22,514 research outputs found
Measures of Gasoline Price Change
[Excerpt]
No prices are more visible to the public than gasoline prices. Even for people who don’t have to fill up a tank on a regular basis, gasoline prices are likely to be in their view, posted every day. In addition, no prices have more of an impact on short-run movements in the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Gasoline prices are so much more volatile than other CPI components that, even though gasoline makes up less than 6 percent of the CPI, it is often the main source of monthly price movements in the all items index. Moreover, because they are so visible and gasoline is purchased so frequently, gasoline prices have a major impact on the perception of prices. Constantly seeing prices at the pump creep ever higher will often create a perception of broader inflation—and, of course, higher gasoline prices are likely to eventually have an impact on other prices as transportation costs increase.
So, it is particularly important that gasoline price changes be measured accurately and reliably. Fortunately, gasoline is one of the few consumer goods for which there are many sources of price data. In fact, the ease of price collection makes it feasible for other government agencies and even private sources to create reliable measures. On the government side, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) publishes extensive gasoline price data. Among private sources are the American Automobile Association, the Oil Price Information Service, and the Lundberg Survey. Furthermore, gasoline is one of the few nonfood items for which the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) publishes an average price series as well as an index; the fact that gasoline is a relatively homogenous product makes meaningful average price data possible.
This article examines three measures of gasoline prices: the BLS Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) U.S. city average for all types of gasoline, the BLS CPI average price series for all types of gasoline, and the EIA Weekly Retail Gasoline and Diesel Prices for all grades of gasoline. The purpose of the article is to identify how these measures have behaved over the 10-year period from December 2002 to December 2012
The basic cohomology of the twisted N=16, D=2 super Maxwell theory
We consider a recently proposed two-dimensional Abelian model for a Hodge
theory, which is neither a Witten type nor a Schwarz type topological theory.
It is argued that this model is not a good candidate for a Hodge theory since,
on-shell, the BRST Laplacian vanishes. We show, that this model allows for a
natural extension such that the resulting topological theory is of Witten type
and can be identified with the twisted N=16, D=2 super Maxwell theory.
Furthermore, the underlying basic cohomology preserves the Hodge-type structure
and, on-shell, the BRST Laplacian does not vanish.Comment: 9 pages, Latex; new Section 4 showing the invariants added; 2
references and relating remarks adde
Superfield Approach to Nilpotency and Absolute Anticommutativity of Conserved Charges: 2D non-Abelian 1-Form Gauge Theory
We exploit the theoretical strength of augmented version of superfield
approach (AVSA) to Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin (BRST) formalism to express the
nilpotency and absolute anticommutativity properties of the (anti-)BRST and
(anti-)co-BRST conserved charges for the two -dimensional (2D)
non-Abelian 1-form gauge theory (without any interaction with matter fields) in
the language of superspace variables, their derivatives and suitable
superfields. In the proof of absolute anticommutativity property, we invoke the
strength of Curci-Ferrari (CF) condition for the (anti-)BRST charges. No such
outside condition/restriction is required in the proof of absolute
anticommutativity of the (anti-)co-BRST conserved charges. The latter
observation (as well as other observations) connected with (anti-)co-BRST
symmetries and corresponding conserved charges are novel results of our present
investigation. We also discuss the (anti-)BRST and (anti-)co-BRST symmetry
invariance of the appropriate Lagrangian densities within the framework of
AVSA. In addition, we dwell a bit on the derivation of the above fermionic
(nilpotent) symmetries by applying the AVSA to BRST formaism where only the
(anti-)chiral superfields are used.Comment: LaTeX file, 33 pages, journal referenc
model with Hopf interaction: the quantum theory
The model with Hopf interaction is quantised following the
Batalin-Tyutin (BT) prescription. In this scheme, extra BT fields are
introduced which allow for the existence of only commuting first-class
constraints. Explicit expression for the quantum correction to the expectation
value of the energy density and angular momentum in the physical sector of this
model is derived. The result shows, in the particular operator ordering that we
have chosen to work with, that the quantum effect has a divergent contribution
of in the energy expectation value. But, interestingly
the Hopf term, though topological in nature, can have a finite contribution to energy density in the homotopically nontrivial
topological sector. The angular momentum operator, however, is found to have no
quantum correction, indicating the absence of any fractional spin even at this
quantum level. Finally, the extended Lagrangian incorporating the BT auxiliary
fields is computed in the conventional framework of BRST formalism exploiting
Faddeev-Popov technique of path integral method.Comment: LaTeX, 28 pages, no figures, typos corrected, journal ref. give
Twisted N=8, D=2 super Yang-Mills theory as example of a Hodge-type cohomological theory
It is shown that the dimensional reduction of the N_T=2, D=3 Blau-Thompson
model to D=2, i.e., the novel topological twist of N=8, D=2 super Yang-Mills
theory, provides an example of a Hodge-type cohomological theory. In that
theory the generators of the topological shift, co-shift and gauge symmetry,
together with a discrete duality operation, are completely analogous to the de
Rham cohomology operators and the Hodge *-operation.Comment: 8 pages, Late
Geometrical Aspects Of BRST Cohomology In Augmented Superfield Formalism
In the framework of augmented superfield approach, we provide the geometrical
origin and interpretation for the nilpotent (anti-)BRST charges, (anti-)co-BRST
charges and a non-nilpotent bosonic charge. Together, these local and conserved
charges turn out to be responsible for a clear and cogent definition of the
Hodge decomposition theorem in the quantum Hilbert space of states. The above
charges owe their origin to the de Rham cohomological operators of differential
geometry which are found to be at the heart of some of the key concepts
associated with the interacting gauge theories. For our present review, we
choose the two -dimensional (2D) quantum electrodynamics (QED) as a
prototype field theoretical model to derive all the nilpotent symmetries for
all the fields present in this interacting gauge theory in the framework of
augmented superfield formulation and show that this theory is a {\it unique}
example of an interacting gauge theory which provides a tractable field
theoretical model for the Hodge theory.Comment: LaTeX file, 25 pages, Ref. [49] updated, correct page numbers of the
Journal are give
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