The Center symmetry and its spontaneous breakdown at high temperatures

We examine the role of the center Z(N) of the gauge group SU(N) in gauge theories. In this pedagogical article, we discuss, among other topics, the center symmetry and confinement and deconfinement in gauge theories and associated finite-temperature phase transitions. We also look at universal properties of domain walls separating distinct confined and deconfined bulk phases, including a description of how QCD color-flux strings can end on color-neutral domain walls, and unusual finite-volume dependence in which quarks in deconfined bulk phase seem to be "confined".Comment: LaTex, 35 pages, 6 figures, uses sprocl.sty. To be published in the Festschrift in honor of B.L. Ioffe, "At the Frontier of Particle Physics/ Handbook of QCD", edited by M. Shifma

The deconfinement phase transition in Yang-Mills theory with general Lie group G

We present numerical results for the deconfinement phase transition in Sp(2) and Sp(3) Yang-Mills theories in (2+1)-D and (3+1)-D. We then make a conjecture on the order of this phase transition in Yang-Mills theories with general Lie groups G = SU(N), SO(N), Sp(N) and with exceptional groups G = G(2), F(4), E(6), E(7), E(8).Comment: Lattice2003(Topology and Confinement), 3 pages, 3 figure

When is the deconfinement phase transition universal?

Pure Yang-Mills theory has a finite-temperature phase transition, separating the confined and deconfined bulk phases. Svetitsky and Yaffe conjectured that if this phase transition is of second order, it belongs to the universality class of transitions for particular scalar field theories in one lower dimension. We examine Yang-Mills theory with the symplectic gauge groups Sp(N). We find new evidence supporting the Svetitsky-Yaffe conjecture and make our own conjecture as to which gauge theories have a universal second order deconfinement phase transition.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figures; Contribution to Confinement 2003, Tokyo, Japan, July 21-24, 200

The impact of strain engineering on hole mobility of In(x)Ga(1-x)As channels for III-V pMOSFET

Whilst the high electron mobility of compound semiconductors makes them attractive for beyond 22 nm CMOS, a key challenge in implementing III-V materials is their modest hole mobility. Addressing this issue motivates an investigation of the impact of strain to optimize the hole transport properties of III-V MOSFET channel materials. In this work, the researchers describe the dependence of hole mobility on the bi-axial compressive strain of InxGa1-xAs layers with indium concentrations in the range 53%-85%. The vertical architecture of the material structure of this study resembles a III-V high mobility transistor where the dopant is spatially separated from the device channel. Mobility and channel carrier concentration were determined using Hall effect measurements. While the 53% In-content (0% strain) structures demonstrated modest mobilities of 60-70 cm2/Vs, the strained structures exhibited superior transport with the 85% In-content (2.1% strain) channel demonstrating mobilities of 427-433 cm2/Vs with sheet hole densities of 1.33e12 - 1.6e12 cm-2 depending on the doping level used. To their knowledge, the room temperature mobility of the 2.1% strained structures are the highest ever reported for an InxGa1-xAs channel

Use of IC information in Japanese financial firms

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to explore the perceptions of: how Japanese financial firms (JFF) acquire and use company intellectual capital (IC) information in their common routine equity investment decisions, how this activity contributes to knowledge creation in the JFFs, and how investee company knowledge creation is affected by the JFFs.<p></p> Design/methodology/approach – The research employed a multi-case design, using four JFF cases. The investigation was performed in terms of Nonaka and Toyama's “theory of the knowledge creating firm”.<p></p> Findings – IC information contributed to earnings estimates and company valuation. Emotional information contributed to JFF feelings and confidence in their information use and valuation. JFF knowledge was an important component of the key interacting and informed contexts used by JFFs. This generated opportunities to improve disclosure and accountability between JFFs and their investee companies. Common patterns of behaviour across the JFFs were counterbalanced by variety and differences noted in JFF behaviour.<p></p> Practical implications – The findings provide important insights into how JFF knowledge creating patterns could limit or progress a common language of communication between companies and markets on the subject of IC. This could impact on the quality of corporate disclosure and accountability processes.<p></p> Originality/value – The paper demonstrates that there is a need for further use of qualitative studies of financial market behavior. Especially in the area of understanding the communication of IC between firms and financial markets, the potential of using sociology of finance approaches appears to be considerable

Progress using generalized lattice Dirac operators to parametrize the Fixed-Point QCD action

We report on an ongoing project to parametrize the Fixed-Point Dirac operator for massless quarks, using a very general construction which has arbitrarily many fermion offsets and gauge paths, the complete Clifford algebra and satisfies all required symmetries. Optimizing a specific construction with hypercubic fermion offsets, we present some preliminary results.Comment: Lattice 2000 (Improvement), 9 pages, based on a talk by K.H. and a poster by T.J. References adde

The construction of generalized Dirac operators on the lattice

We discuss the steps to construct Dirac operators which have arbitrary fermion offsets, gauge paths, a general structure in Dirac space and satisfy the basic symmetries (gauge symmetry, hermiticity condition, charge conjugation, hypercubic rotations and reflections) on the lattice. We give an extensive set of examples and offer help to add further structures.Comment: 19 pages, latex, maple code attache

Complete Wetting of Gluons and Gluinos

Complete wetting is a universal phenomenon associated with interfaces separating coexisting phases. For example, in the pure gluon theory, at $T_c$ an interface separating two distinct high-temperature deconfined phases splits into two confined-deconfined interfaces with a complete wetting layer of confined phase between them. In supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory, distinct confined phases may coexist with a Coulomb phase at zero temperature. In that case, the Coulomb phase may completely wet a confined-confined interface. Finally, at the high-temperature phase transition of gluons and gluinos, confined-confined interfaces are completely wet by the deconfined phase, and similarly, deconfined-deconfined interfaces are completely wet by the confined phase. For these various cases, we determine the interface profiles and the corresponding complete wetting critical exponents. The exponents depend on the range of the interface interactions and agree with those of corresponding condensed matter systems.Comment: 15 pages, 5 figure