Interfacial Studies in Semiconductor Heterostructures by X-Ray Diffraction Techniques

X-ray radiation is a non-destructive probe well suited to assess structural perfection of semiconductor material. Three techniques are used to study the interfacial roughness, period fluctuations and annealing-induced interdiffusion in various superlattice structures. Reflectivity of long period Si/Si1-xGex multiple quantum wells reveals an asymmetry oriented along the direction of miscut in the interface roughness with the Si1-xGex to Si interfaces being about twice as rough (0.5 versus 0.3 nm) as the Si to Si1-xGex interfaces. For Si-Si0.65Ge0.35 multiple quantum wells, diffuse scattering is minimal for a growth temperature of 550°C and increases substantially at very low (250°C) or high (750°C) growth temperatures. In (SimGen)p short period superlattices, the X-ray reflectivity data are consistent with interfacial mixing over about two monolayers and thickness fluctuations of about 5% vertically in the structures. For superlattices grown on vicinal surfaces, the roughness spectrum is correlated with the surface miscut orientation. Double-crystal X-ray diffraction using symmetrical and asymmetrical reflections has been used to study epitaxial lattice distortion and strain relaxation in InGaAs/GaAs heterostructures grown on (100) on-orientation and 2° off (100) GaAs surfaces. It is shown that thick InGaAs films retain an appreciable fraction of their initial strain and that their crystal lattice is triclinically distorted. The magnitude of the deformation is larger when growth is carried out on a vicinal surface

Strong subadditivity and the covariant holographic entanglement entropy formula

Headrick and Takayanagi showed that the Ryu-Takayanagi holographic entanglement entropy formula generally obeys the strong subadditivity (SSA) inequality, a fundamental property of entropy. However, the Ryu-Takayanagi formula only applies when the bulk spacetime is static. It is not known whether the covariant generalization proposed by Hubeny, Rangamani, and Takayanagi (HRT) also obeys SSA. We investigate this question in three-dimensional AdS-Vaidya spacetimes, finding that SSA is obeyed as long as the bulk spacetime satisfies the null energy condition. This provides strong support for the validity of the HRT formula.Comment: 38 page

A numerical approach to finding general stationary vacuum black holes

The Harmonic Einstein equation is the vacuum Einstein equation supplemented by a gauge fixing term which we take to be that of DeTurck. For static black holes analytically continued to Riemannian manifolds without boundary at the horizon this equation has previously been shown to be elliptic, and Ricci flow and Newton's method provide good numerical algorithms to solve it. Here we extend these techniques to the arbitrary cohomogeneity stationary case which must be treated in Lorentzian signature. For stationary spacetimes with globally timelike Killing vector the Harmonic Einstein equation is elliptic. In the presence of horizons and ergo-regions it is less obviously so. Motivated by the Rigidity theorem we study a class of stationary black hole spacetimes, considered previously by Harmark, general enough to include the asymptotically flat case in higher dimensions. We argue the Harmonic Einstein equation consistently truncates to this class of spacetimes giving an elliptic problem. The Killing horizons and axes of rotational symmetry are boundaries for this problem and we determine boundary conditions there. As a simple example we numerically construct 4D rotating black holes in a cavity using Anderson's boundary conditions. We demonstrate both Newton's method and Ricci flow to find these Lorentzian solutions.Comment: 43 pages, 7 figure

Entropy inequalities from reflection positivity

We investigate the question of whether the entropy and the Renyi entropies of the vacuum state reduced to a region of the space can be represented in terms of correlators in quantum field theory. In this case, the positivity relations for the correlators are mapped into inequalities for the entropies. We write them using a real time version of reflection positivity, which can be generalized to general quantum systems. Using this generalization we can prove an infinite sequence of inequalities which are obeyed by the Renyi entropies of integer index. There is one independent inequality involving any number of different subsystems. In quantum field theory the inequalities acquire a simple geometrical form and are consistent with the integer index Renyi entropies being given by vacuum expectation values of twisting operators in the Euclidean formulation. Several possible generalizations and specific examples are analyzed.Comment: Significantly enlarged and corrected version. Counterexamples found for the most general form of the inequalities. V3: minor change

