Activity in distant comets

Activity in distant comets remains a mystery in the sense that we still have no complete theory to explain the various types of activity exhibited by different comets at large distances. This paper explores the factors that should play a role in determining activity in a distant comet, especially in the cases of comet P/Tempel 2, comet Schwassmann-Wachmann 1, and 2060 Chiron

The Canonical Nuclear Many-Body Problem as an Effective Theory

Recently it was argued that it might be possible treat the conventional nuclear structure problem -- nonrelativistic point nucleons interacting through a static and rather singular potential -- as an effective theory in a shell-model basis. In the first half of this talk we describe how such a program can be carried out for the simplest nuclei, the deuteron and 3He, exploiting a new numerical technique for solving the self-consistent Bloch-Horowitz equation. Some of the properties of proper effective theories are thus illustrated and contrasted with the shell model. In the second half of the talk we use these examples to return to a problem that frustrated the field three decades ago, the possibility of reducing the effective interactions problem to perturbation theory. We show, by exploiting the Talmi integral expansion, that hard-core potentials can be systematically softened by the introduction of a series of contact operators familiar from effective field theory. The coefficients of these operators can be run analytically by a renormalization group method in a scheme-independent way, with the introduction of suitable counterterms. Once these coefficients are run to the shell model scale, we show that the renormalized coefficients contain all of the information needed to evaluate perturbative insertions of the remaining soft potential. The resulting perturbative expansion is shown to converge in lowest order for the simplest nucleus, the deuteron.Comment: Latex, 12 pages, 2 figures Talk presented at the International Symposium on Nuclei and Nucleons, held in honor of Achim Richter Typos corrected in this replacemen

Quantum Monte Carlo Calculations for Carbon Nanotubes

We show how lattice Quantum Monte Carlo can be applied to the electronic properties of carbon nanotubes in the presence of strong electron-electron correlations. We employ the path-integral formalism and use methods developed within the lattice QCD community for our numerical work. Our lattice Hamiltonian is closely related to the hexagonal Hubbard model augmented by a long-range electron-electron interaction. We apply our method to the single-quasiparticle spectrum of the (3,3) armchair nanotube configuration, and consider the effects of strong electron-electron correlations. Our approach is equally applicable to other nanotubes, as well as to other carbon nanostructures. We benchmark our Monte Carlo calculations against the two- and four-site Hubbard models, where a direct numerical solution is feasible.Comment: 54 pages, 16 figures, published in Physical Review