1,720,971 research outputs found

    Progress towards an effective non-Markovian description of a system interacting with a bath

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    We analyze a system coupled to a bath of independent harmonic oscillators. We transform the bath in chain structure by solving an inverse eigenvalue problem. We solve the equations of motion for the collective variables defined by this transformation, and we derive the exact dynamics for a harmonic oscillator in terms of the microscopic motion of the environmental modes. We compare this approach to the well-known generalized Langevin equation and we show that our dynamics satisfies this equation

    Quantum Motion on Shape Space and the Gauge Dependent Emergence of Dynamics and Probability in Absolute Space and Time

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    Relational formulations of classical mechanics and gravity have been developed by Julian Barbour and collaborators. Crucial to these formulations is the notion of shape space. We indicate here that the metric structure of shape space allows one to straightforwardly define a quantum motion, a Bohmian mechanics, on shape space. We show how this motion gives rise to the more or less familiar theory in absolute space and time. We find that free motion on shape space, when lifted to configuration space, becomes an interacting theory. Many different lifts are possible corresponding in fact to different choices of gauges. Taking the laws of Bohmian mechanics on shape space as physically fundamental, we show how the theory can be statistically analyzed by using conditional wave functions, for subsystems of the universe, represented in terms of absolute space and time

    Effective non-Markovian description of a system interacting with a bath

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    We study a harmonic system coupled to a chain of first neighbor interacting oscillators. After deriving the exact dynamics of the system, we prove that one can effectively describe the exact dynamics by considering a suitable shorter chain. We provide the explicit expression for such an effective dynamics and we provide an upper bound on the error one makes considering it instead of the dynamics of the full chain. We eventually prove how error, time scale and number of modes in the truncated chain are related

    Bohmian Trajectories for Hamiltonians with Interior–Boundary Conditions

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    Recently, there has been progress in developing interior–boundary conditions (IBCs) as a technique of avoiding the problem of ultraviolet divergence in non-relativistic quantum field theories while treating space as a continuum and electrons as point particles. An IBC can be expressed in the particle-position representation of a Fock vector ψ as a condition on the values of ψ on the set of collision configurations, and the corresponding Hamiltonian is defined on a domain of vectors satisfying this condition. We describe here how Bohmian mechanics can be extended to this type of Hamiltonian. In fact, part of the development of IBCs was inspired by the Bohmian picture. Particle creation and annihilation correspond to jumps in configuration space; the annihilation is deterministic and occurs when two particles (of the appropriate species) meet, whereas the creation is stochastic and occurs at a rate dictated by the demand for the equivariance of the | ψ| 2 distribution, time reversal symmetry, and the Markov property. The process is closely related to processes known as Bell-type quantum field theories

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed

    Variations on the Author

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    “Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship

    Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis

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    We provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
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