Gott time machines in the Anti-de Sitter space

In 1991 Gott presented a solution of Einstein's field equations in 2+1 dimensions with $\Lambda = 0$ that contained closed timelike curves (CTC's). This solution was remarkable because at first it did not seem to be unphysical in any other respect. Later, however, it was shown that Gott's solution is tachyonic in a certain sense. Here the case $\Lambda < 0$ is discussed. We show that it is possible to construct CTC's also in this case, in a way analogous to that used by Gott. We also show that this construction still is tachyonic. $\Lambda < 0$ means that we are dealing with Anti-de Sitter space, and since the CTC-construction necessitates some understanding of its structure, a few pages are devoted to this subject.Comment: 11 page

Einstein-Maxwell gravitational instantons and five dimensional solitonic strings

We study various aspects of four dimensional Einstein-Maxwell multicentred gravitational instantons. These are half-BPS Riemannian backgrounds of minimal N=2 supergravity, asymptotic to R^4, R^3 x S^1 or AdS_2 x S^2. Unlike for the Gibbons-Hawking solutions, the topology is not restricted by boundary conditions. We discuss the classical metric on the instanton moduli space. One class of these solutions may be lifted to causal and regular multi `solitonic strings', without horizons, of 4+1 dimensional N=2 supergravity, carrying null momentum.Comment: 1+30 page

Ricci flow and black holes

Gradient flow in a potential energy (or Euclidean action) landscape provides a natural set of paths connecting different saddle points. We apply this method to General Relativity, where gradient flow is Ricci flow, and focus on the example of 4-dimensional Euclidean gravity with boundary S^1 x S^2, representing the canonical ensemble for gravity in a box. At high temperature the action has three saddle points: hot flat space and a large and small black hole. Adding a time direction, these also give static 5-dimensional Kaluza-Klein solutions, whose potential energy equals the 4-dimensional action. The small black hole has a Gross-Perry-Yaffe-type negative mode, and is therefore unstable under Ricci flow. We numerically simulate the two flows seeded by this mode, finding that they lead to the large black hole and to hot flat space respectively, in the latter case via a topology-changing singularity. In the context of string theory these flows are world-sheet renormalization group trajectories. We also use them to construct a novel free energy diagram for the canonical ensemble.Comment: 31 pages, 14 color figures. v2: Discussion of the metric on the space of metrics corrected and expanded, references adde

WZW-like Action for Heterotic String Field Theory

We complete the construction of the Neveu-Schwarz sector of heterotic string field theory begun in hep-th/0406212 by giving a closed-form expression for the action and gauge transformations. Just as the Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) action for open superstring field theory can be constructed from pure-gauge fields in bosonic open string field theory, our heterotic string field theory action is constructed from pure-gauge fields in bosonic closed string field theory. The construction involves a simple alternative form of the WZW action which is consistent with the algebraic structures of closed string field theory.Comment: 22 pages, no figures, LaTeX2

The Simplicial Ricci Tensor

The Ricci tensor (Ric) is fundamental to Einstein's geometric theory of gravitation. The 3-dimensional Ric of a spacelike surface vanishes at the moment of time symmetry for vacuum spacetimes. The 4-dimensional Ric is the Einstein tensor for such spacetimes. More recently the Ric was used by Hamilton to define a non-linear, diffusive Ricci flow (RF) that was fundamental to Perelman's proof of the Poincare conjecture. Analytic applications of RF can be found in many fields including general relativity and mathematics. Numerically it has been applied broadly to communication networks, medical physics, computer design and more. In this paper, we use Regge calculus (RC) to provide the first geometric discretization of the Ric. This result is fundamental for higher-dimensional generalizations of discrete RF. We construct this tensor on both the simplicial lattice and its dual and prove their equivalence. We show that the Ric is an edge-based weighted average of deficit divided by an edge-based weighted average of dual area -- an expression similar to the vertex-based weighted average of the scalar curvature reported recently. We use this Ric in a third and independent geometric derivation of the RC Einstein tensor in arbitrary dimension.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figure