Gauge-Invariant and Gauge-Fixed D-Brane Actions

The first part of this paper presents actions for Dirichlet p-branes embedded in a flat 10-dimensional space-time. The fields of the (p+1)-dimensional world-volume theories are the 10d space-time coordinates $X^m$, a pair of Majorana-Weyl spinors $\theta_1$ and $\theta_2$, and a U(1) gauge field $A_{\mu}$. The N = 2A or 2B super-Poincare group in ten dimensions is realized as a global symmetry. In addition, the theories have local symmetries consisting of general coordinate invariance of the world volume, a local fermionic symmetry (called ``kappa''), and U(1) gauge invariance. A detailed proof of the kappa symmetry is given that applies to all cases (p = 0,1, . . ., 9). The second part of the paper presents gauge-fixed versions of these theories. The fields of the 10d (p = 9) gauge-fixed theory are a single Majorana-Weyl spinor $\lambda$ and the U(1) gauge field $A_{\mu}$. This theory, whose action turns out to be surprisingly simple, is a supersymmetric extension of 10d Born-Infeld theory. It has two global supersymmetries: one represents an unbroken symmetry, and the second corresponds to a broken symmetry for which $\lambda$ is the Goldstone fermion. The gauge-fixed supersymmetric D-brane theories with $p<9$ can be obtained from the 10d one by dimensional reduction.Comment: 33 pages, latex, no figures; revised as requested by refere

Small Window Overlaps Are Effective Probes of Replica Symmetry Breaking in 3D Spin Glasses

We compute numerically small window overlaps in the three dimensional Edwards Anderson spin glass. We show that they behave in the way implied by the Replica Symmetry Breaking Ansatz, that they do not qualitatively differ from the full volume overlap and do not tend to a trivial function when increasing the lattice volume. On the contrary we show they are affected by small finite volume effects, and are interesting tools for the study of the features of the spin glass phase.Comment: 9 pages plus 5 figure

Volume Dependence of the Pion Mass from Renormalization Group Flows

We investigate finite volume effects on the pion mass and the pion decay constant with renormalization group (RG) methods in the framework of a phenomenological model for QCD. An understanding of such effects is important in order to interpret results from lattice QCD and extrapolate reliably from finite lattice volumes to infinite volume. We consider the quark-meson-model in a finite Euclidean 3+1 dimensional volume. In order to break chiral symmetry in the finite volume, we introduce a small current quark mass. In the corresponding effective potential for the meson fields, the chiral O(4)-symmetry is broken explicitly, and the sigma and pion fields are treated individually. Using the proper-time renormalization group, we derive renormalization group flow equations in the finite volume and solve these equations in the approximation of a constant expectation value. We calculate the volume dependence of pion mass and pion decay constant and compare our results with recent results from chiral perturbation theory in finite volume.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figures, talk given at "Hadronic Physics 2004 - Joint meeting Heidelberg-Liege-Paris-Rostock", to appear in the proceedings, AIP conference serie

Structural transformations of double-walled carbon nanotube bundle under hydrostatic pressure

Three kinds of the response mechanisms to the external pressure have been found for double-walled carbon nanotube (DWNT) bundle, depending strongly on their average radius and symmetry. The small-diameter DWNT bundle undergoes a small discontinuous volume change, and then deform continuously. The intermediate-diameter DWNT bundle collapses completely after a structure phase transition (SPT). Significantly, two SPTs exist for the larger-diameter DWNT bundle if the outer tube has no $C_{6}$ or $C_{3}$ symmetry. It would be interesting to search for signatures of these different structural transformations by experimentally investigating mechanical, optical and thermal response functions of DWNT bundle.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure

Thermodynamics of rotating self-gravitating systems

We investigate the statistical equilibrium properties of a system of classical particles interacting via Newtonian gravity, enclosed in a three-dimensional spherical volume. Within a mean-field approximation, we derive an equation for the density profiles maximizing the microcanonical entropy and solve it numerically. At low angular momenta, i.e. for a slowly rotating system, the well-known gravitational collapse ``transition'' is recovered. At higher angular momenta, instead, rotational symmetry can spontaneously break down giving rise to more complex equilibrium configurations, such as double-clusters (``double stars''). We analyze the thermodynamics of the system and the stability of the different equilibrium configurations against rotational symmetry breaking, and provide the global phase diagram.Comment: 12 pages, 9 figure

Finite size phase transitions in QCD with adjoint fermions

We perform a lattice investigation of QCD with three colors and 2 flavors of Dirac (staggered) fermions in the adjoint representation, defined on a 4d space with one spatial dimension compactified, and study the phase structure of the theory as a function of the size Lc of the compactified dimension. We show that four different phases take place, corresponding to different realizations of center symmetry: two center symmetric phases, for large or small values of Lc, separated by two phases in which center symmetry is broken in two different ways; the dependence of these results on the quark mass is discussed. We study also chiral properties and how they are affected by the different realizations of center symmetry; chiral symmetry, in particular, stays spontaneously broken at the phase transitions and may be restored at much lower values of the compactification radius. Our results could be relevant to a recently proposed conjecture of volume indepedence of QCD with adjoint fermions in the large Nc limit.Comment: 9 pages, 12 figures; extended discussion about the chiral limit and the chiral properties; 2 figures and references adde

Gravitational Duality, Branes and Charges

It is argued that D=10 type II strings and M-theory in D=11 have D-5 branes and 9-branes that are not standard p-branes coupled to anti-symmetric tensors. The global charges in a D-dimensional theory of gravity consist of a momentum $P_M$ and a dual D-5 form charge $K_{M_1...M_{D-5}}$, which is related to the NUT charge. On dimensional reduction, P gives the electric charge and K the magnetic charge of the graviphoton. The charge K is constructed and shown to occur in the superalgebra and BPS bounds in $D\ge 5$, and leads to a NUT-charge modification of the BPS bound in D=4. $K$ is carried by Kaluza-Klein monopoles, which can be regarded as D-5 branes. Supersymmetry and U-duality imply that the type IIB theory has (p,q) 9-branes. Orientifolding with 32 (0,1) 9-branes gives the type I string, while modding out by a related discrete symmetry with 32 (1,0) 9-branes gives the SO(32) heterotic string. Symmetry enhancement, the effective world-volume theories and the possibility of a twelve dimensional origin are discussed.Comment: 54 pages, TeX, Phyzzx Macro. Added referenc

Chiral symmetry breaking in nearly conformal gauge theories

We present new results on chiral symmetry breaking in nearly conformal gauge theories with fermions in the fundamental representation of the SU(3) color gauge group. The number of fermion flavors is varied in an extended range below the conformal window with chiral symmetry breaking ($\chi{\rm SB}$) for all flavors between $N_f=4$ and $N_f=12$. To identify $\chi{\rm SB}$ we apply several methods which include, within the framework of chiral perturbation theory, the analysis of the Goldstone spectrum in the p-regime and the spectrum of the fermion Dirac operator with eigenvalue distributions of random matrix theory in the \eps-regime. Chiral condensate enhancement is observed with increasing $N_f$ when the electroweak symmetry breaking scale $F$ is held fixed in technicolor language. Important finite-volume consistency checks from the theoretical understanding of the $SU(N_f)$ rotator spectrum of the $\delta$-regime are discussed. We also consider these gauge theories at $N_f=16$ inside the conformal window. The importance of understanding finite volume, zero momentum gauge field dynamics inside the conformal window is pointed out. Staggered lattice fermions with supressed taste breaking are used throughout the simulations.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures. Presented at the XXVII International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory, July 26-31, 2009, Peking University, Beijin