energy scattering in perturbative QCD. It is a twisted N = 2 supersymmetric topological field theory, which arises as the limiting case of the SL(2,R)/U(1) non-linear model that also plays a role in describing the Quantum Hall effect and black holes in string theory. The doubly-infinite set of non-trivial integrals of motion of the high-energy spin-chain model displayed by Faddeev and Korchemsky are identified as the Cartan subalgebra of a bosonic sub-symmetry possessed by this topological theory. The renormalization group and an analysis of instanton perturbations yield some understanding why this particular topological spin-chain model emerges in the high-energy limit, and provide a new estimate of the asymptotic behaviour of multi-Reggeized-gluon exchange. Received: 31 August 1998 / Published online: 11 March 1999     

Influence of hydrodynamics on the dynamics of a homopolymer

We present an analytical approach of the dynamics of a polymer when it is quenched from a solvent into a good or bad solvent. The dynamics is studied by means of a Langevin equation, first in the absence of hydrodynamic effect, then taking into account the hydrodynamic interactions with the solvent. The variation of the radius of gyration is studied as a function of time. In both cases, for the first stage of collapse or swelling, the evolution is described by a power law with a characteristic time proportional to N ^4/3 (N), where N is the number of monomers, without (with) hydrodynamic interactions. At larger times, scaling laws are derived for the diffusive relaxation time. Received: 10 March 1998 / Received in final form: 15 September 1998 / Accepted: 25 September 1998     

A geometric generalization of field theory to manifolds of arbitrary dimension

We introduce a generalization of the O(N) field theory to N-colored membranes of arbitrary inner dimension D. The O(N) model is obtained for , while leads to self-avoiding tethered membranes (as the O(N) model reduces to self-avoiding polymers). The model is studied perturbatively by a 1-loop renormalization group analysis, and exactly as .Freedom to choose the expansion point D, leads to precise estimates of critical exponents of the O(N) model. Insights gained from this generalization include a conjecture on the nature of droplets dominating the 3d-Ising model at criticality; and the fixed point governing the random bond Ising model. Received: 15 October 1998 / Accepted: 4 November 1998     

Zero temperature phase transitions in spin-ladders: Phase diagram and dynamical studies of Cu2(C5H12N2)2Cl4>

In a magnetic field, spin-ladders undergo two zero-temperature phase transitions at the critical fields H_c1 and H_c2. An experimental review of static and dynamical properties of spin-ladders close to these critical points is presented. The scaling functions, universal to all quantum critical points in one-dimension, are extracted from (a) the thermodynamic quantities (magnetization) and (b) the dynamical functions (NMR relaxation). A simple mapping of strongly coupled spin ladders in a magnetic field on the exactly solvable XXZ model enables to make detailed fits and gives an overall understanding of a broad class of quantum magnets in their gapless phase (between H_c1 and H_c2). In this phase, the low temperature divergence of the NMR relaxation demonstrates its Luttinger liquid nature as well as the novel quantum critical regime at higher temperature. The general behavior close these quantum critical points can be tied to known models of quantum magnetism. Received: 13 March 1998 / Received in final form and Accepted: 21 July 1998     

Squeezed two-mode lasers without and with inversion

On the basis of the nondegenerate quantum-beat laser model, we introduce a coherent field which drives the transition between the upper lasing level and an auxiliary level. We demonstrate that such a four-level system can produce squeezed two-mode laser without and with inversion. When the laser is operated well above threshold, the intensity fluctuation in the average mode is reduced below the shot noise with an optimum Mandel parameter Q=- 1/2. At the same time, the noises in the relative amplitude and the relative phase drop to their vaccum noise levels. Furthermore, regardless of inversion, noninversion, and transition between inversion and noninversion, the optimum Mandel Q parameter of Q=- 1/2 is retained when the system operates well above threshold. A simple physical explanation of the squeezing mechanism for two-mode squeezing is given. Received: 22 December 1997 / Revised: 25 March 1998 / Accepted: 9 September 1998     

Non-equilibrium behavior at a liquid-gas critical point

Second-order phase transitions in a non-equilibrium liquid-gas model with reversible mode couplings, i.e., model H for binary-fluid critical dynamics, are studied using dynamic field theory and the renormalization group. The system is driven out of equilibrium either by considering different values for the noise strengths in the Langevin equations describing the evolution of the dynamic variables (effectively placing these at different temperatures), or more generally by allowing for anisotropic noise strengths, i.e., by constraining the dynamics to be at different temperatures in d _|| - and d _⊥-dimensional subspaces, respectively. In the first, isotropic case, we find one infrared-stable and one unstable renormalization group fixed point. At the stable fixed point, detailed balance is dynamically restored, with the two noise strengths becoming asymptotically equal. The ensuing critical behavior is that of the standard equilibrium model H. At the novel unstable fixed point, the temperature ratio for the dynamic variables is renormalized to infinity, resulting in an effective decoupling between the two modes. We compute the critical exponents at this new fixed point to one-loop order. For model H with spatially anisotropic noise, we observe a critical softening only in the d _⊥-dimensional sector in wave vector space with lower noise temperature. The ensuing effective two-temperature model H does not have any stable fixed point in any physical dimension, at least to one-loop order. We obtain formal expressions for the novel critical exponents in a double expansion about the upper critical dimension d _c = 4 - d _|| and with respect to d _|| , i.e., about the equilibrium theory. Received 4 April 2002 Published online 13 August 2002