573 research outputs found
Measurements and Information in Spin Foam Models
We present a problem relating measurements and information theory in spin
foam models. In the three dimensional case of quantum gravity we can compute
probabilities of spin network graphs and study the behaviour of the Shannon
entropy associated to the corresponding information. We present a general
definition, compute the Shannon entropy of some examples, and find some
interesting inequalities.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures. Improved versio
Supernova search at intermediate z. I. Spectroscopic analysis
We study 8 supernovae discovered as part of the International Time Programme
(ITP) project ``Omega and Lambda from Supernovae and the Physics of Supernova
Explosions'' at the European Northern Observatory (ENO). The goal of the
project is to increase the sample of intermediate redshift (0.1<z<0.4) SNe Ia
for testing properties of SNe Ia along z and for enlarging the sample in the
Hubble diagram up to large z.Comment: 2 pages, 2 figures, 1 table, to appear in ``1604-2004: Supernovae as
Cosmological Lighthouses'', (extended text upon request
What makes a galaxy radio-loud?
We compare the Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) of radio-loud and
radio-quiet AGNs in three different samples observed with SDSS: radio-loud AGNs
(RLAGNs), Low Luminosity AGNs (LLAGNs) and AGNs in isolated galaxies (IG-AGNs).
All these galaxies have similar optical spectral characteristics. The median
SED of the RLAGNs is consistent with the characteristic SED of quasars, while
that of the LLAGNs and IG-AGNs are consistent with the SED of LINERs, with a
lower luminosity in the IG-AGNs than in the LLAGNs. We infer the masses of the
black holes (BHs) from the bulge masses. These increase from the IG-AGNs to the
LLAGNs and are highest for the RLAGNs. All these AGNs show accretion rates near
or slightly below 10% of the Eddington limit, the differences in luminosity
being solely due to different BH masses. Our results suggests there are two
types of AGNs, radio quiet and radio loud, differing only by the mass of their
bulges or BHs.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures; to appear in Proceedings of IAU Symposium No.
284, The Spectral Energy Distribution of Galaxies (SED2011), Preston, UK, 5-9
sep. 201
The Hilbert space of Chern-Simons theory on the cylinder. A Loop Quantum Gravity approach
As a laboratory for loop quantum gravity, we consider the canonical
quantization of the three-dimensional Chern-Simons theory on a noncompact space
with the topology of a cylinder. Working within the loop quantization
formalism, we define at the quantum level the constraints appearing in the
canonical approach and completely solve them, thus constructing a gauge and
diffeomorphism invariant physical Hilbert space for the theory. This space
turns out to be infinite dimensional, but separable.Comment: Minor changes and some references added. Latex, 16 pages, 1 figur
Hidden Quantum Gravity in 3d Feynman diagrams
In this work we show that 3d Feynman amplitudes of standard QFT in flat and
homogeneous space can be naturally expressed as expectation values of a
specific topological spin foam model. The main interest of the paper is to set
up a framework which gives a background independent perspective on usual field
theories and can also be applied in higher dimensions. We also show that this
Feynman graph spin foam model, which encodes the geometry of flat space-time,
can be purely expressed in terms of algebraic data associated with the Poincare
group. This spin foam model turns out to be the spin foam quantization of a BF
theory based on the Poincare group, and as such is related to a quantization of
3d gravity in the limit where the Newton constant G_N goes to 0. We investigate
the 4d case in a companion paper where the strategy proposed here leads to
similar results.Comment: 35 pages, 4 figures, some comments adde
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