Cruise Report 72-S-8: Crab

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Modular divisor functions and quadratic reciprocity

It is a well-known result by B. Riemann that the terms of a conditionally convergent series of real numbers can be rearranged in a permutation such that the resulting series converges to any prescribed sum s: add p1 consecutive positive terms until their sum is greater than s; then subtract q1 consecutive negative terms until the sum drops below s, and so on. For the alternating harmonic series, with the aid of a computer program, it can be noticed that there are some fascinating patterns in the sequences pn and qn. For example, if s = log 2 + (1/2) log (38/5) the sequence pn is 5, 7, 8, 7, 8, 7, 8, 8, 7, 8, 7, 8, . . . in which we notice the repetition of the pattern 8, 7, 8, 7, 8, while if s = log 2+ (1/2) log (37/5) the sequence pn is 5, 7, 7, 7, 8, 7, 8, 7, 7, 8, 7, 8, . . . in which the pattern is 7, 7, 8, 7, 8. Where do these patterns come from? Let us observe that 38/5 = 7 + 3/5 and 37/5 = 7 + 2/5. The length of the repeating pattern is the denominator 5, the values of pn, at least from some n on, are 7 and 8, and the number 8 appears 3 times in the pattern of the first example, and 2 times in that of the second one. These are not coincidences: we explain them in this paper

Anti-de Sitter Black Holes in Gauged N=8 Supergravity

We present new anti-de Sitter black hole solutions of gauged N=8, SO(8) supergravity, which is the massless sector of the AdS_4\times S^7 vacuum of M-theory. By focusing on the U(1)^4 Cartan subgroup, we find non-extremal 1, 2, 3 and 4 charge solutions. In the extremal limit, they may preserve up to 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 and 1/8 of the supersymmetry, respectively. In the limit of vanishing SO(8) coupling constant, the solutions reduce to the familiar black holes of the M_4\times T^7 vacuum, but have very different interpretation since there are no winding states on S^7 and no U-duality. In contrast to the T^7 compactification, moreover, we find no static multi-center solutions. Also in contrast, the S^7 fields appear "already dualized" so that the 4 charges may be all electric or all magnetic rather than 2 electric and 2 magnetic. Curiously, however, the magnetic solutions preserve no supersymmetries. We conjecture that a subset of the extreme electric black holes preserving 1/2 the supersymmetry may be identified with the S^7 Kaluza-Klein spectrum, with the non-abelian SO(8) quantum numbers provided by the fermionic zero modes.Comment: 18 pages, Latex, minor notation improvements and references adde

Bubbling AdS and droplet descriptions of BPS geometries in IIB supergravity

This paper focuses on supergravity duals of BPS states in N=4 super Yang-Mills. In order to describe these duals, we begin with a sequence of breathing mode reductions of IIB supergravity: first on S^3, then S^3 x S^1, and finally on S^3 x S^1 x CP^1. We then follow with a complete supersymmetry analysis, yielding 1/8, 1/4 and 1/2 BPS configurations, respectively (where in the last step we take the Hopf fibration of S^3). The 1/8 BPS geometries, which have an S^3 isometry and are time-fibered over a six-dimensional base, are determined by solving a non-linear equation for the Kahler metric on the base. Similarly, the 1/4 BPS configurations have an S^3 x S^1 isometry and a four-dimensional base, whose Kahler metric obeys another non-linear, Monge-Ampere type equation. Despite the non-linearity of the problem, we develop a universal bubbling AdS description of these geometries by focusing on the boundary conditions which ensure their regularity. In the 1/8 BPS case, we find that the S^3 cycle shrinks to zero size on a five-dimensional locus inside the six-dimensional base. Enforcing regularity of the full solution requires that the interior of a smooth, generally disconnected five-dimensional surface be removed from the base. The AdS_5 x S^5 ground state corresponds to excising the interior of an S^5, while the 1/8 BPS excitations correspond to deformations (including topology change) of the S^5 and/or the excision of additional droplets from the base. In the case of 1/4 BPS configurations, by enforcing regularity conditions, we identify three-dimensional surfaces inside the four-dimensional base which separate the regions where the S^3 shrinks to zero size from those where the S^1 shrinks.Comment: 94 pages, 6 figures, latex, typos corrected, references added, one new Appendi

Analytical Result for Dimensionally Regularized Massless On-shell Double Box

The dimensionally regularized massless on-shell double box Feynman diagram with powers of propagators equal to one is analytically evaluated for general values of the Mandelstam variables s and t. An explicit result is expressed either in terms of polylogarithms Li_a(-t/s), up to a=4, and generalized polylogarithms S_{a,b}(-t/s), with a=1,2 and b=2, or in terms of these functions depending on the inverse ratio, s/t.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX. An error in eq. (24) corrected (8 replaced by 5), with resulting changes in eqs. (25), (28-30

On the anomalous acceleration of Pioneer spacecraft

The anomalous acceleration of Pioneer 10 and 11 spacecraft of (8.74 \pm 1.33) \times 10^{-8} cm. s^{-2} fits with a theoretical prediction of a minimal acceleration in nature of about 7.61 \times 10^{-8} cm. s^{-2}Comment: 3 pages, accepted in Int. J. Theor. Phy

Phase transitions in the Potts spin glass model

We have studied the Potts spin glass with 2-state Ising spins and s-state Potts variables using a cluster Monte Carlo dynamics. The model recovers the +- J Ising spin glass (SG) for s=1 and exhibits for all s a SG transition at T_{SG}(s) and a percolation transition at higher temperature T_p(s). We have shown that for all values of $s\neq 1$ at T_p(s) there is a thermodynamical transition in the universality class of a ferromagnetic s-state Potts model. The efficiency of the cluster dynamics is compared with that of standard spin flip dynamics.Comment: 8 pages, Latex, with 8 EPS fig