Dilaton Stabilization in Brane Gas Cosmology

Brane Gas Cosmology is an M-theory motivated attempt to reconcile aspects of the standard cosmology based on Einstein's theory of general relativity. Dilaton gravity, when incorporating winding p-brane states, has verified the Brandenberger--Vafa mechanism --a string-motivated conjecture which explains why only three of the nine spatial dimensions predicted by string theory grow large. Further investigation of this mechanism has argued for a hierarchy of subspaces, and has shown the internal directions to be stable to initial perturbations. These results, however, are dependent on a rolling dilaton, or varying strength of Newton's gravitational constant. In these proceedings we show that it is not possible to stabilize the dilaton and maintain the stability of the internal directions within the standard Brane Gas Cosmology setup.Comment: 6 pages, no figures. To appear in the Proceedings of MRST 2004, held at Concordia University, Montreal, QC, 12-14 May 200

T and S dualities and The cosmological evolution of the dilaton and the scale factors

Cosmologically stabilizing radion along with the dilaton is one of the major concerns of low energy string theory. One can hope that T and S dualities can provide a plausible answer. In this work we study the impact of S and T duality invariances on dilaton gravity. We have shown various instances where physically interesting models arise as a result of imposing the mentioned invariances. In particular S duality has a very privileged effect in that the dilaton equations partially decouple from the evolution of the scale factors. This makes it easy to understand the general rules for the stabilization of the dilaton. We also show that certain T duality invariant actions become S duality invariance compatible. That is they mimic S duality when extra dimensions stabilize.Comment: Corrected a misleading interpretation of the S duality transformation and a wrong comment on d=10. I thank A.Kaya for pointing this out to me in time. So the new version is dealing with d=10 only. Added references and corrected some typos. Minor re-editing. Omitted a section for elaboration in a further study. Corrected further typo

Searching for Pulsars Using Image Pattern Recognition

In the modern era of big data, many fields of astronomy are generating huge volumes of data, the analysis of which can sometimes be the limiting factor in research. Fortunately, computer scientists have developed powerful data-mining techniques that can be applied to various fields. In this paper, we present a novel artificial intelligence (AI) program that identifies pulsars from recent surveys by using image pattern recognition with deep neural nets—the PICS (Pulsar Image-based Classification System) AI. The AI mimics human experts and distinguishes pulsars from noise and interference by looking for patterns from candidate plots. Different from other pulsar selection programs that search for expected patterns, the PICS AI is taught the salient features of different pulsars from a set of human-labeled candidates through machine learning. The training candidates are collected from the Pulsar Arecibo L-band Feed Array (PALFA) survey. The information from each pulsar candidate is synthesized in four diagnostic plots, which consist of image data with up to thousands of pixels. The AI takes these data from each candidate as its input and uses thousands of such candidates to train its ~9000 neurons. The deep neural networks in this AI system grant it superior ability to recognize various types of pulsars as well as their harmonic signals. The trained AI\u27s performance has been validated with a large set of candidates from a different pulsar survey, the Green Bank North Celestial Cap survey. In this completely independent test, the PICS ranked 264 out of 277 pulsar-related candidates, including all 56 previously known pulsars and 208 of their harmonics, in the top 961 (1%) of 90,008 test candidates, missing only 13 harmonics. The first non-pulsar candidate appears at rank 187, following 45 pulsars and 141 harmonics. In other words, 100% of the pulsars were ranked in the top 1% of all candidates, while 80% were ranked higher than any noise or interference. The performance of this system can be improved over time as more training data are accumulated. This AI system has been integrated into the PALFA survey pipeline and has discovered six new pulsars to date

Cosmological Imprints of Pre-Inflationary Particles

We study some of the cosmological imprints of pre-inflationary particles. We show that each such particle provides a seed for a spherically symmetric cosmic defect. The profile of this cosmic defect is fixed and its magnitude is linear in a single parameter that is determined by the mass of the pre-inflationary particle. We study the CMB and peculiar velocity imprints of this cosmic defect and suggest that it could explain some of the large scale cosmological anomalies.Comment: 31 pages, 7 figure

