Brane Dynamics From the Born-Infeld Action

We use the abelian Born-Infeld action for the worldvolume gauge field and transverse displacement scalars to explore new aspects of D-brane structure and dynamics. We study several classic gauge field configurations, including point charges in any worldvolume dimension and vortices in two worldvolume dimensions, and show that, with an appropriate excitation of the transverse coordinate field, they are BPS-saturated solutions. The Coulomb point charge solutions turn out to represent, with considerable fidelity, fundamental strings attached to the brane (their magnetic counterparts describe D1-branes attached to D3-branes). We also show that S-matrix for small excitations propagating on the point charge solution is consistent with (and gives further illuminating information about) Polchinski's effective open string boundary condition.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures. Minor typos fixe

Sustaining productivity of tropical red snappers using new monitoring and reference points

OBJECTIVES: 1. Analyse current monitoring and logbook data sets, as well as survey and other information,to establish whether these data provide sufficient power to develop critical indicators of fishery performance. 2. Provide a risk analysis that examines the use of age structure and catch rate information for development of critical indicators, and response rules for those criteria, in the absence of other fishery information. 3. Develop a monitoring program that uses commercial vessels from the fishery to provide independent data

AdS Taub-Nut Space and the O(N) Vector Model on a Squashed 3-Sphere

In this note, motivated by the Klebanov-Polyakov conjecture we investigate the strongly coupled O(N) vector model at large $N$ on a squashed three-sphere and its holographic relation to bulk gravity on asymptotically locally $AdS_4$ spaces. We present analytical results for the action of the field theory as the squashing parameter $\alpha\to-1$, when the boundary becomes effectively one dimensional. The dual bulk geometry is AdS-Taub-NUT space in the corresponding limit. In this limit we solve the theory exactly and show that the action of the strongly coupled boundary theory scales as $\ln(1+\alpha)/ (1+\alpha)^2$. This result is remarkably close to the $-1/(1+\alpha)^2$ scaling of the Einstein gravity action for AdS-Taub-NUT space. These results explain the numerical agreement presented in hep-th/0503238, and the soft logarithmic departure is interpreted as a prediction for the contribution due to higher spin fields in the bulk $AdS_4$ geometry.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures. References adde

Comparing the nutrition environment and practices of home- and centre-based child-care facilities

Objective To assess and compare the nutrition environment and practices (as they relate to pre-schoolers) of centre- and home-based child-care facilities. Design Using a cross-sectional study design, nineteen child-care facilities (ten centre-based, nine home-based) were assessed for one full day using the Environment and Policy Assessment and Observation (EPAO) tool (consisting of a day-long observation/review of the nutrition environment, practices and related documents). Specifically, eight nutrition-related subscales were considered. Setting Child-care facilities in London, Ontario, Canada. Subjects Child-care facilities were recruited through directors at centre-based programmes and the providers of home-based programmes. Results The mean total nutrition environment EPAO scores for centre- and home-based facilities were 12·3 (sd 1·94) and 10·8 (sd 0·78) out of 20 (where a higher score indicates a more supportive environment with regard to nutrition), respectively. The difference between the total nutrition environment EPAO score for centre- and home-based facilities was approaching significance (P=0·055). For both types of facilities, the highest nutrition subscale score (out of 20) was achieved in the staff behaviours domain (centre mean=17·4; home mean=17·0) and the lowest was in the nutrition training and education domain (centre mean=3·6; home mean=2·0). Conclusions Additional research is needed to confirm these findings. In order to better support child-care staff and enhance the overall nutrition environment in child care, modifications to food practices could be adopted. Specifically, the nutritional quality of foods/beverages provided to pre-schoolers could be improved, nutrition-related training for child-care staff could be provided, and a nutrition curriculum could be created to educate pre-schoolers about healthy food choices

