35,292 research outputs found
Matter loops corrected modified gravity in Palatini formulation
Recently, corrections to the standard Einstein-Hilbert action are proposed to
explain the current cosmic acceleration in stead of introducing dark energy. In
the Palatini formulation of those modified gravity models, there is an
important observation due to Arkani-Hamed: matter loops will give rise to a
correction to the modified gravity action proportional to the Ricci scalar of
the metric. In the presence of such term, we show that the current forms of
modified gravity models in Palatini formulation, specifically, the 1/R gravity
and gravity, will have phantoms. Then we study the possible
instabilities due to the presence of phantom fields. We show that the strong
instability in the metric formulation of 1/R gravity indicated by Dolgov and
Kawasaki will not appear and the decay timescales for the phantom fields may be
long enough for the theories to make sense as effective field theory . On the
other hand, if we change the sign of the modification terms to eliminate the
phantoms, some other inconsistencies will arise for the various versions of the
modified gravity models. Finally, we comment on the universal property of the
Palatini formulation of the matter loops corrected modified gravity models and
its implications.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figures, References adde
Topological Protection of Majorana Qubits
We study the stability of the topological quantum computation proposals
involving Majorana fermions against thermal fluctuations. We use a minimal
realistic model of a spinless px+ipy superconductor and consider effect of
excited midgap states localized in the vortex core as well as of transitions
above the bulk superconducting gap on the quasiparticle braiding,
interferometry-based qubit read-out schemes, and quantum coherence of the
topological qubits. We find that thermal occupation of the midgap states does
not affect adiabatic braiding operations but leads to a reduction in the
visibility of the interferometry measurements. We also consider quantum
decoherence of topological qubits at finite temperatures and calculate their
decay rate which is associated with the change of the fermion parity and, as
such, is exponentially suppressed at temperatures well below the bulk
excitation gap. Our conclusion is that the Majorana-based topological quantum
computing schemes are indeed protected by the virtue of the quantum
non-locality of the stored information and the presence of the bulk
superconducting gap.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur
Relativistic description of nuclear matrix elements in neutrinoless double- decay
Neutrinoless double- () decay is related to many
fundamental concepts in nuclear and particle physics beyond the standard model.
Currently there are many experiments searching for this weak process. An
accurate knowledge of the nuclear matrix element for the decay
is essential for determining the effective neutrino mass once this process is
eventually measured. We report the first full relativistic description of the
decay matrix element based on a state-of-the-art nuclear
structure model. We adopt the full relativistic transition operators which are
derived with the charge-changing nucleonic currents composed of the vector
coupling, axial-vector coupling, pseudoscalar coupling, and weak-magnetism
coupling terms. The wave functions for the initial and final nuclei are
determined by the multireference covariant density functional theory (MR-CDFT)
based on the point-coupling functional PC-PK1. The low-energy spectra and
electric quadrupole transitions in Nd and its daughter nucleus
Sm are well reproduced by the MR-CDFT calculations. The
decay matrix elements for both the
and decays of Nd are evaluated. The effects
of particle number projection, static and dynamic deformations, and the full
relativistic structure of the transition operators on the matrix elements are
studied in detail. The resulting decay matrix element for the
transition is , which gives the most optimistic
prediction for the next generation of experiments searching for the
decay in Nd.Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures; table adde
The structure of superheavy elements newly discovered in the reaction of Kr with Pb
The structure of superheavy elements newly discovered in the
Pb(Kr,n) reaction at Berkeley is systematically studied in the
Relativistic Mean Field (RMF) approach. It is shown that various usually
employed RMF forces, which give fair description of normal stable nuclei, give
quite different predictions for superheavy elements. Among the effective forces
we tested, TM1 is found to be the good candidate to describe superheavy
elements. The binding energies of the 118 nucleus and its
decay daughter nuclei obtained using TM1 agree with those of FRDM
within 2 MeV. Similar conclusion that TM1 is the good interaction is also drawn
