D2-branes with magnetic flux in the presence of RR fields

D2-branes are studied in the context of Born-Infeld theory as a source of the 3-form RR gauge potential. Considering the static case with only a radial magnetic field it is shown that a locally stable hemispherical deformation of the brane exists which minimises the energy locally. Since the D2-brane carries also the charge of D0-branes, and the RR spacetime potential is unbounded from below, these can tunnel to condense on the D2-brane. The corresponding instanton-like configuration and the tunneling rate are derived and discussed.Comment: 24 pages, 1 figure included, version to appear in NP

Hidden functional relation in Large-N Quark-Monopole system at finite temperature

The quark-monopole potential is computed at finite temperature in the context of $AdS/CFT$ correspondence. It is found that the potential is invariant under $g \to 1/g$ and $U_T \to U_T / g$. As in the quark-quark case there exists a maximum separation between quark and monopole, and $L$-dependence of the potential exhibits a bifurcation behavior. We find a functional relation $dE_{QM}^{Reg} / dL = [(1/E_{(1,0)}^{Reg}(U_0))^2 + (1/E_{(0,1)}^{Reg}(U_0))^2]^{-1/2}$ which is responsible for the bifurcation. The remarkable property of this relation is that it makes a relation between physical quantities defined at the $AdS$ boundary through a quantity defined at the bulk. The physical implication of this relation for the existence of the extra dimension is speculated.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figures, v1 one more reference added v2 version to appear in NP

Instability of vortex array and transitions to turbulent states in rotating helium II

We consider superfluid helium inside a container which rotates at constant angular velocity and investigate numerically the stability of the array of quantized vortices in the presence of an imposed axial counterflow. This problem was studied experimentally by Swanson {\it et al.}, who reported evidence of instabilities at increasing axial flow but were not able to explain their nature. We find that Kelvin waves on individual vortices become unstable and grow in amplitude, until the amplitude of the waves becomes large enough that vortex reconnections take place and the vortex array is destabilized. The eventual nonlinear saturation of the instability consists of a turbulent tangle of quantized vortices which is strongly polarized. The computed results compare well with the experiments. Finally we suggest a theoretical explanation for the second instability which was observed at higher values of the axial flow

Abnormal number of Nambu-Goldstone bosons in the color-asymmetric 2SC phase of an NJL-type model

We consider an extended Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model including both (q \bar q)- and (qq)-interactions with two light-quark flavors in the presence of a single (quark density) chemical potential. In the color superconducting phase of the quark matter the color SU(3) symmetry is spontaneously broken down to SU(2). If the usual counting of Goldstone bosons would apply, five Nambu-Goldstone (NG) bosons corresponding to the five broken color generators should appear in the mass spectrum. Unlike that expectation, we find only three gapless diquark excitations of quark matter. One of them is an SU(2)-singlet, the remaining two form an SU(2)-(anti)doublet and have a quadratic dispersion law in the small momentum limit. These results are in agreement with the Nielsen-Chadha theorem, according to which NG-bosons in Lorentz-noninvariant systems, having a quadratic dispersion law, must be counted differently. The origin of the abnormal number of NG-bosons is shown to be related to a nonvanishing expectation value of the color charge operator Q_8 reflecting the lack of color neutrality of the ground state. Finally, by requiring color neutrality, two massive diquarks are argued to become massless, resulting in a normal number of five NG-bosons with usual linear dispersion laws.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, revtex

Reconstruction of the primordial power spectrum from CMB data

Measuring the deviation from scale invariance of the primordial power spectrum is a critical test of inflation. In this paper we reconstruct the shape of the primordial power spectrum of curvature perturbations from the cosmic microwave background data, including the 7-year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe data and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope 148 GHz data, by using a binning method of a cubic spline interpolation in log-log space. We find that the power-law spectrum is preferred by the data and that the Harrison-Zel'dovich spectrum is disfavored at 95% confidence level. These conclusions hold with and without allowing for tensor modes, however the simpler model without tensors is preferred by the data. We do not find evidence for a feature in the primordial power spectrum - in full agreement with generic predictions from cosmological inflation.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, 3 tables, JCAP style, published versio

