Generalized Hawking-Page Phase Transition

The issue of radiant spherical black holes being in stable thermal equilibrium with their radiation bath is reconsidered. Using a simple equilibrium statistical mechanical analysis incorporating Gaussian thermal fluctuations in a canonical ensemble of isolated horizons, the heat capacity is shown to diverge at a critical value of the classical mass of the isolated horizon, given (in Planckian units) by the {\it microcanonical} entropy calculated using Loop Quantum Gravity. The analysis reproduces the Hawking-Page phase transition discerned for anti-de Sitter black holes and generalizes it in the sense that nowhere is any classical metric made use of.Comment: 9 Pages, Latex with 2 eps figure

Exact Persistence Exponent for One-dimensional Potts Models with Parallel Dynamics

We obtain \theta_p(q) = 2\theta_s(q) for one-dimensional q-state ferromagnetic Potts models evolving under parallel dynamics at zero temperature from an initially disordered state, where \theta_p(q) is the persistence exponent for parallel dynamics and \theta_s(q) = -{1/8}+ \frac{2}{\pi^2}[cos^{-1}{(2-q)/q\sqrt{2}}]^2 [PRL, {\bf 75}, 751, (1995)], the persistence exponent under serial dynamics. This result is a consequence of an exact, albeit non-trivial, mapping of the evolution of configurations of Potts spins under parallel dynamics to the dynamics of two decoupled reaction diffusion systems.Comment: 13 pages Latex file, 5 postscript figure

Cosmic optical activity from an inhomogeneous Kalb-Ramond field

The effects of introducing a harmonic spatial inhomogeneity into the Kalb-Ramond field, interacting with the Maxwell field according to a `string-inspired' proposal made in earlier work are investigated. We examine in particular the effects on the polarization of synchrotron radiation from cosmologically distant (i.e. of redshift greater than 2) galaxies, as well as the relation between the electric and magnetic components of the radiation field. The rotation of the polarization plane of linearly polarized radiation is seen to acquire an additional contribution proportional to the square of the frequency of the dual Kalb-Ramond axion wave, assuming that it is far smaller compared to the frequency of the radiation field.Comment: 9 pages, Revtex, no figure

Maximum Distance Between the Leader and the Laggard for Three Brownian Walkers

We consider three independent Brownian walkers moving on a line. The process terminates when the left-most walker (the `Leader') meets either of the other two walkers. For arbitrary values of the diffusion constants D_1 (the Leader), D_2 and D_3 of the three walkers, we compute the probability distribution P(m|y_2,y_3) of the maximum distance m between the Leader and the current right-most particle (the `Laggard') during the process, where y_2 and y_3 are the initial distances between the leader and the other two walkers. The result has, for large m, the form P(m|y_2,y_3) \sim A(y_2,y_3) m^{-\delta}, where \delta = (2\pi-\theta)/(\pi-\theta) and \theta = cos^{-1}(D_1/\sqrt{(D_1+D_2)(D_1+D_3)}. The amplitude A(y_2,y_3) is also determined exactly

The role of electron-hole recombination in organic magnetoresistance

Magneto-electrical measurements were performed on diodes and bulk heterojunction solar cells (BHSCs) to clarify the role of formation of coulombically bound electron-hole (e-h) pairs on the magnetoresistance (MR) response in organic thin film devices. BHSCs are suitable model systems because they effectively quench excitons but the probability of forming e-h pairs in them can be tuned over orders of magnitude by the choice of material and solvent in the blend. We have systematically varied the e-h recombination coefficients, which are directly proportional to the probability for the charge carriers to meet in space, and found that a reduced probability of electrons and holes meeting in space lead to disappearance of the MR. Our results clearly show that MR is a direct consequence of e-h pair formation. We also found that the MR line shape follows a power law-dependence of B0.5 at higher fields

Universal canonical black hole entropy

Non-rotating black holes in three and four dimensions are shown to possess a canonical entropy obeying the Bekenstein-Hawking area law together with a leading correction (for large horizon areas) given by the logarithm of the area with a {\it universal} finite negative coefficient, provided one assumes that the quantum black hole mass spectrum has a power law relation with the quantum area spectrum found in Non-perturbative Canonical Quantum General Relativity. The thermal instability associated with asymptotically flat black holes appears in the appropriate domain for the index characterising this power law relation, where the canonical entropy (free energy) is seen to turn complex.Comment: Revtex, 5 pages, no figures. Typos corrected and a footnote and some references adde