1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
|
\documentclass[a4paper]{letter}
\usepackage[utf8]{inputenc} % why not type "Bézout" with unicode?
\usepackage[T1]{fontenc} % vector fonts plz
\usepackage{newtxtext,newtxmath} % Times for PR
\usepackage[
colorlinks=true,
urlcolor=purple,
linkcolor=black,
citecolor=black,
filecolor=black,
]{hyperref} % ref and cite links with pretty colors
\usepackage{xcolor}
\usepackage[style=phys]{biblatex}
\renewcommand{\thefootnote}{\fnsymbol{footnote}}
\addbibresource{frsb_kac-rice.bib}
\signature{
\vspace{-6\medskipamount}
\smallskip
Jaron Kent-Dobias \& Jorge Kurchan
}
\address{
Laboratoire de Physique\\
Ecole Normale Sup\'erieure\\
24 rue Lhomond\\
75005 Paris
}
\begin{document}
\begin{letter}{
Agnese I.~Curatolo, Ph.D.\\
Physical Review Letters\\
1 Research Road\\
Ridge, NY 11961
}
\opening{Dear Dr.~Curatolo,}
We wish to appeal the decision concerning our manuscript,
and expect to take this to the highest level possible in Physical Review.
Our motivation is scientific, but also one of principle: {\em there should
not be an implicit bias in favor of partial or purely numerical solutions,
and against the actual closure of
a long standing problem, on the basis that the latter is harder to read.}
Neither of the referees criticize the content of the manuscript. They both
find the article somewhat technical,
but it should be born in mind that:
\begin{enumerate}
\item PRL has been publishing articles on precisely this problem in the
last 30 years.\footfullcite{Fyodorov_2004_Complexity, Bray_2007_Statistics, Fyodorov_2012_Critical, Wainrib_2013_Topological}
\item These works were often limited by the fact that general landscapes (for
which an annealed solution is not exact) were inaccessible. It is perhaps
true that the final solution of an open problem may often be more technical
than the previous ones.
\end{enumerate}
The other criticisms are:
Referee A remarks that a full connection with dynamics
is not presented in our paper. This is true, and such a connection does not
exist at present. We sincerely hope to
find it, and if we succeed we firmly believe the resulting article will also be
worthy of PRL.
Referee B states that
\begin{enumerate}
\item ``the topic has been studied extensively in the last thirty years and
more'' as a shortcoming, but fails to realize that the solution to the full
problem has been open, in spite of all these efforts.
\item The meaning of the related remark: ``the only novelty with respect to
previous work is that the results are obtained at zero temperature''
completely escapes us. Firstly because temperature is not an issue here --
it suffices to replace energy by TAP free-energy to introduce it, with
essentially no change. Again, the novelty of the article is that generic
models, most notably the Sherrington Kirkpatrick which motivated the first
(pioneering but failed) attempt 42 years ago, are now finally accessible.
\item ``instead the analysis of the static landscape, to which the present
paper is a variation, failed to deliver answers to these questions up to
now.''
One could say that development of higher fidelity $q$-bits has failed to
deliver the factorization of large integers up to now, but this is hardly a
barrier to publishing substantial progress about their development.
\end{enumerate}
Again, PRL has devoted a sustained attention to these problems. The referee
goes on to remark that what is truly important ``involves dynamics and
activated processes.'' But one of the reasons that they have not been fully
understood, as the referee claims correctly, is that these take place
between states whose geometrical arrangement were not known (except for the
pure $p$-spin case, or in general, equilibrium), and our work is, we believe, a
true breakthrough in this direction.
\closing{Sincerely,}
\vspace{1em}
\end{letter}
\end{document}
|
