We survey techniques for constrained curve fitting, based upon Bayesian statistics, that offer significant advantages over conventional techniques used by lattice field theorists.
We show that any initial closed curve suitably close to a circle flows under length-constrained curve diffusion to a round circle in infinite time with exponential convergence. We provide an estimate on the total length of time for which such curves are not strictly convex. We further show that there are no closed translating solutions to the flow and that the only closed rotators are circles.
A recent article by the first two authors together with B Andrews and V-M Wheeler considered the so-called `ideal curve flow, a sixth order curvature flow that seeks to deform closed planar curves to curves with least variation of total geodesic curvature in the $L^2$ sense. Critical in the analysis there was a length bound on the evolving curves. It is natural to suspect therefore that the length-constrained ideal curve flow should permit a more straightforward analysis, at least in the case of small initial `energy. In this article we show this is indeed the case, with suitable initial data providing a flow that exists for all time and converges smoothly and exponentially to a multiply-covered round circle of the same length and winding number as the initial curve.
We propose a novel method for fitting planar B-spline curves to unorganized data points. In traditional methods, optimization of control points and foot points are performed in two very time-consuming steps in each iteration: 1) control points are updated by setting up and solving a linear system of equations; and 2) foot points are computed by projecting each data point onto a B-spline curve. Our method uses the L-BFGS optimization method to optimize control points and foot points simultaneously and therefore it does not need to perform either matrix computation or foot point projection in every iteration. As a result, our method is much faster than existing methods.
The wide application of the modern resonant measurement techniques makes all the steps of the measuring process, including data acquisition more efficient and reliable. Here we investigate the multidimensional space of the parameters to determine the optimum span for resonant measurements. The study concentrated on experimental systems with standard performance and capabilities. We determine the range of the optimum span for the resonant frequency and quality factor by simulating and fitting resonant curves with different levels of asymmetry.
Scattering observables can be computed in lattice field theory by measuring the volume dependence of energy levels of two particle states. The dominant volume dependence, proportional to inverse powers of the volume, is determined by the phase shifts. This universal relation (Lus formula) between energy levels and phase shifts is distorted by corrections which, in the large volume limit, are exponentially suppressed. They may be sizable, however, for the volumes used in practice and they set a limit on how small the lattice can be in these studies. We estimate these corrections, mostly in the case of two nucleons. Qualitatively, we find that the exponentially suppressed corrections are proportional to the {it square} of the potential (or to terms suppressed in the chiral expansion) and the effect due to pions going ``around the world vanishes. Quantitatively, the size of the lattice should be greater than $approx(5 {fm})^3$ in order to keep finite volume corrections to the phase less than $1^circ$ for realistic pion mass.