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Rigorous statistical mechanics: difficulty of realistic models

Soft question: I am a mathematician self-learning statistical mechanics. The (mathematical) literature is concentrated on lattice models like the Ising model and the lattice-gas model. I understand ...
Plemath's user avatar
  • 312
7 votes
0 answers
269 views

Looking for the eigenfunctions of the operator $T$ on $L_2(\mathbb R^+)$ defined by $Tf(x)=\int_0^\infty e^{-(x+y)^2/2}f(y)\,dy$

I'm looking to find a basis of eigenfunctions (and the corresponding eigenvectors) for the operator $T$ on $L_2(\mathbb R^+)$ defined by: $$ Tf(x)=\int_0^\infty e^{-(x+y)^2/2}f(y)\,dy $$ This operator ...
martin tassy's user avatar
20 votes
0 answers
3k views
+200

What does a product of many Gaussian matrices converge to?

Let $A$ be a product of $n$ $d\times d$ matrices with IID standard Gaussian entries and consider the value of $g(x)=x f(x)$ where $f(x)$ is the density of squared singular values of $A/\|A\|$. Is ...
Yaroslav Bulatov's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
48 views

Rigorous analysis of phase transitions and universality in a non-linear model of interacting oscillators

Consider a system of interacting non-linear oscillators governed by the McKean-Vlasov equation: $$\frac{\partial p(x,t)}{\partial t} = \frac{\partial}{\partial x}\left[\frac{\partial V(x)}{\partial x}...
user avatar
0 votes
0 answers
59 views

Convergence of Liouville correlation functions

A key object in Liouville conformal field theory is the random Liouville measure $M$ defined heuristically as $M(d^2x) = :e^{2bX(x)}: d^2x$, where $X$ is a Gaussian free field and $:e^{2bX}:$ denotes ...
user avatar
6 votes
0 answers
163 views

Wick ordering, probability vs physics

Consider a collection of creation $a^\dagger$and annihilation operators $a$. In physics one defines Wick ordering (also known as normal ordering) as a prescription to place all creation operators ...
CBBAM's user avatar
  • 721
10 votes
1 answer
1k views

Proving the Replica Trick works

The replica trick attempts to calculate the expectation of the logarithm $X=\log(Z)$ of a random variable $Z$. The wikipedia article describes the logarithm as the limit $$ \log(Z) = \lim_{n\to 0}\...
Felix Benning's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
115 views

Mixing for a gas of hard spheres

The gas of hard spheres is a model for a gas in a container, where each particle is a sphere of radius $\epsilon$. The spheres interact with each other and with the container with elastic collisions. ...
Plemath's user avatar
  • 312
74 votes
16 answers
8k views

Geometric / physical / probabilistic interpretations of Riemann zeta($n>1$)?

What are some physical, geometric, or probabilistic interpretations of the values of the Riemann zeta function at the positive integers greater than one? I've found some examples: 1) In MO-Q111339 ...
2 votes
1 answer
403 views

Fokker Planck equation in the Stratonovich approach

I'm a physics master student and I have difficulties understanding how to derive the Fokker Planck equation from the Stratonovich SDE. With the Ito SDE it is simple since the noise is independent of $...
user515206's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
158 views

Definition of average $\langle \langle \cdot \rangle \rangle$

I started reading the paper Some Rigorous Results on the Sherrington-Kirkpatrick Spin Glass Model and I would like to clarify the notation $\langle \langle \cdot \rangle\rangle$ the authors use in ...
JustWannaKnow's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
274 views

Spectrum asymptotics for a product of $k$ random matrices?

