Minimum Bias and Early QCD at ATLAS

The early minimum bias and the QCD results from the ATLAS experiment in the LHC are presented.Comment: 6 pages,8 figures, proceedings for Hadron Collider Physics Symposium, 201

Wormholes in spacetime with torsion

Analytical wormhole solutions in $U_4$ theory are presented. It is discussed whether the extremely short range repulsive forces, related to the spin angular momentum of matter, could be the ``carrier'' of the exoticity that threads the wormhole throat.Comment: 10 pages revte

Stable two--brane models with bulk tachyon matter

We explore the possibility of constructing stable, warped two--brane models which solve the hierarchy problem, with a bulk non--canonical scalar field (tachyon matter) as the source term in the action. Among our examples are two models--one with a warp factor (denoted as $e^{-2f(\sigma)}$) which differs from that of the standard Randall--Sundrum by the addition of a quadratic piece in the $f(\sigma)$ and another, where the warping is super-exponential. We investigate the issue of resolution of hierarchy and perform a stability analysis by obtaining the effective inter-brane potentials, in each case. Our analysis reveals that there does exist stable values of the modulus consistent with hierarchy resolution in both the models. Thus, these models, in which the bulk scalar field generates the geometry and also ensures stability, provide viable alternatives to the standard Randall--Sundrum two-brane scenario.Comment: Final version published in Int. Jr. Mod. Phys

Three-dimensional microstructuring of yttrium aluminum garnet crystals for laser active optofluidic applications

The following article appeared in Applied Physics Letters 103.4 (2013): 041101 and may be found at http://scitation.aip.org/content/aip/journal/apl/103/4/10.1063/1.4816338We demonstrate three-dimensional microstructuring in a neodymium doped yttrium aluminum garnet (Nd:YAG) crystal. Spatially well-defined hollow microstructures deeply embedded within the material are shown to result from the creation of a pre-damage state within the Nd:YAG crystal network that is validated using luminescence and Raman analyses of the structures. This opens up the potential of fabricating next-generation optofluidic devices in optical gain materialsFinancial support from the Spanish Ministerio de Educación under the Programa de Movilidad de Recursos Humanos del Plan Nacional de IþDþi 2008/2011 for abroad postdoctoral researchers. This work was also supported by the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid and Comunidad Autónoma de Madrid (Project S2009/MAT- 1756) and by the Spanish Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia (MAT2010-16161

Agricultural diversification in India and role of urbanization

Indian agriculture is diversifying during the last two decades towards High-Value Commodities (HVCs) i.e., fruits, vegetables, milk, meat, and fish products. The pace has been accelerated during the decade of 1990s. HVCs account for a large share in the total value of agricultural production. Supply and demand side factors coupled with infrastructural development and innovative institutions drive these changes. In this paper, the focus is on diversification towards HVCs in the context of urbanization. Group of urban districts (districts with >1.5 million urban population) have a higher share of HVCs compared to the urban-surrounded (near urban districts) and other districts (districts in the hinterland). Among the HVCs, vegetables and meat products have a higher share in urban districts compared to the other two groups. Milk production is more widespread due to excellent network of co-operatives and infrastructure facilities. Using GIS (geographic Information System) approach it was found that urban-surrounded districts with better road network connection to urban centers have been able to diversify towards HVC's to meet the demand in the urban centers. Model results further confirm these findings. Thus, urbanization is a strong demand side driver promoting HVCs. Since urban population is growing at more than 3% per annum, demand for HVCs will drive their production. The analysis has also brought out regional variations in HVCs across different districts in the country that has implications on regional development and planning, and consequently on public and private sector investment strategies.

Spinning Test Particle in Kalb-Ramond background

In this work we explore the geodesic deviations of spinning test particles in a string inspired Einstein-Kalb Ramond background. Such a background is known to be equivalent to a spacetime geometry with torsion. We have shown here that the antisymmetric Kalb-Ramond field has significant effect on the geodesic deviation of a spinning test particle. A search for an observational evidence of such an effect in astrophysical experiments may lead to a better undestanding of the geometry of the background spacetime.Comment: 14 pages, Latex, 5 figure

Video Synopsis Generation Using Spatio-Temporal Groups

Millions of surveillance cameras operate at 24x7 generating huge amount of visual data for processing. However, retrieval of important activities from such a large data can be time consuming. Thus, researchers are working on finding solutions to present hours of visual data in a compressed, but meaningful way. Video synopsis is one of the ways to represent activities using relatively shorter duration clips. So far, two main approaches have been used by researchers to address this problem, namely synopsis by tracking moving objects and synopsis by clustering moving objects. Synopses outputs, mainly depend on tracking, segmenting, and shifting of moving objects temporally as well as spatially. In many situations, tracking fails, thus produces multiple trajectories of the same object. Due to this, the object may appear and disappear multiple times within the same synopsis output, which is misleading. This also leads to discontinuity and often can be confusing to the viewer of the synopsis. In this paper, we present a new approach for generating compressed video synopsis by grouping tracklets of moving objects. Grouping helps to generate a synopsis where chronologically related objects appear together with meaningful spatio-temporal relation. Our proposed method produces continuous, but a less confusing synopses when tested on publicly available dataset videos as well as in-house dataset videos

On the Origin of Metallicity and Stability of the Metastable Phase in Chemically Exfoliated MoS2_2

Chemical exfoliation of MoS$_2$ via Li-intercalation route has led to many desirable properties and spectacular applications due to the presence of a metastable state in addition to the stable H phase. However, the nature of the specific metastable phase formed, and its basic charge conduction properties have remained controversial. Using spatially resolved Raman spectroscopy (~1 micrometer resolution) and photoelectron spectroscopy (~120 nm resolution), we probe such chemically exfoliated MoS$_2$ samples in comparison to a mechanically exfoliated H phase sample and confirm that the dominant metastable state formed by this approach is a distorted T' state with a small semiconducting gap. Investigating two such samples with different extents of Li residues present, we establish that Li+ ions, not only help to exfoliate MoS$_2$ into few layer samples, but also contribute to enhancing the relative stability of the metastable state as well as dope the system with electrons, giving rise to a lightly doped small bandgap system with the T' structure, responsible for its spectacular properties.Comment: 34 pages, Main manuscript + Supplementary Materia