BPS and non-BPS states in a supersymmetric Landau-Ginzburg theory

We analyze the spectrum of the N=(2,2) supersymmetric Landau-Ginzburg theory in two dimensions with superpotential W=X^{n+2}-lambda X^2. We find the full BPS spectrum of this theory by exploiting the direct connection between the UV and IR limits of the theory. The computation utilizes results from the Picard-Lefschetz theory of singularities and its extension to boundary singularities. The additional fact that this theory is integrable requires that the BPS states do not close under scattering. This observation fixes the masses of non-BPS states as well.Comment: 27 pages, 12 figure

Effects of warming temperatures on germination responses and trade-offs between seed traits in an alpine plant

1. Climate warming may affect multiple aspects of plant life history, including important factors such as germination responses and the key trade-off between offspring size and number. As a case study to address these concepts, we used an alpine plant (waxy bluebell, Wahlenbergia ceracea; Campanulaceae) that shows plasticity to warming in seed traits and in which seed dormancy status regulates germination. We chose an alpine species because alpine environments are ecosystems particularly under threat by climate change. 2. We conducted germination assays under cool and warm temperatures using seeds produced by individuals that were grown under historical (cooler) and future (warmer) temperature scenarios. We assessed the presence of a seed size vs number trade-off, and then examined the effects of seed number and size on germination percentage, the fractions of dormant and viable seeds, and germination velocity. Further, we examined whether warming during parental growth and during germination affected these relationships. 3. We found evidence for a seed size vs number trade-off only under historical parental temperatures. Indeed, under future growth temperatures, parental plants produced fewer and smaller seeds and there was no evidence of a trade-off. However, the reductions in both seed traits under warming did not affect germination, despite correlations of seed size and number with germination traits. Warming increased germination, particularly of larger seeds, but overall it resulted in more than fourfold reductions in parental fitness. 4. Synthesis. Our study shows the importance of growth conditions when evaluating the seed size vs number trade-off. Stressful conditions, such as warmer temperatures, can restrain the ability of plants to reach optimal investment in reproduction, masking the trade-off. By analysing responses across the whole life cycle, we show here an overall detrimental effect of warming, highlighting the potential risk of climate change for W. ceracea, and, potentially, for alpine plant communities more widely.Files can be opened using Excel and analysed using R.Funding provided by: Australian Research CouncilCrossref Funder Registry ID: http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100000923Award Number: DP170101681Experiments were conducted using the plant species Wahlnebrgia ceracea (waxy bluebells). Two datasets were used in this manuscript. 1) Seed size vs number trade-off: Parental individuals from a total of 30 lines ('Line') were grown in growth chambers for 191 days under temperature conditions of a historical/cooler (1960–1970) or a projected future/warmer (2090–2100) climate ('Parental_Temperature'). The parental individuals were randomly assigned to one of three blocks, which corresponded to positions inside the chambers, and each block was equivalent in all chambers ('Block'). Day and night temperatures during the experiment were changed every 15 days to mimic seasonality, with the maximum day temperatures during the peak of summer being 24°C and 29°C for the historical and future parental temperatures, respectively. After 100 days since the imposition of the temperature treatments (during the peak of the summer), half of the plants were moved for 5 days to new chambers, where the temperature was 5°C above the respective treatments, i.e., 29°C and 34°C ('Heatwave'). After this time, the parental individuals were moved back to their respective historical or future temperature treatments. We collected the seeds throughout the 191 days of parental growth, and we stored them in desiccators for at least 11 weeks. After this time, we calculated seed size ('Seed_Size') as the average mass of three lots of 50 seeds divided by 50. We calculated seed number ('Seed_Number') as the ratio between the cumulative mass of the seeds produced by each parental individual and seed size. The 30 lines of the parental individuals were obtained by crossing plants that originated from seeds that were collected at the same elevation, either high or low elevation ('Elevation') in sites within Kosciuszko National Park, NSW, Australia. Therefore, 14 lines originated from high elevations and 14 lines from low elevations. 2) Germination responses - seed traits correlations: The seeds were harvested from the parental individuals grown under historical/cooler or projected future/warmer temperatures ('Parental_Temperature') (see above) from a subset of 14 lines ('Line'). These seeds were used in germination assays in the glasshouse under cool (25°C) or warm temperatures (30°C) ('Germination_Temperature'). We measured seed size ('Seed_Size') as the average mass of three lots of 50 seeds; then these seeds were sowed in agar dishes (25 seeds per dish, 2 dishes per temperature treatment from each parental individual). Seed number ('Seed_Number') was the same as above. Dishes were left under temperature treatments for 4 weeks to allow germination of the non-dormant fraction of the seeds ('Not_Dormant_Seeds') and germination was checked once per week. Then, all the dishes were moved to a cold room at 4–5°C in the dark for 4 weeks to allow cold stratification. After this time, dishes were moved back to the glasshouse under the same temperature treatments as before to allow germination of the dormant seeds. We considered seeds to be dormant ('Dormant_seeds') if they germinated during or after cold stratification or if they did not germinate at all but were still determined to be viable at the end of the experiment. We considered seed to be viable ('Viable_Seeds') if they germinated ('Germinated_Seeds') as well as the seeds that contained an endosperm but still did not germinate ('Not_Germinated_Seeds'), while we considered empty seeds as non-viable ('Not_Viable_Seeds'). Germinated and not germinated seeds (as above) were used to calculate the germination percentage. We calculated germination velocity ('Germination_Velocity') as the reciprocal of the mean germination time (germination velocity (germination (%) week-1) GV = (G1 + G2 +…+ Gn) / (G1 x T1 + G2 x T2 +…+ Gn x Tn), where Gn is the number of new germinating seeds at each sampling point, and Tn is the time between each sampling point (= one week). The files provided present the datasets in their first sheet and keys with the definitions of each term in the second sheet