Kappa-symmetric Derivative Corrections to D-brane Dynamics

We show how the superembedding formalism can be applied to construct manifestly kappa-symmetric higher derivative corrections for the D9-brane. We also show that all correction terms appear at even powers of the fundamental length scale $l$. We explicitly construct the first potential correction, which corresponds to the kappa-symmetric version of the $\partial^4 F^4$, which one finds from the four-point amplitude of the open superstring.Comment: 20 pages. Minor changes, added reference

The non-abelian D-brane effective action through order α′4\alpha'{}^4

Requiring the existence of certain BPS solutions to the equations of motion, we determine the bosonic part of the non-abelian D-brane effective action through order $\alpha'{}^4$. We also propose an economic organizational principle for the effective action.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, JHEP styl

Gravitational lensing by p-branes

The scattering of R-R gauge bosons off of Dirichlet p-branes is computed to leading order in the string coupling. The results are qualitatively similar to those found in the scattering of massless NS-NS bosons: all p-branes with p >= 0 exhibit stringy properties, in particular the Regge behavior. Both the R-R and NS-NS scattering amplitudes agree in the limit of small momentum transfer with scattering off the extremal R-R charged p-brane solutions found in the low-energy supergravities. We interpret this as evidence that Dirichlet-branes are an exact world-sheet description of the extremal p-branes. The -1-brane (D-instanton) is a special object which, unlike all other Dirichlet-branes, exhibits point-like behavior. We find the R-R charged instanton solution to type IIB supergravity and confirm that the field theoretic scattering off of this solution miraculously reproduces the full stringy calculation. As an aside, we include a discussion of the entropy of non-extremal black holes in ten dimensions, produced by exciting the 0-brane. We show that, for large black holes, the entropy grows linearly with the black hole mass.Comment: LaTeX, 18 pages, 1 figure, uses psfig.sty, available from http://xxx.lanl.gov/ftp/hep-th/papers/macros/psfig.sty Final version to appear in Nuclear Physics

Large angular momentum closed strings colliding with D-branes

We investigate colliding processes of closed strings with large angular momenta with D-branes. We give explicit CFT calculations for closed string states with an arbitrary number of bosonic excitations and no or one fermion excitation. The results reproduce the correspondence between closed string states and single trace operators in the boundary gauge theory recently suggested by Berenstein, Maldacena and Nastase.Comment: LaTeX, 18pages, explanation about the two conditions in section 2 added, some statements about closed string vertex operators correcte

Energy-momentum/Cotton tensor duality for AdS4 black holes

We consider the theory of gravitational quasi-normal modes for general linear perturbations of AdS4 black holes. Special emphasis is placed on the effective Schrodinger problems for axial and polar perturbations that realize supersymmetric partner potential barriers on the half-line. Using the holographic renormalization method, we compute the energy-momentum tensor for perturbations satisfying arbitrary boundary conditions at spatial infinity and discuss some aspects of the problem in the hydrodynamic representation. It is also observed in this general framework that the energy-momentum tensor of black hole perturbations and the energy momentum tensor of the gravitational Chern-Simons action (known as Cotton tensor) exhibit an axial-polar duality with respect to appropriately chosen supersymmetric partner boundary conditions on the effective Schrodinger wave-functions. This correspondence applies to perturbations of very large AdS4 black holes with shear viscosity to entropy density ratio equal to 1/4\pi, thus providing a dual graviton description of their hydrodynamic modes. We also entertain the idea that the purely dissipative modes of black hole hydrodynamics may admit Ricci flow description in the non-linear regime.Comment: 38 pages; minor typos corrected, a few extra references and a note adde

The solution of tachyon inflation in curved universe

In this paper, we have considered the curved universe which is filled by tachyonic field. We have found the exact solutions for the field, pressure, density, and scale factor and some cosmological parameters. In such universe, we have investigated the role of tachyonic field in different stages of k for the evolution of the universe. Finally we draw the graphs for the scale factor, Hubble's parameter, energy density, pressure, acceleration parameter, equation of state and potential for the different values of k. Also we obtained the exact form of field which shows that the tachyonic field has the kink form.Comment: 8 pages, 21 figure