No Arabic abstract
We assess Coarse Graining by studying different partitions of the phase space of the Baker transformation and the periodic torus automorphisms. It turns out that the shape of autocorrelation functions for the Baker transformation is more or less reproduced. However, for certain partitions the decay rates turn out to be irrelevant, even decay may stop in a finite time. For the periodic torus automorphisms, Coarse Graining introduces artificial dumping.
Motivated by the increasing connections between information theory and high-energy physics, particularly in the context of the AdS/CFT correspondence, we explore the information geometry associated to a variety of simple systems. By studying their Fisher metrics, we derive some general lessons that may have important implications for the application of information geometry in holography. We begin by demonstrating that the symmetries of the physical theory under study play a strong role in the resulting geometry, and that the appearance of an AdS metric is a relatively general feature. We then investigate what information the Fisher metric retains about the physics of the underlying theory by studying the geometry for both the classical 2d Ising model and the corresponding 1d free fermion theory, and find that the curvature diverges precisely at the phase transition on both sides. We discuss the differences that result from placing a metric on the space of theories vs. states, using the example of coherent free fermion states. We compare the latter to the metric on the space of coherent free boson states and show that in both cases the metric is determined by the symmetries of the corresponding density matrix. We also clarify some misconceptions in the literature pertaining to different notions of flatness associated to metric and non-metric connections, with implications for how one interprets the curvature of the geometry. Our results indicate that in general, caution is needed when connecting the AdS geometry arising from certain models with the AdS/CFT correspondence, and seek to provide a useful collection of guidelines for future progress in this exciting area.
Our everyday descriptions of the universe are highly coarse-grained, following only a tiny fraction of the variables necessary for a perfectly fine-grained description. Coarse graining in classical physics is made natural by our limited powers of observation and computation. But in the modern quantum mechanics of closed systems, some measure of coarse graining is inescapable because there are no non-trivial, probabilistic, fine-grained descriptions. This essay explores the consequences of that fact. Quantum theory allows for various coarse-grained descriptions some of which are mutually incompatible. For most purposes, however, we are interested in the small subset of ``quasiclassical descriptions defined by ranges of values of averages over small volumes of densities of conserved quantities such as energy and momentum and approximately conserved quantities such as baryon number. The near-conservation of these quasiclassical quantities results in approximate decoherence, predictability, and local equilibrium, leading to closed sets of equations of motion. In any description, information is sacrificed through the coarse graining that yields decoherence and gives rise to probabilities for histories. In quasiclassical descriptions, further information is sacrificed in exhibiting the emergent regularities summarized by classical equations of motion. An appropriate entropy measures the loss of information. For a ``quasiclassical realm this is connected with the usual thermodynamic entropy as obtained from statistical mechanics. It was low for the initial state of our universe and has been increasing since.
A classic theorem in the theory of connections on principal fiber bundles states that the evaluation of all holonomy functions gives enough information to characterize the bundle structure (among those sharing the same structure group and base manifold) and the connection up to a bundle equivalence map. This result and other important properties of holonomy functions has encouraged their use as the primary ingredient for the construction of families of quantum gauge theories. However, in these applications often the set of holonomy functions used is a discrete proper subset of the set of holonomy functions needed for the characterization theorem to hold. We show that the evaluation of a discrete set of holonomy functions does not characterize the bundle and does not constrain the connection modulo gauge appropriately. We exhibit a discrete set of functions of the connection and prove that in the abelian case their evaluation characterizes the bundle structure (up to equivalence), and constrains the connection modulo gauge up to local details ignored when working at a given scale. The main ingredient is the Lie algebra valued curvature function $F_S (A)$ defined below. It covers the holonomy function in the sense that $exp{F_S (A)} = {rm Hol}(l= partial S, A)$.
We consider the application of fluctuation relations to the dynamics of coarse-grained systems, as might arise in a hypothetical experiment in which a system is monitored with a low-resolution measuring apparatus. We analyze a stochastic, Markovian jump process with a specific structure that lends itself naturally to coarse-graining. A perturbative analysis yields a reduced stochastic jump process that approximates the coarse-grained dynamics of the original system. This leads to a non-trivial fluctuation relation that is approximately satisfied by the coarse-grained dynamics. We illustrate our results by computing the large deviations of a particular stochastic jump process. Our results highlight the possibility that observed deviations from fluctuation relations might be due to the presence of unobserved degrees of freedom.
The large time and length scales and, not least, the vast number of particles involved in industrial-scale simulations inflate the computational costs of the Discrete Element Method (DEM) excessively. Coarse grain models can help to lower the computational demands significantly. However, for effects that intrinsically depend on particle size, coarse grain models fail to correctly predict the behaviour of the granular system. To solve this problem we have developed a new technique based on the efficient combination of fine-scale and coarse grain DEM models. The method is designed to capture the details of the granular system in spatially confined sub-regions while keeping the computational benefits of the coarse grain model where a lower resolution is sufficient. To this end, our method establishes two-way coupling between resolved and coarse grain parts of the system by volumetric passing of boundary conditions. Even more, multiple levels of coarse-graining may be combined to achieve an optimal balance between accuracy and speedup. This approach enables us to reach large time and length scales while retaining specifics of crucial regions. Furthermore, the presented model can be extended to coupled CFD-DEM simulations, where the resolution of the CFD mesh may be changed adaptively as well.