Black Holes in Cascading Theories: Confinement/Deconfinement Transition and other Thermal Properties

We present numerical evidence for a transition between the Klebanov-Strassler background and a solution describing a black hole in the class of cascading solutions in the chirally restored phase. We also present a number of properties of this solution, including the running of the coupling constant, the viscosity to entropy ratio and the drag force on a quark moving in this background.Comment: 34 pages, 7 figures. Version to be published by JHE

More on Penrose limits and non-local theories

We obtain the Penrose limit of six dimensional Non-Commutative Open String (NCOS$_6$) theory and show that in the neighborhood of a particular null geodesic it leads to an exactly solvable string theory (unlike their counterparts in four or in other dimensions). We describe the phase structure of this theory and discuss the Penrose limit in different phases including Open D-string (OD1) theory. We compute the string spectrum and discuss their relations with the states of various theories at different phases. We also consider the case of general null geodesic for which the Penrose limit leads to string theory in the time dependent pp-wave background and comment on the renormalization group flow in the dual theory.Comment: latex, 22 pages, minor corrections, references added, published versio

Spin-gravity coupling and gravity-induced quantum phases

External gravitational fields induce phase factors in the wave functions of particles. The phases are exact to first order in the background gravitational field, are manifestly covariant and gauge invariant and provide a useful tool for the study of spin-gravity coupling and of the optics of particles in gravitational or inertial fields. We discuss the role that spin-gravity coupling plays in particular problems.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figur

Self-trapping transition for nonlinear impurities embedded in a Cayley tree

The self-trapping transition due to a single and a dimer nonlinear impurity embedded in a Cayley tree is studied. In particular, the effect of a perfectly nonlinear Cayley tree is considered. A sharp self-trapping transition is observed in each case. It is also observed that the transition is much sharper compared to the case of one-dimensional lattices. For each system, the critical values of $\chi$ for the self-trapping transitions are found to obey a power-law behavior as a function of the connectivity $K$ of the Cayley tree.Comment: 6 pages, 7 fig

Holographic Algorithms Beyond Matchgates

Holographic algorithms based on matchgates were introduced by Valiant. These algorithms run in polynomial-time and are intrinsically for planar problems. We introduce two new families of holographic algorithms, which work over general, i.e., not necessarily planar, graphs. The two underlying families of constraint functions are of the affine and product types. These play the role of Kasteleyn’s algorithm for counting planar perfect matchings. The new algorithms are obtained by transforming a problem to one of these two families by holographic reductions. We present a polynomial-time algorithm to decide if a given counting problem has a holographic algorithm using these constraint families. When the constraints are symmetric, we give a polynomial-time decision procedure in the size of the succinct presentation of symmetric constraint functions. This procedure shows that the recent dichotomy theorem for Holant problems with symmetric constraints is polynomial-time decidable

Interacting New Agegraphic Dark Energy in a Cyclic Universe

The main goal of this work is investigation of NADE in the cyclic universe scenario. Since, cyclic universe is explained by a phantom phase ($\omega<-1$), it is shown when there is no interaction between matter and dark energy, ADE and NADE do not produce a phantom phase, then can not describe cyclic universe. Therefore, we study interacting models of ADE and NADE in the modified Friedmann equation. We find out that, in the high energy regime, which it is a necessary part of cyclic universe evolution, only NADE can describe this phantom phase era for cyclic universe. Considering deceleration parameter tells us that the universe has a deceleration phase after an acceleration phase, and NADE is able to produce a cyclic universe. Also it is found valuable to study generalized second law of thermodynamics. Since the loop quantum correction is taken account in high energy regime, it may not be suitable to use standard treatment of thermodynamics, so we turn our attention to the result of \citep{29}, which the authors have studied thermodynamics in loop quantum gravity, and we show that which condition can satisfy generalized second law of thermodynamics.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

Does accelerating universe indicates Brans-Dicke theory

The evolution of universe in Brans-Dicke (BD) theory is discussed in this paper. Considering a parameterized scenario for BD scalar field $\phi=\phi_{0}a^{\alpha}$ which plays the role of gravitational "constant" $G$, we apply the Markov Chain Monte Carlo method to investigate a global constraints on BD theory with a self-interacting potential according to the current observational data: Union2 dataset of type supernovae Ia (SNIa), high-redshift Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) data, observational Hubble data (OHD), the cluster X-ray gas mass fraction, the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO), and the cosmic microwave background (CMB) data. It is shown that an expanded universe from deceleration to acceleration is given in this theory, and the constraint results of dimensionless matter density $\Omega_{0m}$ and parameter $\alpha$ are, $\Omega_{0m}=0.286^{+0.037+0.050}_{-0.039-0.047}$ and $\alpha=0.0046^{+0.0149+0.0171}_{-0.0171-0.0206}$ which is consistent with the result of current experiment exploration, $\mid\alpha\mid \leq 0.132124$. In addition, we use the geometrical diagnostic method, jerk parameter $j$, to distinguish the BD theory and cosmological constant model in Einstein's theory of general relativity.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figure

Stability of the Einstein static universe in IR modified Ho\v{r}ava gravity

Recently, Horava proposed a power counting renormalizable theory for (3+1)-dimensional quantum gravity, which reduces to Einstein gravity with a non-vanishing cosmological constant in IR, but possesses improved UV behaviors. In this work, we analyze the stability of the Einstein static universe by considering linear homogeneous perturbations in the context of an IR modification of Horava gravity, which implies a `soft' breaking of the `detailed balance' condition. The stability regions of the Einstein static universe are parameterized by the linear equation of state parameter w=p/\rho and the parameters appearing in the Horava theory, and it is shown that a large class of stable solutions exists in the respective parameter space.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures; references adde

Anisotropy studies around the galactic centre at EeV energies with the Auger Observatory

Data from the Pierre Auger Observatory are analyzed to search for anisotropies near the direction of the Galactic Centre at EeV energies. The exposure of the surface array in this part of the sky is already significantly larger than that of the fore-runner experiments. Our results do not support previous findings of localized excesses in the AGASA and SUGAR data. We set an upper bound on a point-like flux of cosmic rays arriving from the Galactic Centre which excludes several scenarios predicting sources of EeV neutrons from Sagittarius $A$. Also the events detected simultaneously by the surface and fluorescence detectors (the `hybrid' data set), which have better pointing accuracy but are less numerous than those of the surface array alone, do not show any significant localized excess from this direction.Comment: Matches published versio