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Fabio Deelan Cunden

Publications and source records attributed to Fabio Deelan Cunden.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources
arXiv2026

Limits of Stochastic Semigroups and Block-Triangular Majorisation

We investigate limits of semigroups of stochastic matrices defined by their invariant distribution. Given probability vectors $γ(β)$ depending on a parameter $β$, we introduce a notion of convergence as $β\to\infty$ for the corresponding semigroups of $γ(β)$-preserving stochastic matrices and investigate the structure of the resulting limit. In general, the limiting semigroup differs from the semigroup preserving the limiting distribution, showing that these two operations do not commute. We develop a general framework for such limiting semigroups and study in detail the case in which the invariant distributions are Gibbs vectors at the inverse temperature $β$. We show that the limiting semigroup consists of block-upper-triangular stochastic matrices subject to additional substochasticity constraints. We characterise and enumerate their extremal elements and determine the preorder on probability vectors induced by the action of the semigroup. The resulting notion of Block-Triangular majorisation interpolates between ordinary majorisation and upper triangular (aka unordered) majorisation. We show that it is completely characterised by a finite family of monotones and analyse the corresponding behaviour of Rényi $α$-entropies as $β\to\infty$.

math-ph↗
arXiv2026

Maximal Minimal Spacing for Random Points

From $N+1$ random points on a line we wish to select $M+1$ points so as to maximize the minimal spacing between them. We consider an initial configuration with independent and identically distributed spacings. Equivalently, the points are arrival times of a generic renewal process. For general spacing distributions, and for all $M\leq N$, we derive exact distributional identities for the maximal minimal spacing and obtain its asymptotic behavior. The problem admits a reformulation in terms of a threshold-resetting random walk. The walk advances by successive random increments and is reset to the origin upon exceeding a fixed threshold. The probability that the optimal spacing exceeds a given value coincides with the probability that the walk completes at least $M$ reset cycles within $N$ steps. This yields an exact representation in terms of first-passage functionals of the walk. The same mapping suggests a numerical scheme for the max-min spacing problem in the regime of large $N$ and $M$, whose accuracy is tested against the exact results obtained here.

math-ph↗
arXiv2026

The Most Dispersed Subset of Random Points in $\mathbb{R}^d$

Consider a population of $N$ individuals, each having $d\geq 1$ different traits, and an additive measure, called dispersion, which rewards large pairwise separations between traits. The goal is to select $M\leq N$ individuals such that their traits are as dispersed as possible. We compute analytically the full statistics (including large deviation tails) of the maximally achievable dispersion among sub-populations of size $M$ when the traits are independent and identically distributed. Two complementary approaches are developed, one based on a mean-field theory for order statistics, and the other on the replica method from the field of disordered systems. In all dimensions $d$, and for rotationally symmetric distributions, the optimal subset for large populations consists of all points lying outside a $d$-dimensional ball whose radius is determined self-consistently. For a single trait ($d=1$), the statistics of the maximal dispersion can be tackled for finite $N,M$ as well. The formulae we obtained are corroborated by numerical simulations on small instances and by heuristic algorithms that find near-optimal solutions.

cond-mat.stat-mech↗
arXiv2026

Quantum Systems with jump-discontinuous mass. I

We consider a free quantum particle in one dimension whose mass profile exhibits jump discontinuities. The corresponding Hamiltonian is a self-adjoint realisation of the kinetic-energy operator, with the specific realisation determined by the boundary conditions at the points of mass discontinuity. For a family of scale-free boundary conditions, we analyse the associated spectral problem. We find that the eigenfunctions exhibit a highly sensitive and erratic dependence on the energy. Notably, the system supports infinitely many distinct semiclassical limits, each labeled by a point on a spectral curve embedded in the two-torus. These results demonstrate a rich interplay between discontinuous coefficients, boundary data, and spectral asymptotics.

math-ph↗
arXiv2026

Combinatorial Exploration of Multidrug Polyspecificity in Efflux Pumps

A defining feature of efflux pumps is multidrug polyspecificity, which to date still eludes some of the traditional dogmas of drug binding within protein science. We propose a combinatorial approach to explore the neighbourhood of efflux pump superfamilies in the vast sequence space of polypeptide chains. By generating new candidate structures through structured permutations of existing sequences, this framework aims to uncover hidden determinants of efflux pump functionality.

physics.bio-ph↗
arXiv2025

Relative volume of comparable pairs under semigroup majorization

Any semigroup $\mathcal{S}$ of stochastic matrices induces a semigroup majorization relation $\prec^{\mathcal{S}}$ on the set $Δ_{n-1}$ of probability $n$-vectors. Pick $X,Y$ at random in $Δ_{n-1}$: what is the probability that $X$ and $Y$ are comparable under $\prec^{\mathcal{S}}$? We review recent asymptotic ($n\to\infty$) results and conjectures in the case of majorization relation (when $\mathcal{S}$ is the set of doubly stochastic matrices), discuss natural generalisations, and prove a new asymptotic result in the case of majorization, and new exact finite-$n$ formulae in the case of UT-majorization relation, i.e. when $\mathcal{S}$ is the set of upper-triangular stochastic matrices.

