174 research outputs found
Hagedorn divergences and tachyon potential
We consider the critical behavior for a string theory near the Hagedorn
temperature. We use the factorization of the worldsheet to isolate the Hagedorn
divergences at all genera. We show that the Hagedorn divergences can be
resummed by introducing double scaling limits, which smooth the divergences.
The double scaling limits also allow one to extract the effective potential for
the thermal scalar. For a string theory in an asymptotic anti-de Sitter (AdS)
spacetime, the AdS/CFT correspondence implies that the critical Hagedorn
behavior and the relation with the effective potential should also arise from
the boundary Yang-Mills theory. We show that this is indeed the case. In
particular we find that the free energy of a Yang-Mills theory contains
``vortex'' contributions at finite temperature. Yang-Mills Feynman diagrams
with vortices can be identified with contributions from boundaries of moduli
space on the string theory side.Comment: 36 pages, 13 figures, uses harvma
On the energy growth of some periodically driven quantum systems with shrinking gaps in the spectrum
We consider quantum Hamiltonians of the form H(t)=H+V(t) where the spectrum
of H is semibounded and discrete, and the eigenvalues behave as E_n~n^\alpha,
with 0<\alpha<1. In particular, the gaps between successive eigenvalues decay
as n^{\alpha-1}. V(t) is supposed to be periodic, bounded, continuously
differentiable in the strong sense and such that the matrix entries with
respect to the spectral decomposition of H obey the estimate
|V(t)_{m,n}|0,
p>=1 and \gamma=(1-\alpha)/2. We show that the energy diffusion exponent can be
arbitrarily small provided p is sufficiently large and \epsilon is small
enough. More precisely, for any initial condition \Psi\in Dom(H^{1/2}), the
diffusion of energy is bounded from above as _\Psi(t)=O(t^\sigma) where
\sigma=\alpha/(2\ceil{p-1}\gamma-1/2). As an application we consider the
Hamiltonian H(t)=|p|^\alpha+\epsilon*v(\theta,t) on L^2(S^1,d\theta) which was
discussed earlier in the literature by Howland
Brane-Antibrane Systems at Finite Temperature and Phase Transition near the Hagedorn Temperature
In order to study the thermodynamic properties of brane-antibrane systems, we
compute the finite temperature effective potential of tachyon T in this system
on the basis of boundary string field theory. At low temperature, the minimum
of the potential shifts towards T=0 as the temperature increases. In the
D9-antiD9 case, the sign of the coefficient of |T|^2 term of the potential
changes slightly below the Hagedorn temperature. This means that a phase
transition occurs near the Hagedorn temperature. On the other hand, the
coefficient is kept negative in the Dp-antiDp case with p <= 8, and thus a
phase transition does not occur. This leads us to the conclusion that only a
D9-antiD9 pair and no other (lower dimensional) brane-antibrane pairs are
created near the Hagedorn temperature. We also discuss a phase transition in
NS9B-antiNS9B case as a model of the Hagedorn transition of closed strings.Comment: 28 pages, 3 figures, minor errors correcte
Strange quark production in a statistical effective model
An effective model with constituent quarks as fundamental degrees of freedom
is used to predict the relative strangeness production pattern in both high
energy elementary and heavy ion collisions. The basic picture is that of the
statistical hadronization model, with hadronizing color-singlet clusters
assumed to be at full chemical equilibrium at constituent quark level. Thus, by
assuming that at least the ratio between strange and non-strange constituent
quarks survives in the final hadrons, the apparent undersaturation of strange
particle phase space observed in the data can be accounted for. In this
framework, the enhancement of relative strangeness production in heavy ion
collisions in comparison with elementary collisions is mainly owing to the
excess of initial non-strange matter over antimatter and the so-called
canonical suppression, namely the constraint of exact color and flavor
conservation over small volumes.Comment: 22 pages, 9 postscript figures, slightly shortened version published
in Phys. Rev.
