Young star clusters in M31

In our study of M31's globular cluster system with MMT/Hectospec, we have obtained high-quality spectra of 85 clusters with ages less than 1 Gyr. With the exception of Hubble V, the young cluster in NGC 205, we find that these young clusters have kinematics and spatial distribution consistent with membership in M31's young disk. Preliminary estimates of the cluster masses and structural parameters, using spectroscopically derived ages and HST imaging, confirms earlier suggestions that M31 has clusters similar to the LMC's young populous clusters.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, contributed talk at "Galaxies in the Local Volume" conference in Sydney, July 200

Seiberg Duality is an Exceptional Mutation

The low energy gauge theory living on D-branes probing a del Pezzo singularity of a non-compact Calabi-Yau manifold is not unique. In fact there is a large equivalence class of such gauge theories related by Seiberg duality. As a step toward characterizing this class, we show that Seiberg duality can be defined consistently as an admissible mutation of a strongly exceptional collection of coherent sheaves.Comment: 32 pages, 4 figures; v2 refs added, "orbifold point" discussion refined; v3 version to appear in JHEP, discussion of torsion sheaves improve

Type IIA Moduli Stabilization

We demonstrate that flux compactifications of type IIA string theory can classically stabilize all geometric moduli. For a particular orientifold background, we explicitly construct an infinite family of supersymmetric vacua with all moduli stabilized at arbitrarily large volume, weak coupling, and small negative cosmological constant. We obtain these solutions from both ten-dimensional and four-dimensional perspectives. For more general backgrounds, we study the equations for supersymmetric vacua coming from the effective superpotential and show that all geometric moduli can be stabilized by fluxes. We comment on the resulting picture of statistics on the landscape of vacua.Comment: 48 pages, 2 figures, LaTeX. v2: references added. v3: minor comments & references adde

Effect of Spatial Locality on an Evolutionary Algorithm for Multimodal Optimization

Abstract. To explore the effect of spatial locality, crowding differential evolu-tion is incorporated with spatial locality for multimodal optimization. Instead of random trial vector generations, it takes advantages of spatial locality to generate fitter trial vectors. Experiments were conducted to compare the proposed algo-rithm (CrowdingDE-L) with the state-of-the-art algorithms. Further experiments were also conducted on a real world problem. The experimental results indicate that CrowdingDE-L has a competitive edge over the other algorithms tested.

Typicality, Black Hole Microstates and Superconformal Field Theories

We analyze the structure of heavy multitrace BPS operators in N = 1 superconformal quiver gauge theories that arise on the worldvolume of D3-branes on an affine toric cone. We exhibit a geometric procedure for counting heavy mesonic operators with given U(1) charges. We show that for any fixed linear combination of the U(1) charges, the entropy is maximized when the charges are in certain ratios. This selects preferred directions in the charge space that can be determined with the help of a piece of string. We show that almost all heavy mesonic operators of fixed U(1) charges share a universal structure. This universality reflects the properties of the dual extremal black holes whose microstates they create. We also interpret our results in terms of typical configurations of dual giant gravitons in AdS space.Comment: 40 pages + 3 appendices, 11 figure

Human Pulp Capping with Isobutyl Cyanoacrylate

In this histological study, 19 human teeth were mechanically exposed and the pulps were capped with isobutyl cyanoacrylate. It was shown that this chemical adhesive produces immediate hemostasis and permits the repair of the injured pulp. </jats:p