Surface Phonons and Other Localized Excitations

The diatomic linear chain of masses coupled by harmonic springs is a textboook model for vibrational normal modes (phonons) in crystals. In addition to propagating acoustic and optic branches, this model is known to support a ``gap mode'' localized at the surface, provided the atom at the surface has light rather than heavy mass. An elementary argument is given which explains this mode and provides values for the frequency and localization length. By reinterpreting this mode in different ways, we obtain the frequency and localization lengths for three other interesting modes: (1) the surface vibrational mode of a light mass impurity at the surface of a monatomic chain; (2) the localized vibrational mode of a stacking fault in a diatomic chain; and (3) the localized vibrational mode of a light mass impurity in a monatomic chain.Comment: 5 pages with 4 embedded postscript figures. This paper will appear in the American Journal of Physic

L2L_2-Small Deviations for Weighted Stationary Processes

We find logarithmic asymptotics of $L_2$-small deviation probabilities for weighted stationary Gaussian processes (both for real and complex-valued) having power-type discrete or continuous spectrum. As in the recent work by Hong, Lifshits and Nazarov, our results are based on the spectral theory of pseudo-differential operators developed by Birman and Solomyak

Weak Chaos in a Quantum Kepler Problem

Transition from regular to chaotic dynamics in a crystal made of singular scatterers $U(r)=\lambda |r|^{-\sigma}$ can be reached by varying either sigma or lambda. We map the problem to a localization problem, and find that in all space dimensions the transition occurs at sigma=1, i.e., Coulomb potential has marginal singularity. We study the critical line sigma=1 by means of a renormalization group technique, and describe universality classes of this new transition. An RG equation is written in the basis of states localized in momentum space. The RG flow evolves the distribution of coupling parameters to a universal stationary distribution. Analytic properties of the RG equation are similar to that of Boltzmann kinetic equation: the RG dynamics has integrals of motion and obeys an H-theorem. The RG results for sigma=1 are used to derive scaling laws for transport and to calculate critical exponents.Comment: 28 pages, ReVTeX, 4 EPS figures, to appear in the I. M. Lifshitz memorial volume of Physics Report

On the Supremum of Random Dirichlet Polynomials

We study the supremum of some random Dirichlet polynomials and obtain sharp upper and lower bounds for supremum expectation that extend the optimal estimate of Hal\'asz-Queff\'elec and enable to cunstruct random polynomials with unusually small maxima. Our approach in proving these results is entirely based on methods of stochastic processes, in particular the metric entropy method

Aggregation rates in one-dimensional stochastic systems with adhesion and gravitation

We consider one-dimensional systems of self-gravitating sticky particles with random initial data and describe the process of aggregation in terms of the largest cluster size L_n at any fixed time prior to the critical time. The asymptotic behavior of L_n is also analyzed for sequences of times tending to the critical time. A phenomenon of phase transition shows up, namely, for small initial particle speeds (``cold'' gas) L_n has logarithmic order of growth while higher speeds (``warm'' gas) yield polynomial rates for L_n.Comment: Published at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/009117904000000900 in the Annals of Probability (http://www.imstat.org/aop/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org