The Kantian Framework of Complementarity

A growing number of commentators have, in recent years, noted the important affinities in the views of Immanuel Kant and Niels Bohr. While these commentators are correct, the picture they present of the connections between Bohr and Kant is painted in broad strokes; it is open to the criticism that these affinities are merely superficial. In this essay, I provide a closer, structural, analysis of both Bohr's and Kant's views that makes these connections more explicit. In particular, I demonstrate the similarities between Bohr's argument, on the one hand, that neither the wave nor the particle description of atomic phenomena pick out an object in the ordinary sense of the word, and Kant's requirement, on the other hand, that both 'mathematical' (having to do with magnitude) and 'dynamical' (having to do with an object's interaction with other objects) principles must be applicable to appearances in order for us to determine them as objects of experience. I argue that Bohr's 'Complementarity interpretation' of quantum mechanics, which views atomic objects as idealizations, and which licenses the repeal of the principle of causality for the domain of atomic physics, is perfectly compatible with, and indeed follows naturally from a broadly Kantian epistemological framework.Comment: Slight change between this version and previous in the wording of the first paragraph of the section 'Complementarity

Color symmetrical superconductivity in a schematic nuclear quark model

In this note, a novel BCS-type formalism is constructed in the framework of a schematic QCD inspired quark model, having in mind the description of color symmetrical superconducting states. The physical properties of the BCS vacuum (average numbers of quarks of different colors) remain unchanged under an arbitrary color rotation. In the usual approach to color superconductivity, the pairing correlations affect only the quasi-particle states of two colors, the single particle states of the third color remaining unaffected by the pairing correlations. In the theory of color symmetrical superconductivity here proposed, the pairing correlations affect symmetrically the quasi-particle states of the three colors and vanishing net color-charge is automatically insured. It is found that the groundstate energy of the color symmetrical sector of the Bonn model is well approximated by the average energy of the color symmetrical superconducting state proposed here

The geometrical origin of the strain-twist coupling in double helices

The geometrical coupling between strain and twist in double helices is investigated. Overwinding, where strain leads to further winding, is shown to be a universal property for helices, which are stretched along their longitudinal axis when the initial pitch angle is below the zero-twist angle (39.4 deg). Unwinding occurs at larger pitch angles. The zero-twist angle is the unique pitch angle at the point between overwinding and unwinding, and it is independent of the mechanical properties of the double helix. This suggests the existence of zero-twist structures, i.e. structures that display neither overwinding, nor unwinding under strain. Estimates of the overwinding of DNA, chromatin, and RNA are given.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures; typos fixed; added ref. and acknowledgemen

Coulomb corrections to superallowed beta decay in nuclei

Corrections to the superallowed beta decay matrix elements are evaluated in perturbation theory using the notion of the isovector monopole resonance. The calculation avoids the separation into different contributions and thus presents a consistent, systematic and more transparent approach. Explicit expressions for the Coulomb correction as a function of mass number A, are given.Comment: 10 page

Interpretation of Coulomb breakup of 31Ne in terms of deformation

The recent experimental data on Coulomb breakup of the nucleus $^{31}$Ne are interpreted in terms of deformation. The measured large one-neutron removal cross-section indicates that the ground state of $^{31}$Ne is either s- or p-halo. The data can be most easily interpreted as the spin of the ground state being 3/2$^-$ coming from either the Nilsson level [330 1/2] or [321 3/2] depending on the neutron separation energy $S_n$. However, the possibility of 1/2$^{+}$ coming from [200 1/2] is not excluded. It is suggested that if the large ambiguity in the measured value of $S_n$ of $^{31}$Ne, 0.29$\pm1.64$ MeV, can be reduced by an order of magnitude, say to be $\pm$100 keV, one may get a clear picture of the spin-parity of the halo ground state.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figure

The intruder feature of 31Mg and the coexistence of many particle and many hole states

The low-lying level structure of $^{31}{\rm Mg}$ has been investigated by the antisymmetrized molecular dynamics (AMD) plus generator coordinate method (GCM) with the Gogny D1S force. It is shown that the N=20 magic number is broken and the ground state has the pure neutron $2p3h$ configuration. The coexistence of many particle and many hole states at very low excitation energy is discussed