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The comprehension of the mechanisms at the basis of the functioning of complexly interconnected networks represents one of the main goals of neuroscience. In this work, we investigate how the structure of recurrent connectivity influences the ability of a network to have storable patterns and in particular limit cycles, by modeling a recurrent neural network with McCulloch-Pitts neurons as a content-addressable memory system. A key role in such models is played by the connectivity matrix, which, for neural networks, corresponds to a schematic representation of the "connectome": the set of chemical synapses and electrical junctions among neurons. The shape of the recurrent connectivity matrix plays a crucial role in the process of storing memories. This relation has already been exposed by the work of Tanaka and Edwards, which presents a theoretical approach to evaluate the mean number of fixed points in a fully connected model at thermodynamic limit. Interestingly, further studies on the same kind of model but with a finite number of nodes have shown how the symmetry parameter influences the types of attractors featured in the system. Our study extends the work of Tanaka and Edwards by providing a theoretical evaluation of the mean number of attractors of any given length $L$ for different degrees of symmetry in the connectivity matrices., Comment: 35 pages, 12 figures

We study with numerical simulation the possible limit behaviors of synchronous discrete-time deterministic recurrent neural networks composed of N binary neurons as a function of a network's level of dilution and asymmetry. The network dilution measures the fraction of neuron couples that are connected, and the network asymmetry measures to what extent the underlying connectivity matrix is asymmetric. For each given neural network, we study the dynamical evolution of all the different initial conditions, thus characterizing the full dynamical landscape without imposing any learning rule. Because of the deterministic dynamics, each trajectory converges to an attractor, that can be either a fixed point or a limit cycle. These attractors form the set of all the possible limit behaviors of the neural network. For each network, we then determine the convergence times, the limit cycles' length, the number of attractors, and the sizes of the attractors' basin. We show that there are two network structures that maximize the number of possible limit behaviors. The first optimal network structure is fully-connected and symmetric. On the contrary, the second optimal network structure is highly sparse and asymmetric. The latter optimal is similar to what observed in different biological neuronal circuits. These observations lead us to hypothesize that independently from any given learning model, an efficient and effective biologic network that stores a number of limit behaviors close to its maximum capacity tends to develop a connectivity structure similar to one of the optimal networks we found., Comment: 31 pages, 5 figures

We measure the electron spin resonance spectrum of the endohedral fullerene molecule $^{15}\mathrm{N@C}_{60}$ at pressures ranging from atmospheric pressure to 0.25 GPa, and find that the hyperfine coupling increases linearly with pressure. We present a model based on van der Waals interactions, which accounts for this increase via compression of the fullerene cage and consequent admixture of orbitals with a larger hyperfine coupling. Combining this model with theoretical estimates of the bulk modulus, we predict the pressure shift and compare it to our experimental results, finding fair agreement given the spread in estimates of the bulk modulus. The spin resonance linewidth is also found to depend on pressure. This is explained by considering the pressure-dependent viscosity of the solvent, which modifies the effect of dipolar coupling between spins within fullerene clusters., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures

We investigate spatial localization in a quadratic nonlinear medium in the presence of randomness. By means of numerical simulations and theoretical analyses we show that, in the down conversion regime, the transverse random modulation of the nonlinear susceptibility generates localizations of the fundamental wave that grow exponentially in propagation. The localization length is optically controlled by the pump intensity which determines the amplification rate. The results also apply to cubic nonlinearities., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures

Because of the huge commercial importance of granular systems, the second-most used material in industry after water, intersecting the industry in multiple trades, like pharmacy and agriculture, fundamental research on grain-like materials has received an increasing amount of attention in the last decades. In photonics, the applications of granular materials have been only marginally investigated. We report the first phase-diagram of a granular as obtained by laser emission. The dynamics of vertically-oscillated granular in a liquid solution in a three-dimensional container is investigated by employing its random laser emission. The granular motion is function of the frequency and amplitude of the mechanical solicitation, we show how the laser emission allows to distinguish two phases in the granular and analyze its spectral distribution. This constitutes a fundamental step in the field of granulars and gives a clear evidence of the possible control on light-matter interaction achievable in grain-like system., Comment: 16 pages, 7 figures

