1,330 research outputs found
Science, Politics, and Problem Solving: Principles and Practices for the Resolution of Environmental Disputes in the Midst of Advancing Technology, Uncertain or Changing Science, and Volatile Public Perceptions
Essence of the vacuum quark condensate
We show that the chiral-limit vacuum quark condensate is qualitatively
equivalent to the pseudoscalar meson leptonic decay constant in the sense that
they are both obtained as the chiral-limit value of well-defined
gauge-invariant hadron-to-vacuum transition amplitudes that possess a spectral
representation in terms of the current-quark mass. Thus, whereas it might
sometimes be convenient to imagine otherwise, neither is essentially a constant
mass-scale that fills all spacetime. This means, in particular, that the quark
condensate can be understood as a property of hadrons themselves, which is
expressed, for example, in their Bethe-Salpeter or light-front wavefunctions.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur
Critical Percolation in High Dimensions
We present Monte Carlo estimates for site and bond percolation thresholds in
simple hypercubic lattices with 4 to 13 dimensions. For d<6 they are
preliminary, for d >= 6 they are between 20 to 10^4 times more precise than the
best previous estimates. This was achieved by three ingredients: (i) simple and
fast hashing which allowed us to simulate clusters of millions of sites on
computers with less than 500 MB memory; (ii) a histogram method which allowed
us to obtain information for several p values from a single simulation; and
(iii) a new variance reduction technique which is especially efficient at high
dimensions where it reduces error bars by a factor up to approximately 30 and
more. Based on these data we propose a new scaling law for finite cluster size
corrections.Comment: 5 pages including figures, RevTe
v4: A small, but sensitive observable for heavy ion collisions
Higher order Fourier coefficients of the azimuthally dependent single
particle spectra resulting from noncentral heavy ion collisions are
investigated. For intermediate to large transverse momenta, these anisotropies
are expected to become as large as 5 %, and should be clearly measurable. The
physics content of these observables is discussed from two different extreme
but complementary viewpoints, hydrodynamics and the geometric limit with
extreme energy loss.Comment: as published: typos corrected, Fig. 3 slightly improved in numerics
and presentatio
Bell inequalities for random fields
The assumptions required for the derivation of Bell inequalities are not
usually satisfied for random fields in which there are any thermal or quantum
fluctuations, in contrast to the general satisfaction of the assumptions for
classical two point particle models. Classical random field models that
explicitly include the effects of quantum fluctuations on measurement are
possible for experiments that violate Bell inequalities.Comment: 18 pages; 1 figure; v4: Essentially the published version; extensive
improvements. v3: Better description of the relationship between classical
random fields and quantum fields; better description of random field models.
More extensive references. v2: Abstract and introduction clarifie
The curious nonexistence of Gaussian 2-designs
2-designs -- ensembles of quantum pure states whose 2nd moments equal those
of the uniform Haar ensemble -- are optimal solutions for several tasks in
quantum information science, especially state and process tomography. We show
that Gaussian states cannot form a 2-design for the continuous-variable
(quantum optical) Hilbert space L2(R). This is surprising because the affine
symplectic group HWSp (the natural symmetry group of Gaussian states) is
irreducible on the symmetric subspace of two copies. In finite dimensional
Hilbert spaces, irreducibility guarantees that HWSp-covariant ensembles (such
as mutually unbiased bases in prime dimensions) are always 2-designs. This
property is violated by continuous variables, for a subtle reason: the
(well-defined) HWSp-invariant ensemble of Gaussian states does not have an
average state because the averaging integral does not converge. In fact, no
Gaussian ensemble is even close (in a precise sense) to being a 2-design. This
surprising difference between discrete and continuous quantum mechanics has
important implications for optical state and process tomography.Comment: 9 pages, no pretty figures (sorry!
Between overt and covert research: concealment and disclosure in an ethnographic study of commercial hospitality
This article examines the ways in which problems of concealment emerged in an ethnographic study of a suburban bar and considers how disclosure of the research aims, the recruitment of informants, and elicitation of information was negotiated throughout the fieldwork. The case study demonstrates how the social context and the relationships with specific informants determined overtness or covertness in the research. It is argued that the existing literature on covert research and covert methods provides an inappropriate frame of reference with which to understand concealment in fieldwork. The article illustrates why concealment is sometimes necessary, and often unavoidable, and concludes that the criticisms leveled against covert methods should not stop the fieldworker from engaging in research that involves covertness
Running mass of the rho0 meson's implication for the dilepton mass spectrum and the mu+mu-/e+e- branching ratio in the K+ --> pi+l+l- decays
We make an attempt to resolve the discrepancy of the observed e+e- mass
spectrum in the K+ --> pi+e+e- decay with that predicted by meson dominance. To
this end we investigate the properties of the rho0 propagator. We use
dispersion relations to evaluate the running mass squared m_rho^2(t) of the
rho0 resonance without adjustable parameters. To improve the convergence of the
dispersion integral, the momentum dependence of strong vertices is taken from
the flux-tube-breaking model of Kokoski and Isgur. The obtained behavior of
m_rho^2(t) at small momentum squared t makes the K+ --> pi+e+e- form factor
rise faster with increasing than in the original meson-dominance
calculation and more in agreement with the published data. As a consequence,
the meson-dominance prediction of the mu+mu-/e+e- branching ratio changes
slightly, from 0.224 to 0.236. We do not see any possibility to accommodate
into the meson-dominance approach an even steeper e+e- spectrum, indicated by
the preliminary data of the E865 collaboration at BNL AGS.Comment: 13 pages, RevTeX, epsf.sty, 4 embedded figure
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