The mass content of the Sculptor dwarf spheroidal galaxy

We present a new determination of the mass content of the Sculptor dwarf spheroidal galaxy, based on a novel approach which takes into account the two distinct stellar populations present in this galaxy. This method helps to partially break the well-known mass-anisotropy degeneracy present in the modelling of pressure-supported stellar systems.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures. To appear in the proceedings of IAU Symposium 254 "The Galaxy disk in a cosmological context", Copenhagen, June 200

Allying For Peace: Treaty Obligations and Conflict Between Allies

We argue that certain provisions of alliance treaties can signal credible commitments to a peaceful relationship among members and establish institutional mechanisms that promote the settlement of disagreements through peaceful negotiation. Nonaggression, peaceful dispute settlement, military institutionalization, and permanent organization provisions should increase the duration of peace between alliance members; we test our hypotheses with a duration model. The analysis generally supports our expectations except that alliances that create permanent organizations, even those specifically established to arbitrate disagreements, are associated with shorter durations of peace. We conclude with some implications of our argument for the study of military alliances and international institutions more broadly

Interacting Dark Matter and Dark Energy

We discuss models for the cosmological dark sector in which the energy density of a scalar field approximates Einstein's cosmological constant and the scalar field value determines the dark matter particle mass by a Yukawa coupling. A model with one dark matter family can be adjusted so the observational constraints on the cosmological parameters are close to but different from what is predicted by the Lambda CDM model. This may be a useful aid to judging how tightly the cosmological parameters are constrained by the new generation of cosmological tests that depend on the theory of structure formation. In a model with two families of dark matter particles the scalar field may be locked to near zero mass for one family. This can suppress the long-range scalar force in the dark sector and eliminate evolution of the effective cosmological constant and the mass of the nonrelativistic dark matter particles, making the model close to Lambda CDM, until the particle number density becomes low enough to allow the scalar field to evolve. This is a useful example of the possibility for complexity in the dark sector.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures; added a reference and a minor correctio

Microfluidic rheology of soft colloids above and below jamming

The rheology near jamming of a suspension of soft colloidal spheres is studied using a custom microfluidic rheometer that provides stress versus strain rate over many decades. We find non-Newtonian behavior below the jamming concentration and yield stress behavior above it. The data may be collapsed onto two branches with critical scaling exponents that agree with expectations based on Hertzian contacts and viscous drag. These results support the conclusion that jamming is similar to a critical phase transition, but with interaction-dependent exponents.Comment: 4 pages, experimen

A provably stable and high-order accurate finite difference approximation for the incompressible boundary layer equations

In this article we develop a high order accurate method to solve the incompressible boundary layer equations in a provably stable manner. We first derive continuous energy estimates, and then proceed to the discrete setting. We formulate the discrete approximation using high-order finite difference methods on summation-by-parts form and implement the boundary conditions weakly using the simultaneous approximation term method. By applying the discrete energy method and imitating the continuous analysis, the discrete estimate that resembles the continuous counterpart is obtained proving stability. We also show that these newly derived boundary conditions removes the singularities associated with the null-space of the nonlinear discrete spatial operator. Numerical experiments that verifies the high-order accuracy of the scheme and coincides with the theoretical results are presented. The numerical results are compared with the well-known Blasius similarity solution as well as that resulting from the solution of the incompressible Navier Stokes equation

Dynamical Compactification and Inflation in Einstein-Yang-Mills Theory with Higher Derivative Coupling

We study cosmology of the Einstein-Yang-Mills theory in ten dimensions with a quartic term in the Yang-Mills field strength. We obtain analytically a class of cosmological solutions in which the extra dimensions are static and the scale factor of the four-dimensional Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker metric is an exponential function of time. This means that the model can explain inflation. Then we look for solutions that describe dynamical compactification of the extra dimensions. The effective cosmological constant $\lambda_1$ in the four-dimensional universe is determined from the gravitational coupling, ten-dimensional cosmological constant, gauge coupling and higher derivative coupling. By numerical integration, the solution with $\lambda_1=0$ is found to behave as a matter-dominated universe which asymptotically approaches flat space-time, while the solution with a non-vanishing $\lambda_1$ approaches de Sitter space-time in the asymptotic future.Comment: 30 pages, 7 figure

Spin-dynamic field coupling in strongly THz driven semiconductors : local inversion symmetry breaking

We study theoretically the optics in undoped direct gap semiconductors which are strongly driven in the THz regime. We calculate the optical sideband generation due to nonlinear mixing of the THz field and the near infrared probe. Starting with an inversion symmetric microscopic Hamiltonian we include the THz field nonperturbatively using non-equilibrium Green function techniques. We find that a self induced relativistic spin-THz field coupling locally breaks the inversion symmetry, resulting in the formation of odd sidebands which otherwise are absent.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Casimir force in brane worlds: coinciding results from Green's and Zeta function approaches

Casimir force encodes the structure of the field modes as vacuum fluctuations and so it is sensitive to the extra dimensions of brane worlds. Now, in flat spacetimes of arbitrary dimension the two standard approaches to the Casimir force, Green's function and zeta function, yield the same result, but for brane world models this was only assumed. In this work we show both approaches yield the same Casimir force in the case of Universal Extra Dimensions and Randall-Sundrum scenarios with one and two branes added by p compact dimensions. Essentially, the details of the mode eigenfunctions that enter the Casimir force in the Green's function approach get removed due to their orthogonality relations with a measure involving the right hyper-volume of the plates and this leaves just the contribution coming from the Zeta function approach. The present analysis corrects previous results showing a difference between the two approaches for the single brane Randall-Sundrum; this was due to an erroneous hyper-volume of the plates introduced by the authors when using the Green's function. For all the models we discuss here, the resulting Casimir force can be neatly expressed in terms of two four dimensional Casimir force contributions: one for the massless mode and the other for a tower of massive modes associated with the extra dimensions.Comment: 30 pages, title, abstract and discussion have change

Graviton confinement inside hypermonopoles of any dimension

We show the generic existence of metastable massive gravitons in the four-dimensional core of self-gravitating hypermonopoles in any number of infinite-volume extra-dimensions. Confinement is observed for Higgs and gauge bosons couplings of the order unity. Provided these resonances are light enough, they realise the Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati mechanism by inducing a four-dimensional gravity law on some intermediate length scales. The effective four-dimensional Planck mass is shown to be proportional to a negative power of the graviton mass. As a result, requiring gravity to be four-dimensional on cosmological length scales may solve the mass hierarchy problem.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figures, uses iopart. Misprints corrected, references added, matches published versio

Quasienergy Spectroscopy of Excitons

We theoretically study nonlinear optics of excitons under intense THz irradiation. In particular, the linear near infrared absorption and resonantly enhanced nonlinear sideband generation are described. We predict a rich structure in the spectra which can be interpreted in terms of the quasienergy spectrum of the exciton, via a remarkably transparent expression for the susceptibility, and show that the effects of strongly avoided quasienergy crossings manifest themselves directly, both in the absorption and transmitted sidebands.Comment: 4 pages RevTex, 3 eps figs included, as publishe