Four Dimensionality in Non-compact Kaluza-Klein Model

Five dimensional model with extended dimensions investigated. It is shown that four dimensionality of our world is the result of stability requirement. Extra component of Einstein equations giving trapping solution for matter fields coincides with the one of conditions of stability.Comment: 6 pages, LaTEX file, no figures, no macro

Our World as an Expanding Shell

In the model where the Universe is considered as a thin shell expanding in 5-dimensional hyper-space there is a possibility to have just one scale for a particle theory corresponding to the Universe thickness. From a realistic model the relation of this parameter to the Universe size was found.Comment: RevTeX, 4 pages, no figure

Gravitational Higgs Mechanism

We discuss the gravitational Higgs mechanism in domain wall background solutions that arise in the theory of 5-dimensional Einstein-Hilbert gravity coupled to a scalar field with a non-trivial potential. The scalar fluctuations in such backgrounds can be completely gauged away, and so can be the graviphoton fluctuations. On the other hand, we show that the graviscalar fluctuations do not have normalizable modes. As to the 4-dimensional graviton fluctuations, in the case where the volume of the transverse dimension is finite the massive modes are plane-wave normalizable, while the zero mode is quadratically normalizable. We then discuss the coupling of domain wall gravity to localized 4-dimensional matter. In particular, we point out that this coupling is consistent only if the matter is conformal. This is different from the Randall-Sundrum case as there is a discontinuity in the delta-function-like limit of such a smooth domain wall - the latter breaks diffeomorphisms only spontaneously, while the Randall-Sundrum brane breaks diffeomorphisms explicitly. Finally, at the quantum level both the domain wall as well as the Randall-Sundrum setups suffer from inconsistencies in the coupling between gravity and localized matter, as well as the fact that gravity is generically expected to be delocalized in such backgrounds due to higher curvature terms.Comment: 16 pages, revtex; a minor correctio

Motivations for the Beheading of John the Baptist in Byzantine and Old Georgian Writings

This paper discusses Georgian translations of the homilies on the beheading of John the Baptist as well as Georgian original writings, specifically, Ioane Bolneli’s and Sulkhan-Saba Orbeliani’s sermons and teachings. All of them rely on the story of the Gospel (Mat., 14,3; Mark., 6, 26). There are five surviving Georgian versions of Byzantine homilies dealing with the beheading of John the Baptist. They were composed by Pseudo-Chrysostom (two texts), Andrew of Crete, Theodore of Studion and John Xiphillinus, and date from the 9th to the 16th centuries. The authors foreground different aims and motivations of Herod’s crime: the king’s reluctance to break the oath and offend Herodias before his fellow dinners; the king’s feigned sorrow and malignant joy fostered by his exasperation at John the Baptist’s recurrent statement: ‚It is not lawful for thee to have thy brother’s wife‛ (Mark., 17, 18); Herodias’ guilt of marrying her husband’s brother. The medieval fathers also point out that: women are the source of evil; one must not bind oneself by oath; Herod inherited sinfulness from his father, King Herod I, who massacred infants; one sin generates another; the king was driven by voluptuousness, as he was ‚possessed by bestial lust‛ that darkened his mind. In this paper, I only dwelt on Georgian translations of Byzantine homilies. However, it should be noted that the 7th-century Georgian homilist, Ioane Bolneli and a well-known 17th-18th-century Georgian clergyman and writer, Sulkhan Saba Orbeliani considers inebriety as the main cause for beheading John the Baptist