Simulation of Jet Quenching Observables in Heavy Ion Collisions at the LHC

Large transverse momentum jets provide unique tools to study dense QCD matter in high-energy heavy-ion collisions. Results from RHIC on suppression of high transverse momentum particles in Au+Au collisions indicate a significant energy loss of leading partons in the dense and strongly interacting matter formed in these collisions. The LHC will collide Pb ions at sqrt(s_NN)=5500 GeV, where the cross section of hard scattering will increase dramatically. Large production rates, the large acceptance of the CMS calorimeters and tracking system, combined with the capability of triggering on jets, will extend the transverse momentum reach of charged particle spectra and nuclear modification factors up to p_T>200 GeV/c.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. Presented at the 19th International Conference on Ultra-Relativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions (QM2006), Shanghai, China, November 14-20, 2006. [Grant numbers added in the acknowledgment.

Leverage and productivity growth in emerging economies: Is there a threshold effect?

While credit is essential for investment, innovation and economic growth, there are risks to unfettered credit booms. The present paper provides an innovative micro-economic approach to identify the threshold leverage beyond which corporate indebtedness becomes “excessive”. In particular, the paper hypothesizes a non-linear relationship in that moderate leverage could boost growth while very high leverage could restrict total factor productivity growth, through increased likelihood of financial distress and bankruptcy. Estimates of a threshold model for a group of emerging CEE countries confirm the non-linear relationship, after controlling for various firm, industry and financial market characteristics.Financial support from ESRC grant RES-062-23-0986 is gratefully acknowledge

Raman scattering near a d-wave Pomeranchuk instability

Motivated by recent transport and neutron scattering experiments suggesting an orientational symmetry breaking in underdoped cuprates we present a theoretical study of Raman scattering near a d-wave Pomeranchuk instability (PI). The d-wave component of Raman scattering from electrons and phonons allows to study directly order parameter fluctuations associated with the PI. Approaching the PI from the normal state by lowering the temperature a central peak emerges both in electronic and, as an additional low-frequency feature, in phononic scattering. Approaching the PI in the superconducting state at low temperature by decreasing the doping concentration the central peak is replaced by a soft mode with strongly decreasing width and energy and increasing spectral weight. These predicted low-energy features in Raman scattering could confirm in a rather direct way the presence of a PI in high-temperature cuprate superconductors and in Sr3Ru2O7.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figure

Ultrafast absorption kinetics of NADH in folded and unfolded conformations

The non-radiative energy transfer is shown to occur on a ~3ps time scale for NADH in the folded form in H2O. Addition of methanol thermodynamically favours the open form, for which energy transfer does not occur

The N=2N=2 super W4W_4 algebra and its associated generalized KdV hierarchies

We construct the $N=2$ super $W_4$ algebra as a certain reduction of the second Gel'fand-Dikii bracket on the dual of the Lie superalgebra of $N=1$ super pseudo-differential operators. The algebra is put in manifestly $N=2$ supersymmetric form in terms of three $N=2$ superfields $\Phi_i(X)$, with $\Phi_1$ being the $N=2$ energy momentum tensor and $\Phi_2$ and $\Phi_3$ being conformal spin $2$ and $3$ superfields respectively. A search for integrable hierarchies of the generalized KdV variety with this algebra as Hamiltonian structure gives three solutions, exactly the same number as for the $W_2$ (super KdV) and $W_3$ (super Boussinesq) cases.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX, UTAS-PHYS-92-3