9,546 research outputs found
Black Holes, Entropy Bound and Causality Violation
The gravity/gauge theory duality has provided us a way of studying QCD at
short distances from straightforward calculations in classical general
relativity. Among numerous results obtained so far, one of the most striking is
the universality of the ratio of the shear viscosity to the entropy density.
For all gauge theories with Einstein gravity dual, this ratio is \eta/s=1/4\pi.
However, in general higher-curvature gravity theories, including two concrete
models under discussion - the Gauss-Bonnet gravity and the (Riemann)^2 gravity
- the ratio \eta/s can be smaller than 1/4\pi (thus violating the conjecture
bound), equal to 1/4\pi or even larger than 1/4\pi. As we probe spacetime at
shorter distances, there arises an internal inconsistency in the theory, such
as a violation of microcausality, which is correlated with a classical limit on
black hole entropy.Comment: 8 pages, no figures; Invited contribution to appear in the
Proceedings of the 75 Years since Solvay, Singapore, Nov 2008, (World
Scientific, Singapore, 2009
On the Singularities of the Magnon S-matrix
We investigate the analytic structure of the magnon S-matrix in the
spin-chain description of planar SUSY Yang-Mills/ strings. Semiclassical analysis suggests that the exact S-matrix must
have a large family of poles near the real axis in momentum space. In this
article we show that these are double poles corresponding to the exchange of
pairs of BPS magnons. Their locations in the complex plane are uniquely fixed
by the known dispersion relation for the BPS particles. The locations precisely
agree with the recent conjecture for the matrix by Beisert, Hernandez,
Lopez, Eden and Staudacher (hep-th/0609044 and hep-th/0610251). These poles do
not signal the presence of new bound states. In fact, a certain non-BPS
localized classical solution, which was thought to give rise to new bound
states, can actually decay into a pair of BPS magnons.Comment: 40 pages, 14 figures; typos corrected, references adde
Taxonomic Features and Comparison of the Gut Microbiome from Two Edible Fungus-Farming Termites (Macrotermes falciger, M. natalensis) Harvested in the Vhembe District of Limpopo, South Africa
Background Termites are an important food resource for many human populations around the world, and are a good supply of nutrients. The fungus-farming ‘higher’ termite members of Macrotermitinae are also consumed by modern great apes and are implicated as critical dietary resources for early hominins. While the chemical nutritional composition of edible termites is well known, their microbiomes are unexplored in the context of human health. Here we sequenced the V4 region of the 16S rRNA gene of gut microbiota extracted from the whole intestinal tract of two Macrotermes sp. soldiers collected from the Limpopo region of South Africa. Results Major and minor soldier subcastes of M. falciger exhibit consistent differences in taxonomic representation, and are variable in microbial presence and abundance patterns when compared to another edible but less preferred species, M. natalensis. Subcaste differences include alternate patterns in sulfate-reducing bacteria and methanogenic Euryarchaeota abundance, and differences in abundance between Alistipes and Ruminococcaceae. M. falciger minor soldiers and M. natalensissoldiers have similar microbial profiles, likely from close proximity to the termite worker castes, particularly during foraging and fungus garden cultivation. Compared with previously published termite and cockroach gut microbiome data, the taxonomic representation was generally split between termites that directly digest lignocellulose and humic substrates and those that consume a more distilled form of nutrition as with the omnivorous cockroaches and fungus-farming termites. Lastly, to determine if edible termites may point to a shared reservoir for rare bacterial taxa found in the gut microbiome of humans, we focused on the genus Treponema. The majority of Treponemasequences from edible termite gut microbiota most closely relate to species recovered from other termites or from environmental samples, except for one novel OTU strain, which clustered separately with Treponema found in hunter-gatherer human groups. Conclusions Macrotermes consumed by humans display special gut microbial arrangements that are atypical for a lignocellulose digesting invertebrate, but are instead suited to the simplified nutrition in the fungus-farmer diet. Our work brings to light the particular termite microbiome features that should be explored further as avenues in human health, agricultural sustainability, and evolutionary research
The Spectrum of Strings on Warped AdS_3 x S^3
String theory on NS-NS AdS_3 x S^3 admits an exactly marginal deformation
which breaks the SL(2,R)_R x SL(2,R)_L isometry of AdS_3 down to SL(2,R)_R x
U(1)_L. The holographic dual is an exotic and only partially understood type of
two-dimensional CFT with a reduced unbroken global conformal symmetry group. In
this paper we study the deformed theory on the string worldsheet. It is found
to be related by a spectral flow which is nonlocal in spacetime to the
