Generalized Dirichlet Branes and Zero-modes

We investigate the effective dynamics of an arbitrary Dirichlet p-brane, in a path-integral formalism, by incorporating the massless excitations of closed string modes in open bosonic string theory. It is shown that the closed string background fields in the bosonic sector of type II theories induce invariant extrinsic curvature on the world-volume. In addition, the curvature can be seen to be associated with a divergence at the boundary of string world-sheet. The re-normalization of the collective coordinates, next to leading order in its derivative expansion, is performed to handle the divergence and the effective dynamics is encoded in Dirac-Born-Infeld action. Furthermore, the collective dynamics is generalized to include appropriate fermionic partners in type I super-string theory. The role of string modes is reviewed in terms of the collective coordinates and the gauge theory on the world-volume is argued to be non-local in presence of the U(1) invariant field strength.Comment: LaTex, 20 pages, v2: minor changes and added references v3:typos corrected, some statements are clarified in the context of zero-mode

The Generalised Raychaudhuri Equations : Examples

Specific examples of the generalized Raychaudhuri Equations for the evolution of deformations along families of $D$ dimensional surfaces embedded in a background $N$ dimensional spacetime are discussed. These include string worldsheets embedded in four dimensional spacetimes and two dimensional timelike hypersurfaces in a three dimensional curved background. The issue of focussing of families of surfaces is introduced and analysed in some detail.Comment: 8 pages (Revtex, Twocolumn format). Corrected(see section on string worldsheets), reorganised and shortened slightl

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

Hardy's nonlocality for generalized n-particle GHZ states

In this paper we extend Hardy's nonlocality proof for two spin-1/2 particles [PRL 71 (1993) 1665] to the case of n spin-1/2 particles configured in the generalized GHZ state. We show that, for all n \geq 3, any entangled GHZ state violates the Bell inequality associated with the Hardy experiment. This feature is important since it has been shown [PRL 88 (2002) 210402] that, for all n odd, there are entangled GHZ states that do not violate any standard n-particle correlation Bell inequality.Comment: LaTeX file, 8 pages, 2 eps figures; journal versio

Smooth double barriers in quantum mechanics

Quantum mechanical tunneling across smooth double barrier potentials modeled using Gaussian functions, is analyzed numerically and by using the WKB approximation. The transmission probability, resonances as a function of incident particle energy, and their dependence on the barrier parameters are obtained for various cases. We also discuss the tunneling time, for which we obtain generalizations of the known results for rectangular barriers.Comment: 23 pages, 8 figures, a slightly reduced version to appear in American Journal of Physics, references correcte

Bulk phantom fields, increasing warp factors and fermion localisation

A bulk phantom scalar field (with negative kinetic energy) in a sine--Gordon type potential is used to generate an exact thick brane solution with an increasing warp factor. It is shown that the growing nature of the warp factor allows the localisation of massive as well as massless spin-half fermions on the brane even without any additional non--gravitational interactions. The exact solutions for the localised massive fermionic modes are presented and discussed. The inclusion of a fermion--scalar Yukawa coupling appears to change the mass spectrum and wave functions of the localised fermion though it does not play the crucial role it did in the case of a decreasing warp factor.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures, RevTex

Static and dynamic traversable wormhole geometries satisfying the Ford-Roman constraints

It was shown by Ford and Roman in 1996 that quantum field theory severely constrains wormhole geometries on a macroscopic scale. The first part of this paper discusses a wide class of wormhole solutions that meet these constraints. The type of shape function used is essentially generic. The constraints are then discussed in conjunction with various redshift functions. Violations of the weak energy condition and traversability criteria are also considered. The second part of the paper analyzes analogous time-dependent (dynamic) wormholes with the aid of differential forms. It is shown that a violation of the weak energy condition is not likely to be avoidable even temporarily.Comment: 16 pages AMSTe