2,547 research outputs found
Cyber Security Awareness Among College Students
This study reports the early results of a study aimed to investigate student awareness and attitudes toward cyber security and the resulting risks in the most advanced technology environment: the Silicon Valley in California, USA. The composition of students in Silicon Valley is very ethnically diverse. The objective was to see how much the students in such a tech-savvy environment are aware of cyber-attacks and how they protect themselves against them. The early statistical analysis suggested that college students, despite their belief that they are observed when using the Internet and that their data is not secure even on university systems, are not very aware of how to protect their data. Also, it appears that educational institutions do not have an active approach to improve awareness among college students to increase their knowledge on these issues and how to protect themselves from potential cyber-attacks, such as identity theft or ransomware
Teleparallel Theories of Gravity: Illuminating a Fully Invariant Approach
Teleparallel gravity and its popular generalization gravity can be
formulated as fully invariant (under both coordinate transformations and local
Lorentz transformations) theories of gravity. Several misconceptions about
teleparallel gravity and its generalizations can be found in the literature,
especially regarding their local Lorentz invariance. We describe how these
misunderstandings may have arisen and attempt to clarify the situation. In
particular, the central point of confusion in the literature appears to be
related to the inertial spin connection in teleparallel gravity models. While
inertial spin connections are commonplace in special relativity, and not
something inherent to teleparallel gravity, the role of the inertial spin
connection in removing the spurious inertial effects within a given frame of
reference is emphasized here. The careful consideration of the inertial spin
connection leads to the construction of a fully invariant theory of
teleparallel gravity and its generalizations. Indeed, it is the nature of the
spin connection that differentiates the relationship between what have been
called good tetrads and bad tetrads and clearly shows that, in principle, any
tetrad can be utilized. The field equations for the fully invariant formulation
of teleparallel gravity and its generalizations are presented and a number of
examples using different assumptions on the frame and spin connection are
displayed to illustrate the covariant procedure. Various modified teleparallel
gravity models are also briefly reviewed.Comment: v2: 72 pages, revised version, references added, matches published
versio
Models of light-like charges with non-geodesic world lines
Massless particles in General Relativity move with the speed of light, their
trajectories in spacetime are described by null geodesics. This is independent
of the electrical charge of the particle being considered, however, the charged
light-like case is less well understood. Starting with the Maxwell field of a
charged particle having a light-like geodesic world line in Minkowskian
space-time we construct the Maxwell field of such a particle having a
non-geodesic, light-like world line. The necessary geometry in the
neighbourhood of an arbitrary null world line in Minkowskian space-time is
described and properties of the resulting electromagnetic field are discussed.
The electromagnetic field obtained represents a light-like analogue of the
Lienard-Wiechert field, which generalises the Coulomb field of a charge having
a time-like geodesic world line to the field of a charge having an accelerated
world line.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figur
Dark spinor models in gravitation and cosmology
We introduce and carefully define an entire class of field theories based on
non-standard spinors. Their dominant interaction is via the gravitational field
which makes them naturally dark; we refer to them as Dark Spinors. We provide a
critical analysis of previous proposals for dark spinors noting that they
violate Lorentz invariance. As a working assumption we restrict our analysis to
non-standard spinors which preserve Lorentz invariance, whilst being non-local
and explicitly construct such a theory. We construct the complete
energy-momentum tensor and derive its components explicitly by assuming a
specific projection operator. It is natural to next consider dark spinors in a
cosmological setting. We find various interesting solutions where the spinor
field leads to slow roll and fast roll de Sitter solutions. We also analyse
models where the spinor is coupled conformally to gravity, and consider the
perturbations and stability of the spinor.Comment: 43 pages. Several new sections and details added. JHEP in prin
Conformal Invariance in Einstein-Cartan-Weyl space
We consider conformally invariant form of the actions in Einstein, Weyl,
Einstein-Cartan and Einstein-Cartan-Weyl space in general dimensions() and
investigate the relations among them. In Weyl space, the observational
consistency condition for the vector field determining non-metricity of the
connection can be obtained from the equation of motion. In Einstein-Cartan
space a similar role is played by the vector part of the torsion tensor. We
consider the case where the trace part of the torsion is the Kalb-Ramond type
of field. In this case, we express conformally invariant action in terms of two
scalar fields of conformal weight -1, which can be cast into some interesting
form. We discuss some applications of the result.Comment: 10 pages, version to appear MPL
Multiband Superconductivity in KFe2As2: Evidence for one Isotropic and several Liliputian Energy Gaps
We report a detailed low-temperature thermodynamic investigation (heat
capacity and magnetization) of the superconducting state of KFe2As2 for H || c
axis. Our measurements reveal that the properties of KFe2As2 are dominated by a
relatively large nodeless energy gap (Delta?0 = 1.9 kBTc) which excludes dx2-y2
symmetry. We prove the existence of several additional extremely small gaps
(?Delta0 < 1.0 kBTc) that have a profound impact on the low-temperature and
low-field behavior, similar to MgB2, CeCoIn5 and PrOs4Sb12. The zero-field heat
capacity is analyzed in a realistic self-consistent 4-band BCS model which
qualitatively reproduces the recent laser ARPES results of Okazaki et al.
(Science 337 (2012) 1314). Our results show that extremely low-temperature
measurements, i.e. T < 0.1 K, will be required in order to resolve the question
of the existence of line nodes in this compound.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure
Very special relativity as relativity of dark matter: the Elko connection
In the very special relativity (VSR) proposal by Cohen and Glashow, it was
pointed out that invariance under HOM(2) is both necessary and sufficient to
explain the null result of the Michelson-Morely experiment. It is the quantum
field theoretic demand of locality, or the requirement of P, T, CP, or CT
invariance, that makes invariance under the Lorentz group a necessity.
Originally it was conjectured that VSR operates at the Planck scale; we propose
that the natural arena for VSR is at energies similar to the standard model,
but in the dark sector. To this end we provide an ab initio spinor
representation invariant under the SIM(2) avatar of VSR and construct a mass
dimension one fermionic quantum field of spin one half. This field turns out to
be a very close sibling of Elko and it exhibits the same striking property of
intrinsic darkness with respect to the standard model fields. In the new
construct, the tension between Elko and Lorentz symmetries is fully resolved.
We thus entertain the possibility that the symmetries underlying the standard
model matter and gauge fields are those of Lorentz, while the event space
underlying the dark matter and the dark gauge fields supports the algebraic
structure underlying VSR.Comment: 19 pages. Section 5 is new. Published version (modulo a footnote, and
a corrected typo
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