Abelian and Non-Abelian Induced Parity Breaking Terms at Finite Temperature

We compute the exact canonically induced parity breaking part of the effective action for 2+1 massive fermions in particular Abelian and non Abelian gauge field backgrounds. The method of computation resorts to the chiral anomaly of the dimensionally reduced theory.Comment: 13 pages, RevTeX, no figure

Vanishing magnetic mass in QED3_{3} with a Chern-Simons term

We show that, at one loop, the magnetic mass vanishes at finite temperature in QED in any dimension. In QED$_{3}$, even the zero temperature part can be regularized to zero. We calculate the two loop contributions to the magnetic mass in QED$_{3}$ with a Chern-Simons term and show that it vanishes. We give a simple proof which shows that the magnetic mass vanishes to all orders at finite temperature in this theory. This proof also holds for QED in any dimension.Comment: revtex, 7 pages, 5 figure

Gauge invariant derivative expansion of the effective action at finite temperature and density and the scalar field in 2+1 dimensions

A method is presented for the computation of the one-loop effective action at finite temperature and density. The method is based on an expansion in the number of spatial covariant derivatives. It applies to general background field configurations with arbitrary internal symmetry group and space-time dependence. Full invariance under small and large gauge transformations is preserved without assuming stationary or Abelian fields nor fixing the gauge. The method is applied to the computation of the effective action of spin zero particles in 2+1 dimensions at finite temperature and density and in presence of background gauge fields. The calculation is carried out through second order in the number of spatial covariant derivatives. Some limiting cases are worked out.Comment: 34 pages, REVTEX, no figures. Further comments adde

Contact Interactions Involving Right-handed Neutrinos and SN1987A

We consider lepton-quark contact interactions in models with right-handed neutrinos, and find that observational data from SN1987A restricts the scale of such interactions to be at least $\Lambda>90$ TeV.Comment: 7 pages, latex, no figures. Minor corrections to match final version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Parity Violating Bosonic Loops at Finite Temperature

The finite temperature parity-violating contributions to the polarization tensor are computed at one loop in a system without fermions. The system studied is a Maxwell-Chern-Simons-Higgs system in the broken phase, for which the parity-violating terms are well known at zero temperature. At nonzero temperature the static and long-wavelength limits of the parity violating terms have very different structure, and involve non-analytic log terms depending on the various mass scales. At high temperature the boson loop contribution to the Chern-Simons term goes like T in the static limit and like T log T in the long-wavelength limit, in contrast to the fermion loop contribution which behaves like 1/T in the static limit and like log T/T in the long wavelength limit.Comment: 10 pp, 1 fig, revte

Cold Plus Hot Dark Matter Cosmology in the Light of Solar and Atmospheric Neutrino Oscillations

We explore the implications of possible neutrino oscillations, as indicated by the solar and atmospheric neutrino experiments, for the cold plus hot dark matter scenario of large scale structure formation. We find that there are essentially three distinct schemes that can accommodate the oscillation data and which also allow for dark matter neutrinos. These include (i) three nearly degenerate (in mass) neutrinos, (ii) non-degenerate masses with $\nu_\tau$ in the eV range, and (iii) nearly degenerate $\nu_\mu-\nu_\tau$ pair (in the eV range), with the additional possibility that the electron neutrino is cosmologically significant. The last two schemes invoke a `sterile' neutrino which is light (< or ~ eV). We discuss the implications of these schemes for $\bar{\nu}_\mu - \bar{\nu}_e$ and $\nu_\mu - \nu_\tau$ oscillation, and find that scheme (ii) in particular, predicts them to be in the observable range. As far as structure formation is concerned, we compare the one neutrino flavor case with a variety of other possibilities, including two and three degenerate neutrino flavors. We show, both analytically and numerically, the effects of these neutrino mass scenarios on the amplitude of cosmological density fluctuations. With a Hubble constant of 50 km s$^{-1}$ Mpc$^{-1}$, a spectral index of unity, and $\Omega_{baryon} = 0.05$, the two and three flavor scenarios fit the observational data marginally better than the single flavor scheme. However, taking account of the uncertainties in these parameters, we show that it is premature to pick a clear winner.Comment: 1 LaTEX file plus 1 uuencoded Z-compressed tar file with 3 postscript figure

Analyzing and Modeling Real-World Phenomena with Complex Networks: A Survey of Applications

The success of new scientific areas can be assessed by their potential for contributing to new theoretical approaches and in applications to real-world problems. Complex networks have fared extremely well in both of these aspects, with their sound theoretical basis developed over the years and with a variety of applications. In this survey, we analyze the applications of complex networks to real-world problems and data, with emphasis in representation, analysis and modeling, after an introduction to the main concepts and models. A diversity of phenomena are surveyed, which may be classified into no less than 22 areas, providing a clear indication of the impact of the field of complex networks.Comment: 103 pages, 3 figures and 7 tables. A working manuscript, suggestions are welcome

A century of trends in adult human height

Being taller is associated with enhanced longevity, and higher education and earnings. We reanalysed 1472 population-based studies, with measurement of height on more than 18.6 million participants to estimate mean height for people born between 1896 and 1996 in 200 countries. The largest gain in adult height over the past century has occurred in South Korean women and Iranian men, who became 20.2 cm (95% credible interval 17.5-22.7) and 16.5 cm (13.3-19.7) taller, respectively. In contrast, there was little change in adult height in some sub-Saharan African countries and in South Asia over the century of analysis. The tallest people over these 100 years are men born in the Netherlands in the last quarter of 20th century, whose average heights surpassed 182.5 cm, and the shortest were women born in Guatemala in 1896 (140.3 cm; 135.8-144.8). The height differential between the tallest and shortest populations was 19-20 cm a century ago, and has remained the same for women and increased for men a century later despite substantial changes in the ranking of countries