In the context of two illustrative examples from supersymmetric quantum mechanics we show that the semiclassical analysis of the path integral requires complexification of the configuration space and action, and the inclusion of complex saddle points, even when the parameters in the action are real. We find new exact complex saddles, and show that without their contribution the semi-classical expansion is in conflict with basic properties such as positive-semidefiniteness of the spectrum, and constraints of supersymmetry. Generic saddles are not only complex, but also possibly multi-valued, and even singular. This is in contrast to instanton solutions, which are real, smooth, and single-valued. The multi-valuedness of the action can be interpreted as a hidden topological angle, quantized in units of π in supersymmetric theories. The general ideas also apply to non-supersymmetric theories.

In pattern-forming developmental systems, cells commonly interpret graded input signals, known as morphogens. Morphogens often pattern tissues through cascades of sequential gene expression steps. Such a multi-tiered structure appears to constitute suboptimal use of the positional information provided by the input morphogen because noise is added at each tier. However, the conventional theory neglects the role of the format in which information is encoded. We argue that the relevant performance measure is not solely the amount of information carried by the morphogen, but the amount of information that can be accessed by the downstream network. We demonstrate that quantifying the information that is accessible to the system naturally explains the prevalence of multi-tiered network architectures as a consequence of the noise inherent to the control of gene expression. We support our argument with empirical observations from patterning along the major body axis of the fruit fly embryo.

The fermionic signature operator is constructed in Rindler space-time. It is shown to be an unbounded self-adjoint operator on the Hilbert space of solutions of the massive Dirac equation. In two-dimensional Rindler space-time, we prove that the resulting fermionic projector state coincides with the Fulling-Rindler vacuum. Moreover, the fermionic signature operator gives a covariant construction of general thermal states, in particular of the Unruh state. The fermionic signature operator is shown to be well-defined in asymptotically Rindler space-times. In four-dimensional Rindler space-time, our construction gives rise to new quantum states.

We show existence and uniqueness of solutions to the Monge-Ampere equation on compact almost complex manifolds with non-integrable almost complex structure.

We prove a compactness principle for the anisotropic formulation of the Plateau’s problem in codimension one, along the same lines of previous works of the authors [DGM14, DPDRG15]. In particular, we perform a new strategy for proving the rectifiability of the minimal set, avoiding the Preiss’ Rectifiability Theorem.