Self-dual Hopfions

We construct static and time-dependent exact soliton solutions with non-trivial Hopf topological charge for a field theory in 3+1 dimensions with the target space being the two dimensional sphere S**2. The model considered is a reduction of the so-called extended Skyrme-Faddeev theory by the removal of the quadratic term in derivatives of the fields. The solutions are constructed using an ansatz based on the conformal and target space symmetries. The solutions are said self-dual because they solve first order differential equations which together with some conditions on the coupling constants, imply the second order equations of motion. The solutions belong to a sub-sector of the theory with an infinite number of local conserved currents. The equation for the profile function of the ansatz corresponds to the Bogomolny equation for the sine-Gordon model.Comment: plain latex, no figures, 23 page

A remark on the asymptotic form of BPS multi-dyon solutions and their conserved charges

We evaluate the gauge invariant, dynamically conserved charges, recently obtained from the integral form of the Yang-Mills equations, for the BPS multi-dyon solutions of a Yang-Mills-Higgs theory associated to any compact semi-simple gauge group G. Those charges are shown to correspond to the eigenvalues of the next-to-leading term of the asymptotic form of the Higgs field at spatial infinity, and so coinciding with the usual topological charges of those solutions. Such results show that many of the topological charges considered in the literature are in fact dynamical charges, which conservation follows from the global properties of classical Yang-Mills theories encoded into their integral dynamical equations. The conservation of those charges can not be obtained from the differential form of Yang-Mills equations.Comment: Version to be published in JHEP, Journal of High Energy Physics (19 pages, no figures, some examples added

Integrable theories and loop spaces: fundamentals, applications and new developments

We review our proposal to generalize the standard two-dimensional flatness construction of Lax-Zakharov-Shabat to relativistic field theories in d+1 dimensions. The fundamentals from the theory of connections on loop spaces are presented and clarified. These ideas are exposed using mathematical tools familiar to physicists. We exhibit recent and new results that relate the locality of the loop space curvature to the diffeomorphism invariance of the loop space holonomy. These result are used to show that the holonomy is abelian if the holonomy is diffeomorphism invariant. These results justify in part and set the limitations of the local implementations of the approach which has been worked out in the last decade. We highlight very interesting applications like the construction and the solution of an integrable four dimensional field theory with Hopf solitons, and new integrability conditions which generalize BPS equations to systems such as Skyrme theories. Applications of these ideas leading to new constructions are implemented in theories that admit volume preserving diffeomorphisms of the target space as symmetries. Applications to physically relevant systems like Yang Mills theories are summarized. We also discuss other possibilities that have not yet been explored.Comment: 64 pages, 8 figure

A mass-transportation approach to a one dimensional fluid mechanics model with nonlocal velocity

We consider a one dimensional transport model with nonlocal velocity given by the Hilbert transform and develop a global well-posedness theory of probability measure solutions. Both the viscous and non-viscous cases are analyzed. Both in original and in self-similar variables, we express the corresponding equations as gradient flows with respect to a free energy functional including a singular logarithmic interaction potential. Existence, uniqueness, self-similar asymptotic behavior and inviscid limit of solutions are obtained in the space $\mathcal{P}_{2}(\mathbb{R})$ of probability measures with finite second moments, without any smallness condition. Our results are based on the abstract gradient flow theory developed in \cite{Ambrosio}. An important byproduct of our results is that there is a unique, up to invariance and translations, global in time self-similar solution with initial data in $\mathcal{P}_{2}(\mathbb{R})$, which was already obtained in \textrm{\cite{Deslippe,Biler-Karch}} by different methods. Moreover, this self-similar solution attracts all the dynamics in self-similar variables. The crucial monotonicity property of the transport between measures in one dimension allows to show that the singular logarithmic potential energy is displacement convex. We also extend the results to gradient flow equations with negative power-law locally integrable interaction potentials

Mean-field analysis of the majority-vote model broken-ergodicity steady state

We study analytically a variant of the one-dimensional majority-vote model in which the individual retains its opinion in case there is a tie among the neighbors' opinions. The individuals are fixed in the sites of a ring of size $L$ and can interact with their nearest neighbors only. The interesting feature of this model is that it exhibits an infinity of spatially heterogeneous absorbing configurations for $L \to \infty$ whose statistical properties we probe analytically using a mean-field framework based on the decomposition of the $L$-site joint probability distribution into the $n$-contiguous-site joint distributions, the so-called $n$-site approximation. To describe the broken-ergodicity steady state of the model we solve analytically the mean-field dynamic equations for arbitrary time $t$ in the cases n=3 and 4. The asymptotic limit $t \to \infty$ reveals the mapping between the statistical properties of the random initial configurations and those of the final absorbing configurations. For the pair approximation ($n=2$) we derive that mapping using a trick that avoids solving the full dynamics. Most remarkably, we find that the predictions of the 4-site approximation reduce to those of the 3-site in the case of expectations involving three contiguous sites. In addition, those expectations fit the Monte Carlo data perfectly and so we conjecture that they are in fact the exact expectations for the one-dimensional majority-vote model

Crystallization, data collection and data processing of maltose-binding protein (MalE) from the phytopathogen Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. citri

Maltose-binding protein is the periplasmic component of the ABC transporter responsible for the uptake of maltose/maltodextrins. The Xanthomonas axonopodis pv. citri maltose-binding protein MalE has been crystallized at 293 Kusing the hanging-drop vapour-diffusion method. The crystal belonged to the primitive hexagonal space group P6_122, with unit-cell parameters a = 123.59, b = 123.59, c = 304.20 Å, and contained two molecules in the asymetric unit. It diffracted to 2.24 Å resolution

The structures underlying soliton solutions in integrable hierarchies

We point out that a common feature of integrable hierarchies presenting soliton solutions is the existence of some special ``vacuum solutions'' such that the Lax operators evaluated on them, lie in some abelian subalgebra of the associated Kac-Moody algebra. The soliton solutions are constructed out of those ``vacuum solitons'' by the dressing transformation procedure.Comment: Talk given at the I Latin American Symposium on High Energy Physics, I SILAFAE, Merida, Mexico, November/96, 5 pages, LaTeX, needs aipproc.tex, aipproc.sty, aipproc.cls, available from ftp://ftp.aip.org/ems/tex/macros/proceedings/6x9

On the large-scale angular distribution of short-Gamma ray bursts

We investigate the large-scale angular distribution of the short-Gamma ray bursts (SGRBs) from BATSE experiment, using a new coordinates-free method. The analyses performed take into account the angular correlations induced by the non-uniform sky exposure during the experiment, and the uncertainty in the measured angular coordinates. Comparising the large-scale angular correlations from the data with those expected from simulations using the exposure function we find similar features. Additionally, confronting the large-angle correlations computed from the data with those obtained from simulated maps produced under the assumption of statistical isotropy we found that they are incompatible at 95% confidence level. However, such differences are restricted to the angular scales 36o - 45o, which are likely to be due to the non-uniform sky exposure. This result strongly suggests that the set of SGRBs from BATSE are intrinsically isotropic. Moreover, we also investigated a possible large-angle correlation of these data with the supergalactic plane. No evidence for such large-scale anisotropy was found.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal, 6 pages, 3 figure