3,489 research outputs found
Cognition-Enhancing Drugs: Can We Say No?
Normative analysis of cognition-enhancing drugs frequently weighs the liberty interests of drug users against egalitarian commitments to a level playing field. Yet those who would refuse to engage in neuroenhancement may well find their liberty to do so limited in a society where such drugs are widespread. To the extent that unvarnished emotional responses are world-disclosive, neurocosmetic practices also threaten to provide a form of faulty data to their users. This essay examines underappreciated liberty-based and epistemic rationales for regulating cognition-enhancing drugs
Cosmic censorship and spherical gravitational collapse with tangential pressure
We study the spherical gravitational collapse of a compact object under the
approximation that the radial pressure is identically zero, and the tangential
pressure is related to the density by a linear equation of state. It turns out
that the Einstein equations can be reduced to the solution of an integral for
the evolution of the area radius. We show that for positive pressure there is a
finite region near the center which necessarily expands outwards, if collapse
begins from rest. This region could be surrounded by an inward moving one which
could collapse to a singularity - any such singularity will necessarily be
covered by a horizon. For negative pressure the entire object collapses
inwards, but any singularities that could arise are not naked. Thus the nature
of the evolution is very different from that of dust, even when the ratio of
pressure to density is infinitesimally small.Comment: 16 pages, Latex file, two figures, uses epsf.st
Primordial Entropy Production and Lambda-driven Inflation from Quantum Einstein Gravity
We review recent work on renormalization group (RG) improved cosmologies
based upon a RG trajectory of Quantum Einstein Gravity (QEG) with realistic
parameter values. In particular we argue that QEG effects can account for the
entire entropy of the present Universe in the massless sector and give rise to
a phase of inflationary expansion. This phase is a pure quantum effect and
requires no classical inflaton field.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, IGCG-07 Pun
Meanfield treatment of Bragg scattering from a Bose-Einstein condensate
A unified semiclassical treatment of Bragg scattering from Bose-Einstein
condensates is presented. The formalism is based on the Gross-Pitaevskii
equation driven by classical light fields far detuned from atomic resonance. An
approximate analytic solution is obtained and provides quantitative
understanding of the atomic momentum state oscillations, as well as a simple
expression for the momentum linewidth of the scattering process. The validity
regime of the analytic solution is derived, and tested by three dimensional
cylindrically symmetric numerical simulations.Comment: 21 pages, 10 figures. Minor changes made to documen
Langevin dynamics of the Lebowitz-Percus model
We revisit the hard-spheres lattice gas model in the spherical approximation
proposed by Lebowitz and Percus (J. L. Lebowitz, J. K. Percus, Phys. Rev.{\
144} (1966) 251). Although no disorder is present in the model, we find that
the short-range dynamical restrictions in the model induce glassy behavior. We
examine the off-equilibrium Langevin dynamics of this model and study the
relaxation of the density as well as the correlation, response and overlap
two-time functions. We find that the relaxation proceeds in two steps as well
as absence of anomaly in the response function. By studying the violation of
the fluctuation-dissipation ratio we conclude that the glassy scenario of this
model corresponds to the dynamics of domain growth in phase ordering kinetics.Comment: 21 pages, RevTeX, 14 PS figure
How Stands Collapse II
I review ten problems associated with the dynamical wave function collapse
program, which were described in the first of these two papers. Five of these,
the \textit{interaction, preferred basis, trigger, symmetry} and
\textit{superluminal} problems, were discussed as resolved there. In this
volume in honor of Abner Shimony, I discuss the five remaining problems,
\textit{tails, conservation law, experimental, relativity, legitimization}.
Particular emphasis is given to the tails problem, first raised by Abner. The
discussion of legitimization contains a new argument, that the energy density
of the fluctuating field which causes collapse should exert a gravitational
force. This force can be repulsive, since this energy density can be negative.
Speculative illustrations of cosmological implications are offered.Comment: 37 page
Causality violation and singularities
We show that singularities necessarily occur when a boundary of causality
violating set exists in a space-time under the physically suitable assumptions
except the global causality condition in the Hawking-Penrose singularity
theorems. Instead of the global causality condition, we impose some
restrictions on the causality violating sets to show the occurrence of
singularities.Comment: 11 pages, latex, 2 eps figure
Higher order dilaton gravity: brane equations of motion in the covariant formulation
Dilaton gravity with general brane localized interactions is investigated.
Models with corrections up to arbitrary order in field derivatives are
considered. Effective gravitational equations of motion at the brane are
derived in the covariant approach. Dependence of such brane equations on the
bulk quantities is discussed. It is shown that the number of the bulk
independent brane equations of motion depends strongly on the symmetries
assumed for the model and for the background. Examples with two and four
derivatives of the fields are presented in more detail.Comment: 32 pages, references added, discussion extended, typos corrected,
version to be publishe
Response properties in a model for granular matter
We investigate the response properties of granular media in the framework of
the so-called {\em Random Tetris Model}. We monitor, for different driving
procedures, several quantities: the evolution of the density and of the density
profiles, the ageing properties through the two-times correlation functions and
the two-times mean-square distance between the potential energies, the response
function defined in terms of the difference in the potential energies of two
replica driven in two slightly different ways. We focus in particular on the
role played by the spatial inhomogeneities (structures) spontaneously emerging
during the compaction process, the history of the sample and the driving
procedure. It turns out that none of these ingredients can be neglected for the
correct interpretation of the experimental or numerical data. We discuss the
problem of the optimization of the compaction process and we comment on the
validity of our results for the description of granular materials in a
thermodynamic framework.Comment: 22 pages, 35 eps files (21 figures
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