A Phase Transition between Small and Large Field Models of Inflation

We show that models of inflection point inflation exhibit a phase transition from a region in parameter space where they are of large field type to a region where they are of small field type. The phase transition is between a universal behavior, with respect to the initial condition, at the large field region and non-universal behavior at the small field region. The order parameter is the number of e-foldings. We find integer critical exponents at the transition between the two phases.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figure

Dynamics of Generalized Assisted Inflation

We study the dynamics of multiple scalar fields and a barotropic fluid in an FLRW-universe. The scalar potential is a sum of exponentials. All critical points are constructed and these include scaling and de Sitter solutions. A stability analysis of the critical points is performed for generalized assisted inflation, which is an extension of assisted inflation where the fields mutually interact. Effects in generalized assisted inflation which differ from assisted inflation are emphasized. One such a difference is that an (inflationary) attractor can exist if some of the exponential terms in the potential are negative.Comment: 27 page

Structural basis for the RING catalyzed synthesis of K63 linked ubiquitin chains

This work was supported by grants from Cancer Research UK (C434/A13067), the Wellcome Trust (098391/Z/12/Z) and Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BB/J016004/1).The RING E3 ligase catalysed formation of lysine 63 linked ubiquitin chains by the Ube2V2–Ubc13 E2 complex is required for many important biological processes. Here we report the structure of the RING domain dimer of rat RNF4 in complex with a human Ubc13~Ub conjugate and Ube2V2. The structure has captured Ube2V2 bound to the acceptor (priming) ubiquitin with Lys63 in a position that could lead to attack on the linkage between the donor (second) ubiquitin and Ubc13 that is held in the active “folded back” conformation by the RING domain of RNF4. The interfaces identified in the structure were verified by in vitro ubiquitination assays of site directed mutants. This represents the first view of the synthesis of Lys63 linked ubiquitin chains in which both substrate ubiquitin and ubiquitin-loaded E2 are juxtaposed to allow E3 ligase mediated catalysis.PostprintPeer reviewe

String Gas Cosmology and Structure Formation

It has recently been shown that a Hagedorn phase of string gas cosmology may provide a causal mechanism for generating a nearly scale-invariant spectrum of scalar metric fluctuations, without the need for an intervening period of de Sitter expansion. A distinctive signature of this structure formation scenario would be a slight blue tilt of the spectrum of gravitational waves. In this paper we give more details of the computations leading to these results.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure

Dynamical decompactification from brane gases in eleven-dimensional supergravity

Brane gas cosmology provides a dynamical decompactification mechanism that could account for the number of spacetime dimensions we observe today. In this work we discuss this scenario taking into account the full bosonic sector of eleven-dimensional supergravity. We find new cosmological solutions that can dynamically explain the existence of three large spatial dimensions characterised by an universal asymptotic scaling behaviour and a large number of initially unwrapped dimensions. This type of solutions enlarge the possible initial conditions of the Universe in the Hagedorn phase and consequently can potentially increase the probability of dynamical decompactification from anisotropically wrapped backgrounds.Comment: 8 figures, JHEP3 styl

A millisecond pulsar in a stellar triple system

Gravitationally bound three-body systems have been studied for hundreds of years and are common in our Galaxy. They show complex orbital interactions, which can constrain the compositions, masses, and interior structures of the bodies and test theories of gravity, if sufficiently precise measurements are available. A triple system containing a radio pulsar could provide such measurements, but the only previously known such system, B1620-26 (with a millisecond pulsar, a white dwarf, and a planetary-mass object in an orbit of several decades), shows only weak interactions. Here we report precision timing and multi-wavelength observations of PSR J0337+1715, a millisecond pulsar in a hierarchical triple system with two other stars. Strong gravitational interactions are apparent and provide the masses of the pulsar (1.4378(13) Msun, where Msun is the solar mass and the parentheses contain the uncertainty in the final decimal places) and the two white dwarf companions (0.19751(15) Msun and 0.4101(3) Msun), as well as the inclinations of the orbits (both approximately 39.2 degrees). The unexpectedly coplanar and nearly circular orbits indicate a complex and exotic evolutionary past that differs from those of known stellar systems. The gravitational field of the outer white dwarf strongly accelerates the inner binary containing the neutron star, and the system will thus provide an ideal laboratory in which to test the strong equivalence principle of general relativity.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures, 1 table. Published online by Nature on 5 Jan 2014. Extremely minor differences with published version may exis