Chiral symmetry breaking in the truncated Coulomb Gauge II. Non-confining power law potentials

In this paper we study the breaking of chiral symmetry with non-confining power-like potentials. The region of allowed exponents is identified and, after the previous study of confining (positive exponent) potentials, we now specialize in shorter range non-confining potentials, with a negative exponent. These non-confining potentials are close to the Coulomb potential, and they are also relevant as corrections to the linear confinement, and as models for the quark potential at the deconfinement transition. The mass-gap equation is constructed and solved, and the quarks mass, the chiral angle and the quark energy are calculated analytically with a exponent expansion in the neighbourhood of the Coulomb potential. It is demonstrated that chiral symmetry breaking occurs, but only the chiral invariant false vacuum and a second non-trivial vacuum exist. Moreover chiral symmetry breaking is led by the UV part of the potential, with no IR enhancement of the quark mass. Thus the breaking of chiral symmetry driven by non-confining potentials differs from the one lead by confining potentials.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

Heavy quark potential and quarkonia dissociation rates

Quenched lattice data for the quark-antiquark interaction (in terms of heavy quark free energies) in the color singlet channel at finite temperatures are fitted and used within the nonrelativistic Schroedinger equation formalism to obtain binding energies and scattering phase shifts for the lowest eigenstates in the charmonium and bottomonium systems in a hot gluon plasma. The partial dissociation rate due to the Bhanot-Peskin process is calculated using different assumptions for the gluon distribution function, including free massless gluons, massive gluons, and massive damped gluons. It is demonstrated that a temperature dependent gluon mass has an essential influence on the heavy quarkonia dissociation, but that this process alone is insufficient to describe the heavy quarkonia dissociation rates.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, contribution to the proceedings of the International Conference on Hard and Electromagnetic Probes of High Energy Nuclear Collisions, Ericeira, Portugal, Nov. 4-10, 200

PNJL model with a Van der Monde term

We extend the Polyakov-Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model for two degenerate flavours by including the effect of the SU(3) measure with a Van der Monde (VdM) term. This ensures that the Polyakov loop always remains in the domain [0,1]. The pressure, energy density, specific heat, speed of sound and conformal measure show small or negligible effects from this term. However various quark number and isospin susceptibilities are all found to approach their respective ideal gas limits around 2 $T_c$. We compare our methods with other similar approaches in PNJL model and also present a quantitative comparison with Lattice QCD data.Comment: 12 pages, 8 eps figures; extended discussion and reference added; accepted in Phys. Rev.

Sensitivity of Water Balance to Climate Change and Variability

The IIASA Water Resources Project addresses the development and application of methods and procedures needed to identify policy strategies for water resources planning and operation. Due to population growth, industrial and agricultural development, increased pollution and the impact of global climatic change, the reliability of water supply may substantially decrease in various parts of the world, causing serious social and economic problems. There is a need for studies on possible policy actions, aimed at the development of more resilient and more robust water systems, based on a sound understanding of geophysical processes which regulate the hydrological cycle in a changing environment. This paper concerns methodological tools for the sensitivity analysis of the water balance components to changing climatic forcings. It presents a new meso-scale hydrological model based on the stochastic storage theory, and its application to the sensitivity analysis and to water balance impact studies. The model allows to calculate runoff characteristics, evaporation and catchment storage on the basis of standard climatological data, and eventually on the basis of alternative climate scenarios. It was tested for a number of river catchments in Europe and Africa. The possible effects of the expected changes in air temperature and precipitation will give rise to various problems in many fields of water resource management. For this reason, the paper may be of interest not only to hydrologists, but also to decision makers in water industry

Signal of Backscattered Electrons From Multiple Marks in Dependence on Mark Profile

The backscattered electron signal can be detected using a solid state detector system. Because this signal is affected by the surface topography it is necessary to determine the optimal detection condition for a registration mark detection in the electron-beam lithography and for an automatic topographical surface reconstruction. The BSE signal from surface marks has been measured using semiconductor detectors with a small collection angle. Calculations of the BSE signal have been carried out by means of a simplified model of electron backscattering. The signal shape depends on some parameters of the mark profile, such as length, height and inclination angle of mark facets. However the effect of the detection angle on the BSE signal is more fundamental