Tolerance of warmer temperatures does not confer resilience to heatwaves in an Alpine herb

Climate change is generating both sustained trends in average temperatures and higher frequency and intensity of extreme events. This poses a serious threat to biodiversity, especially in vulnerable environments, like alpine systems. Phenotypic plasticity is considered to be an adaptive mechanism to cope with climate change in situ, yet studies of the plastic responses of alpine plants to high temperature stress are scarce. Future weather extremes will occur against a background of warmer temperatures, but we do not know whether acclimation to warmer average temperatures confers tolerance to extreme heatwaves. Nor do we know whether populations on an elevational gradient differ in their tolerance or plasticity in response to warming and heatwave events. We investigated the responses of a suite of functional traits of an endemic Australian alpine herb, Wahlenbergia ceracea, to combinations of predicted future (warmer) temperatures and (relative) heatwaves. We also tested whether responses differed between high- vs. low-elevation populations. When grown under warmer temperatures, W. ceracea plants showed signs of acclimation by means of higher thermal tolerance (Tcrit, T50, and Tmax). They also invested more in flower production, despite showing a concurrent reduction in photosynthetic efficiency (Fv/Fm) and suppression of seed production. Heatwaves reduced both photosynthetic efficiency and longevity. However, we found no evidence that acclimation to warmer temperatures conferred tolerance of the photosynthetic machinery to heatwaves. Instead, when exposed to heatwaves following warmer growth temperatures, plants had lower photosynthetic efficiency and underwent a severe reduction in seed production. High- and low-elevation populations and families exhibited limited genetic variation in trait means and plasticity in response to temperature. We conclude that W. ceracea shows some capacity to acclimate to warming conditions but there is no evidence that tolerance of warmer temperatures confers any resilience to heatwaves.This research was supported by the Australian Research Council (DP170101681), an International Ph.D. Scholarship to RN and an ARC Future Fellowship FT110100453 to LK. Research grants funded all research related costs (such as renting growth chambers or buying equipment), while the scholarship paid a stipend to RN

Covariant derivative expansion of fermionic effective action at high temperatures

We derive the fermionic contribution to the 1-loop effective action for A_4 and A_i fields at high temperatures, assuming that gluon fields are slowly varying but allowing for an arbitrary amplitude of A_4.Comment: RevTex 4, 11 pages, 3 figures. Version 2: Typos corrected; magnetic fields restricted to parallel sector. Version accepted for publication in PR

Covariant derivative expansion of Yang-Mills effective action at high temperatures

Integrating out fast varying quantum fluctuations about Yang--Mills fields A_i and A_4, we arrive at the effective action for those fields at high temperatures. Assuming that the fields A_i and A_4 are slowly varying but that the amplitude of A_4 is arbitrary, we find a non-trivial effective gauge invariant action both in the electric and magnetic sectors. Our results can be used for studying correlation functions at high temperatures beyond the dimensional reduction approximation, as well as for estimating quantum weights of classical static configurations such as dyons.Comment: Minor changes. References added. Paper accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.

Molecular Dynamics Simulation of Semiflexible Polyampholyte Brushes - The Effect of Charged Monomers Sequence

Planar brushes formed by end-grafted semiflexible polyampholyte chains, each chain containing equal number of positively and negatively charged monomers is studied using molecular dynamics simulations. Keeping the length of the chains fixed, dependence of the average brush thickness and equilibrium statistics of the brush conformations on the grafting density and the salt concentration are obtained with various sequences of charged monomers. When similarly charged monomers of the chains are arranged in longer blocks, the average brush thickness is smaller and dependence of brush properties on the grafting density and the salt concentration is stronger. With such long blocks of similarly charged monomers, the anchored chains bond to each other in the vicinity of the grafting surface at low grafting densities and buckle toward the grafting surface at high grafting densities.Comment: 8 pages,7 figure

