70,260 research outputs found
Lattice Gauge Theory Sum Rule for the Shear Channel
An exact expression is derived for the thermal correlator of
shear stress in SU() lattice gauge theory. I remove a logarithmic
divergence by taking a suitable linear combination of the shear correlator and
the correlator of the energy density. The operator product expansion shows that
the same linear combination has a finite limit when . It
follows that the vacuum-subtracted shear spectral function vanishes at large
frequencies at least as fast as and obeys a sum rule. The
trace anomaly makes a potential contribution to the spectral sum rule which
remains to be fully calculated, but which I estimate to be numerically small
for . By contrast with the bulk channel, the shear channel
spectral density is then overall enhanced as compared to the spectral density
in vacuo.Comment: 11 pages, no figure
Piezoelectricity of Cholesteric Elastomers
We consider theoretically the properties of piezoelectricity in cholesteric
elastomers. We deduce using symmetry considerations the piezoelectric
contributions to the free energy in the context of a coarse-grained description
of the material. In contrast to previous work we find that compressions or
elongations of the material along the pitch axis do not produce a piezoelectric
response, in agreement with fundamental symmetry considerations. Rather only
suitable shear strains or local rotations produce a polarization. We propose
some molecular mechanisms to explain these effects.Comment: 11 pages, 1 Postscript figure; Late
Vector screening masses in the quark-gluon plasma and their physical significance
Static and non-static thermal screening states that couple to the conserved
vector current are investigated in the high-temperature phase of QCD. Their
masses and couplings to the current are determined at weak coupling, as well as
using two-flavor lattice QCD simulations. A consistent picture emerges from the
comparison, providing evidence that non-static Matsubara modes can indeed be
treated perturbatively. We elaborate on the physical significance of the
screening masses.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures. Submitted as a contribution to the proceedings of
the Quark Matter 2014 conference (talk given by H. Meyer
A relation between screening masses and real-time rates
Thermal screening masses related to the conserved vector current are
determined for the case that the current carries a non-zero Matsubara
frequency, both in a weak-coupling approach and through lattice QCD. We point
out that such screening masses are sensitive to the same infrared physics as
light-cone real-time rates. In particular, on the perturbative side, the
inhomogeneous Schrodinger equation determining screening correlators is shown
to have the same general form as the equation implementing LPM resummation for
the soft-dilepton and photon production rates from a hot QCD plasma. The static
potential appearing in the equation is identical to that whose soft part has
been determined up to NLO and on the lattice in the context of jet quenching.
Numerical results based on this potential suggest that screening masses
overshoot the free results (multiples of 2piT) more strongly than at zero
Matsubara frequency. Four-dimensional lattice simulations in two-flavour QCD at
temperatures of 250 and 340 MeV confirm the non-static screening masses at the
10% level. Overall our results lend support to studies of jet quenching based
on the same potential at T > 250 MeV.Comment: 32 pages. v2: clarifications added, typos corrected; published
versio
Age differences in encoding-related alpha power reflect sentence comprehension difficulties
When sentence processing taxes verbal working memory, comprehension difficulties arise. This is specifically the case when processing resources decline with advancing adult age. Such decline likely affects the encoding of sentences into working memory, which constitutes the basis for successful comprehension. To assess age differences in encoding-related electrophysiological activity, we recorded the electroencephalogram from three age groups (24, 43, and 65 years). Using an auditory sentence comprehension task, age differences in encoding-related oscillatory power were examined with respect to the accuracy of the given response. That is, the difference in oscillatory power between correctly and incorrectly encoded sentences, yielding subsequent memory effects (SME), was compared across age groups. Across age groups, we observed an age-related SME inversion in the alpha band from a power decrease in younger adults to a power increase in older adults. We suggest that this SME inversion underlies age-related comprehension difficulties. With alpha being commonly linked to inhibitory processes, this shift may reflect a change in the cortical inhibition–disinhibition balance. A cortical disinhibition may imply enriched sentence encoding in younger adults. In contrast, resource limitations in older adults may necessitate an increase in cortical inhibition during sentence encoding to avoid an information overload. Overall, our findings tentatively suggest that age-related comprehension difficulties are associated with alterations to the electrophysiological dynamics subserving general higher cognitive functions
Quantum lattice gases and their invariants
The one particle sector of the simplest one dimensional quantum lattice gas
automaton has been observed to simulate both the (relativistic) Dirac and
(nonrelativistic) Schroedinger equations, in different continuum limits. By
analyzing the discrete analogues of plane waves in this sector we find
conserved quantities corresponding to energy and momentum. We show that the
Klein paradox obtains so that in some regimes the model must be considered to
be relativistic and the negative energy modes interpreted as positive energy
modes of antiparticles. With a formally similar approach--the Bethe ansatz--we
find the evolution eigenfunctions in the two particle sector of the quantum
lattice gas automaton and conclude by discussing consequences of these
calculations and their extension to more particles, additional velocities, and
higher dimensions.Comment: 19 pages, plain TeX, 11 PostScript figures included with epsf.tex
(ignore the under/overfull \vbox error messages
Role of electrostatics in the texture of islands in free standing ferroelectric liquid crystal films
Curved textures of ferroelectric smectic C* liquid crystals produce space
charge when they involve divergence of the spontaneous polarization field.
Impurity ions can partially screen this space charge, reducing long range
interactions to local ones. Through studies of the textures of islands on very
thin free-standing smectic films, we see evidence of this effect, in which
materials with a large spontaneous polarization have static structures
described by a large effective bend elastic constant. To address this issue, we
calculated the electrostatic free energy of a free standing film of
ferroelectric liquid crystal, showing how the screened coulomb interaction
contributes a term to the effective bend elastic constant, in the static long
wavelength limit. We report experiments which support the main features of this
model
Disk/corona model: The transition to ADAF
We propose a model of the accretion flow onto a black hole consisting of the
accretion disk with an accreting two-temperature corona. The model is based on
assumptions about the radiative and conductive energy exchange between the two
phases and the pressure equilibrium. The complete model is determined by the
mass, the accretion rate, and the viscosity parameter. We present the radial
dependencies of parameters of such a two-phase flow, with advection in the
corona and the disk/corona mass exchange due to evaporation/condensation
included, and we determine the transition radius from a two-phase disk/corona
accretion to a single-phase optically thin flow (ADAF) in the innermost part of
the disk as a function of accretion rate. We identify the NLS1 galaxies with
objects accreting at a rate close to the Eddington accretion rate. The strong
variability of these objects may be related to the limit cycle behaviour
expected in this luminosity range, as the disk, unstable due to the dominance
by the radiation pressure, oscillates between the two stable branches: the
advection-dominated optically thick branch and the evaporation branch.Comment: Contributed talk presented at the Joint MPE,AIP,ESO workshop on
NLS1s, Bad Honnef, Dec. 1999, to appear in New Astronomy Reviews; also
available at http://wave.xray.mpe.mpg.de/conferences/nls1-worksho
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