Dark energy in motion

Recent large-scale peculiar velocity surveys suggest that large matter volumes could be moving with appreciable velocity with respect to the CMB rest frame. If confirmed, such results could conflict with the Cosmological Principle according to which the matter and CMB rest frames should converge on very large scales. In this work we explore the possibility that such large scale bulk flows are due, not to the motion of matter with respect to the CMB, but to the flow of dark energy with respect to matter. Indeed, when dark energy is moving, the usual definition of the CMB rest frame as that in which the CMB dipole vanishes is not appropriate. We find instead that the dipole vanishes for observers at rest with respect to the cosmic center of mass, i.e. in motion with respect to the background radiation.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure. Essay selected for "Honorable Mention" in the 2006 Awards for Essays on Gravitation (Gravity Research Foundation

Breakdown of the operator product expansion in the 't Hooft model

We consider deep inelastic scattering in the 't Hooft model. Being solvable, this model allows us to directly compute the moments associated with the cross section at next-to-leading order in the 1/Q^2 expansion. We perform the same computation using the operator product expansion. We find that all the terms match in both computations except for one in the hadronic side, which is proportional to a non-local operator. The basics of the result suggest that a similar phenomenon may occur in four dimensions in the large N_c limit.Comment: 4 page

Real-time Quantum evolution in the Classical approximation and beyond

With the goal in mind of deriving a method to compute quantum corrections for the real-time evolution in quantum field theory, we analyze the problem from the perspective of the Wigner function. We argue that this provides the most natural way to justify and extend the classical approximation. A simple proposal is presented that can allow to give systematic quantum corrections to the evolution of expectation values and/or an estimate of the errors committed when using the classical approximation. The method is applied to the case of a few degrees of freedom and compared with other methods and with the exact quantum results. An analysis of the dependence of the numerical effort involved as a function of the number of variables is given, which allow us to be optimistic about its applicability in a quantum field theoretical context.Comment: 32 pages, 6 figure

Liquid recirculation in microfluidic channels by the interplay of capillary and centrifugal forces

We demonstrate a technique to recirculate liquids in a microfluidic device, maintaining a thin fluid layer such that typical diffusion times for analytes to reach the device surface are < 1 min. Fluids can be recirculated at least 1000 times across the same surface region, with no change other than slight evaporation, by alternating the predominance of centrifugal and capillary forces. Mounted on a rotational platform, the device consists of two hydrophilic layers separated by a thin pressure-sensitive adhesive (PSA) layer that defines the microfluidic structure. We demonstrate rapid, effective fluid mixing with this device

Fit to the Bjorken, Ellis-Jaffe and Gross-Llewellyn-Smith sum rules in a renormalon based approach

We study the large order behaviour in perturbation theory of the Bjorken, Ellis-Jaffe and Gross-Llewellyn-Smith sum rules. In particular, we consider their first infrared renormalons, for which we obtain their analytic structure with logarithmic accuracy and also an approximate determination of their normalization constant. Estimates of higher order terms of the perturbative series are given. The Renormalon subtracted scheme is worked out for these observables and compared with experimental data. Overall, good agreement with experiment is found. This allows us to obtain {\hat a}_0 and some higher-twist non-perturbative constants from experiment: {\hat a}_0=0.141\pm 0.089; f_{3,RS}(1 GeV)=-0.124^{+0.137}_{-0.142} GeV^2.Comment: 23 pages, 18 figures, one reference added, journal versio

Deep inelastic scattering and factorization in the 't Hooft Model

We study in detail deep inelastic scattering in the 't Hooft model. We are able to analytically check current conservation and to obtain analytic expressions for the matrix elements with relative precision O(1/Q^2) for 1-x >> \beta^2/Q^2. This allows us to compute the electron-meson differential cross section and its moments with 1/Q^2 precision. For the former we find maximal violations of quark-hadron duality, as it is expected for a large N_c analysis. For the latter we find violations of the operator product expansion at next-to-leading order in the 1/Q^2 expansion.Comment: 55 pages, 16 figure

The lattice Schrödinger functional and the background field effective action

We propose a new method that by using the lattice Schr\"odinger functional allows to investigate the effective action for external background fields in lattice gauge theories. We show that this method gives sensible results for the case of four-dimensional U(1) gauge theory in an external constant magnetic field