Dynamics of viscous dissipative gravitational collapse: A full causal approach

The Misner and Sharp approach to the study of gravitational collapse is extended to the viscous dissipative case in, both, the streaming out and the diffusion approximations. The dynamical equation is then coupled to causal transport equations for the heat flux, the shear and the bulk viscosity, in the context of Israel--Stewart theory, without excluding the thermodynamics viscous/heat coupling coefficients. The result is compared with previous works where these later coefficients were neglected and viscosity variables were not assumed to satisfy causal transport equations. Prospective applications of this result to some astrophysical scenarios are discussed.Comment: 22 pages Latex. To appear in Int. J. Mod. Phys. D. Typos correcte

Interacting Particles and Strings in Path and Surface Representations

Non-relativistic charged particles and strings coupled with abelian gauge fields are quantized in a geometric representation that generalizes the Loop Representation. We consider three models: the string in self-interaction through a Kalb-Ramond field in four dimensions, the topological interaction of two particles due to a BF term in 2+1 dimensions, and the string-particle interaction mediated by a BF term in 3+1 dimensions. In the first case one finds that a consistent "surface-representation" can be built provided that the coupling constant is quantized. The geometrical setting that arises corresponds to a generalized version of the Faraday's lines picture: quantum states are labeled by the shape of the string, from which emanate "Faraday`s surfaces". In the other models, the topological interaction can also be described by geometrical means. It is shown that the open-path (or open-surface) dependence carried by the wave functional in these models can be eliminated through an unitary transformation, except by a remaining dependence on the boundary of the path (or surface). These feature is closely related to the presence of anomalous statistics in the 2+1 model, and to a generalized "anyonic behavior" of the string in the other case.Comment: RevTeX 4, 28 page

Loop representation of charged particles interacting with Maxwell and Chern-Simons fields

The loop representation formulation of non-relativistic particles coupled with abelian gauge fields is studied. Both Maxwell and Chern-Simons interactions are separately considered. It is found that the loop-space formulations of these models share significant similarities, although in the Chern-Simons case there exists an unitary transformation that allows to remove the degrees of freedom associated with the paths. The existence of this transformation, which allows to make contact with the anyonic interpretation of the model, is subjected to the fact that the charge of the particles be quantized. On the other hand, in the Maxwell case, we find that charge quantization is necessary in order to the geometric representation be consistent.Comment: 6 pages, improved versio