How does the spectrum of a product of $k$ random matrices behave around 0? In particular, I'm wondering if the CDF of squared singular values behaves as $x^{\frac{1}{k+1}}$ around 0. The result for $k=...
Yaroslav Bulatov's user avatar
6 votes
2 answers
481 views

Infinite clusters for loopless percolation

I feel like this is maybe an incredibly trivial problem, and I'm just missing something. I may also be describing a well-known model that I cannot find the name for, so any comment/suggestion is ...
PeaBrane's user avatar
  • 213
63 votes
3 answers
7k views

A roadmap to Hairer's theory for taming infinities

Background Martin Hairer gave recently some beautiful lectures in Israel on "taming infinities," namely on finding a mathematical theory that supports the highly successful computations from quantum ...
Gil Kalai's user avatar
  • 24.7k
0 votes
0 answers
112 views

Additivity of purity of random matrix products

Suppose $M$ is an $n\times n$ matrix with IID random entries drawn from $\mathcal{D}$ and $\sigma$ is the vector of its singular values. Define purity of $M$ as $$\rho(M)=\frac{n \sum_i \sigma_i^4}{\...
Yaroslav Bulatov's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
129 views

Concentration of a combinatorial sum

Let $X=(x_1,\ldots,x_p)$ be an $p \times n$ random matrix with iid entries from $\{\pm 1\}$, distributed so that $\mathbb P(x_{ij} = 1) \equiv 1/2$, where $x_i=(x_{i1},\ldots,x_{in})$. Let $y$ be a ...
dohmatob's user avatar
  • 6,853
2 votes
1 answer
228 views

When is a stationary measure of a Markov chain "exponentially localized"?

Here exponentially localized can be thought in a non-rigorous manner as a measure that is mostly supported on a sparse number of nodes. Some intuition can gained by thinking about a diffusion process, ...
Piyush Grover's user avatar
35 votes
7 answers
6k views

Why is conformal invariance only possible for massless theories?

I'm conscious that this isn't necessarily a research level question, but I've asked this question on mathstackexchange, and received no answer. So I'm trying it here. A usual mantra in field theories ...
onamoonlessnight's user avatar
54 votes
4 answers
9k views

Why is Quantum Field Theory so topological?

I understand that my question suffers from my lack of knowledge about the field, but as a mathematician without much knowledge of physics I have been wondering much about the following and I always ...
A Physical newbie's user avatar
2 votes
0 answers
129 views

Large deviation principle for product of iid bounded symmetric random variables

Let $n$ and $k$ be positive integers. Let $X$ be the empirical mean of $n$ iid Rademacher random variables. Note that the distribution of $X$ is symmetric about 0, and also $|X| \le 1$ w.p 1. Let $X_1,...
dohmatob's user avatar
  • 6,853
2 votes
1 answer
232 views

An inequality for a "generalised random energy model"

Let, for all $i, j$, $Z_{i,j}$ be a standard normal, chosen iid. For each $n\geq 1, k\geq2$, define the Hamiltonian $H_{n,k}: [k]^n \to \mathbb{R}$ by $$(j_1,j_2,\ldots,j_n) \mapsto \sum_{i=1}^n Z_{i, ...
Vilhelm Agdur's user avatar
10 votes
2 answers
2k views

Why does Riesz's Representation Theorem apply in quantum mechanics?

$\DeclareMathOperator\tr{tr}$One begins with a quantum mechanical system, i.e. a unital $C^*$-algebra $A$. It is common to begin the discussion with embedding $A$ into the algebra of bounded operators ...
Andrew NC's user avatar
  • 2,071
6 votes
2 answers
1k views

In what precise sense is quantum (i.e., non-commutative) probability not expressable in terms of classical probability?

The quantum set-up has many settings, so let's fix some definitions. I will be taking the Hilbert space approach with a minor modification that I will make explicit. We begin with a Hilbert space $\...
Mehmet Coen's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
173 views

Random variables with density distributions given by squared Hermite polynomials

I was wondering whether anything is known on the following: Let $h_k (x)= (-1)^k e^{x^2/2} \frac {d^k}{dx^k} \, e^{-x^2/2}$, $k \geq 0$, be the classical Hermite polynomials ($h_0(x) = 1$, $h_1(x) = x$...
Sunia Cortez's user avatar
35 votes
5 answers
11k views

What mathematical treatment is there on the renormalization group flow in a space of Lagrangians?

What mathematical treatment is there on the renormalization group flow in a space of Lagrangians?
user4's user avatar
  • 921
3 votes
1 answer
155 views

What is the finite-temperature orthogonal/symplectic Tracy-Widom distribution?

