3,890 research outputs found
Topology Change in (2+1)-Dimensional Gravity
In (2+1)-dimensional general relativity, the path integral for a manifold
can be expressed in terms of a topological invariant, the Ray-Singer torsion of
a flat bundle over . For some manifolds, this makes an explicit computation
of transition amplitudes possible. In this paper, we evaluate the amplitude for
a simple topology-changing process. We show that certain amplitudes for spatial
topology change are nonvanishing---in fact, they can be infrared
divergent---but that they are infinitely suppressed relative to similar
topology-preserving amplitudes.Comment: 19 pages of text plus 4 pages of figures, LaTeX (using epsf),
UCD-11-9
Mean curvature flow in a Ricci flow background
Following work of Ecker, we consider a weighted Gibbons-Hawking-York
functional on a Riemannian manifold-with-boundary. We compute its variational
properties and its time derivative under Perelman's modified Ricci flow. The
answer has a boundary term which involves an extension of Hamilton's Harnack
expression for the mean curvature flow in Euclidean space. We also derive the
evolution equations for the second fundamental form and the mean curvature,
under a mean curvature flow in a Ricci flow background. In the case of a
gradient Ricci soliton background, we discuss mean curvature solitons and
Huisken monotonicity.Comment: final versio
- …