Critical Casimir effect in classical binary liquid mixtures

If a fluctuating medium is confined, the ensuing perturbation of its fluctuation spectrum generates Casimir-like effective forces acting on its confining surfaces. Near a continuous phase transition of such a medium the corresponding order parameter fluctuations occur on all length scales and therefore close to the critical point this effect acquires a universal character, i.e., to a large extent it is independent of the microscopic details of the actual system. Accordingly it can be calculated theoretically by studying suitable representative model systems. We report on the direct measurement of critical Casimir forces by total internal reflection microscopy (TIRM), with femto-Newton resolution. The corresponding potentials are determined for individual colloidal particles floating above a substrate under the action of the critical thermal noise in the solvent medium, constituted by a binary liquid mixture of water and 2,6-lutidine near its lower consolute point. Depending on the relative adsorption preferences of the colloid and substrate surfaces with respect to the two components of the binary liquid mixture, we observe that, upon approaching the critical point of the solvent, attractive or repulsive forces emerge and supersede those prevailing away from it. Based on the knowledge of the critical Casimir forces acting in film geometries within the Ising universality class and with equal or opposing boundary conditions, we provide the corresponding theoretical predictions for the sphere-planar wall geometry of the experiment. The experimental data for the effective potential can be interpreted consistently in terms of these predictions and a remarkable quantitative agreement is observed.Comment: 30 pages, 17 figure

Peaks in the Hartle-Hawking Wave Function from Sums over Topologies

Recent developments in ``Einstein Dehn filling'' allow the construction of infinitely many Einstein manifolds that have different topologies but are geometrically close to each other. Using these results, we show that for many spatial topologies, the Hartle-Hawking wave function for a spacetime with a negative cosmological constant develops sharp peaks at certain calculable geometries. The peaks we find are all centered on spatial metrics of constant negative curvature, suggesting a new mechanism for obtaining local homogeneity in quantum cosmology.Comment: 16 pages,LaTeX, no figures; v2: some changes coming from revision of a math reference: wave function peaks sharp but not infinite; v3: added paragraph in intro on interpretation of wave functio

Crossover of conductance and local density of states in a single-channel disordered quantum wire

The probability distribution of the mesoscopic local density of states (LDOS) for a single-channel disordered quantum wire with chiral symmetry is computed in two different geometries. An approximate ansatz is proposed to describe the crossover of the probability distributions for the conductance and LDOS between the chiral and standard symmetry classes of a single-channel disordered quantum wire. The accuracy of this ansatz is discussed by comparison with a large-deviation ansatz introduced by Schomerus and Titov in Phys. Rev. B \textbf{67}, 100201(R) (2003).Comment: 19 pages, 5 eps figure

Dynamically Triangulating Lorentzian Quantum Gravity

Fruitful ideas on how to quantize gravity are few and far between. In this paper, we give a complete description of a recently introduced non-perturbative gravitational path integral whose continuum limit has already been investigated extensively in d less than 4, with promising results. It is based on a simplicial regularization of Lorentzian space-times and, most importantly, possesses a well-defined, non-perturbative Wick rotation. We present a detailed analysis of the geometric and mathematical properties of the discretized model in d=3,4. This includes a derivation of Lorentzian simplicial manifold constraints, the gravitational actions and their Wick rotation. We define a transfer matrix for the system and show that it leads to a well-defined self-adjoint Hamiltonian. In view of numerical simulations, we also suggest sets of Lorentzian Monte Carlo moves. We demonstrate that certain pathological phases found previously in Euclidean models of dynamical triangulations cannot be realized in the Lorentzian case.Comment: 41 pages, 14 figure

Quantum Matrix Models for Simple Current Orbifolds

An algebraic formulation of the stringy geometry on simple current orbifolds of the WZW models of type A_N is developed within the framework of Reflection Equation Algebras, REA_q(A_N). It is demonstrated that REA_q(A_N) has the same set of outer automorphisms as the corresponding current algebra A^{(1)}_N which is crucial for the orbifold construction. The CFT monodromy charge is naturally identified within the algebraic framework. The ensuing orbifold matrix models are shown to yield results on brane tensions and the algebra of functions in agreement with the exact BCFT data.Comment: 31 pages, LaTeX; typos corrected, new elements added, the contents restructure