288 research outputs found
Black Hole Monodromy and Conformal Field Theory
The analytic structure of solutions to the Klein-Gordon equation in a black
hole background, as represented by monodromy data, is intimately related to
black hole thermodynamics. It encodes the "hidden conformal symmetry" of a
non-extremal black hole, and it explains why features of the inner event
horizon appear in scattering data such as greybody factors. This indicates that
hidden conformal symmetry is generic within a universality class of black
holes.Comment: 20 pages, v2 minor corrections, updated reference
A Quantum Adiabatic Evolution Algorithm Applied to Random Instances of an NP-Complete Problem
A quantum system will stay near its instantaneous ground state if the
Hamiltonian that governs its evolution varies slowly enough. This quantum
adiabatic behavior is the basis of a new class of algorithms for quantum
computing. We test one such algorithm by applying it to randomly generated,
hard, instances of an NP-complete problem. For the small examples that we can
simulate, the quantum adiabatic algorithm works well, and provides evidence
that quantum computers (if large ones can be built) may be able to outperform
ordinary computers on hard sets of instances of NP-complete problems.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures, email correspondence to [email protected] ; a
shorter version of this article appeared in the April 20, 2001 issue of
Science; see http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/292/5516/47
Attracting domains of maps tangent to the identity whose only characteristic direction is non-degenerate
We prove that a holomorphic fixed point germ in two complex variables,
tangent to the identity, and whose only characteristic direction is
non-degenerate, has a domain of attraction on which the map is conjugate to a
translation. In the case of a global automorphism, the corresponding domain of
attraction is a Fatou-Bieberbach domain
Collective Field Description of Matrix Cosmologies
We study the Das-Jevicki collective field description of arbitrary classical
solutions in the c=1 matrix model, which are believed to describe nontrivial
spacetime backgrounds in 2d string theory. Our analysis naturally includes the
case of a Fermi droplet cosmology: a finite size droplet of Fermi fluid, made
up of a finite number of eigenvalues. We analyze properties of the coordinates
in which the metric in the collective field theory is trivial, and comment on
the form of the interaction terms in these coordinates.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure. v2: Typos corrected, JHEP styl
Black Hole Scattering from Monodromy
We study scattering coefficients in black hole spacetimes using analytic
properties of complexified wave equations. For a concrete example, we analyze
the singularities of the Teukolsky equation and relate the corresponding
monodromies to scattering data. These techniques, valid in full generality,
provide insights into complex-analytic properties of greybody factors and
quasinormal modes. This leads to new perturbative and numerical methods which
are in good agreement with previous results.Comment: 28 pages + appendices, 2 figures. For Mathematica calculation of
Stokes multipliers, download "StokesNotebook" from
https://sites.google.com/site/justblackholes/techy-zon
Children’s trait and emotion attributions in socially ambiguous and unambiguous situations.
Children's attributions about story characters in ambiguous and unambiguous social situations were assessed. One hundred and forty-four 6–7-year-olds and 10–11-year-olds heard about actors who slighted a recipient intentionally or for an undetermined reason and then made causal attributions about the events, an emotion attribution about the recipient, and global personality attributions about the actors and recipient. Relations between perceived self-competence and attribution style were also assessed. Participants were more likely to make negative causal attributions in the unambiguous condition and with increasing age. Older girls and younger boys were more likely than other groups to attribute negative emotions to the recipient. Overall, participants perceived recipients positively and actors negatively. Perceived self-competence was positively correlated with actor attributions, although these differed by age and gender. Implications for children's psychosocial adjustment are discussed
Explaining Earths Energy Budget: CERES-Based NASA Resources for K-12 Education and Public Outreach
Among atmospheric scientists, the importance of the Earth radiation budget concept is well understood. Papers have addressed the topic for over 100 years, and the large Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System (CERES) science team (among others), with its multiple on-orbit instruments, is working hard to quantify the details of its various parts. In education, Earth's energy budget is a concept that generally appears in middle school and Earth science curricula, but its treatment in textbooks leaves much to be desired. Students and the public hold many misconceptions, and very few people have an appreciation for the importance of this energy balance to the conditions on Earth. More importantly, few have a correct mental model that allows them to make predictions and understand the effect of changes such as increasing greenhouse gas concentrations. As an outreach element of the core CERES team at NASA Langley, a multi-disciplinary group of scientists, educators, graphic artists, writers, and web developers has been developing and refining graphics and resources to explain the Earth's Energy budget over the last few decades. Resources have developed through an iterative process involving ongoing use in front of a variety of audiences, including students and teachers from 3rd to 12th grade as well as public audiences
