227 research outputs found
Superconductivity with hard-core repulsion: BCS-Bose crossover and s-/d-wave competition
We consider fermions on a 2D lattice interacting repulsively on the same site
and attractively on the nearest neighbor sites. The model is relevant, for
instance, to study the competition between antiferromagnetism and
superconductivity in a Kondo lattice. We first solve the two-body problem to
show that in the dilute and strong coupling limit the s-wave Bose condensed
state is always the ground state. We then consider the many-body problem and
treat it at mean-field level by solving exactly the usual gap equation. This
guarantees that the superconducting wave-function correctly vanishes when the
two fermions (with antiparallel spin) sit on the same site. This fact has
important consequences on the superconducting state that are somewhat unusual.
In particular this implies a radial node-line for the gap function. When a next
neighbor hopping t' is present we find that the s-wave state may develop nodes
on the Fermi surface.Comment: 10 pages, 9 fig
A Once and Future Gulf of Mexico Ecosystem: Restoration Recommendations of an Expert Working Group
The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) well blowout released more petroleum hydrocarbons into the marine environment than any previous U.S. oil spill (4.9 million barrels), fouling marine life, damaging deep sea and shoreline habitats and causing closures of economically valuable fisheries in the Gulf of Mexico. A suite of pollutants — liquid and gaseous petroleum compounds plus chemical dispersants — poured into ecosystems that had already been stressed by overfishing, development and global climate change. Beyond the direct effects that were captured in dramatic photographs of oiled birds in the media, it is likely that there are subtle, delayed, indirect and potentially synergistic impacts of these widely dispersed, highly bioavailable and toxic hydrocarbons and chemical dispersants on marine life from pelicans to salt marsh grasses and to deep-sea animals.
As tragic as the DWH blowout was, it has stimulated public interest in protecting this economically, socially and environmentally critical region. The 2010 Mabus Report, commissioned by President Barack Obama and written by the secretary of the Navy, provides a blueprint for restoring the Gulf that is bold, visionary and strategic. It is clear that we need not only to repair the damage left behind by the oil but also to go well beyond that to restore the anthropogenically stressed and declining Gulf ecosystems to prosperity-sustaining levels of historic productivity. For this report, we assembled a team of leading scientists with expertise in coastal and marine ecosystems and with experience in their restoration to identify strategies and specific actions that will revitalize and sustain the Gulf coastal economy.
Because the DWH spill intervened in ecosystems that are intimately interconnected and already under stress, and will remain stressed from global climate change, we argue that restoration of the Gulf must go beyond the traditional “in-place, in-kind” restoration approach that targets specific damaged habitats or species. A sustainable restoration of the Gulf of Mexico after DWH must:
1. Recognize that ecosystem resilience has been compromised by multiple human interventions predating the DWH spill;
2. Acknowledge that significant future environmental change is inevitable and must be factored into restoration plans and actions for them to be durable;
3. Treat the Gulf as a complex and interconnected network of ecosystems from shoreline to deep sea; and
4. Recognize that human and ecosystem productivity in the Gulf are interdependent, and that human needs from and effects on the Gulf must be integral to restoration planning.
With these principles in mind, we provide the scientific basis for a sustainable restoration program along three themes:
1. Assess and repair damage from DWH and other stresses on the Gulf;
2. Protect existing habitats and populations; and
3. Integrate sustainable human use with ecological processes in the Gulf of Mexico.
Under these themes, 15 historically informed, adaptive, ecosystem-based restoration actions are presented to recover Gulf resources and rebuild the resilience of its ecosystem. The vision that guides our recommendations fundamentally imbeds the restoration actions within the context of the changing environment so as to achieve resilience of resources, human communities and the economy into the indefinite future
Fluctuating Elastic Rings: Statics and Dynamics
We study the effects of thermal fluctuations on elastic rings. Analytical
expressions are derived for correlation functions of Euler angles, mean square
distance between points on the ring contour, radius of gyration, and
probability distribution of writhe fluctuations. Since fluctuation amplitudes
diverge in the limit of vanishing twist rigidity, twist elasticity is essential
for the description of fluctuating rings. We find a crossover from a small
scale regime in which the filament behaves as a straight rod, to a large scale
regime in which spontaneous curvature is important and twist rigidity affects
the spatial configurations of the ring. The fluctuation-dissipation relation
between correlation functions of Euler angles and response functions, is used
to study the deformation of the ring by external forces. The effects of inertia
and dissipation on the relaxation of temporal correlations of writhe
fluctuations, are analyzed using Langevin dynamics.Comment: 43 pages, 9 Figure
Scalar hairy black holes and solitons in asymptotically flat spacetimes
A numerical analysis shows that a class of scalar-tensor theories of gravity
with a scalar field minimally and nonminimally coupled to the curvature allows
static and spherically symmetric black hole solutions with scalar-field hair in
asymptotically flat spacetimes. In the limit when the horizon radius of the
black hole tends to zero, regular scalar solitons are found. The asymptotically
flat solutions are obtained provided that the scalar potential of the
theory is not positive semidefinite and such that its local minimum is also a
zero of the potential, the scalar field settling asymptotically at that
minimum. The configurations for the minimal coupling case, although unstable
under spherically symmetric linear perturbations, are regular and thus can
serve as counterexamples to the no-scalar-hair conjecture. For the nonminimal
coupling case, the stability will be analyzed in a forthcoming paper.Comment: 7 pages, 10 postscript figures, file tex, new postscript figs. and
references added, stability analysis revisite
Can a CPT Violating Ether Solve ALL Electron (Anti)Neutrino Puzzles?