Two lectures on color superconductivity

The first lecture provides an introduction to the physics of color superconductivity in cold dense quark matter. The main color superconducting phases are briefly described and their properties are listed. The second lecture covers recent developments in studies of color superconducting phases in neutral and beta-equilibrated matter. The properties of gapless color superconducting phases are discussed.Comment: 56 pages, 9 figures. Minor corrections and references added. Lectures delivered at the IARD 2004 conference, Saas Fee, Switzerland, June 12 - 19, 2004, and at the Helmholtz International Summer School and Workshop on Hot points in Astrophysics and Cosmology, JINR, Dubna, Russia, August 2 - 13, 200

Magnetic Oscillations in Dense Cold Quark Matter with Four-Fermion Interactions

The phase structures of Nambu-Jona-Lasinio models with one or two flavours have been investigated at non-zero values of $\mu$ and $H$, where $H$ is an external magnetic field and $\mu$ is the chemical potential. In the phase portraits of both models there arise infinitely many massless chirally symmetric phases, as well as massive ones with spontaneously broken chiral invariance, reflecting the existence of infinitely many Landau levels. Phase transitions of first and second orders and a lot of tricritical points have been shown to exist in phase diagrams. In the massless case, such a phase structure leads unavoidably to the standard van Alphen-de Haas magnetic oscillations of some thermodynamical quantities, including magnetization, pressure and particle density. In the massive case we have found an oscillating behaviour not only for thermodynamical quantities, but also for a dynamical quantity as the quark mass. Besides, in this case we have non-standard, i.e. non-periodic, magnetic oscillations, since the frequency of oscillations is an $H$-dependent quantity.Comment: latex, 29 pages, 8 figure

The Influence of an External Chromomagnetic Field on Color Superconductivity

We study the competition of quark-antiquark and diquark condensates under the influence of an external chromomagnetic field modelling the gluon condensate and in dependence on the chemical potential and temperature. As our results indicate, an external chromomagnetic field might produce remarkable qualitative changes in the picture of the color superconducting (CSC) phase formation. This concerns, in particular, the possibility of a transition to the CSC phase and diquark condensation at finite temperature.Comment: 27 pages, RevTex, 8 figures; the version accepted for the publication in PRD (few references added; new numerical results added; main conclusions are not changed

Particles-vortex interactions and flow visualization in He4

Recent experiments have demonstrated a remarkable progress in implementing and use of the Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) and particle tracking techniques for the study of turbulence in He4. However, an interpretation of the experimental data in the superfluid phase requires understanding how the motion of tracer particles is affected by the two components, the viscous normal fluid and the inviscid superfluid. Of a particular importance is the problem of particle interactions with quantized vortex lines which may not only strongly affect the particle motion, but, under certain conditions, may even trap particles on quantized vortex cores. The article reviews recent theoretical, numerical, and experimental results in this rapidly developing area of research, putting critically together recent results, and solving apparent inconsistencies. Also discussed is a closely related technique of detection of quantized vortices negative ion bubbles in He4.Comment: To appear in the J Low Temperature Physic

Mixture of latent trait analyzers for model-based clustering of categorical data

Model-based clustering methods for continuous data are well established and commonly used in a wide range of applications. However, model-based clustering methods for categorical data are less standard. Latent class analysis is a commonly used method for model-based clustering of binary data and/or categorical data, but due to an assumed local independence structure there may not be a correspondence between the estimated latent classes and groups in the population of interest. The mixture of latent trait analyzers model extends latent class analysis by assuming a model for the categorical response variables that depends on both a categorical latent class and a continuous latent trait variable; the discrete latent class accommodates group structure and the continuous latent trait accommodates dependence within these groups. Fitting the mixture of latent trait analyzers model is potentially difficult because the likelihood function involves an integral that cannot be evaluated analytically. We develop a variational approach for fitting the mixture of latent trait models and this provides an efficient model fitting strategy. The mixture of latent trait analyzers model is demonstrated on the analysis of data from the National Long Term Care Survey (NLTCS) and voting in the U.S. Congress. The model is shown to yield intuitive clustering results and it gives a much better fit than either latent class analysis or latent trait analysis alone