146 research outputs found
Infinite Kinematic Self-Similarity and Perfect Fluid Spacetimes
Perfect fluid spacetimes admitting a kinematic self-similarity of infinite
type are investigated. In the case of plane, spherically or hyperbolically
symmetric space-times the field equations reduce to a system of autonomous
ordinary differential equations. The qualitative properties of solutions of
this system of equations, and in particular their asymptotic behavior, are
studied. Special cases, including some of the invariant sets and the geodesic
case, are examined in detail and the exact solutions are provided. The class of
solutions exhibiting physical self-similarity are found to play an important
role in describing the asymptotic behavior of the infinite kinematic
self-similar models.Comment: 38 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in General Relativity &
Gravitatio
Are There Quantum Effects Coming from Outside Space-time? Nonlocality, free will and "no many-worlds"
Observing the violation of Bell's inequality tells us something about all
possible future theories: they must all predict nonlocal correlations. Hence
Nature is nonlocal. After an elementary introduction to nonlocality and a brief
review of some recent experiments, I argue that Nature's nonlocality together
with the existence of free will is incompatible with the many-worlds view of
quantum physics.Comment: Talk presented at the meeting "Is Science Compatible with Our Desire
for Freedom?" organised by the Social Trends Institute at the IESE Business
School in Barcelona, Octobre 201
"Dark energy" in the Local Void
The unexpected discovery of the accelerated cosmic expansion in 1998 has
filled the Universe with the embarrassing presence of an unidentified "dark
energy", or cosmological constant, devoid of any physical meaning. While this
standard cosmology seems to work well at the global level, improved knowledge
of the kinematics and other properties of our extragalactic neighborhood
indicates the need for a better theory. We investigate whether the recently
suggested repulsive-gravity scenario can account for some of the features that
are unexplained by the standard model. Through simple dynamical considerations,
we find that the Local Void could host an amount of antimatter
() roughly equivalent to the mass of a typical
supercluster, thus restoring the matter-antimatter symmetry. The antigravity
field produced by this "dark repulsor" can explain the anomalous motion of the
Local Sheet away from the Local Void, as well as several other properties of
nearby galaxies that seem to require void evacuation and structure formation
much faster than expected from the standard model. At the global cosmological
level, gravitational repulsion from antimatter hidden in voids can provide more
than enough potential energy to drive both the cosmic expansion and its
acceleration, with no need for an initial "explosion" and dark energy.
Moreover, the discrete distribution of these dark repulsors, in contrast to the
uniformly permeating dark energy, can also explain dark flows and other
recently observed excessive inhomogeneities and anisotropies of the Universe.Comment: 6 pages, accepted as a Letter to the Editor by Astrophysics and Space
Scienc
How spiking neurons give rise to a temporal-feature map
A temporal-feature map is a topographic neuronal representation of temporal attributes of phenomena or objects that occur in the outside world. We explain the evolution of such maps by means of a spike-based Hebbian learning rule in conjunction with a presynaptically unspecific contribution in that, if a synapse changes, then all other synapses connected to the same axon change by a small fraction as well. The learning equation is solved for the case of an array of Poisson neurons. We discuss the evolution of a temporal-feature map and the synchronization of the single cellsâ synaptic structures, in dependence upon the strength of presynaptic unspecific learning. We also give an upper bound for the magnitude of the presynaptic interaction by estimating its impact on the noise level of synaptic growth. Finally, we compare the results with those obtained from a learning equation for nonlinear neurons and show that synaptic structure formation may profit
from the nonlinearity
Spin-gravity coupling and gravity-induced quantum phases
External gravitational fields induce phase factors in the wave functions of
particles. The phases are exact to first order in the background gravitational
field, are manifestly covariant and gauge invariant and provide a useful tool
for the study of spin-gravity coupling and of the optics of particles in
gravitational or inertial fields. We discuss the role that spin-gravity