Assuming that CPT is violated in the neutrino sector seems to be a viable
alternative to sterile neutrinos when it comes to reconciling the LSND anomaly
with the remainder of the neutrino data. There are different (distinguishable)
ways of incorporating CPT violation into the standard model, including
postulating m different from \bar{m}. Here, I investigate the possibility of
introducing CPT violation via Lorentz-invariance violating effective operators
(``Ether'' potentials) which modify neutrino oscillation patterns like ordinary
matter effects. I argue that, within a simplified two-flavor like oscillation
analysis, one cannot solve the solar neutrino puzzle and LSND anomaly while
still respecting constraints imposed by other neutrino experiments, and comment
on whether significant improvements should be expected from a three-flavor
analysis. If one turns the picture upside down, some of the most severe
constrains on such CPT violating terms can already be obtained from the current
neutrino data, while much more severe constraints can arise from future
neutrino oscillation experiments.Comment: 10 pages, 1 eps figure; version to appear in PRD. Comment added,
mistake corrected, results and conclusions unchange
Dressing the nucleon in a dispersion approach
We present a model for dressing the nucleon propagator and vertices. In the
model the use of a K-matrix approach (unitarity) and dispersion relations
(analyticity) are combined. The principal application of the model lies in
pion-nucleon scattering where we discuss effects of the dressing on the phase
shifts.Comment: 17 pages, using REVTeX, 6 figure
Numerical Portrait of a Relativistic Thin Film BCS Superfluid
We present results of numerical simulations of the 2+1d Nambu - Jona-Lasinio
model with a non-zero baryon chemical potential mu including the effects of a
diquark source term. Diquark condensates, susceptibilities and masses are
measured as functions of source strength j. The results suggest that diquark
condensation does not take place in the high density phase mu>mu_c, but rather
that the condensate scales non-analytically with j implying a line of critical
points and long range phase coherence. Analogies are drawn with the low
temperature phase of the 2d XY model. The spectrum of the spin-1/2 sector is
also studied yielding the quasiparticle dispersion relation. There is no
evidence for a non-zero gap; rather the results are characteristic of a normal
Fermi liquid with Fermi velocity less than that of light. We conclude that the
high density phase of the model describes a relativistic gapless thin film BCS
superfluid.Comment: 37 pages, 16 figure
Neutralino Dark Matter from MSSM Flat Directions in light of WMAP Result
The minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) has a truly supersymmetric
way to explain both the baryon asymmetry and cold dark matter in the present
Universe, that is, ``Affleck-Dine baryo/DM-genesis.'' The associated late-time
decay of Q-balls directly connects the origins of the baryon asymmetry and dark
matter, and also predicts a specific nature of the LSP. In this paper, we
investigate the prospects for indirect detection of these dark matter
candidates observing high energy neutrino flux from the Sun, and hard positron
flux from the halo. We also update the previous analysis of the direct
detection in hep-ph/0205044 by implementing the recent result from WMAP
satellite.Comment: 32 pages, including 40 figure
D-brane anti-D-brane effective action and brane interaction in open string channel
We construct the effective action of a -brane-anti--brane system by
making use of the non-abelian extension of tachyonic DBI action. We succeed the
construction by restricting the Chan-Paton factors of two non-BPS -branes
in the action to the Chan-Paton factors of a system. For the
special case that both branes are coincident, the action reduces to the one
proposed by A. Sen. \\The effective potential indicates that
when branes separation is larger than the string length scale, there are two
minima in the tachyon direction. As branes move toward each other under the
gravitational force, the tachyon tunneling from false to true vacuum may make a
bubble formation followed by a classical evolution of the bubble. On the other
hand, when branes separation is smaller than the string length scale, the
potential shows one maximum and one minimum. In this case, a homogeneous
tachyon rolling in real time makes an attractive potential for the branes
distance. This classical force is speculated to be the effective force between
the two branes.Comment: Latex, 14 pages, 1 figure, the version appears in JHE
Non-thermal dark matter via Affleck-Dine baryogenesis and its detection possibility
The formation and late time decays of Q-balls are generic consequences of the
Affleck-Dine (AD) baryogenesis. A substantial amount of the lightest
supersymmetry (SUSY) particles (LSPs) are produced non-thermally as the decay
products of these Q-balls. This requires a significantly large annihilation
cross section of the LSP so as not to overclose the universe, which predicts a
higgsino- or wino-like LSP instead of the standard bino LSP. We have reexamined
the AD baryogenesis with special attention to the late-time decays of the
Q-balls, and then specified the parameter regions where the LSPs produced by
the Q-ball decays result in a cosmologically interesting mass density of dark
matter by adopting several SUSY breaking models. This reveals new
cosmologically interesting parameter regions, which have not attracted much
attention so far. We have also investigated the prospects of direct and
indirect detection of these dark matter candidates, and found that there is an
intriguing possibility to detect them in various next generation dark matter
searches.Comment: 51 pages, 18 figures, version accepted for publication in Physical
Review
- …