We experimentally investigate the interplay between spatial shock waves and the degree of disorder during nonlinear optical propagation in a thermal defocusing medium. We characterize the way the shock point is affected by the amount of disorder and scales with wave amplitude. Evidence for the existence of a phase diagram in terms of nonlinearity and amount of randomness is reported. The results are in quantitative agreement with a theoretical approach based on the hydrodynamic approximation., Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures

Granular materials have been studied for decades, also driven by industrial and technological applications. These very simple systems, composed by agglomerations of mesoscopic particles, are characterized, in specific regimes, by a large number of metastable states and an extreme sensitivity (e.g., in sound transmission) on the arrangement of grains; they are not substantially affected by thermal phenomena, but can be controlled by mechanical solicitations. Laser emission from shaken granular matter is so far unexplored; here we provide experimental evidence that it can be affected and controlled by the status of motion of the granular, we also find that competitive random lasers can be observed. We hence demonstrate the potentialities of gravity affected moving disordered materials for optical applications, and open the road to a variety of novel interdisciplinary investigations, involving modern statistical mechanics and disordered photonics., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. To be published in Physical Review Letters

We are able to detect the details of spatial optical collisionless wave-breaking through the high aperture imaging of a beam suffering shock in a fluorescent nonlinear nonlocal thermal medium. This allows us to directly measure how nonlocality and nonlinearity affect the point of shock formation and compare results with numerical simulations., Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures

The effect of focusing and defocusing nonlinearities on Anderson localization in highly nonlocal media is theoretically and numerically investigated. A perturbative approach is developed to solve the nonlocal nonlinear Schroedinger equation in the presence of a random potential, showing that nonlocality stabilizes Anderson states., Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures

The instabilities arising in a one-dimensional beam sustained by the diffusive photorefractive nonlinearity in out-of-equilibrium ferroelectrics are theoretically and numerically investigated. In the "scale-free model", in striking contrast with the well-known spatial modulational instability, two different beam instabilities dominate: a defocusing and a fragmenting process. Both are independent of the beam power and are not associated to any specific periodic pattern., Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures

Self-induced transparency pulses propagating in a random medium embedded in a two-level system can transfer energy to localized Anderson states. This allows the onset of two-level laser-like action., Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, revised version

We investigate the evolution of solitary waves in a nonlocal medium in the presence of disorder. By using a perturbational approach, we show that an increasing degree of nonlocality may largely hamper the Brownian motion of self-trapped wave-packets. The result is valid for any kind of nonlocality and in the presence of non-paraxial effects. Analytical predictions are compared with numerical simulations based on stochastic partial differential equation, Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures.

We investigate mode-locking processes in lasers displaying a variable degree of structural randomness, from standard optical cavities to multiple-scattering media. By employing methods mutuated from spin-glass theory, we analyze the mean-field Hamiltonian and derive a phase-diagram in terms of the pumping rate and the degree of disorder. Three phases are found: i) paramagnetic, corresponding to a noisy continuous wave emission, ii) ferromagnetic, that describes the standard passive mode-locking, and iii) the spin-glass in which the phases of the electromagnetic field are frozen in a exponentially large number of configurations. The way the mode-locking threshold is affected by the amount of disorder is quantified. The results are also relevant for other physical systems displaying a random Hamiltonian, like Bose-Einstein condensates and nonlinear optical beams., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures

We provide a strategy to find in few elementary calculations the critical exponents of the overlaps for dilute spin glasses, in absence of external field. Such a strategy is based on the expansion of a suitably perturbed average of the overlaps, which is used in the formulation of the free energy as the difference between a cavity part and the derivative of the free energy itself, considered as a function of the connectivity of the model. We assume the validity of certain reasonable approximations, e.g. that higher powers of overlap monomials are of smaller magnitude near the critical point, of which we do not provide a rigorous proof., Comment: 14 pages