Electromagnetic form factors of light vector mesons

The electromagnetic form factors G_E(q^2), G_M(q^2), and G_Q(q^2), charge radii, magnetic and quadrupole moments, and decay widths of the light vector mesons rho^+, K^{*+} and K^{*0} are calculated in a Lorentz-covariant, Dyson-Schwinger equation based model using algebraic quark propagators that incorporate confinement, asymptotic freedom, and dynamical chiral symmetry breaking, and vector meson Bethe-Salpeter amplitudes closely related to the pseudoscalar amplitudes obtained from phenomenological studies of pi and K mesons. Calculated static properties of vector mesons include the charge radii and magnetic moments: r_{rho+} = 0.61 fm, r_{K*+} = 0.54 fm, and r^2_{K*0} = -0.048 fm^2; mu_{rho+} = 2.69, mu_{K*+} = 2.37, and mu_{K*0} = -0.40. The calculated static limits of the rho-meson form factors are similar to those obtained from light-front quantum mechanical calculations, but begin to differ above q^2 = 1 GeV^2 due to the dynamical evolution of the quark propagators in our approach.Comment: 8 pages of RevTeX, 5 eps figure

Stochastic attractors for shell phenomenological models of turbulence

Recently, it has been proposed that the Navier-Stokes equations and a relevant linear advection model have the same long-time statistical properties, in particular, they have the same scaling exponents of their structure functions. This assertion has been investigate rigorously in the context of certain nonlinear deterministic phenomenological shell model, the Sabra shell model, of turbulence and its corresponding linear advection counterpart model. This relationship has been established through a "homotopy-like" coefficient $\lambda$ which bridges continuously between the two systems. That is, for $\lambda=1$ one obtains the full nonlinear model, and the corresponding linear advection model is achieved for $\lambda=0$. In this paper, we investigate the validity of this assertion for certain stochastic phenomenological shell models of turbulence driven by an additive noise. We prove the continuous dependence of the solutions with respect to the parameter $\lambda$. Moreover, we show the existence of a finite-dimensional random attractor for each value of $\lambda$ and establish the upper semicontinuity property of this random attractors, with respect to the parameter $\lambda$. This property is proved by a pathwise argument. Our study aims toward the development of basic results and techniques that may contribute to the understanding of the relation between the long-time statistical properties of the nonlinear and linear models

Ergodic properties of a generic non-integrable quantum many-body system in thermodynamic limit

We study a generic but simple non-integrable quantum {\em many-body} system of {\em locally} interacting particles, namely a kicked $t-V$ model of spinless fermions on 1-dim lattice (equivalent to a kicked Heisenberg XX-Z chain of 1/2 spins). Statistical properties of dynamics (quantum ergodicity and quantum mixing) and the nature of quantum transport in {\em thermodynamic limit} are considered as the kick parameters (which control the degree of non-integrability) are varied. We find and demonstrate {\em ballistic} transport and non-ergodic, non-mixing dynamics (implying infinite conductivity at all temperatures) in the {\em integrable} regime of zero or very small kick parameters, and more generally and important, also in {\em non-integrable} regime of {\em intermediate} values of kicked parameters, whereas only for sufficiently large kick parameters we recover quantum ergodicity and mixing implying normal (diffusive) transport. We propose an order parameter (charge stiffness $D$) which controls the phase transition from non-mixing/non-ergodic dynamics (ordered phase, $D>0$) to mixing/ergodic dynamics (disordered phase, D=0) in the thermodynamic limit. Furthermore, we find {\em exponential decay of time-correlation function} in the regime of mixing dynamics. The results are obtained consistently within three different numerical and analytical approaches: (i) time evolution of a finite system and direct computation of time correlation functions, (ii) full diagonalization of finite systems and statistical analysis of stationary data, and (iii) algebraic construction of quantum invariants of motion of an infinite system, in particular the time averaged observables.Comment: 18 pages in REVTeX with 14 eps figures included, Submitted to Physical Review

Nucleon Charge and Magnetization Densities from Sachs Form Factors

Relativistic prescriptions relating Sachs form factors to nucleon charge and magnetization densities are used to fit recent data for both the proton and the neutron. The analysis uses expansions in complete radial bases to minimize model dependence and to estimate the uncertainties in radial densities due to limitation of the range of momentum transfer. We find that the charge distribution for the proton is significantly broad than its magnetization density and that the magnetization density is slightly broader for the neutron than the proton. The neutron charge form factor is consistent with the Galster parametrization over the available range of Q^2, but relativistic inversion produces a softer radial density. Discrete ambiguities in the inversion method are analyzed in detail. The method of Mitra and Kumari ensures compatibility with pQCD and is most useful for extrapolating form factors to large Q^2.Comment: To appear in Phys. Rev. C. Two new figures and accompanying text have been added and several discussions have been clarified with no significant changes to the conclusions. Now contains 47 pages including 21 figures and 2 table