Supersymmetric Fluid Dynamics

Recently Navier-Stokes (NS) equations have been derived from the duality between the black branes and a conformal fluid on the boundary of AdS_5. Nevertheless, the full correspondence has to be established between solutions of supergravity in AdS_5 and supersymmetric field theories on the boundary. That prompts the construction of NS equations for a supersymmetric fluid. In the framework of rigid susy, there are several possibilities and we propose one candidate. We deduce the equations of motion in two ways: both from the divergenless condition on the energy-momentum tensor and by a suitable parametrization of the auxiliary fields. We give the complete component expansion and a very preliminary analysis of the physics of this supersymmetric fluid.Comment: 24 pages, Latex2

Nanocrystal seeding: A low temperature route to polycrystalline Si films

A novel method is presented for growth of polycrystalline silicon films on amorphous substrates at temperatures of 540–575 °C. Grain nucleation and grain growth are performed in two steps, using Si nanocrystals as nuclei ("seeds"). The nanocrystal seeds are produced by excimer laser photolysis of disilane in a room temperature flow cell. Film (grain) growth occurs epitaxially on the seeds in a separate thermal chemical vapor deposition (CVD) step, with growth rates 10–100 times higher than similar CVD growth rates on crystal Si. Grain size and CVD growth rates are dependent on seed coverage, for seed coverage <0.2 monolayers

D=(2+1) O(N) Wess-Zumino model in a large N limit

Using the superfield formalism, the effective Kahlerian superpotential of the massless \cal{N}=1 O(N) Wess-Zumino model is computed in the limit of large N, in three spacetime dimensions. The effective Kahlerian superpotential is evaluated at the subleading order in the 1/N expansion, which involves diagrams up to two-loop order, for a small coupling constant. We show that the O(N) symmetry of the model is preserved in this approximation and that no mass is dynamically generated in the supersymmetric phase. We discuss why spontaneous O(N) symmetry breaking cannot be induced by radiative corrections in such model.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur

Comparison of Some Exact and Perturbative Results for a Supersymmetric SU(NcN_c) Gauge Theory

We consider vectorial, asymptotically free ${\cal N}=1$ supersymmetric SU($N_c$) gauge theories with $N_f$ copies of massless chiral super fields in various representations and study how perturbative predictions for the lower boundary of the infrared conformal phase, as a function of $N_f$, compare with exact results. We make use of two-loop and three-loop calculations of the beta function and anomalous dimension of the quadratic chiral super field operator product for this purpose. The specific chiral superfield contents that we consider are $N_f$ copies of (i) $F+\bar F$, (ii) $Adj$, (iii) $S_2+\bar S_2$, and (iv) $A_2 + \bar A_2$, where $F$, $Adj$, $S_2$, and $A_2$ denote, respectively, the fundamental, adjoint, and symmetric and antisymmetric rank-2 tensor representations. We find that perturbative results slightly overestimate the value of $N_{f,cr}$ relative to the respective exact results for these representations, i.e., slightly underestimate the interval in $N_f$ for which the theory has infrared conformal behavior. Our results provide a measure of how closely perturbative calculations reproduce exact results for these theories.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure

Seeking the Loop Quantum Gravity Barbero-Immirzi Parameter and Field in 4D, N\cal N = 1 Supergravity

We embed the Loop Quantum Gravity Barbero-Immirzi parameter and field within an action describing 4D, $\cal N$ = 1 supergravity and thus within a Low Energy Effective Action of Superstring/M-Theory. We use the fully gauge-covariant description of supergravity in (curved) superspace. The gravitational constant is replaced with the vacuum expectation value of a scalar field, which in local supersymmetry is promoted to a complex, covariantly chiral scalar superfield. The imaginary part of this superfield couples to a supersymmetric Holst term. The Holst term also serves as a starting point in the Loop Quantum Gravity action. This suggest the possibility of a relation between Loop Quantum Gravity and supersymmetric string theory, where the Barbero-Immirzi parameter and field of the former play the role of the supersymmetric axion in the latter. Adding matter fermions in Loop Quantum Gravity may require the extension of the Holst action through the Nieh-Yan topological invariant, while in pure, matter-free supergravity their supersymmetric extensions are the same. We show that, when the Barbero-Immirzi parameter is promoted to a field in the context of 4D supergravity, it is equivalent to adding a dynamical complex chiral (dilaton-axion) superfield with a non-trivial kinetic term (or K\"ahler potential), coupled to supergravity.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figure. Replaced with accepted version in Phys. Rev.

Effective action of beta-deformed N=4 SYM theory and AdS/CFT

We compute the one-loop effective action in \N=1 conformal SU(N) gauge theory which is an exactly marginal deformation of the \N=4 SYM theory. We consider an abelian background of constant \N = 1 gauge field and single chiral scalar. While for finite N the effective action depends non-trivially on the deformation parameter \beta, this dependence disappears in the large N limit if the parameter \beta is real. This conclusion matches the strong-coupling prediction coming from the form of a D3-brane probe action in the dual supergravity background: for the simplest choice of the D3-brane position the probe action happens to be the same as for a D3-brane in AdS_5 x S^5 placed parallel to the boundary of AdS_5. This suggests that in the real \beta deformation case there exists a large N non-renormalization theorem for the 4-derivative term in the action.Comment: 15 pages, no figures. V2: comments, reference added. V3: the version to appear in PR

Infrared ground-based astronomy with the Hughes 256 X 256 PtSi array

It is shown that large format PtSi Schottky diode infrared arrays, the Hughes 256 X 256 hybrid Schottky array in particular, are competitive alternatives to the smaller format photovoltaic arrays for ground-based astronomy. The modest quantum efficiency of the PtSi compared to the photovoltaic devices is more than compensated for by the larger format. The use of hybrid technology yields effective fill factors of nearly 100 percent, and the low dark current, noise, excellent imaging characteristics, cost, and solid nitrogen operating temperature add to the effectiveness of this array for ground-based imaging. In addition to discussing the characteristics of this array, researchers present laboratory test data and astronomical results achieved at Kitt Peak

Embedding (R+R^2)-Inflation into Supergravity

We find the natural embedding of the (R+R^2)-inflationary model into the recently constructed N=1 F(\cal R)-supergravity. It gives a simple and viable realization of chaotic inflation in supergravity. The only requirement for a slow-roll inflation is the existence of the (\cal R)^3-term with an anomalously large coefficient in Taylor expansion of the F(\cal R) function, where \cal R is the covariantly-chiral scalar supercurvature superfield.Comment: 4 pages, revtex, no figures (very minor additions, a reference added

Perturbative finiteness of the three-dimensional Susy QED to all orders

Within the superfield formalism, we study the ultraviolet properties of the three-dimensional supersymmetric quantum electrodynamics. The theory is shown to be finite at all loops orders in a particular gauge.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, revtex