1,066 research outputs found
Quintessence and the Underlying Particle Physics Theory
At present we know nothing about the nature of the dark energy accounting for
about 70% of the energy density of the Universe. One possibility is that the
dark energy is provided by an extremely light field, the quintessence, rolling
down its potential. Even though the underlying particle theory responsible for
the present quintessential behaviour of our Universe is unknown, such a theory
is likely to have contact with supersymmetry, supergravity or (super)string
theory. In these theories, there are plenty of scalar fields (moduli) which are
gravitationally coupled to all the other degrees of freedom and have vacuum
expectation values of the order of the Planck scale. We point out that, in
theories which allow a consistent embedding of quintessence, the generic
gravitational interaction of the moduli fields with the quintessence field
gives rise to a contribution to the energy density from the moduli fields of
the order of the critical energy density of the universe today. Furthermore,
the interaction contribution can generically enhance the negativity of the
equation of state.Comment: 16 pages, 1 figure; expanded discussion of generality; version to be
published by PL
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Test plan for BWID Phase 2 electric arc melter vitrification tests
This test plan describes the Buried Waste Integrated Demonstration (BWID), Phase 2, electric arc melter, waste treatment evaluation tests to be performed at the US Bureau of Mines (USBM) Albany Research Center. The BWID Arc Melter Vitrification Project is being conducted to evaluate and demonstrate existing industrial arc melter technology for thermally treating mixed transuranic-contaminated wastes and soils. Phase 1 baseline tests, performed during fiscal year 1993 at the USBM, were conducted on waste feeds representing incinerated buried mixed wastes and soils. In Phase 2, surrogate feeds will be processed that represent actual as-retrieved buried wastes from the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory`s Subsurface Disposal Area at the Radioactive Waste Management Complex
Trapping of Projectiles in Fixed Scatterer Calculations
We study multiple scattering off nuclei in the closure approximation. Instead
of reducing the dynamics to one particle potential scattering, the scattering
amplitude for fixed target configurations is averaged over the target
groundstate density via stochastic integration. At low energies a strong
coupling limit is found which can not be obtained in a first order optical
potential approximation. As its physical explanation, we propose it to be
caused by trapping of the projectile. We analyse this phenomenon in mean field
and random potential approximations.
(PACS: 24.10.-i)Comment: 15 page
Charmless Two-body Baryonic B Decays
We study charmless two-body baryonic B decays in a diagramatic approach.
Relations on decay amplitudes are obtained. In general there are more than one
tree and more than one penguin amplitudes. The number of independent amplitudes
can be reduced in the large m_B limit. It leads to more predictive results.
Some prominent modes for experimental searches are pointed out.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures. To appear in Phys. Rev.
Oscillatory wave fronts in chains of coupled nonlinear oscillators
Wave front pinning and propagation in damped chains of coupled oscillators
are studied. There are two important thresholds for an applied constant stress
: for (dynamic Peierls stress), wave fronts fail to propagate,
for stable static and moving wave fronts coexist, and
for (static Peierls stress) there are only stable moving wave
fronts. For piecewise linear models, extending an exact method of Atkinson and
Cabrera's to chains with damped dynamics corroborates this description. For
smooth nonlinearities, an approximate analytical description is found by means
of the active point theory. Generically for small or zero damping, stable wave
front profiles are non-monotone and become wavy (oscillatory) in one of their
tails.Comment: 18 pages, 21 figures, 2 column revtex. To appear in Phys. Rev.
Nonlinear stability of oscillatory wave fronts in chains of coupled oscillators
We present a stability theory for kink propagation in chains of coupled
oscillators and a new algorithm for the numerical study of kink dynamics. The
numerical solutions are computed using an equivalent integral equation instead
of a system of differential equations. This avoids uncertainty about the impact
of artificial boundary conditions and discretization in time. Stability results
also follow from the integral version. Stable kinks have a monotone leading
edge and move with a velocity larger than a critical value which depends on the
damping strength.Comment: 11 figure
Dynamical Gauge Conditions for the Einstein Evolution Equations
The Einstein evolution equations have been written in a number of symmetric
hyperbolic forms when the gauge fields--the densitized lapse and the shift--are
taken to be fixed functions of the coordinates. Extended systems of evolution
equations are constructed here by adding the gauge degrees of freedom to the
set of dynamical fields, thus forming symmetric hyperbolic systems for the
combined evolution of the gravitational and the gauge fields. The associated
characteristic speeds can be made causal (i.e. less than or equal to the speed
of light) by adjusting 14 free parameters in these new systems. And 21
additional free parameters are available, for example to optimize the stability
of numerical evolutions. The gauge evolution equations in these systems are
generalizations of the ``K-driver'' and ``Gamma-driver'' conditions that have
been used with some success in numerical black hole evolutions.Comment: New appendix on constraint evolution adde
Coherence Time Effects on J/psi Production and Suppression in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions
Using a coherence time extracted from high precision proton-nucleus Drell-Yan
measurements and a nuclear absorption cross section extracted from pA
charmonium production experiments, we study J/psi production and absorption in
nucleus-nucleus collisions. We find that coherence time effects are large
enough to affect the measured J/psi-to-Drell-Yan ratio. The S+U data at 200A
GeV/c measured by NA38 are reproduced quantitatively without the introduction
of any new parameters. However, when compared with recent NA50 measurements for
Pb+Pb at 158A GeV/c, the data is not reproduced in trend or in magnitude.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure
What are communities of practice? A comparative review of four seminal works
This paper is a comparative review of four seminal works on communities of practice. It is argued that the ambiguities of the terms community and practice are a source of the concept's reusability allowing it to be reappropriated for different purposes, academic and practical. However, it is potentially confusing that the works differ so markedly in their conceptualizations of community, learning, power and change, diversity and informality. The three earlier works are underpinned by a common epistemological view, but Lave and Wenger's 1991 short monograph is often read as primarily about the socialization of newcomers into knowledge by a form of apprenticeship, while the focus in Brown and Duguid's article of the same year is, in contrast, on improvising new knowledge in an interstitial group that forms in resistance to management. Wenger's 1998 book treats communities of practice as the informal relations and understandings that develop in mutual engagement on an appropriated joint enterprise, but his focus is the impact on individual identity. The applicability of the concept to the heavily individualized and tightly managed work of the twenty-first century is questionable. The most recent work by Wenger – this time with McDermott and Snyder as coauthors – marks a distinct shift towards a managerialist stance. The proposition that managers should foster informal horizontal groups across organizational boundaries is in fact a fundamental redefinition of the concept. However it does identify a plausible, if limited, knowledge management (KM) tool. This paper discusses different interpretations of the idea of 'co-ordinating' communities of practice as a management ideology of empowerment
Reply to: comparative effectiveness medicines research cannot assess efficacy
We appreciate the insightful comments from Drs. Dal-Ré and Carcas in their letter to the editor regarding our paper “Publication of comparative effectiveness research (CER) has not increased in high-impact medical journals, 2004–2013
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