Gravitational shock waves and vacuum fluctuations

We show that the vacuum expectation value of the stress-energy tensor of a scalar particle on the background of a spherical gravitational shock wave does not give a finite expression in second order perturbation theory, contrary to the case seen for the impulsive wave. No infrared divergences appear at this order. This result shows that there is a qualitative difference between the shock and impulsive wave solutions which is not exhibited in first order.Comment: Submitted to Class. and Quant. Grav.,7 pages, no figure

Heun-type solutions for Schwarzschild metric with electromagnetic fields

We find confluent Heun solutions to the radial equations of two Halilsoy-Badawi metrics. For the first metric, we studied the radial part of the massless Dirac equation and for the second case, we studied the radial part of the massless Klein-Gordon equation.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figures. Matches the published versio

Gürsey Modeli Ve Bazı Uygulamaları

Konferans Bildirisi -- Teorik ve Uygulamalı Mekanik Türk Milli Komitesi, 2008Conference Paper -- Theoretical and Applied Mechanical Turkish National Committee, 2008Feza Gürsey’in 1956 yılında ortaya attığı ve Fikret Kortel’in aynı yıl klasik çözümlerini bulduğu temel parçacık fiziği modeli tanıtılmış ve modeli kuantalaştırmak için gösterilen bazı çabalar anlatılmıştır.We review the model proposed by Feza Gürsey in 1956 for elementary particle physics, whose classical solutions were found by Fikret Kortel during the same year. We also summarize some attempts to quantize this classical model

Heun and Mathieu functions as solutions of the Dirac equation

We give examples of where the Heun function exists as solutions of wave equations encountered in general relativity. While the Dirac equation written in the background of Nutku helicoid metric yields Mathieu functions as its solutions in four spacetime dimensions, the trivial generalization to five dimensions results in the double confluent Heun function. We reduce this solution to the Mathieu function with some transformations. We must apply Atiyah-Patodi-Singer spectral boundary conditions to this system since the metric has a singularity at the origin.Comment: 5 pages, Prepared for the Spanish Relativity Meeting (ERE 2007), Tenerife, Spain, 10-14 Sep 200

Comparison of Exact and perturbative Results for Two Metrics

We compare the exact and perturbative results in two metrics and show that the spurious effects due to the perturbation method do not survive for physically relevant quantities such as the vacuum expectation value of the stress-energy tensor.Comment: 12 page

The collision and snapping of cosmic strings generating spherical impulsive gravitational waves

The Penrose method for constructing spherical impulsive gravitational waves is investigated in detail, including alternative spatial sections and an arbitrary cosmological constant. The resulting waves include those that are generated by a snapping cosmic string. The method is used to construct an explicit exact solution of Einstein's equations describing the collision of two nonaligned cosmic strings in a Minkowski background which snap at their point of collision.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, To appear in Class. Quantum Gra

Gauged System Mimicking the G\"{u}rsey Model

We comment on the changes in the constrained model studied earlier when constituent massless vector fields are introduced. The new model acts like a gauge-Higgs-Yukawa system, although its origin is different.Comment: 8 pages, RevTex4; published versio

Vacuum Fluctuations of a massless spin-1/2 field around multiple cosmic strings

We study the interaction of a massless quantized spinor field with the gravitational filed of N parallel static cosmic strings by using a perturbative approach. We show that the presence of more than one cosmic string gives rise to an additional contribution to the energy density of vacuum fluctuations, thereby leading to a vacuum force attraction between two parallel cosmic strings.Comment: Class. Quantum Grav. 14(1997) 321

Dynamic Price Competition: Theory and Evidence from Airline Markets

We introduce a model of dynamic pricing in perishable goods markets with competition and provide conditions for equilibrium uniqueness. Pricing dynamics are rich because both own and competitor scarcity affect future profits. We identify new competitive forces that can lead to misallocation due to selling units too quickly: the Bertrand scarcity trap. We empirically estimate our model using daily prices and bookings for competing U.S. airlines. We compare competitive equilibrium outcomes to those where firms use pricing heuristics based on observed internal pricing rules at a large airline. We find that pricing heuristics increase revenues (4-5%) and consumer surplus (3%)