A Characterisation of the Weylian Structure of Space-Time by Means of Low Velocity Tests

The compatibility axiom in Ehlers, Pirani and Schild's (EPS) constructive axiomatics of the space-time geometry that uses light rays and freely falling particles with high velocity, is replaced by several constructions with low velocity particles only. For that purpose we describe in a space-time with a conformal structure and an arbitrary path structure the radial acceleration, a Coriolis acceleration and the zig-zag construction. Each of these quantities give effects whose requirement to vanish can be taken as alternative version of the compatibility axiom of EPS. The procedural advantage lies in the fact, that one can make null-experiments and that one only needs low velocity particles to test the compatibility axiom. We show in addition that Perlick's standard clock can exist in a Weyl space only.Comment: to appear in Gen.Rel.Gra

Kondo effect and channel mixing in oscillating molecules

We investigate the electronic transport through a molecule in the Kondo regime. The tunneling between the electrode and the molecule is asymmetrically modulated by the oscillations of the molecule, i.e., if the molecule gets closer to one of the electrodes the tunneling to that electrode will increase while for the other electrode it will decrease. The system is described by a two-channel Anderson model with phonon-assisted hybridization, which is solved with the Wilson numerical renormalization group method. The results for several functional forms of tunneling modulation are presented. For a linearized modulation the Kondo screening of the molecular spin is caused by the even or odd conduction channel. At the critical value of the electron-phonon coupling an unstable two-channel Kondo fixed point is found. For a realistic modulation the spin at the molecular orbital is Kondo screened by the even conduction channel even in the regime of strong coupling. A universal consequence of the electron-phonon coupling is the softening of the phonon mode and the related instability to perturbations that break the left-right symmetry. When the frequency of oscillations decreases below the magnitude of such perturbation, the molecule is abruptly attracted to one of the electrodes. In this regime, the Kondo temperature is enhanced and, simultaneously, the conductance through the molecule is suppressed.Comment: published versio

Fate of the false monopoles: induced vacuum decay

We study a gauge theory model where there is an intermediate symmetry breaking to a meta- stable vacuum that breaks a simple gauge group to a U (1) factor. Such models admit the existence of meta-stable magnetic monopoles, which we dub false monopoles. We prove the existence of these monopoles in the thin wall approximation. We determine the instantons for the collective coordinate that corresponds to the radius of the monopole wall and we calculate the semi-classical tunneling rate for the decay of these monopoles. The monopole decay consequently triggers the decay of the false vacuum. As the monopole mass is increased, we find an enhanced rate of decay of the false vacuum relative to the celebrated homogeneous tunneling rate due to Coleman [1].Comment: 10 pages, 4 figure

Personhood, consciousness, and god : how to be a proper pantheist

© Springer Nature B.V. 2018In this paper I develop a theory of personhood which leaves open the possibility of construing the universe as a person. If successful, it removes one bar to endorsing pantheism. I do this by examining a rising school of thought on personhood, on which persons, or selves, are understood as identical to episodes of consciousness. Through a critique of this experiential approach to personhood, I develop a theory of self as constituted of qualitative mental contents, but where these contents are also capable of unconscious existence. On this theory, though we can be conscious of our selves, consciousness turns out to be inessential to personhood. This move, I then argue, provides resources for responding to the pantheist’s problem of God’s person.Peer reviewedFinal Accepted Versio

Lattice Theories with Nonlinearly Realized Chiral Symmetry

We present the lattice formulation of effective Lagrangians in which chiral symmetry is realized nonlinearly on the fermion fields. In this framework both the Wilson term removing unphysical doubler fermions and the fermion mass term do not break chiral symmetry. Our lattice formulation allows us to address non-perturbative questions in effective theories of baryons interacting with pions and in models involving constitutent quarks interacting with pions and gluons. With the presented methods, a system containing a non-zero density of static baryons interacting with pions can be studied on the lattice without encountering a complex action problem. This might lead to new insights into the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter at non-zero chemical potential.Comment: 3 pages, Lattice2003(chiral

Stabilized Singlets in Supergravity as a Source of the mu-parameter

Within the context of supergravity-coupled supersymmetry, fields which are gauge and global singlets are usually considered anathema. Their vacuum expectation values are shifted by quadratically divergent tadpole diagrams which are cutoff at the Planck scale, destabilizing the classical potential and driving the singlet field to large values. We demonstrate a new and generic mechanism which stabilizes the singlet in the presence of an extended gauge symmetry. Such a symmetry will be broken down to the Standard Model by the supergravity interactions near the scale of spontaneous supersymmetry-breaking in the hidden-sector (about 10^{10-11} GeV). The resulting singlet expectation value is stabilized and naturally of order the gravitino mass, providing therefore a weak-scale mass for the Higgs fields of the supersymmetric Standard Model (a "mu-parameter"). The resulting low-energy theory is the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model, with all new fields decoupling at the intermediate scale.Comment: 9 pages, LaTe

Quantum Necking in Stressed Metallic Nanowires

When a macroscopic metallic wire is subject to tensile stress, it necks down smoothly as it elongates. We show that nanowires with radii comparable to the Fermi wavelength display remarkably different behavior. Using concepts from fluid dynamics, a PDE for nanowire shape evolution is derived from a semiclassical energy functional that includes electron-shell effects. A rich dynamics involving movement and interaction of kinks connecting locally stable radii is found, and a new class of universal equilibrium shapes is predicted.Comment: 4 pages, 3 postscript figures. New result on universal equilibrium shape

Linear independence of Gamma values in positive characteristic

We investigate the arithmetic nature of special values of Thakur's function field Gamma function at rational points. Our main result is that all linear independence relations over the field of algebraic functions are consequences of the known relations of Anderson and Thakur arising from the functional equations of the Gamma function.Comment: 51 page

Physical mechanisms generating spontaneous symmetry breaking and a hierarchy of scales

We discuss the phase transition in 3+1 dimensional lambda Phi^4 theory from a very physical perspective. The particles of the symmetric phase (`phions') interact via a hard-core repulsion and an induced, long-range -1/r^3 attraction. If the phion mass is sufficiently small, the lowest-energy state is not the `empty' state with no phions, but is a state with a non-zero density of phions Bose-Einstein condensed in the zero-momentum mode. The condensate corresponds to the spontaneous-symmetry-breaking vacuum with neq 0 and its excitations ("phonons" in atomic-physics language) correspond to Higgs particles. The phase transition happens when the phion's physical mass m is still positive; it does not wait until m^2 passes through zero and becomes negative. However, at and near the phase transition, m is much, much less than the Higgs mass M_h. This interesting physics coexists with `triviality;' all scattering amplitudes vanish in the continuum limit, but the vacuum condensate becomes infinitely dense. The ratio m/M_h, which goes to zero in the continuum limit, can be viewed as a measure of non-locality in the regularized theory. An intricate hierarchy of length scales naturally arises. We speculate about the possible implications of these ideas for gravity and inflation.Comment: 27 pages plus 2 files of figure