Transversally Elliptic Operators

We construct certain spectral triples in the sense of A. ~Connes and H. \~Moscovici (``The local index formula in noncommutative geometry'' {\it Geom. Funct. Anal.}, 5(2):174--243, 1995) that is transversally elliptic but not necessarily elliptic. We prove that these spectral triples satisfie the conditions which ensure the Connes-Moscovici local index formula applies. We show that such a spectral triple has discrete dimensional spectrum. A notable feature of the spectral triple is that its corresponding zeta functions have multiple poles, while in the classical elliptic cases only simple poles appear for the zeta functions. We show that the multiplicities of the poles of the zeta functions have an upper bound, which is the sum of dimensions of the base manifold and the acting compact Lie group. Moreover for our spectral triple the Connes-Moscovici local index formula involves only local transverse symbol of the operator.Comment: Updated 11/25/2003 with corrected format, and in 12pt fonts Updated 5/20/2004, major reorganizatio

On iterated torus knots and transversal knots

A knot type is exchange reducible if an arbitrary closed n-braid representative can be changed to a closed braid of minimum braid index by a finite sequence of braid isotopies, exchange moves and +/- destabilizations. In the manuscript [J Birman and NC Wrinkle, On transversally simple knots, preprint (1999)] a transversal knot in the standard contact structure for S^3 is defined to be transversally simple if it is characterized up to transversal isotopy by its topological knot type and its self-linking number. Theorem 2 of Birman and Wrinkle [op cit] establishes that exchange reducibility implies transversally simplicity. The main result in this note, establishes that iterated torus knots are exchange reducible. It then follows as a Corollary that iterated torus knots are transversally simple.Comment: Published by Geometry and Topology at http://www.maths.warwick.ac.uk/gt/GTVol5/paper21.abs.htm

Early dynamics of transversally thermalized matter

We argue that the idea that the parton system created in relativistic heavy-ion collisions is formed in a state with transverse momenta close to thermodynamic equilibrium and its subsequent dynamics at early times is dominated by pure transverse hydrodynamics of the perfect fluid is compatible with the data collected at RHIC. This scenario of early parton dynamics may help to solve the problem of early equilibration.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, Talk given by M. Chojnacki at Quark Matter 2008, Jaipur, Indi

Elliptic Flow from a Transversally Thermalized Fireball

The agreement of elliptic flow data at RHIC at central rapidity with the hydrodynamic model has led to the conclusion of very rapid thermalization. This conclusion is based on the intuitive argument that hydrodynamics, which assumes instantaneous local thermalization, produces the largest possible elliptic flow values and that the data seem to saturate this limit. We here investigate the question whether incompletely thermalized viscous systems may actually produce more elliptic flow than ideal hydrodynamics. Motivated by the extremely fast primordial longitudinal expansion of the reaction zone, we investigate a toy model which exhibits thermalization only in the transverse directions but undergoes collisionless free-streaming expansion in the longitudinal direction. For collisions at RHIC energies, elliptic flow results from the model are compared with those from hydrodynamics. With the final particle yield and \kt-distribution fixed, the transversally thermalized model is shown not to be able to produce the measured amount of elliptic flow. This investigation provides further support for very rapid local kinetic equilibration at RHIC. It also yields interesting novel results for the elliptic flow of massless particles such as direct photons.Comment: revtex4, 15 pages + 10 embedded EPS figure