The Tracy–Widom distributions admit many interpretations. One of them is related to quantum mechanics: If we consider $N$ non-interacting fermions confined by the potential $V(x) = x^2$, then in the ...
LeechLattice's user avatar
  • 9,501
10 votes
1 answer
337 views

What are the predictive implications of conditional non-commutative probability?

To simplify things, let's consider the Hilbert approach to quantum probability over a finite dimensional vector space $V$ of dimension $n$. In this context a state $S$ is a positive semi-definite ...
Mehmet Coen's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
564 views

A relation between the second moment of a distribution and one of its particular probability

I had recently posted a question here: To prove a relation involving a probability distribution The relations quoted in the above question are used extensively in fluid mechanics and many other fields,...
user avatar
11 votes
2 answers
914 views

How do you know that you have succeeded-Constructive Quantum Field Theory and Lagrangian

Quantum Field Theory is a branch of mathematical physics which is begging for a better understanding. In fact there are no rigorous constructions of interacting QFT in four dimensions. By a rigorous ...
truebaran's user avatar
  • 9,330
2 votes
1 answer
194 views

Kramers' escape problem: statistical physics vs. Large deviations

I'm almost not at all knowledgable in either Freidlin-Wentzel theory or Kramers' escape problem as it is known in the physics community, so please excuse some of my naivety. One can use Freidlin-...
Stefan Perko's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
394 views

Is there a Hilbert space approach to commutative probability theory on locally compact spaces?

I was recently made aware (thanks to the answers on Why does Riesz's Representation Theorem apply in quantum mechanics?) that the $C^*$ algebra approach and the Hilbert space approach to quantum ...
Andrew NC's user avatar
  • 2,071
5 votes
1 answer
945 views

Has a discrete/quantum theory of probability based on the Cournot-Borel principle or something been developed?

In 1930, Émile Borel, the father of measure theory together with his student Lebesgue and a world-class expert in probability theory, published a short note Sur les probabilités universellement ...
Fabrice Pautot's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
164 views

physical interpretation of ruelle probablity cascades (SK model)

Background: the Parisi formula gives an exact expression for the free energy of the SK model. The formula (at least the upper-bound) can be derived by looking at the free energy, and then replacing ...
DJA's user avatar
  • 435
0 votes
1 answer
133 views

How to demonstrate a correlation inequality? [closed]

If there are 3 vectors X, Y, Z of the same length, for any $x_i \in X,y_i \in Y,z_i \in Z$, we have $0<x_i<1,0<y_i<1,0<z_i<1$. The correlation between Z, Y is greater than between X, ...
Mac Zhang's user avatar
7 votes
0 answers
579 views

Guises of the noncrossing partitions (NCPs)

From "Noncrossing partitions in surprising locations" by Jon McCammond: Certain mathematical structures make a habit of reoccuring in the most diverse list of settings. Some obvious ...
Tom Copeland's user avatar
  • 10.5k
2 votes
1 answer
187 views

Compute the limit of trace of inverse of square of rank-1 perturbation of Wishart matrix

Let $a \ge 0$, $b,c>0$ be fixed constants, and let $X$ be an $m \times d$ random matrix with entries drawn iid from $N(0,1/d)$. Consider the random psd matrix $S := a 1_m 1_m^\top + b XX^\top + c ...
dohmatob's user avatar
  • 6,853
6 votes
1 answer
1k views

A set of questions on continuous Gaussian Free Fields (GFF)

As I said in my previous posts, I'm trying to teach myself some rigorous statistical mechanics/statistical field theory and I'm primarily interested in $\varphi^{4}$, but I know that the absense of ...
JustWannaKnow's user avatar
11 votes
2 answers
353 views

Exponential decay of voltage potential difference

Consider the following adjacency matrix of a complete graph: $$A=(e^{-|i-j|})_{1\leq i\neq j\leq n}$$ with 0 on the diagonal. Let $D=diag\{d_1,...,d_n\}$ be the degree matrix where $d_i=\sum_{j\neq i}...
neverevernever's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
243 views

Does there exist a scale invariant random packing of circles in the plane?

