1,361 research outputs found
Origin of the Thermal Radiation in a Solid-State Analog of a Black-Hole
An effective black-hole-like horizon occurs, for electromagnetic waves in
matter, at a surface of singular electric and magnetic permeabilities. In a
physical dispersive medium this horizon disappears for wave numbers with
. Nevertheless, it is shown that Hawking radiation is still emitted if
free field modes with are in their ground state.Comment: 13 Pages, 3 figures, Revtex with epsf macro
Instability of non-supersymmetric smooth geometries
Recently certain non-supersymmetric solutions of type IIb supergravity were
constructed [hep-th/0504181], which are everywhere smooth, have no horizons and
are thought to describe certain non-BPS microstates of the D1-D5 system. We
demonstrate that these solutions are all classically unstable. The instability
is a generic feature of horizonless geometries with an ergoregion. We consider
the endpoint of this instability and argue that the solutions decay to
supersymmetric configurations. We also comment on the implications of the
ergoregion instability for Mathur's `fuzzball' proposal.Comment: v2: typos corrected, reference adde
Hawking radiation without black hole entropy
In this Letter I point out that Hawking radiation is a purely kinematic
effect that is generic to Lorentzian geometries. Hawking radiation arises for
any test field on any Lorentzian geometry containing an event horizon
regardless of whether or not the Lorentzian geometry satisfies the dynamical
Einstein equations of general relativity. On the other hand, the classical laws
of black hole mechanics are intrinsically linked to the Einstein equations of
general relativity (or their perturbative extension into either semiclassical
quantum gravity or string-inspired scenarios). In particular, the laws of black
hole thermodynamics, and the identification of the entropy of a black hole with
its area, are inextricably linked with the dynamical equations satisfied by the
Lorentzian geometry: entropy is proportional to area (plus corrections) if and
only if the dynamical equations are the Einstein equations (plus corrections).
It is quite possible to have Hawking radiation occur in physical situations in
which the laws of black hole mechanics do not apply, and in situations in which
the notion of black hole entropy does not even make any sense. This observation
has important implications for any derivation of black hole entropy that seeks
to deduce black hole entropy from the Hawking radiation.Comment: Uses ReV_TeX 3.0; Five pages in two-column forma
Sequences of Bubbles and Holes: New Phases of Kaluza-Klein Black Holes
We construct and analyze a large class of exact five- and six-dimensional
regular and static solutions of the vacuum Einstein equations. These solutions
describe sequences of Kaluza-Klein bubbles and black holes, placed alternately
so that the black holes are held apart by the bubbles. Asymptotically the
solutions are Minkowski-space times a circle, i.e. Kaluza-Klein space, so they
are part of the (\mu,n) phase diagram introduced in hep-th/0309116. In
particular, they occupy a hitherto unexplored region of the phase diagram,
since their relative tension exceeds that of the uniform black string. The
solutions contain bubbles and black holes of various topologies, including
six-dimensional black holes with ring topology S^3 x S^1 and tuboid topology
S^2 x S^1 x S^1. The bubbles support the S^1's of the horizons against
gravitational collapse. We find two maps between solutions, one that relates
five- and six-dimensional solutions, and another that relates solutions in the
same dimension by interchanging bubbles and black holes. To illustrate the
richness of the phase structure and the non-uniqueness in the (\mu,n) phase
diagram, we consider in detail particular examples of the general class of
solutions.Comment: 71 pages, 22 figures, v2: Typos fixed, comment added in sec. 5.