undeformed worldsheet theory. An exact formula for the spectrum of massive
strings is presented.Comment: 26 pages, no figure
Asymptotic Bethe equations for open boundaries in planar AdS/CFT
We solve, by means of a nested coordinate Bethe ansatz, the open-boundaries
scattering theory describing the excitations of a free open string propagating
in , carrying large angular momentum , and ending on
a maximal giant graviton whose angular momentum is in the same plane. We thus
obtain the all-loop Bethe equations describing the spectrum, for finite but
large, of the energies of such strings, or equivalently, on the gauge side of
the AdS/CFT correspondence, the anomalous dimensions of certain operators built
using the epsilon tensor of SU(N). We also give the Bethe equations for strings
ending on a probe D7-brane, corresponding to meson-like operators in an
gauge theory with fundamental matter.Comment: 30 pages. v2: minor changes and discussion section added, J.Phys.A
version
AKSZ-BV Formalism and Courant Algebroid-induced Topological Field Theories
We give a detailed exposition of the Alexandrov-Kontsevich-Schwarz-
Zaboronsky superfield formalism using the language of graded manifolds. As a
main illustarting example, to every Courant algebroid structure we associate
canonically a three-dimensional topological sigma-model. Using the AKSZ
formalism, we construct the Batalin-Vilkovisky master action for the model.Comment: 13 pages, based on lectures at Rencontres mathematiques de Glanon
200
Small world yields the most effective information spreading
Spreading dynamics of information and diseases are usually analyzed by using
a unified framework and analogous models. In this paper, we propose a model to
emphasize the essential difference between information spreading and epidemic
spreading, where the memory effects, the social reinforcement and the
non-redundancy of contacts are taken into account. Under certain conditions,
the information spreads faster and broader in regular networks than in random
networks, which to some extent supports the recent experimental observation of
spreading in online society [D. Centola, Science {\bf 329}, 1194 (2010)]. At
the same time, simulation result indicates that the random networks tend to be
favorable for effective spreading when the network size increases. This
challenges the validity of the above-mentioned experiment for large-scale
systems. More significantly, we show that the spreading effectiveness can be
sharply enhanced by introducing a little randomness into the regular structure,
namely the small-world networks yield the most effective information spreading.
Our work provides insights to the understanding of the role of local clustering
in information spreading.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figures, accepted by New J. Phy
Reflecting magnons from D7 and D5 branes
We obtain the reflection matrices for the scattering of elementary magnons
from certain open boundaries, corresponding to open strings ending on D7 and D5
branes in . In each case we consider two possible orientations
for the vacuum state. We show that symmetry arguments are sufficient to
determine the reflection matrices up to at most two unknown functions. The D7
reflection matrices obey the boundary Yang Baxter-Equation. This is automatic
for one vacuum orientation, and requires a natural choice of ratio between two
unknowns for the other. In contrast, the D5 reflection matrices do not obey the
boundary Yang Baxter-Equation. In both cases we show consistency with the
existent weak and strong coupling results.Comment: 32 pages, 1 figure; v2: added references and minor changes; v3: error
in boundary Yang-Baxter equation for D5 reflection matrix note
Tachyon Condensation on Noncommutative Torus
We discuss noncommutative solitons on a noncommutative torus and their
application to tachyon condensation. In the large B limit, they can be exactly
described by the Powers-Rieffel projection operators known in the mathematical
literature. The resulting soliton spectrum is consistent with T-duality and is
surprisingly interesting. It is shown that an instability arises for any
D-branes, leading to the decay into many smaller D-branes. This phenomenon is
the consequence of the fact that K-homology for type II von Neumann factor is
labeled by R.Comment: LaTeX, 17 pages, 1 figur
Parton picture for the strongly coupled SYM plasma
Deep inelastic scattering off the strongly coupled N=4 supersymmetric
Yang-Mills plasma at finite temperature can be computed within the AdS/CFT
correspondence, with results which are suggestive of a parton picture for the
plasma. Via successive branchings, essentially all partons cascade down to very
small values of the longitudinal momentum fraction x and to transverse momenta
smaller than the saturation momentum Q_s\sim T/x. This scale Q_s controls the
plasma interactions with a hard probe, in particular, the jet energy loss and
its transverse momentum broadening.Comment: 4 pages, Talk given at Quark Matter 2008: 20th International
Conference on Ultra-Relativistic Nucleus Nucleus Collisions (QM 2008),
Jaipur, India, 4-10 Feb 200
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