We consider reflector imaging in a weakly random waveguide. We address the situation in which the source is farther from the reflector to be imaged than the energy equipartition distance, but the receiver array is closer to the reflector to be imaged than the energy equipartition distance. As a consequence, the reflector is illuminated by a partially coherent field and the signals recorded by the receiver array are noisy. This paper shows that migration of the recorded signals cannot give a good image, but an appropriate migration of the cross correlations of the recorded signals can give a very good image. The resolution and stability analysis of this original functional shows that the reflector can be localized with an accuracy of the order of the wavelength even when the receiver array has small aperture, and that broadband sources are necessary to ensure statistical stability, whatever the aperture of the array.

We develop mathematical models describing the evolution of stochastic age-structured populations. After reviewing existing approaches, we formulate a complete kinetic framework for age-structured interacting populations undergoing birth, death and fission processes in spatially dependent environments. We define the full probability density for the population-size age chart and find results under specific conditions. Connections with more classical models are also explicitly derived. In particular, we show that factorial moments for non-interacting processes are described by a natural generalization of the McKendrick-von Foerster equation, which describes mean-field deterministic behavior. Our approach utilizes mixed-type, multidimensional probability distributions similar to those employed in the study of gas kinetics and with terms that satisfy BBGKY-like equation hierarchies.

We introduce a class of M×M sample covariance matrices Q which subsumes and generalizes several previous models. The associated population covariance matrix Σ=EQ is assumed to differ from the identity by a matrix of bounded rank. All quantities except the rank of Σ−IM may depend on M in an arbitrary fashion. We investigate the principal components, i.e.\ the top eigenvalues and eigenvectors, of Q. We derive precise large deviation estimates on the generalized components ⟨w,ξi⟩ of the outlier and non-outlier eigenvectors ξi. Our results also hold near the so-called BBP transition, where outliers are created or annihilated, and for degenerate or near-degenerate outliers. We believe the obtained rates of convergence to be optimal. In addition, we derive the asymptotic distribution of the generalized components of the non-outlier eigenvectors. A novel observation arising from our results is that, unlike the eigenvalues, the eigenvectors of the principal components contain information about the \emph{subcritical} spikes of Σ. The proofs use several results on the eigenvalues and eigenvectors of the uncorrelated matrix Q, satisfying EQ=IM, as input: the isotropic local Marchenko-Pastur law established in [9], level repulsion, and quantum unique ergodicity of the eigenvectors. The latter is a special case of a new universality result for the joint eigenvalue-eigenvector distribution.

Loewner’s equation provides a way to encode a simply connected domain or equivalently its uniformizing conformal map via a real-valued driving function of its boundary. The first main result of the present paper is that the Dirichlet energy of this driving function (also known as the Loewner energy) is equal to the Dirichlet energy of the log-derivative of the (appropriately defined) uniformizing conformal map. This description of the Loewner energy then enables to tie direct links with regularized determinants and Teichmüller theory: We show that for smooth simple loops, the Loewner energy can be expressed in terms of the zeta-regularized determinants of a certain Neumann jump operator. We also show that the family of finite Loewner energy loops coincides with the Weil–Petersson class of quasicircles, and that the Loewner energy equals to a multiple of the universal Liouville action introduced by Takhtajan and Teo, which is a Kähler potential for the Weil–Petersson metric on the Weil–Petersson Teichmüller space.

We prove the universality for the eigenvalue gap statistics in the bulk of the spectrum for band matrices, in the regime where the band width is comparable with the dimension of the matrix, $W \sim N$. All previous results concerning universality of non-Gaussian random matrices are for mean-field models. By relying on a new mean-field reduction technique, we deduce universality from quantum unique ergodicity for band matrices.