Dynamical Chiral Symmetry Breaking in Landau gauge QCD

We summarise results for the propagators of Landau gauge QCD from the Green's functions approach and lattice calculations. The nonperturbative solutions for the ghost, gluon and quark propagators from a coupled set of Dyson-Schwinger equations agree almost quantitatively with corresponding lattice results. Similar unquenching effects are found in both approaches. The dynamically generated quark masses are close to `phenomenological' values. The chiral condensate is found to be large.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, talk given by C.F. at 6th Conference on Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum, Villasimius, Sardinia, Italy, 21-25 Sep 200

Aspects of quark mass generation on a torus

In this talk we report on recent results for the quark propagator on a compact manifold. The corresponding Dyson-Schwinger equations on a torus are solved on volumes similar to the ones used in lattice calculations. The quark-gluon interaction is fixed such that the lattice results are reproduced. We discuss both the effects in the infinite volume/continuum limit as well as effects when the volume is small.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures; talk given by CF at QNP06, Madrid, June 200

Endogenous Credit Constraints and Factor Market Rigidities: the case of Bankruptcy

We develop a simple analytical model that highlights the effect of factor rigidities and credit constraints on bankruptcies. In our model, entrepreneurs receive random shocks –positive or negative-- to their working capital, which is needed to pay workers before the output of the firm is sold. If an entrepreneur receives a shock that lowers his working capital sufficiently, she requires loans in order to pay workers and continue operating. However, if the level of working capital is too low, Tirole’s (2000) condition implies the entrepreneur will not receive the necessary loans, due to moral hazard. In this case, the firm must adapt the number of workers to the available funds by firing workers, it is to survive. In the presence of labor rigidities, this may not be possible and the firm goes bankrupt. We show that there are several categories of entrepreneurs, depending on the magnitude of the shock: entrepreneurs who go bankrupt, entrepreneurs that can borrow but not enough to achieve their optimal capital-labor ratio, entrepreneurs that borrow but reach their optimal capital-labor ratio and finally entrepreneurs with that are the creditors in the financial market. We examine the effects of an increase in the labor rigidity on the demand for credit and on the efficiency of the economy. In a second stage, we simulate numerically the costs of these rigidities for sensible parameter values, to estimate bounds to the effects of the interactions between labor rigidity and credit constraints.Credit constraints, rigidities, bankruptcy

Finite volume effects in a quenched lattice-QCD quark propagator

We investigate finite volume effects in the pattern of chiral symmetry breaking. To this end we employ a formulation of the Schwinger-Dyson equations on a torus which reproduces results from the corresponding lattice simulations of staggered quarks and from the overlap action. Studying the volume dependence of the quark propagator we find quantitative differences with the infinite volume result at small momenta and small quark masses. We estimate the minimal box length L below which chiral perturbation theory cannot be applied to be L \simeq 1.6 fm. In the infinite volume limit we find a chiral condensate of ||_{\bar{MS}}^{2 GeV} = (253 \pm 5.0 MeV)^3, an up/down quark mass of m_{\bar{MS}}^{2 GeV} = 4.1 \pm 0.3 MeV and a pion decay constant which is only ten percent smaller than the experimental value.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures. v2: minor clarifications added, version published in PR

Domain formation in membranes with quenched protein obstacles: Lateral heterogeneity and the connection to universality classes

We show that lateral fluidity in membranes containing quenched protein obstacles belongs to the universality class of the two-dimensional random-field Ising model. The main feature of this class is the absence of a phase transition: there is no critical point, and macroscopic domain formation does not occur. Instead, there is only one phase. This phase is highly heterogeneous, with a structure consisting of micro-domains. The presence of quenched protein obstacles thus provides a mechanism to stabilize lipid rafts in equilibrium. Crucial for two-dimensional random-field Ising universality is that the obstacles are randomly distributed, and have a preferred affinity to one of the lipid species. When these conditions are not met, standard Ising or diluted Ising universality apply. In these cases, a critical point does exist, marking the onset toward macroscopic demixing.Comment: 10 pages, 10 figure

Quark Condensates: Flavour Dependence

We determine the q-bar q condensate for quark masses from zero up to that of the strange quark within a phenomenologically successful modelling of continuum QCD by solving the quark Schwinger-Dyson equation. The existence of multiple solutions to this equation is the key to an accurate and reliable extraction of this condensate using the operator product expansion. We explain why alternative definitions fail to give the physical condensate.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figures, uses appolb.cls, LaTeX. Talk presented by R. Williams at the EURIDICE Final Meeting, August 24-27th, 2006, Kazimierz, Polan

Smooth relativistic Hartree-Fock pseudopotentials for H to Ba and Lu to Hg

We report smooth relativistic Hartree-Fock pseudopotentials (also known as averaged relativistic effective potentials or AREPs) and spin-orbit operators for the atoms H to Ba and Lu to Hg. We remove the unphysical extremely non-local behaviour resulting from the exchange interaction in a controlled manner, and represent the resulting pseudopotentials in an analytic form suitable for use within standard quantum chemistry codes. These pseudopotentials are suitable for use within Hartree-Fock and correlated wave function methods, including diffusion quantum Monte Carlo calculations.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figure