Charged Cosmic String Nucleation in de Sitter Space

We investigate the quantum nucleation of pairs of charged circular cosmic strings in de Sitter space. By including self-gravity we obtain the classical potential energy barrier and compute the quantum mechanical tunneling probability in the semiclassical approximation. We also discuss the classical evolution of charged circular strings after their nucleation.Comment: 12 pages Latex + 3 figures (not included), Nordita 94/38

New Results from the MINOS Experiment

In this paper we present the latest results from the MINOS Experiment. This includes a new measurement of the atmospheric neutrino oscillation parameters based on 3.36 x 10^20 protons-on-target of data and a first analysis of neutral current events in the Far Detector. The prospects for nu-e appearance measurements in MINOS are also discussed.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, for the Proceedings of the Neutrino 2008 Conference, Christchurch, N

Entropy of polydisperse chains: solution on the Husimi lattice

We consider the entropy of polydisperse chains placed on a lattice. In particular, we study a model for equilibrium polymerization, where the polydispersivity is determined by two activities, for internal and endpoint monomers of a chain. We solve the problem exactly on a Husimi lattice built with squares and with arbitrary coordination number, obtaining an expression for the entropy as a function of the density of monomers and mean molecular weight of the chains. We compare this entropy with the one for the monodisperse case, and find that the excess of entropy due to polydispersivity is identical to the one obtained for the one-dimensional case. Finally, we obtain a distribution of molecular weights with a rather complex behavior, but which becomes exponential for very large mean molecular weight of the chains, as required by scaling properties which should apply in this limit.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figures, revised version accepted for publication in J. Chem. Phy

Chaotic Information Processing by Extremal Black Holes

We review an explicit regularization of the AdS$_2$/CFT$_1$ correspondence, that preserves all isometries of bulk and boundary degrees of freedom. This scheme is useful to characterize the space of the unitary evolution operators that describe the dynamics of the microstates of extremal black holes in four spacetime dimensions. Using techniques from algebraic number theory to evaluate the transition amplitudes, we remark that the regularization scheme expresses the fast quantum computation capability of black holes as well as its chaotic nature.Comment: 8 pages, 2 JPEG figues. Contribution to the VII Black Holes Workshop, Aveiro PT, Decemeber 201

The quantum cat map on the modular discretization of extremal black hole horizons

Based on our recent work on the discretization of the radial AdS$_2$ geometry of extremal BH horizons,we present a toy model for the chaotic unitary evolution of infalling single particle wave packets. We construct explicitly the eigenstates and eigenvalues for the single particle dynamics for an observer falling into the BH horizon, with time evolution operator the quantum Arnol'd cat map (QACM). Using these results we investigate the validity of the eigenstate thermalization hypothesis (ETH), as well as that of the fast scrambling time bound (STB). We find that the QACM, while possessing a linear spectrum, has eigenstates, which are random and satisfy the assumptions of the ETH. We also find that the thermalization of infalling wave packets in this particular model is exponentially fast, thereby saturating the STB, under the constraint that the finite dimension of the single--particle Hilbert space takes values in the set of Fibonacci integers.Comment: 28 pages LaTeX2e, 8 jpeg figures. Clarified certain issues pertaining to the relation between mixing time and scrambling time; enhanced discussion of the Eigenstate Thermalization Hypothesis; revised figures and updated references. Typos correcte

Observation of muon neutrino disappearance with the MINOS detectors in the NuMI neutrino beam

This letter reports results from the MINOS experiment based on its initial exposure to neutrinos from the Fermilab NuMI beam. The rate and energy spectra of charged current muon neutrino interactions are compared in two detectors located along the beam axis at distances of 1 km and 735 km. With 1.27 x 10^{20} 120 GeV protons incident on the NuMI target, 215 events with energies below 30 GeV are observed at the Far Detector, compared to an expectation of 336 \pm 14.4 events. The data are consistent with muon neutrino disappearance via oscillation with |\Delta m^2_{23}| = 2.74^{+0.44}_{-0.26} x 10^{-3} eV^2/c^4 and sin^2(2\theta_{23}) > 0.87 (at 60% C.L.)