arXiv subjects

Daniel Fernandez

Publications and source records attributed to Daniel Fernandez.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Spatially Resolving the Pre-Thermal Anatomy of a Driven Bosonic Fluid

Understanding how coherently driven quantum many-body systems redistribute energy prior to thermal equilibrium remains a central challenge in many-body physics. Here, we utilize nitrogen-vacancy (NV) magnetometry to perform micron-scale spatial imaging of room-temperature magnon dynamics in a yttrium iron garnet (YIG) thin film. We resolve a hierarchy of discrete parametric scattering events that serve as deterministic stepping stones toward thermalization. By applying a two-tone wave-mixing protocol, we first isolate the elementary four-magnon interaction and extract its coupling strength via the spatial growth of the scattering product. We then drive the system with an intense single-frequency excitation near ferromagnetic resonance, revealing that magnon-magnon interactions trigger a spontaneous, multi-generation scattering cascade. We demonstrate that in each generation, the dominant scattering channels correspond to one of the out-scattered magnons being in the slow magnon regime, reminiscent of the enhancement of optical nonlinearities in slow light systems. We capture this dynamics quantitatively using a near field magnonics framework and extract the cascade order and nonlinear coefficients directly from power-dependent frequency shifts. By revealing the multi-stage dynamical process through which monochromatic injected magnons evolve toward equilibrium, our work establishes spatially resolved magnonics as a powerful platform for visualizing non-equilibrium many-body kinetics.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2026

A nanoscale magnetic spectrum analyzer based on qubit dressed states

Magnetic field fluctuations on nanometer length scales manifest in a diverse range of phenomena -- electron and spin dynamics in materials and devices, quantum many-body systems, and molecular chemistry. Measuring these phenomena requires sensors with a challenging combination of broad spectral bandwidth, high sensitivity, and nanoscale spatial resolution. Nitrogen-vacancy (NV) centers, atom-like quantum sensors in diamond, possess the requisite sensitivity and nanoscale sensing volume, but are typically limited in bandwidth by the practical speed of the applied quantum control sequence. Here, we overcome this limitation by exposing the NV qubit to a microwave dressing field during a dynamical decoupling sequence, which both amplifies and frequency-mixes target signals at arbitrary frequencies into the detection band of the dynamical decoupling protocol. We demonstrate this approach by using NV centers to detect both coherent and noisy nanoscale spin wave dynamics in a magnetic yttrium-iron-garnet (YIG) thin film over a broad frequency range. Our technique generalizes to other qubit platforms, providing a versatile framework for nanoscale spectroscopy across diverse physical and chemical systems.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2025

Defect detection in III-V multijunction solar cells using reverse-bias stress tests

Reverse biasing triple-junction GaInP/Ga(In)As/Ge solar cells may affect their performance by the formation of permanent shunts even if the reverse breakdown voltage is not reached. In previous works, it was observed that, amid the three components, GaInP subcells are more prone to degrade when reverse biased suffering permanent damage, although they present an initial good performance. The aim of this work is, firstly, to study the characteristics of the defects that cause the catastrophic failure of the devices. For this, GaInP isotype solar cells were analysed by visual inspection and electroluminescence maps and submitted to reverse bias stress test. We find that specific growth defects (i.e. hillocks), when covered with metal, cause the degradation in the cells. SEM cross-section imaging and EDX compositional analysis of these defects reveal their complex structures, which in essence consist of material abnormally grown on and around particles present on the wafer surface before growth. The reverse bias stress test is proposed as a screening method to spot defects hidden under the metal that may not be detected by conventional screening methods. By applying a quick reverse bias stress test, we can detect those defects that cause the degradation of devices at voltages below the breakdown voltage and that may also affect their long-term reliability.

physics.app-ph↗

arXiv2024

What is Beautiful is Still Good: The Attractiveness Halo Effect in the era of Beauty Filters

