arXiv subjects

João Moreira

Publications and source records attributed to João Moreira.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Incidental Visualizations: Augmented Reality as a Medium for Contextual Information

In today's fast-paced world, delivering information efficiently and unobtrusively is essential. While ambient and glanceable visualizations provide real-time data, they can increase cognitive load and disrupt primary tasks. We investigate incidental visualizations, a novel concept in information visualization designed to present contextually relevant information briefly and spontaneously, with minimal user interaction. Augmented Reality offers an ideal medium for this integration, embedding visualizations directly within the user's environment. Through controlled user studies on logic-based game tasks (Sudoku and Connect 4), this work compares ambient, periodic, and incidental visualization patterns in terms of comprehension accuracy, performance, and disruption. Results indicate that IVs deliver information as effectively as ambient displays while minimizing disruption, highlighting their potential for adaptive, context-aware information delivery in AR environments.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2026

Building a Data Dashboard for Magic: The Gathering: Initial Design Considerations

This paper presents the initial stages of a design study aimed at developing a dashboard to visualize gameplay data of the Commander format from Magic: The Gathering. We conducted a user-task analysis to identify requirements for a data visualization dashboard tailored to the Commander format. Afterward, we proposed a design for the dashboard, leveraging visualizations to address players' needs and pain points for typical data analysis tasks in the context domain. Then, we followed-up with a structured user test to evaluate players' comprehension and preferences of data visualizations. Results show that players prioritize contextually relevant, outcome-driven metrics over peripheral ones, and that canonical charts like heatmaps and line charts support higher comprehension than complex ones such as scatterplots or icicle plots. Our findings also highlight the importance of localized views, user customization, and progressive disclosure, emphasizing that adaptability and contextual relevance are as essential as accuracy in effective dashboard design. Our study contributes practical design guidelines for data visualization in gaming contexts and highlights broader implications for engagement-driven dashboards.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2023

A new approach to the 3-momentum regularization of the in-medium one and two fermion line integrals with applications to cross sections in the Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model

We propose the 3-momentum sphere intersection regularization applied to the one and two fermion line integrals at finite temperature and chemical potential. The quark-antiquark polarization function in this new regularization approach is equivalent to the usual 3-momentum regularization, when the absolute value of the external 3-momentum of the polarization is zero. Additionally, it respects the particle-antiparticle symmetry of meson states in the Nambu$-$Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model for all values of temperature and chemical potential. Without this symmetry, in-medium cross sections calculated in the 3-momentum regularized NJL model are not consistent. In order to demonstrate the difference between the usual 3-momentum regularization with the one proposed in this work, we study the quark-quark and quark-antiquark cross sections in both regularization schemes. To this end we use the standard $SU(3)$ NJL model, with four and six quark interactions. We observe major quantitative and qualitative differences when comparing quark-quark cross sections in both schemes. The quark-antiquark cross sections, on the other hand, are very similar in both regularizations, owning to the equivalence between the regularizations when the absolute value of the external 3-momentum is zero.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

Phase diagram for strongly interacting matter in the presence of a magnetic field using the Polyakov-Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with magnetic field dependent coupling strengths

We study the phase diagram for strongly interacting matter using the 't Hooft determinant extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model with a Polyakov loop in the light and strange quark sectors (\emph{up}, \emph{down} and \emph{strange}) focusing on the effect of a magnetic field dependence of the coupling strengths of these interactions. This dependence was obtained so as to reproduce recent lattice QCD results for the magnetic field dependence of the quarks dynamical masses. A finite magnetic field is known to induce several additional first-order phase transition lines with the respective Critical End Points (CEP) in the temperature-quark chemical potential phase diagram when compared to the zero magnetic field case. A study of the magnetic field dependence in the range $eB=0-0.6~\mathrm{GeV}^2$ of the location of these CEPs reveals that the initial one as well as several of the new ones only survive up to a critical magnetic field. Only two remain in the upper limit of the studied magnetic field strength. A comparison of the results obtained with versions of the model with and without Polyakov loop is also done. We also found that the inclusion of the magnetic field dependence on the coupling strengths, while not changing the qualitative features of the phase diagram, affects the location of these CEPs. The comparison of results with and without a regularization cutoff in the medium part of the integrals does not show a significant change.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

The strange critical endpoint and isentropic trajectories in an Extended PNJL Model with Eight Quark Interactions

In this work, we explore the possible existence of several critical endpoints in the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter using an extended PNJL model with 't Hooft determinant and eight quark interactions in the up, down and strange sectors. Besides, we also study the isentropic trajectories crossing both (light and strange) chiral phase transitions and around the critical endpoint in both the crossover and first-order transition regions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Magnetic field dependent 't Hooft determinant extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio Model

We study the implications of recent lattice QCD results for the magnetic field dependence of the quarks dynamical masses on the 't Hooft determinant extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio Model in the light and strange quark sectors (\emph{up}, \emph{down} and \emph{strange}). The parameter space is constrained at vanishing magnetic field, using the quarks dynamical masses and the meson spectra, whereas at non-vanishing magnetic field strength the dependence of the dynamical masses of two of the quark flavors is used to fit a magnetic field dependence on the model couplings, both the four-fermion Nambu--Jona-Lasinio interaction and the six-fermion 't Hooft flavor determinant. We found that this procedure reproduces the inverse magnetic catalysis, and the strength of the scalar coupling decreases with the magnetic field, while the strength of the six-fermion 't Hooft flavor determinant increases with the magnetic field.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

Influence of the inverse magnetic catalysis and the vector interaction in the location of the critical end point

The effect of a strong magnetic field on the location of the critical end point (CEP) in the QCD phase diagram is discussed under different scenarios. In particular, we consider the contribution of the vector interaction and take into account the inverse magnetic catalysis obtained in lattice QCD calculations at zero chemical potential. The discussion is realized within the (2+1) Polyakov--Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model. It is shown that the vector interaction and the magnetic field have opposite competing effects, and that the winning effect depends strongly on the intensity of the magnetic field. The inverse magnetic catalysis at zero chemical potential has two distinct effects for magnetic fields above $\gtrsim 0.3$ GeV$^2$: it shifts the CEP to lower chemical potentials, hinders the increase of the CEP temperature and prevents a too large increase of the baryonic density at the CEP. For fields $eB<0.1$ GeV$^2$ the competing effects between the vector contribution and the magnetic field can move the CEP to regions of temperature and density in the phase diagram that could be more easily accessible to experiments.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

Susceptibilities in the PNJL model with 8q interactions and comparison with lQCD

We present some results pertaining quantities which are regarded as good indicators of the pseudo-critical temperatures for the deconfinement and partial chiral restoration transitions using a polynomial form for the Polyakov potential part and an extended version of the NJL model which includes 6 and 8 quark interaction terms. Some comparisons with results from the lattice formulation of QCD (lQCD) are performed and results for the location of the critical endoint in the phase diagram are also presented. It is shown that the comparison with lQCD results favors a moderately strong OZI-violating 8 quark interaction term.

hep-ph↗