The effect of Pressure in Higher Dimensional Quasi-Spherical Gravitational Collapse

We study gravitational collapse in higher dimensional quasi-spherical Szekeres space-time for matter with anisotropic pressure. Both local and global visibility of central curvature singularity has been studied and it is found that with proper choice of initial data it is possible to show the validity of CCC for six and higher dimensions. Also the role of pressure in the collapsing process has been discussed.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures, RevTeX styl

CP1CP^{1} model with Hopf interaction: the quantum theory

The $CP^1$ model with Hopf interaction is quantised following the Batalin-Tyutin (BT) prescription. In this scheme, extra BT fields are introduced which allow for the existence of only commuting first-class constraints. Explicit expression for the quantum correction to the expectation value of the energy density and angular momentum in the physical sector of this model is derived. The result shows, in the particular operator ordering that we have chosen to work with, that the quantum effect has a divergent contribution of ${\cal O} (\hbar^2)$ in the energy expectation value. But, interestingly the Hopf term, though topological in nature, can have a finite ${\cal O} (\hbar)$ contribution to energy density in the homotopically nontrivial topological sector. The angular momentum operator, however, is found to have no quantum correction, indicating the absence of any fractional spin even at this quantum level. Finally, the extended Lagrangian incorporating the BT auxiliary fields is computed in the conventional framework of BRST formalism exploiting Faddeev-Popov technique of path integral method.Comment: LaTeX, 28 pages, no figures, typos corrected, journal ref. give

Determinant Quantum Monte Carlo Study of the Screening of the One Body Potential near a Metal-Insulator Transition

In this paper we present a determinant quantum monte carlo study of the two dimensional Hubbard model with random site disorder. We show that, as in the case of bond disorder, the system undergoes a transition from an Anderson insulating phase to a metallic phase as the onsite repulsion U is increased beyond a critical value U_c. However, there appears to be no sharp signal of this metal-insulator transition in the screened site energies. We observe that, while the system remains metallic for interaction values upto twice U_c, the conductivity is maximal in the metallic phase just beyond U_c, and decreases for larger correlation.Comment: 6 pages, 10 eps figures, Revtex

Why Do Granular Materials Stiffen with Shear Rate? : Test of Novel Stress-Based Statistics

Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Fluctuations in Shear-Jammed States: A Statistical Ensemble Approach

Granular matter exists out of thermal equilibrium, i.e. it is athermal. While conventional equilibrium statistical mechanics is not useful for characterizing granular materials, the idea of constructing a statistical ensemble analogous to its equilibrium counterpart to describe static granular matter was proposed by Edwards and Oakshott more than two decades ago. Recent years have seen several implementations of this idea. One of these is the stress ensemble, which is based on properties of the force moment tensor, and applies to frictional and frictionless grains. We demonstrate the full utility of this statistical framework in shear jammed (SJ) experimental states [1,2], a special class of granular solids created by pure shear, which is a strictly non-equilbrium protocol for creating solids. We demonstrate that the stress ensemble provides an excellent quantitative description of fluctuations in experimental SJ states. We show that the stress fluctuations are controlled by a single tensorial quantity: the angoricity of the system, which is a direct analog of the thermodynamic temperature. SJ states exhibit significant correlations in local stresses and are thus inherently different from density-driven, isotropically jammed (IJ) states.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure

Deconvolving mutational patterns of poliovirus outbreaks reveals its intrinsic fitness landscape.

Vaccination has essentially eradicated poliovirus. Yet, its mutation rate is higher than that of viruses like HIV, for which no effective vaccine exists. To investigate this, we infer a fitness model for the poliovirus viral protein 1 (vp1), which successfully predicts in vitro fitness measurements. This is achieved by first developing a probabilistic model for the prevalence of vp1 sequences that enables us to isolate and remove data that are subject to strong vaccine-derived biases. The intrinsic fitness constraints derived for vp1, a capsid protein subject to antibody responses, are compared with those of analogous HIV proteins. We find that vp1 evolution is subject to tighter constraints, limiting its ability to evade vaccine-induced immune responses. Our analysis also indicates that circulating poliovirus strains in unimmunized populations serve as a reservoir that can seed outbreaks in spatio-temporally localized sub-optimally immunized populations

Spin Polarizations at and about the Lowest Filled Landau Level

The spin polarization versus temperature at or near a fully filled lowest Landau level is explored for finite-size systems in a periodic rectangular geometry. Our results at $\nu=1$ which also include the finite-thickness correction are in good agreement with the experimental results. We also find that the interacting electron system results are in complete agreement with the results of the sigma model, i.e., skyrmions on a torus have a topological charge of $Q \ge 2$ and the Q=1 solution is like a single spin-flip excitation. Our results therefore provide direct evidence for the skyrmionic nature of the excitations at this filling factor.Comment: 4 pages, REVTEX, and 4 .ps files, To be published in Europhysics Letter