The impact of cognitive biases on decision-making in the digital world remains under-explored despite its well-documented effects in physical contexts. This study addresses this gap by investigating the attractiveness halo effect using AI-based beauty filters. We conduct a large-scale online user study involving 2,748 participants who rated facial images from a diverse set of 462 distinct individuals in two conditions: original and attractive after applying a beauty filter. Our study reveals that the same individuals receive statistically significantly higher ratings of attractiveness and other traits, such as intelligence and trustworthiness, in the attractive condition. We also study the impact of age, gender, and ethnicity and identify a weakening of the halo effect in the beautified condition, resolving conflicting findings from the literature and suggesting that filters could mitigate this cognitive bias. Finally, our findings raise ethical concerns regarding the use of beauty filters.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2024

Privacy Policies and Consent Management Platforms: Growth and Users' Interactions over Time

In response to growing concerns about user privacy, legislators have introduced new regulations and laws such as the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) that force websites to obtain user consent before activating personal data collection, fundamental to providing targeted advertising. The cornerstone of this consent-seeking process involves the use of Privacy Banners, the technical mechanism to collect users' approval for data collection practices. Consent management platforms (CMPs) have emerged as practical solutions to make it easier for website administrators to properly manage consent, allowing them to outsource the complexities of managing user consent and activating advertising features. This paper presents a detailed and longitudinal analysis of the evolution of CMPs spanning nine years. We take a twofold perspective: Firstly, thanks to the HTTP Archive dataset, we provide insights into the growth, market share, and geographical spread of CMPs. Noteworthy observations include the substantial impact of GDPR on the proliferation of CMPs in Europe. Secondly, we analyse millions of user interactions with a medium-sized CMP present in thousands of websites worldwide. We observe how even small changes in the design of Privacy Banners have a critical impact on the user's giving or denying their consent to data collection. For instance, over 60% of users do not consent when offered a simple "one-click reject-all" option. Conversely, when opting out requires more than one click, about 90% of users prefer to simply give their consent. The main objective is in fact to eliminate the annoying privacy banner rather the make an informed decision. Curiously, we observe iOS users exhibit a higher tendency to accept cookies compared to Android users, possibly indicating greater confidence in the privacy offered by Apple devices.

cs.CY↗

arXiv2020

A Magnon Scattering Platform

Scattering experiments have revolutionized our understanding of nature. Examples include the discovery of the nucleus, crystallography, and the discovery of the double helix structure of DNA. Scattering techniques differ by the type of the particles used, the interaction these particles have with target materials and the range of wavelengths used. Here, we demonstrate a new 2-dimensional table-top scattering platform for exploring magnetic properties of materials on mesoscopic length scales. Long lived, coherent magnonic excitations are generated in a thin film of YIG and scattered off a magnetic target deposited on its surface. The scattered waves are then recorded using a scanning NV center magnetometer that allows sub-wavelength imaging and operation under conditions ranging from cryogenic to ambient environment. While most scattering platforms measure only the intensity of the scattered waves, our imaging method allows for spatial determination of both amplitude and phase of the scattered waves thereby allowing for a systematic reconstruction of the target scattering potential. Our experimental results are consistent with theoretical predictions for such a geometry and reveal several unusual features of the magnetic response of the target, including suppression near the target edges and gradient in the direction perpendicular to the direction of surface wave propagation. Our results establish magnon scattering experiments as a new platform for studying correlated many-body systems.

cond-mat.mes-hall↗

arXiv2020

Fair and Decentralized Exchange of Digital Goods

We construct a privacy-preserving, distributed and decentralized marketplace where parties can exchange data for tokens. In this market, buyers and sellers make transactions in a blockchain and interact with a third party, called notary, who has the ability to vouch for the authenticity and integrity of the data. We introduce a protocol for the data-token exchange where neither party gains more information than what it is paying for, and the exchange is fair: either both parties gets the other's item or neither does. No third party involvement is required after setup, and no dispute resolution is needed.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2020

WibsonTree: Efficiently Preserving Seller's Privacy in a Decentralized Data Marketplace

