Gauge fields as composite boundary excitations

We investigate representations of the conformal group that describe "massless" particles in the interior and at the boundary of anti-de Sitter space. It turns out that massless gauge excitations in anti-de Sitter are gauge "current" operators at the boundary. Conversely, massless excitations at the boundary are topological singletons in the interior. These representations lie at the threshold of two "unitary bounds" that apply to any conformally invariant field theory. Gravity and Yang-Mills gauge symmetry in anti-De Sitter is translated to global translational symmetry and continuous $R$-symmetry of the boundary superconformal field theory.Comment: Latex 2 figures in one eps fil

Heat and gravitation. II. Stability

In this second article of a series we propose to base criteria of stability on the hamiltonian functional that is provided by the variational principle, to replace the reliance that has often been placed on {\it ad hoc} definitions of the "energy". We introduce a new virial principle that is formulated entirely within the Eulerian description of hydrodynamics, which allows a simpler derivation of a well known stability criterion for polytropic stellar configurations. Boundary conditions are based entirely on mass conservation.Comment: 19 pages, plain te

On entropy in eulerian thermodynamics

To the student of thermodynamics the most difficult subject is entropy. In this paper we examine the actual, practical application of entropy to two simple systems, the homogeneous slab with fixed boundary values of the temperature, and an isolated atmosphere in the presence of the static gravitational field. The first gives valuable insight into the nature of entropy that is subsequently applied to the second system. It is a basic tenet of thermodynamics that the equilibrium of an extended, homogeneous and isolated system is characterized by a uniform temperature distribution and it is a strongly held belief that this remains true in the presence of gravity. We find that this is consistent with the equations of extended thermodynamics but that entropy enters in an essential way. The principle of equivalence takes on a new aspect.Comment: Paper presented the AIP Conference on the second law of thermodynamics, June 2011. Plaintex 20 page

On N=8 Supergravity on AdS5AdS_{5} and N=4 Superconformal Yang-Mills theory

We discuss the spectrum of states of IIB supergravity on $AdS_5\times S^5$ in a manifest $SU(2,2/4)$ invariant setting. The boundary fields are described in terms of N=4 superconformal Yang-Mills theory and the proposed correspondence between supergravity in $AdS_5$ and superconformal invariant singleton theory at the boundary is formulated in an N=4 superfield covariant language

Reissner-Nordstrom and charged gas spheres

The main point of this paper is a suggestion about the proper treatment of the photon gas in a theory of stellar structure and other plasmas. This problem arises in the study of polytropic gas spheres, where we have already introduced some innovations. The main idea, already advanced in the contextof neutral, homogeneous, polytropic stellar models, is to base the theory firmly on a variational principle. Another essential novelty is to let mass distribution extend to infinity, the boundary between bulk and atmosphere being defined by an abrupt change in the polytropic index, triggered by the density. The logical next step in this program is to include the effect of radiation, which is a very significant complication since a full treatment would have to include an account of ionization, thus fieldsrepresenting electrons, ions, photons, gravitons and neutral atoms as well. In way of preparation, we consider models that are charged but homogeneous, involving only gravity, electromagnetism and a single scalar field that represents both the mass and the electric charge; in short, anon-neutral plasma. While this work only represents a stage in the development of a theory of stars, without direct application to physical systems, it does shed some light on the meaning of the Reissner-Nordstrom solution of the modified Einstein-Maxwell equations., with an application to a simple system.Comment: 19 pages, plain te

Ideal Stars and General Relativity

We study a system of differential equations that governs the distribution of matter in the theory of General Relativity. The new element in this paper is the use of a dynamical action principle that includes all the degrees of freedom, matter as well as metric. The matter lagrangian defines a relativistic version of non-viscous, isentropic hydrodynamics. The matter fields are a scalar density and a velocity potential; the conventional, four-vector velocity field is replaced by the gradient of the potential and its scale is fixed by one of the eulerian equations of motion, an innovation that significantly affects the imposition of boundary conditions. If the density is integrable at infinity, then the metric approaches the Schwarzschild metric at large distances. There are stars without boundary and with finite total mass; the metric shows rapid variation in the neighbourhood of the Schwarzschild radius and there is a very small core where a singularity indicates that the gas laws break down. For stars with boundary there emerges a new, critical relation between the radius and the gravitational mass, a consequence of the stronger boundary conditions. Tentative applications are suggested, to certain Red Giants, and to neutron stars, but the investigation reported here was limited to polytropic equations of state. Comparison with the results of Oppenheimer and Volkoff on neutron cores shows a close agreement of numerical results. However, in the model the boundary of the star is fixed uniquely by the required matching of the interior metric to the external Schwarzschild metric, which is not the case in the traditional approach.Comment: 26 pages, 7 figure

Growth of a Black Hole

This paper studies the interpretation of physics near a Schwarzschild black hole. A scenario for creation and growth is proposed that avoids the conundrum of information loss. In this picture the horizon recedes as it is approached and has no physical reality. Radiation is likely to occur, but it cannot be predicted.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, TeX fil

Quantization on Curves

Deformation quantization on varieties with singularities offers perspectives that are not found on manifolds. Essential deformations are classified by the Harrison component of Hochschild cohomology, that vanishes on smooth manifolds and reflects information about singularities. The Harrison 2-cochains are symmetric and are interpreted in terms of abelian $*$-products. This paper begins a study of abelian quantization on plane curves over \Crm, being algebraic varieties of the form R2/I where I is a polynomial in two variables; that is, abelian deformations of the coordinate algebra C[x,y]/(I). To understand the connection between the singularities of a variety and cohomology we determine the algebraic Hochschild (co-)homology and its Barr-Gerstenhaber-Schack decomposition. Homology is the same for all plane curves C[x,y]/(I), but the cohomology depends on the local algebra of the singularity of I at the origin.Comment: 21 pages, LaTex format. To appear in Letters Mathematical Physic