Strange mesons and kaon-to-pion transition form factors from holography

We present a calculation of the $K_{\ell 3}$ transition form factors using the AdS/QCD correspondence. We also solidify and extend our ability to calculate quantities in the flavor-broken versions of AdS/QCD. The normalization of the form factors is a crucial ingredient for extracting $|V_{us}|$ from data, and the results obtained here agree well with results from chiral perturbation theory and lattice gauge theory. The slopes and curvature of the form factors agree well with the data, and with what results are available from other methods of calculation.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

Compressed Genotyping

Significant volumes of knowledge have been accumulated in recent years linking subtle genetic variations to a wide variety of medical disorders from Cystic Fibrosis to mental retardation. Nevertheless, there are still great challenges in applying this knowledge routinely in the clinic, largely due to the relatively tedious and expensive process of DNA sequencing. Since the genetic polymorphisms that underlie these disorders are relatively rare in the human population, the presence or absence of a disease-linked polymorphism can be thought of as a sparse signal. Using methods and ideas from compressed sensing and group testing, we have developed a cost-effective genotyping protocol. In particular, we have adapted our scheme to a recently developed class of high throughput DNA sequencing technologies, and assembled a mathematical framework that has some important distinctions from 'traditional' compressed sensing ideas in order to address different biological and technical constraints.Comment: Submitted to IEEE Transaction on Information Theory - Special Issue on Molecular Biology and Neuroscienc

Deconstructing Superconductivity

We present a dimensionally deconstructed model of an s-wave holographic superconductor. The 2+1 dimensional model includes multiple charged Cooper pair fields and neutral exciton fields that have interactions governed by hidden local symmetries. We derive AdS/CFT-like relations for the current and charge density in the model, and we analyze properties of the Cooper pair condensates and the complex conductivity.Comment: 24 pages, 10 eps figures. v2: Sign conventions clarified, references adde

Graviton Propagators, Brane Bending and Bending of Light in Theories with Quasi-Localized Gravity

We derive the graviton propagator on the brane for theories with quasi-localized gravity. In these models the ordinary 4D graviton is replaced by a resonance in the spectrum of massive Kaluza-Klein modes, which can decay into the extra dimension. We find that the effects of the extra polarization in the massive graviton propagator is exactly cancelled by the bending of the brane due to the matter sources, up to small corrections proportional to the width of the resonance. Thus at intermediate scales the classic predictions of Einstein's gravity are reproduced in these models to arbitrary precision.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, requires JHEP.cl

Holographic Electroweak Symmetry Breaking from D-branes

We observe several interesting phenomena in a technicolor-like model of electroweak symmetry breaking based on the D4-D8-D8bar system of Sakai and Sugimoto. The benefit of holographic models based on D-brane configurations is that both sides of the holographic duality are well understood. We find that the lightest technicolor resonances contribute negatively to the Peskin-Takeuchi S-parameter, but heavy resonances do not decouple and lead generically to large, positive values of S, consistent with standard estimates in QCD-like theories. We study how the S parameter and the masses and decay constants of the vector and axial-vector techni-resonances vary over a one-parameter family of D8-brane configurations. We discuss possibilities for the consistent truncation of the theory to the first few resonances and suggest some generic predictions of stringy holographic technicolor models.Comment: REVTeX, 25 pages, 8 eps figures, version published in PR

How Well Does AdS/QCD Describe QCD?

AdS/QCD is an extra-dimensional approach to modeling hadronic physics, motivated by the AdS/CFT correspondence in string theory. AdS/QCD models are often more accurate than would have been expected at energies below a few GeV. We address the question of why these models are so successful, and respond to some of the criticisms that have been waged against these models.Comment: To appear in proceedings of Crossing the Boundaries: Gauge Dynamics at Strong Coupling (Shifmania), Minnesota, May 14-17, 2009. 12 pages, 2 eps figure