Climate change affecting oil palm agronomy, and oil palm cultivation increasing climate change, require amelioration
Palm oil is used in various valued commodities and is a large global industry worth over US$ 50 billion annually. Oil palms (OP) are grown commercially in Indonesia and Malaysia and other countries within Latin America and Africa. The large-scale land-use change has high ecological, economic, and social impacts. Tropical countries in particular are affected negatively by climate change (CC) which also has a detrimental impact on OP agronomy, whereas the cultivation of OP increases CC. Amelioration of both is required. The reduced ability to grow OP will reduce CC, which may allow more cultivation tending to increase CC, in a decreasing cycle. OP could be increasingly grown in more suitable regions occurring under CC. Enhancing the soil fauna may compensate for the effect of CC on OP agriculture to some extent. The effect of OP cultivation on CC may be reduced by employing reduced emissions from deforestation and forest degradation plans, for example, by avoiding illegal fire land clearing. Other ameliorating methods are reported herein. More research is required involving good management practices that can offset the increases in CC by OP plantations. Overall, OP-growing countries should support the Paris convention on reducing CC as the most feasible scheme for reducing CC.Portuguese Foundation for Science and
Technology (FCT), Grant/Award Number: UID/
BIO/04469/2013, COMPETE 2020 (POCI01-0145-FEDER-006684)
and BioTecNorte
operation (NORTE-01-0145-FEDER-000004);
European Regional Development Fund
through Norte2020—Programa Operacional
Regional do Norteinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
The Trans-Planckian Problem of Inflationary Cosmology
In most current models of inflation based on a weakly self-coupled scalar
matter field minimally coupled to gravity, the period of inflation lasts so
long that, at the beginning of the inflationary period, the physical
wavelengths of comoving scales which correspond to the present large-scale
structure of the Universe were smaller than the Planck length. Thus, the usual
computations of the spectrum of fluctuations in these models involve
extrapolating low energy physics (both in the matter and gravitational sector)
into regions where this physics is not applicable. In this paper we demonstrate
that the usual predictions of inflation for the spectrum of cosmological
fluctuations do indeed depend on the hidden assumptions about super-Planck
scale physics. We introduce a class of modified dispersion relations to mimic
possible effects of super-Planck scale physics, and show that in some cases
important deviations from the usual predictions of inflation are obtained. Some
implications of this result for the unification of fundamental physics and
early Universe cosmology are discussed.Comment: 16 pages, 2 figures. One important correction in the Corley/Jacobson
case with b_m>0 and some misprints corrected. Version published in PR
Effective Gauge Degrees of Freedom and the (Non)existence of the Glueball Superpotential
We propose an efficient way to obtain a correct Veneziano-Yankielowicz type
integration constant of the effective glueball superpotential
, even for massless theories. Applying our method, we
show some theories do not have such an effective glueball
superpotential, even though they have isolated vacua. In these cases,
typically.Comment: 17 pages, v2: Footnote added, typos corrected, v3: Reference adde
Branes, Anti-Branes and Brauer Algebras in Gauge-Gravity duality
We propose gauge theory operators built using a complex Matrix scalar which
are dual to brane-anti-brane systems in , in the zero
coupling limit of the dual Yang-Mills. The branes involved are half-BPS giant
gravitons. The proposed operators dual to giant-anti-giant configurations
satisfy the appropriate orthogonality properties. Projection operators in
Brauer algebras are used to construct the relevant multi-trace Matrix
operators. These are related to the ``coupled representations'' which appear in
2D Yang-Mills theory. We discuss the implications of these results for the
quantum mechanics of a complex matrix model, the counting of non-supersymmetric
operators and the physics of brane-anti-brane systems. The stringy exclusion
principle known from the properties of half-BPS giant gravitons, has a new
incarnation in this context. It involves a qualitative change in the map
between brane-anti-brane states to gauge theory operators. In the case of a
pair of sphere giant and anti-giant this change occurs when the sum of the
magnitudes of their angular momenta reaches .Comment: 52 pages, 10 figure
Gene transfer into hepatocytes using asialoglycoprotein receptor mediated endocytosis of DNA complexed with an artificial tetra-antennary galactose ligand
We have constructed an artificial ligand for the hepatocyte-specific asialoglycoprotein receptor for the purpose of generating a synthetic delivery system for DNA. This ligand has a tetra-antennary structure, containing four terminal galactose residues on a branched carrier peptide. The carbohydrate residues of this glycopeptide were introduced by reductive coupling of lactose to the alpha- and epsilon-amino groups of the two N-terminal lysines on the carrier peptide. The C-terminus of the peptide, containing a cysteine separated from the branched N-terminus by a 10 amino acid spacer sequence, was used for conjugation to 3-(2-pyridyldithio)propionate-modified polylysine via disulfide bond formation. Complexes containing plasmid DNA bound to these galactose-polylysine conjugates have been used for asialoglycoprotein receptor-mediated transfer of a luciferase gene into human (HepG2) and murine (BNL CL.2) hepatocyte cell lines. Gene transfer was strongly promoted when amphipathic peptides with pH-controlled membrane-disruption activity, derived from the N-terminal sequence of influenza virus hemagglutinin HA-2, were also present in these DNA complexes. Thus, we have essentially borrowed the small functional domains of two large proteins, asialoglycoprotein and hemagglutinin, and assembled them into a supramolecular complex to generate an efficient gene-transfer system
Ghost-free braneworld bigravity
We consider a generalisation of the DGP model, by adding a second brane with
localised curvature, and allowing for a bulk cosmological constant and brane
tensions. We study radion and graviton fluctuations in detail, enabling us to
check for ghosts and tachyons. By tuning our parameters accordingly, we find
bigravity models that are free from ghosts and tachyons. These models will lead
to large distance modifications of gravity that could be observable in the near
future.Comment: Dedicated to the memory of Ian Kogan. Version to appear in Classical
and Quantum Gravit
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