Publications by authors named "Antonio Valletta"

In radiation detectors, the spatial distribution of the electric field plays a fundamental role in their operation. Access to this field distribution is of strategic importance, especially when investigating the perturbing effects induced by incident radiation. For example, one dangerous effect that prevents their proper operation is the accumulation of internal space charge.

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Deep levels control the space charge in electrically compensated semi-insulating materials. They limit the performance of radiation detectors but their interaction with free carriers can be favorably exploited in these devices to manipulate the spatial distribution of the electric field by optical beams. By using semi-insulating CdTe diodes as a case study, our results show that optical doping functionalities are achieved.

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The control of Covid 19 epidemics by public health policy in Italy during the first and the second epidemic waves has been driven by using reproductive number R(t) to identify the supercritical (percolative), the subcritical (arrested), separated by the critical regime. Here we show that to quantify the Covid-19 spreading rate with containment measures there is a need of a 3D expanded parameter space phase diagram built by the combination of R(t) and doubling time T(t). In this space we identify the Covid-19 dynamics in Italy and its administrative Regions.

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While the mathematical laws of uncontrolled epidemic spreading are well known, the statistical physics of coronavirus epidemics with containment measures is currently lacking. The modelling of available data of the first wave of the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 over 230 days, in different countries representative of different containment policies is relevant to quantify the efficiency of these policies to face the containment of any successive wave. At this aim we have built a 3D phase diagram tracking the simultaneous evolution and the interplay of the doubling time,, and the reproductive number,measured using the methodological definition used by the Robert Koch Institute.

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