Study of excitation transfer in laser dye mixtures by direct measurement of fluorescence lifetime

By directly measuring the donor fluorescence lifetime as a function of acceptor concentration in the laser dye mixture Rhodamine 6G-Cresyl violet, we found that the Stern-Volmer relation is obeyed, from which the rate of excitation transfer is determined. The experimental results indicate that the dominant mechanism responsible for the efficient excitation transfer is that of resonance transfer due to long range dipole-dipole interaction

Application of the ex-Gaussian function to the effect of the word blindness suggestion on Stroop task performance suggests no word blindness

The aim of the present paper was to apply the ex-Gaussian function to data reported by Parris et al. (2012) given its utility in studies involving the Stroop task. Parris et al. showed an effect of the word blindness suggestion when Response-Stimulus Interval (RSI) was 500 ms but not when it was 3500 ms. Analysis revealed that: (1) The effect of the suggestion on interference is observed in μ, supporting converging evidence indicating the suggestion operates over response competition mechanisms; and, (2) Contrary to Parris et al. an effect of the suggestion was observed in μ when RSI was 3500 ms. The reanalysis of the data from Parris et al. (2012) supports the utility of ex-Gaussian analysis in revealing effects that might otherwise be thought of as absent. We suggest that word reading itself is not suppressed by the suggestion but instead that response conflict is dealt with more effectively. © 2013 Parris, Dienes and Hodgson

Modularity and 4D-2D spectral equivalences for large-N gauge theories with adjoint matter

In recent work, we demonstrated that the confined-phase spectrum of non-supersymmetric pure Yang-Mills theory coincides with the spectrum of the chiral sector of a two-dimensional conformal field theory in the large-$N$ limit. This was done within the tractable setting in which the gauge theory is compactified on a three-sphere whose radius is small compared to the strong length scale. In this paper, we generalize these observations by demonstrating that similar results continue to hold even when massless adjoint matter fields are introduced. These results hold for both thermal and $(-1)^F$-twisted partition functions, and collectively suggest that the spectra of large-$N$ confining gauge theories are organized by the symmetries of two-dimensional conformal field theories.Comment: 51 pages, LaTeX, 3 figure

Dark Matter and Dark Forces from a supersymmetric hidden sector

We show that supersymmetric "Dark Force" models with gravity mediation are viable. To this end, we analyse a simple string-inspired supersymmetric hidden sector model that interacts with the visible sector via kinetic mixing of a light Abelian gauge boson with the hypercharge. We include all induced interactions with the visible sector such as neutralino mass mixing and the Higgs portal term. We perform a detailed parameter space scan comparing the produced dark matter relic abundance and direct detection cross sections to current experiments.Comment: 40 pages, 11 figures comprising 21 plots. 4Mb total size. v2: figures and references updated; typos removed; some extra explanations added. Matches version published in PR

Adventures in Thermal Duality (II): Towards a Duality-Covariant String Thermodynamics

In a recent companion paper, we observed that the rules of ordinary thermodynamics generally fail to respect thermal duality, a symmetry of string theory under which the physics at temperature T is related to the physics at the inverse temperature 1/T. Even when the free energy and internal energy exhibit the thermal duality symmetry, the entropy and specific heat are defined in such a way that this symmetry is destroyed. In this paper, we propose a modification of the traditional definitions of these quantities, yielding a manifestly duality-covariant thermodynamics. At low temperatures, these modifications produce "corrections" to the standard definitions of entropy and specific heat which are suppressed by powers of the string scale. These corrections may nevertheless be important for the full development of a consistent string thermodynamics. We find, for example, that the string-corrected entropy can be smaller than the usual entropy at high temperatures, suggesting a possible connection with the holographic principle. We also discuss some outstanding theoretical issues prompted by our approach.Comment: 31 pages, 6 figures, 1 conversatio

Bulk Higgs with 4D Gauge Interactions

We consider a model with an extra compact dimension in which the Higgs is a bulk field while all other Standard Model fields are confined on a brane. We find that four-dimensional gauge invariance can still be achieved by appropriate modification of the brane action. This changes accordingly the Higgs propagator so that, the Higgs, in all its interactions with Standard Model fields, behaves as an ordinary 4D field, although it has a bulk kinetic term and bulk self-interactions. In addition, it cannot propagate from the brane to the bulk and, thus, no charge can escape into the bulk but it remains confined on the brane. Moreover, the photon remains massless, while the dependence of the Higgs vacuum on the extra dimension induces a mixing between the graviphoton and the Z-boson. This results in a modification of the sensitive \rho-parameter.Comment: 16 page