1,210 research outputs found
Kinetic Inflation in Stringy and Other Cosmologies
An inflationary epoch driven by the kinetic energy density in a dynamical
Planck mass is studied. In the conformally related Einstein frame it is easiest
to see the demands of successful inflation cannot be satisfied by kinetic
inflation alone. Viewed in the original Jordan-Brans-Dicke frame, the obstacle
is manifest as a kind of graceful exit problem and/or a kind of flatness
problem. These arguments indicate the weakness of only the simplest
formulation. {}From them can be gleaned directions toward successful kinetic
inflation.Comment: 26 pages, LaTeX, CITA-94-2
Distinguishing Marks of Simply-connected Universes
A statistical quantity suitable for distinguishing simply-connected
Robertson-Walker (RW) universes is introduced, and its explicit expressions for
the three possible classes of simply-connected RW universes with an uniform
distribution of matter are determined. Graphs of the distinguishing mark for
each class of RW universes are presented and analyzed.There sprout from our
results an improvement on the procedure to extract the topological signature of
multiply-connected RW universes, and a refined understanding of that
topological signature of these universes studied in previous works.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, LaTeX2e. To appear in Int. J. Mod. Phys. D
(2000
Short-term fate of phytodetritus in sediments across the arabian sea oxygen minimum zone
The short-term fate of phytodetritus was investigated across the Pakistan margin of the Arabian Sea at water depths ranging from 140 to 1850 m, encompassing the oxygen minimum zone (~100–1100 m). Phytodetritus sedimentation events were simulated by adding ~44 mmol 13C-labelled algal material per m2 to surface sediments in retrieved cores. Cores were incubated in the dark, at in situ temperature and oxygen concentrations. Overlying waters were sampled periodically, and cores were recovered and sampled (for organisms and sediments) after durations of two and five days. The labelled carbon was subsequently traced into bacterial lipids, foraminiferan and macrofaunal biomass, and dissolved organic and inorganic pools. The majority of the label (20 to 100%) was in most cases left unprocessed in the sediment at the surface. The largest pool of processed carbon was found to be respiration (0 to 25% of added carbon), recovered as dissolved inorganic carbon. Both temperature and oxygen were found to influence the rate of respiration. Macrofaunal influence was most pronounced at the lower part of the oxygen minimum zone where it contributed 11% to the processing of phytodetritus
Gravity-Driven Acceleration of the Cosmic Expansion
It is shown here that a dynamical Planck mass can drive the scale factor of
the universe to accelerate. The negative pressure which drives the cosmic
acceleration is identified with the unusual kinetic energy density of the
Planck field. No potential nor cosmological constant is required. This suggests
a purely gravity driven, kinetic inflation. Although the possibility is not
ruled out, the burst of acceleration is often too weak to address the initial
condition problems of cosmology. To illustrate the kinetic acceleration, three
different cosmologies are presented. One such example, that of a bouncing
universe, demonstrates the additional feature of being nonsingular. The
acceleration is also considered in the conformally related Einstein frame in
which the Planck mass is constant.Comment: 23 pages, LaTex, figures available upon request, (revisions include
added references and comment on inflation) CITA-94-1
Criticality in confined ionic fluids
A theory of a confined two dimensional electrolyte is presented. The positive
and negative ions, interacting by a potential, are constrained to move on
an interface separating two solvents with dielectric constants and
. It is shown that the Debye-H\"uckel type of theory predicts that
the this 2d Coulomb fluid should undergo a phase separation into a coexisting
liquid (high density) and gas (low density) phases. We argue, however, that the
formation of polymer-like chains of alternating positive and negative ions can
prevent this phase transition from taking place.Comment: RevTex, no figures, in press Phys. Rev.
Nonstationary Stochastic Resonance in a Single Neuron-Like System
Stochastic resonance holds much promise for the detection of weak signals in
the presence of relatively loud noise. Following the discovery of nondynamical
and of aperiodic stochastic resonance, it was recently shown that the
phenomenon can manifest itself even in the presence of nonstationary signals.
This was found in a composite system of differentiated trigger mechanisms
mounted in parallel, which suggests that it could be realized in some
elementary neural networks or nonlinear electronic circuits. Here, we find that
even an individual trigger system may be able to detect weak nonstationary
signals using stochastic resonance. The very simple modification to the trigger
mechanism that makes this possible is reminiscent of some aspects of actual
neuron physics. Stochastic resonance may thus become relevant to more types of
biological or electronic systems injected with an ever broader class of
realistic signals.Comment: Plain Latex, 7 figure
Stochastic Resonance in Ion Channels Characterized by Information Theory
We identify a unifying measure for stochastic resonance (SR) in voltage
dependent ion channels which comprises periodic (conventional), aperiodic and
nonstationary SR. Within a simplest setting, the gating dynamics is governed by
two-state conductance fluctuations, which switch at random time points between
two values. The corresponding continuous time point process is analyzed by
virtue of information theory. In pursuing this goal we evaluate for our
dynamics the tau-information, the mutual information and the rate of
information gain. As a main result we find an analytical formula for the rate
of information gain that solely involves the probability of the two channel
states and their noise averaged rates. For small voltage signals it simplifies
to a handy expression. Our findings are applied to study SR in a potassium
channel. We find that SR occurs only when the closed state is predominantly
dwelled. Upon increasing the probability for the open channel state the
application of an extra dose of noise monotonically deteriorates the rate of
information gain, i.e., no SR behavior occurs.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.
A molecular dynamics study on the equilibrium magnetization properties and structure of ferrofluids
We investigate in detail the initial susceptibility, magnetization curves,
and microstructure of ferrofluids in various concentration and particle dipole
moment ranges by means of molecular dynamics simulations. We use the Ewald
summation for the long-range dipolar interactions, take explicitly into account
the translational and rotational degrees of freedom, coupled to a Langevin
thermostat. When the dipolar interaction energy is comparable with the thermal
energy, the simulation results on the magnetization properties agree with the
theoretical predictions very well. For stronger dipolar couplings, however, we
find systematic deviations from the theoretical curves. We analyze in detail
the observed microstructure of the fluids under different conditions. The
formation of clusters is found to enhance the magnetization at weak fields and
thus leads to a larger initial susceptibility. The influence of the particle
aggregation is isolated by studying ferro-solids, which consist of magnetic
dipoles frozen in at random locations but which are free to rotate. Due to the
artificial suppression of clusters in ferro-solids the observed susceptibility
is considerably lowered when compared to ferrofluids.Comment: 33 pages including 12 figures, requires RevTex
Inflation from Extra Dimensions
The radial mode of n extra compact dimensions (the radion, b) can cause
inflation in theories where the fundamental gravity scale, M, is smaller than
the Planck scale M_P. For radion potentials V(b) with a simple polynomial form,
to get the observed density perturbations, the energy scale of V(b) must
greatly exceed M ~ 1 TeV: V(b)^{1/4} = M_v ~ 10^{-4} M_P. This gives a large
radion mass and reheat temperature ~ 10^9 GeV, thus avoiding the moduli
problem. Such a value of M_v can be consistent with the classical treatment if
the new dimensions started sufficiently small. A new possibility is that b
approaches its stable value from above during inflation. The same conclusions
about M_v may hold even if inflation is driven by matter fields rather than by
the radion.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, uses epsf.te
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