The superstring Hagedorn temperature in a pp-wave background
The thermodynamics of type IIB superstring theory in the maximally
supersymmetric plane wave background is studied. We compute the thermodynamic
partition function for non-interacting strings exactly and the result differs
slightly from previous computations. We clarify some of the issues related to
the Hagedorn temperature in the limits of small and large constant RR 5-form.
We study the thermodynamic behavior of strings in the case of geometries in the presence of NS-NS and RR 3-form backgrounds. We
also comment on the relationship of string thermodynamics and the thermodynamic
behavior of the sector of Yang-Mills theory which is the holographic dual of
the string theory.Comment: 22 pages, JHEP style, minor misprints corrected, some comments adde
A tale of two capitalisms: preliminary spatial and historical comparisons of homicide rates in Western Europe and the USA
This article examines comparative homicide rates in the United States and Western Europe in an era of increasingly globalized neoliberal economics. The main finding of this preliminary analysis is that historical and spatial correlations between distinct forms of political economy and homicide rates are consistent enough to suggest that social democratic regimes are more successful at fostering the socio-cultural conditions necessary for reduced homicide rates. Thus Western Europe and all continents and nations should approach the importation of American neo-liberal economic policies with extreme caution. The article concludes by suggesting that the indirect but crucial causal connection between political economy and homicide rates, prematurely pushed into the background of criminological thought during the ‘cultural turn’, should be returned to the foreground
Unconventional Cosmology
I review two cosmological paradigms which are alternative to the current
inflationary scenario. The first alternative is the "matter bounce", a
non-singular bouncing cosmology with a matter-dominated phase of contraction.
The second is an "emergent" scenario, which can be implemented in the context
of "string gas cosmology". I will compare these scenarios with the inflationary
one and demonstrate that all three lead to an approximately scale-invariant
spectrum of cosmological perturbations.Comment: 45 pages, 10 figures; invited lectures at the 6th Aegean Summer
School "Quantum Gravity and Quantum Cosmology", Chora, Naxos, Greece, Sept.
12 - 17 2012, to be publ. in the proceedings; these lecture notes form an
updated version of arXiv:1003.1745 and arXiv:1103.227
The 3-3-1 model with S_4 flavor symmetry
We construct a 3-3-1 model based on family symmetry S_4 responsible for the
neutrino and quark masses. The tribimaximal neutrino mixing and the diagonal
quark mixing have been obtained. The new lepton charge \mathcal{L} related to
the ordinary lepton charge L and a SU(3) charge by L=2/\sqrt{3} T_8+\mathcal{L}
and the lepton parity P_l=(-)^L known as a residual symmetry of L have been
introduced which provide insights in this kind of model. The expected vacuum
alignments resulting in potential minimization can origin from appropriate
violation terms of S_4 and \mathcal{L}. The smallness of seesaw contributions
can be explained from the existence of such terms too. If P_l is not broken by
the vacuum values of the scalar fields, there is no mixing between the exotic
and the ordinary quarks at the tree level.Comment: 20 pages, revised versio
Decoherence, irreversibility and the selection by decoherence of quantum states with definite probabilities
The problem investigated in this paper is einselection, i. e. the selection
of mutually exclusive quantum states with definite probabilities through
decoherence. Its study is based on a theory of decoherence resulting from the
projection method in the quantum theory of irreversible processes, which is
general enough for giving reliable predictions. This approach leads to a
definition (or redefinition) of the coupling with the environment involving
only fluctuations. The range of application of perturbation calculus is then
wide, resulting in a rather general master equation.
Two distinct cases of decoherence are then found: (i) A ``degenerate'' case
(already encountered with solvable models) where decoherence amounts
essentially to approximate diagonalization; (ii) A general case where the
einselected states are essentially classical. They are mixed states. Their
density operators are proportional to microlocal projection operators (or
``quasi projectors'') which were previously introduced in the quantum
expression of classical properties.
It is found at various places that the main limitation in our understanding
of decoherence is the lack of a systematic method for constructing collective
observables.Comment: 54 page
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