Free-riders or victims: women's nonparticipation in irrigation management in Nepal's Chhattis Mauja Irrigation Scheme

Irrigation managementFarmer-managed irrigation systemsIrrigation programsPrivatizationWater users' associationsIrrigated farmingIrrigation canalsWater deliveryWater allocationWater distributionMaintenanceGenderWomen in developmentFarmersFemale laborAgricultural manpowerHouseholdsFamily laborLiving standardsSocial aspectsAgricultural productionVillagesSocial organizationPerformance evaluation

Warped brane-world compactification with Gauss-Bonnet term

In the Randall-Sundrum (RS) brane-world model a singular delta-function source is matched by the second derivative of the warp factor. So one should take possible curvature corrections in the effective action of the RS models in a Gauss-Bonnet (GB) form. We present a linearized treatment of gravity in the RS brane-world with the Gauss-Bonnet modification to Einstein gravity. We give explicit expressions for the Neumann propagator in arbitrary D dimensions and show that a bulk GB term gives, along with a tower of Kaluza-Klein modes in the bulk, a massless graviton on the brane, as in the standard RS model. Moreover, a non-trivial GB coupling can allow a new branch of solutions with finite Planck scale and no naked bulk singularity, which might be useful to avoid some of the previously known ``no--go theorems'' for RS brane-world compactifications.Comment: 23 pages, typos in Secs. 5 & 6 corrected, expanded/published version (IJMPA

Reconstructing a model of quintessential inflation

We present an explicit cosmological model where inflation and dark energy both could arise from the dynamics of the same scalar field. We present our discussion in the framework where the inflaton field $\phi$ attains a nearly constant velocity $m_P^{-1} |d\phi/dN|\equiv \alpha+\beta \exp(\beta N)$ (where $N\equiv \ln a$ is the e-folding time) during inflation. We show that the model with $|\alpha|<0.25$ and $\beta<0$ can easily satisfy inflationary constraints, including the spectral index of scalar fluctuations ($n_s=0.96\pm 0.013$), tensor-to-scalar ratio ($r<0.28$) and also the bound imposed on $\Omega_\phi$ during the nucleosynthesis epoch ($\Omega_\phi (1 {\rm MeV})<0.1$). In our construction, the scalar field potential always scales proportionally to the square of the Hubble expansion rate. One may thereby account for the two vastly different energy scales associated with the Hubble parameters at early and late epochs. The inflaton energy could also produce an observationally significant effective dark energy at a late epoch without violating local gravity tests.Comment: 18 pages, 7 figures; added refs, published versio

Large magnetoresistance in the antiferromagnetic semi-metal NdSb

There has been considerable interest in topological semi-metals that exhibit extreme magnetoresistance (XMR). These have included materials lacking inversion symmetry such as TaAs, as well Dirac semi-metals such as Cd3As2. However, it was reported recently that LaSb and LaBi also exhibit XMR, even though the rock-salt structure of these materials has inversion symmetry, and the band-structure calculations do not show a Dirac dispersion in the bulk. Here, we present magnetoresistance and specific heat measurements on NdSb, which is isostructural with LaSb. NdSb has an antiferromagnetic groundstate, and in analogy with the lanthanum monopnictides, is expected to be a topologically non-trivial semi-metal. We show that NdSb has an XMR of 10^4 %, even within the AFM state, illustrating that XMR can occur independently of the absence of time reversal symmetry breaking in zero magnetic field. The persistence of XMR in a magnetic system offers promise of new functionality when combining topological matter with electronic correlations. We also find that in an applied magnetic field below the Neel temperature there is a first order transition, consistent with evidence from previous neutron scattering work.Comment: 5 pages, 6 figure

Black Holes, Entropy Bound and Causality Violation

The gravity/gauge theory duality has provided us a way of studying QCD at short distances from straightforward calculations in classical general relativity. Among numerous results obtained so far, one of the most striking is the universality of the ratio of the shear viscosity to the entropy density. For all gauge theories with Einstein gravity dual, this ratio is \eta/s=1/4\pi. However, in general higher-curvature gravity theories, including two concrete models under discussion - the Gauss-Bonnet gravity and the (Riemann)^2 gravity - the ratio \eta/s can be smaller than 1/4\pi (thus violating the conjecture bound), equal to 1/4\pi or even larger than 1/4\pi. As we probe spacetime at shorter distances, there arises an internal inconsistency in the theory, such as a violation of microcausality, which is correlated with a classical limit on black hole entropy.Comment: 8 pages, no figures; Invited contribution to appear in the Proceedings of the 75 Years since Solvay, Singapore, Nov 2008, (World Scientific, Singapore, 2009