from the calculated binding energies for Pb isotopes with the Relativistic
Continuum Hartree Bogoliubov (RCHB) theory. Using the pairing gaps obtained
from RCHB, RMF calculations with pairing and deformation are carried out for
the structure of superheavy elements. The binding energy, shape, single
particle levels, and the Q values of the decay are
discussed, and it is shown that both pairing correlation and deformation are
essential to properly understand the structure of superheavy elements. A good
agreement is obtained with experimental data on . %Especially, the
atomic number %dependence of %seems to match with the experimental
observationComment: 19 pages, 5 figure
Birkhoff's Theorem in f(T) Gravity up to the Perturbative Order
f(T) gravity, a generally modified teleparallel gravity, has become very
popular in recent times as it is able to reproduce the unification of inflation
and late-time acceleration without the need of a dark energy component or an
inflation field. In this present work, we investigate specifically the range of
validity of Birkhoff's theorem with the general tetrad field via perturbative
approach. At zero order, Birkhoff's theorem is valid and the solution is the
well known Schwarzschild-(A)dS metric. Then considering the special case of the
diagonal tetrad field, we present a new spherically symmetric solution in the
frame of f(T) gravity up to the perturbative order. The results with the
diagonal tetrad field satisfy the physical equivalence between the Jordan and
the so-called Einstein frames, which are realized via conformal transformation,
at least up to the first perturbative order.Comment: 8 pages, no figure. Final version, accepted for publication in EPJ
Extended Birkhoff's Theorem in the f(T) Gravity
The f(T) theory, a generally modified teleparallel gravity, has been proposed
as an alternative gravity model to account for the dark energy phenomena.
Following our previous work [Xin-he Meng and Ying-bin Wang, EPJC(2011),
arXiv:1107.0629v1], we prove that the Birkhoff's theorem holds in a more
general context, specifically with the off diagonal tetrad case, in this
communication letter. Then, we discuss respectively the results of the external
vacuum and internal gravitational field in the f(T) gravity framework, as well
as the extended meaning of this theorem. We also investigate the validity of
the Birkhoff's theorem in the frame of f(T) gravity via conformal
transformation by regarding the Brans-Dicke-like scalar as effective matter,
and study the equivalence between both Einstein frame and Jordan frame.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figure, submitted to EPJ-C. arXiv admin note: substantial
text overlap with arXiv:1107.062
A unified approach to linking experimental, statistical and computational analysis of spike train data
A fundamental issue in neuroscience is how to identify the multiple biophysical mechanisms through which neurons generate observed patterns of spiking activity. In previous work, we proposed a method for linking observed patterns of spiking activity to specific biophysical mechanisms based on a state space modeling framework and a sequential Monte Carlo, or particle filter, estimation algorithm. We have shown, in simulation, that this approach is able to identify a space of simple biophysical models that were consistent with observed spiking data (and included the model that generated the data), but have yet to demonstrate the application of the method to identify realistic currents from real spike train data. Here, we apply the particle filter to spiking data recorded from rat layer V cortical neurons, and correctly identify the dynamics of an slow, intrinsic current. The underlying intrinsic current is successfully identified in four distinct neurons, even though the cells exhibit two distinct classes of spiking activity: regular spiking and bursting. This approach – linking statistical, computational, and experimental neuroscience – provides an effective technique to constrain detailed biophysical models to specific mechanisms consistent with observed spike train data.Published versio
Birkhoff's theorem in the f(T) gravity
Generalized from the so-called teleparallel gravity which is exactly
equivalent to general relativity, the gravity has been proposed as an
alternative gravity model to account for the dark energy phenomena. In this
letter we prove that the external vacuum gravitational field for a spherically
symmetric distribution of source matter in the gravity framework must be
static and the conclusion is independent of the radial distribution and
spherically symmetric motion of the source matter that is, whether it is in
motion or static. As a consequence, the Birkhoff's theorem is valid in the
general theory. We also discuss its application in the de Sitter
space-time evolution phase as preferred to by the nowadays dark energy
observations.Comment: 5p
- …