Fermions in three-dimensional spinfoam quantum gravity

We study the coupling of massive fermions to the quantum mechanical dynamics of spacetime emerging from the spinfoam approach in three dimensions. We first recall the classical theory before constructing a spinfoam model of quantum gravity coupled to spinors. The technique used is based on a finite expansion in inverse fermion masses leading to the computation of the vacuum to vacuum transition amplitude of the theory. The path integral is derived as a sum over closed fermionic loops wrapping around the spinfoam. The effects of quantum torsion are realised as a modification of the intertwining operators assigned to the edges of the two-complex, in accordance with loop quantum gravity. The creation of non-trivial curvature is modelled by a modification of the pure gravity vertex amplitudes. The appendix contains a review of the geometrical and algebraic structures underlying the classical coupling of fermions to three dimensional gravity.Comment: 40 pages, 3 figures, version accepted for publication in GER

Isotherm and heat of adsorption in porous solids with defective pores-adsorption of argon and nitrogen at 77K in Saran activated carbon

The isotherm and isosteric heat of a porous solid are studied in terms of the local isotherms and isosteric heats of individual pores with defective walls, rather than graphitic walls as commonly assumed in the literature. We point out the incorrect formulas that have been used in the literature, and present a correct formula to calculate the isosteric heat for a porous solid. The correct formula is illustrated with a direct Monte Carlo ( MC) simulation of systems of two pores of different sizes, and finally we apply our theory to experimental data of argon and nitrogen adsorption at 77K on S600H and S84 Saran charcoals to derive their pore size distributions ( PSD). We show that the PSD derived from the fitting either the isotherm only or the heat curve only may not be reliable. It is necessary to utilize both the isotherm and heat curves in the derivation of a more reliable PSD. We also show that it is essential to use defected walls of carbon pores to model adsorption in pores as the model using graphitic walls can not describe isotherm and heat of adsorption adequately