Width of the QCD transition in a Polyakov-loop DSE model

We consider the pseudocritical temperatures for the chiral and deconfinement transitions within a Polyakov-loop Dyson-Schwinger equation approach which employs a nonlocal rank-2 separable model for the effective gluon propagator. These pseudocritical temperatures differ by a factor of two when the quark and gluon sectors are considered separately, but get synchronized and become coincident when their coupling is switched on. The coupling of the Polyakov-loop to the chiral quark dynamics narrows the temperature region of the QCD transition in which chiral symmetry and deconfinement is established. We investigate the effect of rescaling the parameter T_0 in the Polyakov-loop potential on the QCD transition for both the logarithmic and polynomial forms of the potential. While the critical temperatures vary in a similar way, the width of the transition is stronger affected for the logarithmic potential. For this potential the character of the transition changes from crossover to a first order one when T_0 < 210 MeV, but it remains crossover in the whole range of relevant T_0 values for the polynomial form.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, results for polynomial form of Polyakov-loop potential included, references added, final version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Strongly coupled plasma with electric and magnetic charges

A number of theoretical and lattice results lead us to believe that Quark-Gluon Plasma not too far from $T_c$ contains not only electrically charged quasiparticles -- quarks and gluons -- but magnetically charged ones -- monopoles and dyons -- as well. Although binary systems like charge-monopole and charge-dyon were considered in details before in both classical and quantum settings, it is the first study of coexisting electric and magnetic particles in many-body context. We perform Molecular Dynamics study of strongly coupled plasmas with $\sim 1000$ particles and different fraction of magnetic charges. Correlation functions and Kubo formulae lead to such transport properties as diffusion constant, shear viscosity and electric conductivity: we compare the first two with empirical data from RHIC experiments as well as results from AdS/CFT correspondence. We also study a number of collective excitations in these systems.Comment: 2nd version, 22 pages, 32 figures: two important new figures have been included to compare our results with RHIC experiments and AdS/CFT results; a few new references and comments are added as wel

Trace element chemistry and U-Pb dating of zircons from oceanic gabbros and their relationship with whole rock composition (Lanzo, Italian Alps)

The U-Pb ages and the trace element content of zircon U-Pb along with major and trace element whole rock data on gabbroic dikes from the Lanzo lherzolitic massif, N-Italy, have been determined to constrain crustal accretion in ocean-continent transition zones. Three Fe-Ti gabbros were dated from the central and the southern part of the massif providing middle Jurassic ages of 161±2, 158±2 and 163±1Ma, which argue for magmatic activity over few millions of years. Zircon crystals are characterized by high but variable Th/U ratios, rare earth element patterns enriched in heavy rare earths, pronounced positive Ce and negative Eu-anomalies consistent with crystallization after substantial plagioclase fractionation. The zircon trace element composition coupled with whole rock chemistry was used to reconstruct the crystallization history of the gabbros. A number of gabbros crystallized in situ, and zircon precipitated from trapped, intercumulus liquid, while other gabbros represent residual liquids that were extracted from a cumulus pile and crystallized along syn-magmatic shear zones. We propose a model in which the emplacement mechanism of gabbroic rocks in ocean-continent transition zones evolves from in situ crystallization to stratified crystallization with efficient extraction of residual liquid along syn-magmatic shear zones. Such an evolution of the crystallization history is probably related to the thermal evolution of the underlying mantle lithospher

Gauge invariant effective action for the Polyakov line in the SU(N) Yang--Mills theory at high temperatures

We integrate out fast varying quantum fluctuations around static A_4 and A_i fields for the SU(N) gauge group. By assuming that the gluon fields are slowly varying but allowing for an arbitrary amplitude of A_4 we obtain two variants of the effective high-temperature theory for the Polyakov line. One is the effective action for the gauge-invariant eigenvalues of the Polyakov line, and it is explicitly Z(N) symmetric. The other is the effective action for the Polyakov line itself as an element of the SU(N). In this case the theory necessarily includes the spatial components A_i to ensure its gauge invariance under spatial gauge transformations. We derive the 1-loop effective action in the `electric' and `magnetic' sectors, summing up all powers of A_4.Comment: RevTex4, 2 figure