math-ph↗
arXiv2025

Condensation of vanishing photon emission rates in random atomic clouds

In the collective photon emission from atomic clouds both the atomic transition frequency and the decay rate are modified compared to a single isolated atom, leading to the effects of superradiance and subradiance. In this article, we analyse the properties of the Euclidean random matrix associated to the radiative dynamics of a cold atomic cloud, previously investigated in the contexts of photon localization and Dicke super- and subradiance. We present evidence of a new type of phase transition, surprisingly controlled by the cooperativeness parameter, rather than the spatial density or the diagonal disorder. The numerical results corroborate the occurrence of such a phase transition at a critical value of the cooperativeness parameter, above which the lower edge of the spectrum vanishes exhibiting a macroscopic accumulation of eigenvalues. Independent evaluations based on the two phenomena provide the same value of the critical cooperativeness parameter.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2025

Truncated quantum observables and their semiclassical limit

For quantum observables $H$ truncated on the range of orthogonal projections $Π_N$ of rank $N$, we study the corresponding Weyl symbol in the phase space in the semiclassical limit of vanishing Planck constant $\hbar\to0$ and large quantum number $N\to\infty$, with $\hbar N$ fixed. Under certain assumptions, we prove the $L^2$- convergence of the Weyl symbols to a symbol truncated (hence, in general discontinuous) on the classically allowed region in phase space. As an illustration of the general theorems we analyse truncated observables for the harmonic oscillator and for a free particle in a one-dimensional box. In the latter case, we also compute the microscopic pointwise limit of the symbols near the boundary of the classically allowed region.

math-ph↗
arXiv2025

$λ$-shaped random matrices, $λ$-plane trees, and $λ$-Dyck paths

We consider random matrices whose shape is the dilation $Nλ$ of a self-conjugate Young diagram $λ$. In the large-$N$ limit, the empirical distribution of the squared singular values converges almost surely to a probability distribution $F^λ$. The moments of $F^λ$ enumerate two combinatorial objects: $λ$-plane trees and $λ$-Dyck paths, which we introduce and show to be in bijection. We also prove that the distribution $F^λ$ is algebraic, in the sense of Rao and Edelman. In the case of fat hook shapes we provide explicit formulae for $F^λ$ and we express it as a free convolution of two measures involving a Marchenko-Pastur and a Bernoulli distribution.

math.PR↗
arXiv2024

Random matrices associated to Young diagrams

We consider the singular values of certain Young diagram shaped random matrices. For block-shaped random matrices, the empirical distribution of the squares of the singular eigenvalues converges almost surely to a distribution whose moments are a generalisation of the Catalan numbers. The limiting distribution is the density of a product of rescaled independent Beta random variables and its Stieltjes-Cauchy transform has a hypergeometric representation. In special cases we recover the Marchenko-Pastur and Dykema-Haagerup measures of square and triangular random matrices, respectively. We find a further factorisation of the moments in terms of two complex-valued random variables that generalises the factorisation of the Marcenko-Pastur law as product of independent uniform and arcsine random variables.

math.PR↗
arXiv2023

Cooperative photon emission rates in random atomic clouds

We investigate the properties of the cooperative decay modes of a cold atomic cloud, characterized by a Gaussian distribution in three dimensions, initially excited by a laser in the linear regime. We study the properties of the decay rate matrix $S$, whose dimension coincides with the number of atoms in the cloud, in order to get a deeper insight into properties of cooperative photon emission. Since the atomic positions are random, $S$ is a Euclidean random matrix whose entries are function of the atom distances. We show that, in the limit of a large number of atoms in the cloud, the eigenvalue distribution of $S$ depends on a single parameter $b_0$, called the cooperativeness parameter, which can be viewed as a quantifier of the number of atoms that are coherently involved in an emission process. For very small values of $b_0$, we find that the limit eigenvalue density is approximately triangular. We also study the nearest-neighbour spacing distribution and the eigenvector statistics, finding that, although the decay rate matrices are Euclidean, the bulk of their spectra mostly behaves according to the expectations of classical random matrix theory. In particular, in the bulk there is level repulsion and the eigenvectors are delocalized, therefore exhibiting the universal behaviour of chaotic quantum systems.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2023

