1,303 research outputs found
Large magnetoresistance in the antiferromagnetic semi-metal NdSb
There has been considerable interest in topological semi-metals that exhibit
extreme magnetoresistance (XMR). These have included materials lacking
inversion symmetry such as TaAs, as well Dirac semi-metals such as Cd3As2.
However, it was reported recently that LaSb and LaBi also exhibit XMR, even
though the rock-salt structure of these materials has inversion symmetry, and
the band-structure calculations do not show a Dirac dispersion in the bulk.
Here, we present magnetoresistance and specific heat measurements on NdSb,
which is isostructural with LaSb. NdSb has an antiferromagnetic groundstate,
and in analogy with the lanthanum monopnictides, is expected to be a
topologically non-trivial semi-metal. We show that NdSb has an XMR of 10^4 %,
even within the AFM state, illustrating that XMR can occur independently of the
absence of time reversal symmetry breaking in zero magnetic field. The
persistence of XMR in a magnetic system offers promise of new functionality
when combining topological matter with electronic correlations. We also find
that in an applied magnetic field below the Neel temperature there is a first
order transition, consistent with evidence from previous neutron scattering
work.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure
Black Holes, Entropy Bound and Causality Violation
The gravity/gauge theory duality has provided us a way of studying QCD at
short distances from straightforward calculations in classical general
relativity. Among numerous results obtained so far, one of the most striking is
the universality of the ratio of the shear viscosity to the entropy density.
For all gauge theories with Einstein gravity dual, this ratio is \eta/s=1/4\pi.
However, in general higher-curvature gravity theories, including two concrete
models under discussion - the Gauss-Bonnet gravity and the (Riemann)^2 gravity
- the ratio \eta/s can be smaller than 1/4\pi (thus violating the conjecture
bound), equal to 1/4\pi or even larger than 1/4\pi. As we probe spacetime at
shorter distances, there arises an internal inconsistency in the theory, such
as a violation of microcausality, which is correlated with a classical limit on
black hole entropy.Comment: 8 pages, no figures; Invited contribution to appear in the
Proceedings of the 75 Years since Solvay, Singapore, Nov 2008, (World
Scientific, Singapore, 2009
Warped compactification on curved manifolds
The characterization of a six- (or seven)-dimensional internal manifold with
metric as having positive, zero or negative curvature is expected to be an
important aspect of warped compactifications in supergravity. In this context,
Douglas and Kallosh recently pointed out that a compact internal space with
negative curvature could help to construct four-dimensional de Sitter solutions
only if the extra dimensions are strongly warped or there are large stringy
corrections. That is, the problem of finding 4-dimensional de Sitter solutions
is well posed, if all extra dimensions are physically compact, which is called
a no-go theorem. Here, we show that the above conclusion does not extend to a
general class of warped compactifications in classical supergravity that allow
a non-compact direction or cosmological solutions for which the internal space
is asymptotic to a cone over a product of compact Einstein spaces or spheres.
For clarity, we present classical solutions that compactify higher-dimensional
spacetime to produce a Robertson--Walker universe with de Sitter-type expansion
plus one extra non-compact direction. Such models are found to admit both an
effective four-dimensional Newton constant that remains finite and a
normalizable zero-mode graviton wavefunction. We also exhibit the possibility
of obtaining 4D de Sitter solutions by including the effect of fluxes (p-form
field strengths).Comment: 24 pages, 1 figure; v5 significant changes in the presentation,
published (journal) versio
Reconstructing a model of quintessential inflation
We present an explicit cosmological model where inflation and dark energy
both could arise from the dynamics of the same scalar field. We present our
discussion in the framework where the inflaton field attains a nearly
constant velocity (where
is the e-folding time) during inflation. We show that the model
with and can easily satisfy inflationary constraints,
including the spectral index of scalar fluctuations (),
tensor-to-scalar ratio () and also the bound imposed on
during the nucleosynthesis epoch (). In our
construction, the scalar field potential always scales proportionally to the
square of the Hubble expansion rate. One may thereby account for the two vastly
different energy scales associated with the Hubble parameters at early and late
epochs. The inflaton energy could also produce an observationally significant
effective dark energy at a late epoch without violating local gravity tests.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures; added refs, published versio
Involving Nepali academics in health research
JMBTO SEE JHIn a world dominated by globalization and knowledge exchange conducting research and academic publishing has become increasingly important. In this light it is important to report the findings of research conducted in Nepal as it may be relevant and useful in North Korea as in Namibia. The editorial outlines some of the barriers and opportunities that exist for academics in Nepal
On compatibility of string effective action with an accelerating universe
In this paper, we fully investigate the cosmological effects of the moduli
dependent one-loop corrections to the gravitational couplings of the string
effective action to explain the cosmic acceleration problem in early (and/or
late) universe. These corrections comprise a Gauss-Bonnet (GB) invariant
multiplied by universal non-trivial functions of the common modulus
and the dilaton . The model exhibits several features of cosmological
interest, including the transition between deceleration and acceleration
phases. By considering some phenomenologically motivated ansatzs for one of the
scalars and/or the scale factor (of the universe), we also construct a number
of interesting inflationary potentials. In all examples under consideration, we
find that the model leads only to a standard inflation () when the
numerical coefficient associated with modulus-GB coupling is positive,
while the model can lead also to a non-standard inflation (), if
is negative. In the absence of (or trivial) coupling between the GB term and
the scalars, there is no crossing between the phases, while
this is possible with non-trivial GB couplings, even for constant dilaton phase
of the standard picture. Within our model, after a sufficient amount of e-folds
of expansion, the rolling of both fields and can be small. In
turn, any possible violation of equivalence principle or deviations from the
standard general relativity may be small enough to easily satisfy all
astrophysical and cosmological constraints.Comment: 30 pages, 8 figures; v2 significant changes in notations, appendix
and refs added; v3 significant revisions, refs added; v4 appendix extended,
new refs, published versio
Completely localized gravity with higher curvature terms
In the intersecting braneworld models, higher curvature corrections to the
Einstein action are necessary to provide a non-trivial geometry (brane tension)
at the brane junctions. By introducing such terms in a Gauss-Bonnet form, we
give an effective description of localized gravity on the singular
delta-function branes. There exists a non-vanishing brane tension at the
four-dimensional brane intersection of two 4-branes. Importantly, we give
explicit expressions of the graviton propagator and show that the
Randall-Sundrum single-brane model with a Gauss-Bonnet term in the bulk
correctly gives a massless graviton on the brane as for the RS model. We
explore some crucial features of completely localized gravity in the solitonic
braneworld solutions obtained with a choice (\xi=1) of solutions. The no-go
theorem known for Einstein's theory may not apply to the \xi=1 solution. As
complementary discussions, we provide an effective description of the power-law
corrections to Newtonian gravity on the branes or at the common intersection
thereof.Comment: 19 pages, LaTeX, Revised/Published Versio
Late-time Cosmic Dynamics from M-theory
We consider the behaviour of the cosmological acceleration for time-dependent
hyperbolic and flux compactifications of M-theory, with an exponential
potential. For flat and closed cosmologies it is seen that a positive
acceleration is always transient for both compactifications. For open
cosmologies, both compactifications can give at late times periods of positive
acceleration. As a function of proper time this acceleration has a power law
decay and can be either positive, negative or oscillatory.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, 2 figure
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