Mouse Regenerating Myofibers Detected as False-Positive Donor Myofibers with Anti-Human Spectrin
Stem cell transplantation is being tested as a potential therapy for a number of diseases. Stem cells isolated directly from tissue specimens or generated via reprogramming of differentiated cells require rigorous testing for both safety and efficacy in preclinical models. The availability of mice with immune-deficient background that carry additional mutations in specific genes facilitates testing the efficacy of cell transplantation in disease models. The muscular dystrophies are a heterogeneous group of disorders, of which Duchenne muscular dystrophy is the most severe and common type. Cell-based therapy for muscular dystrophy has been under investigation for several decades, with a wide selection of cell types being studied, including tissue-specific stem cells and reprogrammed stem cells. Several immune-deficient mouse models of muscular dystrophy have been generated, in which human cells obtained from various sources are injected to assess their preclinical potential. After transplantation, the presence of engrafted human cells is detected via immunofluorescence staining, using antibodies that recognize human, but not mouse, proteins. Here we show that one antibody specific to human spectrin, which is commonly used to evaluate the efficacy of transplanted human cells in mouse muscle, detects myofibers in muscles of NOD/Rag1nullmdx5cv, NOD/LtSz-scid IL2Rγnull mice, or mdx nude mice, irrespective of whether they were injected with human cells. These “reactive” clusters are regenerating myofibers, which are normally present in dystrophic tissue and the spectrin antibody is likely recognizing utrophin, which contains spectrin-like repeats. Therefore, caution should be used in interpreting data based on detection of single human-specific proteins, and evaluation of human stem cell engraftment should be performed using multiple human-specific labeling strategies
Electrified Fuzzy Spheres and Funnels in Curved Backgrounds
We use the non-Abelian DBI action to study the dynamics of coincident
-branes in an arbitrary curved background, with the presence of a
homogenous world-volume electric field. The solutions are natural extensions of
those without electric fields, and imply that the spheres will collapse toward
zero size. We then go on to consider the intersection in a curved
background and find various dualities and automorphisms of the general
equations of motion. It is possible to map the dynamical equation of motion to
the static one via Wick rotation, however the additional spatial dependence of
the metric prevents this mapping from being invertible. Instead we find that a
double Wick rotation leaves the static equation invariant. This is very
different from the behaviour in Minkowski space. We go on to construct the most
general static fuzzy funnel solutions for an arbitrary metric either by solving
the static equations of motion, or by finding configurations which minimise the
energy. As a consistency check we construct the Abelian -brane world-volume
theory in the same generic background and find solutions consistent with energy
minimisation. In the 5-brane background we find time dependent solutions to
the equations of motion, representing a time dependent fuzzy funnel. These
solutions match those obtained from the -string picture to leading order
suggesting that the action in the large limit does not need corrections. We
conclude by generalising our solutions to higher dimensional fuzzy funnels.Comment: 38 pages, Latex; references adde
D-Brane Propagation in Two-Dimensional Black Hole Geometries
We study propagation of D0-brane in two-dimensional Lorentzian black hole
backgrounds by the method of boundary conformal field theory of SL(2,R)/U(1)
supercoset at level k. Typically, such backgrounds arise as near-horizon
geometries of k coincident non-extremal NS5-branes, where 1/k measures
curvature of the backgrounds in string unit and hence size of string worldsheet
effects. At classical level, string worldsheet effects are suppressed and
D0-brane propagation in the Lorentzian black hole geometry is simply given by
the Wick rotation of D1-brane contour in the Euclidean black hole geometry.
Taking account of string worldsheet effects, boundary state of the Lorentzian
D0-brane is formally constructible via Wick rotation from that of the Euclidean
D1-brane. However, the construction is subject to ambiguities in boundary
conditions. We propose exact boundary states describing the D0-brane, and
clarify physical interpretations of various boundary states constructed from
different boundary conditions. As it falls into the black hole, the D0-brane
radiates off to the horizon and to the infinity. From the boundary states
constructed, we compute physical observables of such radiative process. We find
that part of the radiation to infinity is in effective thermal distribution at
the Hawking temperature. We also find that part of the radiation to horizon is
in the Hagedorn distribution, dominated by massive, highly non-relativistic
closed string states, much like the tachyon matter. Remarkably, such
distribution emerges only after string worldsheet effects are taken exactly
into account. From these results, we observe that nature of the radiation
distribution changes dramatically across the conifold geometry k=1 (k=3 for the
bosonic case), exposing the `string - black hole transition' therein.Comment: 51 pages, 5 figures, v2: referece added, note added replying the
comment made in hep-th/060206
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