Warped compactification on curved manifolds

The characterization of a six- (or seven)-dimensional internal manifold with metric as having positive, zero or negative curvature is expected to be an important aspect of warped compactifications in supergravity. In this context, Douglas and Kallosh recently pointed out that a compact internal space with negative curvature could help to construct four-dimensional de Sitter solutions only if the extra dimensions are strongly warped or there are large stringy corrections. That is, the problem of finding 4-dimensional de Sitter solutions is well posed, if all extra dimensions are physically compact, which is called a no-go theorem. Here, we show that the above conclusion does not extend to a general class of warped compactifications in classical supergravity that allow a non-compact direction or cosmological solutions for which the internal space is asymptotic to a cone over a product of compact Einstein spaces or spheres. For clarity, we present classical solutions that compactify higher-dimensional spacetime to produce a Robertson--Walker universe with de Sitter-type expansion plus one extra non-compact direction. Such models are found to admit both an effective four-dimensional Newton constant that remains finite and a normalizable zero-mode graviton wavefunction. We also exhibit the possibility of obtaining 4D de Sitter solutions by including the effect of fluxes (p-form field strengths).Comment: 24 pages, 1 figure; v5 significant changes in the presentation, published (journal) versio

On compatibility of string effective action with an accelerating universe

In this paper, we fully investigate the cosmological effects of the moduli dependent one-loop corrections to the gravitational couplings of the string effective action to explain the cosmic acceleration problem in early (and/or late) universe. These corrections comprise a Gauss-Bonnet (GB) invariant multiplied by universal non-trivial functions of the common modulus $\sigma$ and the dilaton $\phi$. The model exhibits several features of cosmological interest, including the transition between deceleration and acceleration phases. By considering some phenomenologically motivated ansatzs for one of the scalars and/or the scale factor (of the universe), we also construct a number of interesting inflationary potentials. In all examples under consideration, we find that the model leads only to a standard inflation ($w \geq -1$) when the numerical coefficient $\delta$ associated with modulus-GB coupling is positive, while the model can lead also to a non-standard inflation ($w<-1$), if $\delta$ is negative. In the absence of (or trivial) coupling between the GB term and the scalars, there is no crossing between the $w -1$ phases, while this is possible with non-trivial GB couplings, even for constant dilaton phase of the standard picture. Within our model, after a sufficient amount of e-folds of expansion, the rolling of both fields $\phi$ and $\sigma$ can be small. In turn, any possible violation of equivalence principle or deviations from the standard general relativity may be small enough to easily satisfy all astrophysical and cosmological constraints.Comment: 30 pages, 8 figures; v2 significant changes in notations, appendix and refs added; v3 significant revisions, refs added; v4 appendix extended, new refs, published versio

Late-time Cosmic Dynamics from M-theory

We consider the behaviour of the cosmological acceleration for time-dependent hyperbolic and flux compactifications of M-theory, with an exponential potential. For flat and closed cosmologies it is seen that a positive acceleration is always transient for both compactifications. For open cosmologies, both compactifications can give at late times periods of positive acceleration. As a function of proper time this acceleration has a power law decay and can be either positive, negative or oscillatory.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, 2 figure

Low-Energy Surface States in the Normal State of α\alpha-PdBi2 Superconductor

Topological superconductors as characterized by Majorana surface states has been actively searched for their significance in fundamental science and technological implication. The large spin-orbit coupling in Bi-Pd binaries has stimulated extensive investigations on the topological surface states in these superconducting compounds. Here we report a study of normal-state electronic structure in a centrosymmetric $\alpha$-PdBi2 within density functional theory calculations. By investigating the electronic structure from the bulk to slab geometries in this system, we predict for the first time that $\alpha$-PdBi2 can host orbital-dependent and asymmetric Rashba surface states near the Fermi energy. This study suggests that $\alpha$-PdBi2 will be a good candidate to explore the relationship between superconductivity and topology in condensed matter physics