An LIL for cover times of disks by planar random walk and Wiener sausage

Let be the radius of the largest disk covered after steps of a simple random walk. We prove that almost surely

where denotes 3 iterations of the function. This is motivated by a question of Erdos and Taylor. We also obtain the analogous result for the Wiener sausage, refining a result of Meyre and Werner.

     

Universal finitary codes with exponential tails

In 1977, Keane and Smorodinsky showed that there exists a finitaryhomomorphism from any finite-alphabet Bernoulli process to anyother finite-alphabet Bernoulli process of strictly lower entropy.In 1996, Serafin proved the existence of a finitary homomorphismwith finite expected coding length. In this paper, we constructsuch a homomorphism in which the coding length has exponentialtails. Our construction is source-universal, in the sense thatit does not use any information on the source distribution otherthan the alphabet size and a bound on the entropy gap betweenthe source and target distributions. We also indicate how ourmethods can be extended to prove a source-specific version ofthe result for Markov chains.     

Excited-state intermolecular proton transfer of firefly luciferin V. Direct proton transfer to fluoride and other mild bases

We studied the direct proton transfer (PT) from electronically excited D-luciferin to several mild bases. The fluorescence up-conversion technique is used to measure the rise and decay of the fluorescence signals of the protonated and deprotonated species of D-luciferin. From a base concentration of 0.25 M or higher the proton transfer rates to the fluoride, dihdyrogen phosphate or acetate bases are fast and comparable. The fluorescence signals are nonexponential and complex. We suggest that the fastest decay component arises from a direct proton transfer process from the hydroxyl group of D-luciferin to the mild base. The proton donor and acceptor molecules form an ion pair prior to photoexcitation. Upon photoexcitation solvent rearrangement occurs on a 1 ps time-scale. The PT reaction time constant is ～2 ps for all three bases. A second decay component of about 10 ps is attributed to the proton transfer in a contact pair bridged by one water molecule. The longest decay component is due to both the excited-state proton transfer (ESPT) to the solvent and the diffusion-assisted PT process between a photoacid and a base pair positioned remotely from each other prior to photoexcitation.     

Excited-state intermolecular proton transfer of firefly luciferin IV. Temperature and pH dependence

Time-resolved emission as well as steady-state UV-vis techniques were employed to study the photoprotolytic processes that d-luciferin, the natural substrate of the firefly luciferase, undergoes in both acidic aqueous solutions and ice. The emission spectrum of D-luciferin in a 20 mM HCl aqueous solution or higher has an additional emission band at 590 nm red-shifted with respect to the strongest emission band positioned at 530 nm of the deprotonated NRO(-*) form in a pH-neutral aqueous solution. We attribute this emission band to the zwitterion form designated as (+)HNRO(-). The time-resolved emission signals show that the NRO(-*) emission band at 530 nm and the zwitterion emission band at 590 are strongly quenched by a recombination process with a proton in an acidic solution and in ice. In ice, the quenching rate is 10 times faster than in the liquid state. We attribute the fast quenching rate to the high value of the proton diffusion constant in ice.     

Is the critical percolation probability local?

We show that the critical probability for percolation on a d-regular non-amenable graph of large girth is close to the critical probability for percolation on an infinite d-regular tree. We also prove a finite analogue of this statement, valid for expander graphs, without any girth assumption.     

Realization of the SU(N) Kondo effect in a strong magnetic field

In this Letter we suggest a realization of the SU(N) Kondo effect, using quantum dots at strong magnetic field. We propose using edge states of the quantum Hall effect as pseudospin that interact with multiple quantum dots structures. In the suggested realization one can access each pseudospin separately and hence may perform a set of experiments that were impossible until now. We focus on the realization of SU(2) and SU(3) Kondo effects and find in the unitary limit a conductivity of 3/4 quantum conductance in the SU(3) case.     

Gapless excitations in strongly fluctuating superconducting wires

We study the low-temperature tunneling density of states of thin wires where superconductivity is destroyed through quantum phase-slip proliferation. Although this regime is believed to behave as an insulator, we show that for a large temperature range this phase is characterized by a conductivity falling off at most linearly with temperature, and has a gapless excitation spectrum. This novel conducting phase results from electron-electron interaction induced pair breaking. Also, it may help clarify the low-temperature metallic features found in films and wires whose bulk realization is superconducting.     

Dimensions of some fractals defined via the semigroup generated by 2 and 3

We compute the Hausdorff and Minkowski dimension of subsets of the symbolic space Σ _m ={0, ...,m?1}^? that are invariant under multiplication by integers. The results apply to the sets {x∈Σ _m :? k, x _k x _2k ... x _nk =0}, where n ≥ 3. We prove that for such sets, the Hausdorff and Minkowski dimensions typically differ.     

Semi-invariant Matrices over Finite Groups

The semi-center of an artinian semisimple module-algebra over a finite group G can be described using the projective representations of G. In particular, the semi-center of the endomorphism ring of an irreducible projective representation over an algebraically closed field has a structure of a twisted group algebra. The following group-theoretic result is deduced: the center of a group of central type embeds into the group of its linear characters.