coupling plays in particular problems.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figur
Is Quantum Mechanics Incompatible with Newton's First Law
Quantum mechanics (QM) clearly violates Newton's First Law of Motion (NFLM)
in the quantum domain for one of the simplest problems, yielding an effect in a
force-free region much like the Aharonov-Bohm effect. In addition, there is an
incompatibility between the predictions of QM in the classical limit, and that
of classical mechanics (CM) with respect to NFLM. A general argument is made
that such a disparity may be found commonly for a wide variety of quantum
predictions in the classical limit. Alternatives to the Schrodinger equation
are considered that might avoid this problem. The meaning of the classical
limit is examined. Critical views regarding QM by Schrodinger, Bohm, Bell,
Clauser, and others are presented to provide a more complete perspective.Comment: Paper has been revised to conform to published versio
Time-Dependent Models for a decade of SN 1993J
A classical and a relativistic law of motion for a supernova remnant (SNR)
are deduced assuming an inverse power law behavior for the density of the
interstellar medium and applying the thin layer approximation. A third equation
of motion is found in the framework of relativistic hydrodynamics with
pressure, applying momentum conservation. These new formulas are calibrated
against a decade of observations of \snr. The existing knowledge of the
diffusive processes of ultrarelativistic electrons is reviewed in order to
explain the behavior of the `U' shaped profile of intensity versus distance
from the center of SN 1993J.Comment: 20 pages 19 figures, Accepted for pubblication in Astrophysics and
Space Science 201
The Similarity Hypothesis in General Relativity
Self-similar models are important in general relativity and other fundamental
theories. In this paper we shall discuss the ``similarity hypothesis'', which
asserts that under a variety of physical circumstances solutions of these
theories will naturally evolve to a self-similar form. We will find there is
good evidence for this in the context of both spatially homogenous and
inhomogeneous cosmological models, although in some cases the self-similar
model is only an intermediate attractor. There are also a wide variety of
situations, including critical pheneomena, in which spherically symmetric
models tend towards self-similarity. However, this does not happen in all cases
and it is it is important to understand the prerequisites for the conjecture.Comment: to be submitted to Gen. Rel. Gra
Relativistic Laser-Matter Interaction and Relativistic Laboratory Astrophysics
The paper is devoted to the prospects of using the laser radiation
interaction with plasmas in the laboratory relativistic astrophysics context.
We discuss the dimensionless parameters characterizing the processes in the
laser and astrophysical plasmas and emphasize a similarity between the laser
and astrophysical plasmas in the ultrarelativistic energy limit. In particular,
we address basic mechanisms of the charged particle acceleration, the
collisionless shock wave and magnetic reconnection and vortex dynamics
properties relevant to the problem of ultrarelativistic particle acceleration.Comment: 58 pages, 19 figure
Measurement of the View the tt production cross-section using eÎŒ events with b-tagged jets in pp collisions at âs = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector
This paper describes a measurement of the inclusive top quark pair production cross-section (ÏttÂŻ) with a data sample of 3.2 fbâ1 of protonâproton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of âs = 13 TeV, collected in 2015 by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. This measurement uses events with an opposite-charge electronâmuon pair in the final state. Jets containing b-quarks are tagged using an algorithm based on track impact parameters and reconstructed secondary vertices. The numbers of events with exactly one and exactly two b-tagged jets are counted and used to determine simultaneously ÏttÂŻ and the efficiency to reconstruct and b-tag a jet from a top quark decay, thereby minimising the associated systematic uncertainties. The cross-section is measured to be:
ÏttÂŻ = 818 ± 8 (stat) ± 27 (syst) ± 19 (lumi) ± 12 (beam) pb,
where the four uncertainties arise from data statistics, experimental and theoretical systematic effects, the integrated luminosity and the LHC beam energy, giving a total relative uncertainty of 4.4%. The result is consistent with theoretical QCD calculations at next-to-next-to-leading order. A fiducial measurement corresponding to the experimental acceptance of the leptons is also presented
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