The semiclassical limit of a quantum Zeno dynamics

Motivated by a quantum Zeno dynamics in a cavity quantum electrodynamics setting, we study the asymptotics of a family of symbols corresponding to a truncated momentum operator, in the semiclassical limit of vanishing Planck constant $\hbar\to0$ and large quantum number $N\to\infty$, with $\hbar N$ kept fixed. In a suitable topology, the limit is the discontinuous symbol $pχ_D(x,p)$ where $χ_D$ is the characteristic function of the classically permitted region $D$ in phase space. A refined analysis shows that the symbol is asymptotically close to the function $pχ_D^{(N)}(x,p)$, where $χ_D^{(N)}$ is a smooth version of $χ_D$ related to the integrated Airy function. We also discuss the limit from a dynamical point of view.

math-ph↗
arXiv2021

The oriented swap process and last passage percolation

We present new probabilistic and combinatorial identities relating three random processes: the oriented swap process on $n$ particles, the corner growth process, and the last passage percolation model. We prove one of the probabilistic identities, relating a random vector of last passage percolation times to its dual, using the duality between the Robinson-Schensted-Knuth and Burge correspondences. A second probabilistic identity, relating those two vectors to a vector of 'last swap times' in the oriented swap process, is conjectural. We give a computer-assisted proof of this identity for $n\le 6$ after first reformulating it as a purely combinatorial identity, and discuss its relation to the Edelman-Greene correspondence. The conjectural identity provides precise finite-$n$ and asymptotic predictions on the distribution of the absorbing time of the oriented swap process, thus conditionally solving an open problem posed by Angel, Holroyd and Romik.

math.PR↗
arXiv2021

Generic aspects of the resource theory of quantum coherence

The class of incoherent operations induces a pre-order on the set of quantum pure states, defined by the possibility of converting one state into the other by transformations within the class. We prove that if two $n$-dimensional pure states are chosen independently according to the natural uniform distribution, then the probability that they are comparable vanishes as $n\rightarrow\infty$. We also study the maximal success probability of incoherent conversions and find an explicit formula for its large-$n$ asymptotic distribution. Our analysis is based on the observation that the extreme values (largest and smallest components) of a random point uniformly sampled from the unit simplex are distributed asymptotically as certain explicit homogeneous Markov chains.

quant-ph↗
arXiv2020

Moments of discrete orthogonal polynomial ensembles

We obtain factorial moment identities for the Charlier, Meixner and Krawtchouk orthogonal polynomial ensembles. Building on earlier results by Ledoux [Elect. J. Probab. 10, (2005)], we find hypergeometric representations for the factorial moments when the reference measure is Poisson (Charlier ensemble) and geometric (a particular case of the Meixner ensemble). In these cases, if the number of particles is suitably randomised, the factorial moments have a polynomial property, and satisfy three-term recurrence relations and differential equations. In particular, the normalised factorial moments of the randomised ensembles are precisely related to the moments of the corresponding equilibrium measures. We also briefly outline how these results can be interpreted as Cauchy-type identities for certain Schur measures.

math.PR↗
arXiv2020

Sorting networks, staircase Young tableaux and last passage percolation

We present new combinatorial and probabilistic identities relating three random processes: the oriented swap process on $n$ particles, the corner growth process, and the last passage percolation model. We prove one of the probabilistic identities, relating a random vector of last passage percolation times to its dual, using the duality between the Robinson-Schensted-Knuth and Burge correspondences. A second probabilistic identity, relating those two vectors to a vector of "last swap times" in the oriented swap process, is conjectural. We give a computer-assisted proof of this identity for $n\le 6$ after first reformulating it as a purely combinatorial identity, and discuss its relation to the Edelman-Greene correspondence.

math.CO↗
arXiv2020

Volume of the set of LOCC-convertible quantum states

The class of quantum operations known as Local Operations and Classical Communication (LOCC) induces a partial ordering on quantum states. We present the results of systematic numerical computations related to the volume (with respect to the unitarily invariant measure) of the set of LOCC-convertible bipartite pure states, where the ordering is characterised by an algebraic relation known as majorization. The numerical results, which exploit a tridiagonal model of random matrices, provide quantitative evidence that the proportion of LOCC-convertible pairs vanishes in the limit of large dimension, and therefore support a previous conjecture by Nielsen. In particular, we show that the problem is equivalent to the persistence of a non-Markovian stochastic process and the proportion of LOCC-convertible pairs decays algebraically with a nontrivial persistence exponent. We extend this analysis by investigating the distribution of the maximal success probability of LOCC-conversions. We show a dichotomy in behaviour between balanced and unbalanced bipartitions. In the latter case the asymptotics is somehow surprising: in the limit of large dimensions, for the overwhelming majority of pairs of states a perfect LOCC-conversion is not possible; nevertheless, for most states there exist local strategies that succeed in achieving the conversion with a probability arbitrarily close to one. We present strong evidences of a universal scaling limit for the maximal probability of successful LOCC-conversions and we suggest a connection with the typical fluctuations of the smallest eigenvalue of Wishart random matrices.

quant-ph↗