I want to construct a scale invariant random packing of the plane with circles. Here is a way to construct a rotationally invariant, but not scale invariant random packing of the plane with circles: ...
Frederik Ravn Klausen's user avatar
6 votes
1 answer
708 views

Reformulation - Construction of thermodynamic limit for GFF

I've posted a question about the thermodynamic limit for Gaussian Free Fields (GFF) a couple days ago and I haven't got any answers yet but I kept thinking about it and I thought it would be better to ...
JustWannaKnow's user avatar
6 votes
2 answers
905 views

Gaussian measure on function spaces

I'm reading this classic work and I'd like to get deeper inside some of its techniques. In particular, the authors state: "We construct a Gaussian measure $d\mu_{0}(\phi)$ on a measure space of ...
JustWannaKnow's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
65 views

Intuition behind bound of second moment of Greens function by fractional moment

Consider the Hilbert space $ \mathcal{H} = l^2(\mathbb{Z}^d)$ for some dimension $d$ with basis given by the basisvectors $\{ \vert {x} \rangle \}_{x \in \mathbb{Z}^d} $. Let $A$ be an either self-...
Frederik Ravn Klausen's user avatar
5 votes
2 answers
393 views

Connections between two constructions of infinite dimensional Gaussian measures

Let me discuss two possible constructions of Gaussian measures on infinite dimensional spaces. Consider the Hilbert space $l^{2}(\mathbb{Z}^{d}) := \{\psi: \mathbb{Z}^{d}\to \mathbb{R}: \hspace{0.1cm} ...
JustWannaKnow's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
267 views

Grand-canonical Gibbs measure for continuous systems

Let's consider a bounded (maybe compact) set $\Lambda \subset \mathbb{R}^{d}$ with particles interacting on it. Suppose, for each $N \in \mathbb{N}$, $U_{N}: (\mathbb{R}^{d})^{N} \to \mathbb{R}\cup \{+...
JustWannaKnow's user avatar
2 votes
1 answer
1k views

Marchenko-Pastur Law under general covariance structure

Let $x_1,...,x_n\in\mathbb{R}^p$ be i.i.d. random vectors with mean 0 and covariance $\Sigma_p$. Let $S_{n,p}=\sum_{i=1}^nx_ix_i^T/n$ be the sample covariance. We consider the asymptotics of the ...
neverevernever's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
93 views

Does Anderson localisation occur if the potential are equal in pairs?

Consider the Anderson model given by the Hamiltonian $H \in B(l^2( \mathbb{Z}^d)) $ defined by $H = - \Delta + V$ where the potential $V$ acts on a unit vector $ \vert x \rangle  \in l^2( \mathbb{Z}^d)...
Frederik Ravn Klausen's user avatar
4 votes
1 answer
237 views

What is the role of Gibbs states with free boundary conditions in the theory of Gibbs measure?

This is actually a more elaborated version of a previous question of mine, which is now deleted. First, some quick notations: (1) $\Omega_{0} := \{-1,1\}$ and $\mathcal{F}_{0} := 2^{\Omega_{0}}$ are, ...
MathMath's user avatar
  • 1,305
12 votes
3 answers
1k views

Correlations in last-passage percolation

Consider the last passage percolation model on $\mathbb{Z}^2$ with, say, geometric weights on each edge. By a landmark result of Johansson (http://arxiv.org/abs/math/9903134), we know that if $T_n(\...
Nathanael Berestycki's user avatar
5 votes
1 answer
439 views

Effective action, partition function and the renormalization group

Mayer expansions and the Hamilton–Jacobi equation by D. Brydges and T. Kennedy begins mentioning that many problems in statistical mechanics and QFT center on the analysis of integrals of the form: \...
JustWannaKnow's user avatar
1 vote
0 answers
91 views

A random process with conserved momentum: 'particle decay'?

Consider a particle $p_1$ moving at unit speed along a straight line in $\mathbf{R}^2$, directed by some vector $v_1 \in \mathbf{S}^1$. Equid this particle with a Poisson clock $\tau_1$, with ...
Leo Moos's user avatar
  • 5,048