We present a cryptographic primitive called WibsonTree designed to preserve users' privacy by allowing them to demonstrate predicates on their personal attributes, without revealing the values of those attributes. We suppose that there are three types of agents --buyers, sellers and notaries-- who interact in a decentralized privacy-preserving data marketplace (dPDM) such as the Wibson marketplace. We introduce the WibsonTree protocol as an efficient cryptographic primitive that enables the exchange of private information while preserving the seller's privacy. Using our primitive, a data seller can efficiently prove that he/she belongs to the target audience of a buyer's data request, without revealing any additional information.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2020

BatPay: a gas efficient protocol for the recurrent micropayment of ERC20 tokens

BatPay is a proxy scaling solution for the transfer of ERC20 tokens. It is suitable for micropayments in one-to-many and few-to-many scenarios, including digital markets and the distribution of rewards and dividends. In BatPay, many similar operations are bundled together into a single transaction in order to optimize gas consumption on the Ethereum blockchain. In addition, some costly verifications are replaced by a challenge game, pushing most of the computing cost off-chain. This results in a gas reduction of the transfer costs of three orders of magnitude, achieving around 1700 transactions per second on the Ethereum blockchain. Furthermore, it includes many relevant features, like meta-transactions for end-user operation without ether, and key-locked payments for atomic exchange of digital goods.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2020

Wibson Protocol for Secure Data Exchange and Batch Payments

Wibson is a blockchain-based, decentralized data marketplace that provides individuals a way to securely and anonymously sell information in a trusted environment. The combination of the Wibson token and blockchain-enabled smart contracts hopes to allow Data Sellers and Data Buyers to transact with each other directly while providing individuals the ability to maintain anonymity as desired. The Wibson marketplace will provide infrastructure and financial incentives for individuals to securely sell personal information without sacrificing personal privacy. Data Buyers receive information from willing and actively participating individuals with the benefit of knowing that the personal information should be accurate and current. We present here two different components working together to achieve an efficient decentralized marketplace. The first is a smart contract called Data Exchange, which stores references to Data Orders that different Buyers open in order to show to the market that they are interested in buying certain types of data, and provides secure mechanisms to perform the transactions. The second is used to process payments from Buyers to Sellers and intermediaries, and is called Batch Payments.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2019

Non-equilibrium steady states in quantum critical systems with Lifshitz scaling

We study out-of-equilibrium energy transport in a quantum critical fluid with Lifshitz scaling symmetry following a local quench between two semi-infinite fluid reservoirs. The late time energy flow is universal and is accommodated via a steady state occupying an expanding central region between outgoing shock and rarefaction waves. We consider the admissibility and entropy conditions for the formation of such a non-equilibrium steady state for a general dynamical critical exponent z in arbitrary dimensions and solve the associated Riemann problem. The Lifshitz fluid with z=2 can be obtained from a Galilean boost invariant field theory and the non-equilibrium steady state is identified as a boosted thermal state. A Lifshitz fluid with generic z is scale invariant but without boost symmetry and in this case the non-equilibrium steady state is genuinely non-thermal.

hep-th↗

arXiv2019

Secure Exchange of Digital Goods in a Decentralized Data Marketplace

We are tackling the problem of trading real-world private information using only cryptographic protocols and a public blockchain to guarantee honest transactions. In this project, we consider three types of agents --buyers, sellers and notaries-- interacting in a decentralized privacy-preserving data marketplace (dPDM) such as the Wibson data marketplace. This framework offers infrastructure and financial incentives for individuals to securely sell personal information while preserving personal privacy. Here we provide an efficient cryptographic primitive for the secure exchange of data in a dPDM, which occurs as an atomic operation wherein the data buyer gets access to the data and the data seller gets paid simultaneously.

cs.CR↗

arXiv2017

Jacob's Ladder: Prime numbers in 2d

Prime numbers are one of the most intriguing figures in mathematics. Despite centuries of research, many questions remain still unsolved. In recent years, computer simulations are playing a fundamental role in the study of an immense variety of problems. In this work, we present a simple representation of prime numbers in two dimensions that allows us to formulate a number of conjectures that may lead to important avenues in the field of research on prime numbers. In particular, although the zeroes in our representation grow in a somewhat erratic, hardly predictable way, the gaps between them present a remarkable and intriguing property: a clear exponential decay in the frequency of gaps vs gap size. The smaller the gaps, the more frequently they appear. Additionally, the sequence of zeroes, despite being non-consecutive numbers, contains a number of primes approximately equal to n/log(n) , being n the number of terms in the sequence.

