Positive specific heat of the quantum corrected dilaton black hole

Path integral quantization of dilaton gravity in two dimensions is applied to the CGHS model to the first nontrivial order in matter loops. Our approach is background independent as geometry is integrated out exactly. The result is an effective shift of the Killing norm: the apparent horizon becomes smaller. The Hawking temperature which is constant to leading order receives a quantum correction. As a consequence, the specific heat becomes positive and proportional to the square of the black hole mass.Comment: 18 pages, JHEP style, 1 eps figure, v2: extended the discussion, added new formulas for mass change, added three new references (in particular [35]

Slavnov-Taylor identities in Coulomb gauge Yang-Mills theory

The Slavnov-Taylor identities of Coulomb gauge Yang-Mills theory are derived from the (standard, second order) functional formalism. It is shown how these identities form closed sets from which one can in principle fully determine the Green's functions involving the temporal component of the gauge field without approximation, given appropriate input.Comment: 20 pages, no figure

A 750 mW, continuous-wave, solid-state laser source at 313 nm for cooling and manipulating trapped 9Be+ ions

We present a solid-state laser system that generates 750 mW of continuous-wave single-frequency output at 313 nm. Sum-frequency generation with fiber lasers at 1550 nm and 1051 nm produces up to 2 W at 626 nm. This visible light is then converted to UV by cavity-enhanced second-harmonic generation. The laser output can be tuned over a 495 GHz range, which includes the 9Be+ laser cooling and repumping transitions. This is the first report of a narrow-linewidth laser system with sufficient power to perform fault-tolerant quantum-gate operations with trapped 9Be+ ions by use of stimulated Raman transitions.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Local well-posedness for membranes in the light cone gauge

In this paper we consider the classical initial value problem for the bosonic membrane in light cone gauge. A Hamiltonian reduction gives a system with one constraint, the area preserving constraint. The Hamiltonian evolution equations corresponding to this system, however, fail to be hyperbolic. Making use of the area preserving constraint, an equivalent system of evolution equations is found, which is hyperbolic and has a well-posed initial value problem. We are thus able to solve the initial value problem for the Hamiltonian evolution equations by means of this equivalent system. We furthermore obtain a blowup criterion for the membrane evolution equations, and show, making use of the constraint, that one may achieve improved regularity estimates.Comment: 29 page

State sampling dependence of the Hopfield network inference

The fully connected Hopfield network is inferred based on observed magnetizations and pairwise correlations. We present the system in the glassy phase with low temperature and high memory load. We find that the inference error is very sensitive to the form of state sampling. When a single state is sampled to compute magnetizations and correlations, the inference error is almost indistinguishable irrespective of the sampled state. However, the error can be greatly reduced if the data is collected with state transitions. Our result holds for different disorder samples and accounts for the previously observed large fluctuations of inference error at low temperatures.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, further discussions added and relevant references adde

Metastable States in Spin Glasses and Disordered Ferromagnets

We study analytically M-spin-flip stable states in disordered short-ranged Ising models (spin glasses and ferromagnets) in all dimensions and for all M. Our approach is primarily dynamical and is based on the convergence of a zero-temperature dynamical process with flips of lattice animals up to size M and starting from a deep quench, to a metastable limit. The results (rigorous and nonrigorous, in infinite and finite volumes) concern many aspects of metastable states: their numbers, basins of attraction, energy densities, overlaps, remanent magnetizations and relations to thermodynamic states. For example, we show that their overlap distribution is a delta-function at zero. We also define a dynamics for M=infinity, which provides a potential tool for investigating ground state structure.Comment: 34 pages (LaTeX); to appear in Physical Review

Weak lensing, dark matter and dark energy

Weak gravitational lensing is rapidly becoming one of the principal probes of dark matter and dark energy in the universe. In this brief review we outline how weak lensing helps determine the structure of dark matter halos, measure the expansion rate of the universe, and distinguish between modified gravity and dark energy explanations for the acceleration of the universe. We also discuss requirements on the control of systematic errors so that the systematics do not appreciably degrade the power of weak lensing as a cosmological probe.Comment: Invited review article for the GRG special issue on gravitational lensing (P. Jetzer, Y. Mellier and V. Perlick Eds.). V3: subsection on three-point function and some references added. Matches the published versio

Optical properties of MgH2 measured in situ in a novel gas cell for ellipsometry/spectrophotometry

The dielectric properties of alpha-MgH2 are investigated in the photon energy range between 1 and 6.5 eV. For this purpose, a novel sample configuration and experimental setup are developed that allow both optical transmission and ellipsometric measurements of a transparent thin film in equilibrium with hydrogen. We show that alpha-MgH2 is a transparent, colour neutral insulator with a band gap of 5.6 +/- 0.1 eV. It has an intrinsic transparency of about 80% over the whole visible spectrum. The dielectric function found in this work confirms very recent band structure calculations using the GW approximation by Alford and Chou [J.A. Alford and M.Y. Chou (unpublished)]. As Pd is used as a cap layer we report also the optical properties of PdHx thin films.Comment: REVTeX4, 15 pages, 12 figures, 5 table