On reducing the Heun equation to the hypergeometric equation

The reductions of the Heun equation to the hypergeometric equation by polynomial transformations of its independent variable are enumerated and classified. Heun-to-hypergeometric reductions are similar to classical hypergeometric identities, but the conditions for the existence of a reduction involve features of the Heun equation that the hypergeometric equation does not possess; namely, its cross-ratio and accessory parameters. The reductions include quadratic and cubic transformations, which may be performed only if the singular points of the Heun equation form a harmonic or an equianharmonic quadruple, respectively; and several higher-degree transformations. This result corrects and extends a theorem in a previous paper, which found only the quadratic transformations. [See K. Kuiken, "Heun's equation and the hypergeometric equation", SIAM Journal on Mathematical Analysis 10:3 (1979), 655-657.]Comment: 36 pages, a few additional misprints correcte

Scalar Perturbations of two-dimensional Horava-Lifshitz Black Holes

In this article, we study the stability of black hole solutions found in the context of dilatonic Horava-Lifshitz gravity in $1+1$ dimensions by means of the quasinormal modes approach. In order to find the corresponding quasinormal modes, we consider the perturbations of massive and massless scalar fields minimally coupled to gravity. In both cases, we found that the quasinormal modes have a discrete spectrum and are completely imaginary, which leads to damping modes. For a massive scalar field and a non-vanishing cosmological constant, our results suggest unstable behaviour for large values of the scalar field mass.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figure. Accepted version in EPJC. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:gr-qc/070109

Acceleration of generalized hypergeometric functions through precise remainder asymptotics

We express the asymptotics of the remainders of the partial sums {s_n} of the generalized hypergeometric function q+1_F_q through an inverse power series z^n n^l \sum_k c_k/n^k, where the exponent l and the asymptotic coefficients {c_k} may be recursively computed to any desired order from the hypergeometric parameters and argument. From this we derive a new series acceleration technique that can be applied to any such function, even with complex parameters and at the branch point z=1. For moderate parameters (up to approximately ten) a C implementation at fixed precision is very effective at computing these functions; for larger parameters an implementation in higher than machine precision would be needed. Even for larger parameters, however, our C implementation is able to correctly determine whether or not it has converged; and when it converges, its estimate of its error is accurate.Comment: 36 pages, 6 figures, LaTeX2e. Fixed sign error in Eq. (2.28), added several references, added comparison to other methods, and added discussion of recursion stabilit

Integral means spectrum of whole-plane SLE

We complete the mathematical analysis of the fine structure of harmonic measure on SLE curves that was initiated by Beliaev and Smirnov, as described by the averaged integral means spectrum. For the unbounded version of whole-plane SLE as studied by Duplantier, Nguyen, Nguyen and Zinsmeister, and Loutsenko and Yermolayeva, a phase transition has been shown to occur for high enough moments from the bulk spectrum towards a novel spectrum related to the point at infinity. For the bounded version of whole-plane SLE studied here, a similar transition phenomenon, now associated with the SLE origin, is proved to exist for low enough moments, but we show that it is superseded by the earlier occurrence of the transition to the SLE tip spectrum.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figure; final versio

Anisotropic scale invariant cosmology

We study a possibility of anisotropic scale invariant cosmology. It is shown that within the conventional Einstein gravity, the violation of the null energy condition is necessary. We construct an example based on a ghost condensation model that violates the null energy condition. The cosmological solution necessarily contains at least one contracting spatial direction as in the Kasner solution. Our cosmology is conjectured to be dual to, if any, a non-unitary anisotropic scale invariant Euclidean field theory. We investigate simple correlation functions of the dual theory by using the holographic computation. After compactification of the contracting direction, our setup may yield a dual field theory description of the winding tachyon condensation that might solve the singularity of big bang/crunch of the universe.Comment: 12 pages, v2: reference adde