math.HO↗

arXiv2017

Time dependence of entanglement for steady state formation in AdS$_3$/CFT$_2$

We consider a holographic model of two 1+1-dimensional heat baths at different temperatures joined at time $t=0$, such that a steady state heat-current region forms and expands in space for times $t>0$. After commenting on the causal structure of the dual 2+1-dimensional spacetime, we present how to calculate the time-dependent entanglement entropy of the boundary system holographically. We observe that the increase rate of the entanglement entropy satisfies certain bounds known from the literature on entanglement tsunamis. Furthermore, we check the validity of several non-trivial entanglement inequalities in this dynamic system.

hep-th↗

arXiv2017

Time evolution of entanglement for holographic steady state formation

Within gauge/gravity duality, we consider the local quench-like time evolution obtained by joining two 1+1-dimensional heat baths at different temperatures at time t=0. A steady state forms and expands in space. For the 2+1-dimensional gravity dual, we find that the shockwaves expanding the steady-state region are of spacelike nature in the bulk despite being null at the boundary. However, they do not transport information. Moreover, by adapting the time-dependent Hubeny-Rangamani-Takayanagi prescription, we holographically calculate the entanglement entropy and also the mutual information for different entangling regions. For general temperatures, we find that the entanglement entropy increase rate satisfies the same bound as in the "entanglement tsunami" setups. For small temperatures of the two baths, we derive an analytical formula for the time dependence of the entanglement entropy. This replaces the entanglement tsunami-like behaviour seen for high temperatures. Finally, we check that strong subadditivity holds in this time-dependent system, as well as further more general entanglement inequalities for five or more regions recently derived for the static case.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

Conductivities from attractors

In the context of applications of the AdS/CFT correspondence to condensed matter physics, we compute conductivities for field theory duals of dyonic planar black holes in 3+1-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton theories at zero temperature. We combine the near-horizon data obtained via Sen's entropy function formalism with known expressions for conductivities. In this way we express the conductivities in terms of the extremal black hole charges. We apply our approach to three different examples for dilaton theories for which the background geometry is not known explicitly. For a constant scalar potential, the thermoelectric conductivity explicitly scales as $\alpha_{xy}\sim N^{3/2}$, as expected. For the same model, our approach yields a finite result for the heat conductivity $\kappa/T \propto N^{3/2}$ even for $T \rightarrow 0$.

hep-th↗

arXiv2013

New Transport Properties of Anisotropic Holographic Superfluids

We complete the analysis of transport phenomena in p-wave superfluids within gauge/gravity duality, using the SU(2) Einstein-Yang-Mills model with backreaction. In particular, we analyze the fluctuation modes of helicity zero in addition to the helicity one and two modes studied earlier. We compute a further transport coefficient, associated to the first normal stress difference, not previously considered in the holographic context. In the unbroken phase this is related to a minimally coupled scalar on the gravity side. Moreover we find transport phenomena related to the thermoelectric and piezoelectric effects, in particular in the direction of the condensate, as well as the flexoelectric effect. These are similar to phenomena observed in condensed matter systems.

hep-th↗

arXiv2013

Quarkonium dissociation by anisotropy

We compute the screening length for quarkonium mesons moving through an anisotropic, strongly coupled N=4 super Yang-Mills plasma by means of its gravity dual. We present the results for arbitrary velocities and orientations of the mesons, as well as for arbitrary values of the anisotropy. The anisotropic screening length can be larger or smaller than the isotropic one, and this depends on whether the comparison is made at equal temperatures or at equal entropy densities. For generic motion we find that: (i) mesons dissociate above a certain critical value of the anisotropy, even at zero temperature; (ii) there is a limiting velocity for mesons in the plasma, even at zero temperature; (iii) in the ultra-relativistic limit the screening length scales as $(1-v^2)^ε$ with ε=1/2, in contrast with the isotropic result ε=1/4.

hep-th↗