The Rotationally Improved Skyrmion, or ``RISKY''

The perceived inability of the Skyrme model to reproduce pseudovector pion-baryon coupling has come to be known as the ``Yukawa problem.'' In this talk, we review the complete solution to this problem. The solution involves a new configuration known as the rotationally improved Skyrmion, or ``RISKY,'' in which the hedgehog structure is modified by a small quadrupole distortion. We illustrate our ideas both in the Skyrme model and in a simpler model with a global U(1) symmetry.Comment: Talk presented at the 1995 Int'l Workshop on Nuclear & Particle Physics, Seoul, Kore

Modelling, simulation and optimisation of a piezoelectric energy harvester

The power generation efficiency of piezoelectric energy harvesters is dependent on the coupling of their resonant frequency with that of the source vibration. The mechanical design of the energy harvester plays an important role in defining the resonant frequency characteristics of the system and therefore in order to maximize power density it is important for a designer to be able to model, simulate and optimise designs to match new target applications. This paper investigates a strategy for the application of soft computing techniques from the field of evolutionary computation towards the design optimisation of piezoelectric energy harvesters that exhibit the targeted resonant frequency response chosen by the designer. The advantages of such evolutionary techniques are their ability to overcome challenges such as multi-modal and discontinuous search spaces which afflict more traditional gradient-based methods. A single case study is demonstrated in this paper, with the coupling of a multi-objective evolutionary algorithm NSGA-II to a multiphysics simulator COMSOL. Experimental results show successful implementation of the schema with all 5 experimental tests producing optimal piezoelectric energy harvester designs that matched the desired frequency response of 250 Hz

New Surgical Options in Glaucoma

The treatment of glaucoma is undergoing constant change. In the last decade, there has been a surge of novel surgical options that aim to lower intraocular pressure while providing improved safety profiles compared to traditional incisional glaucoma surgery. This article summarizes four such options— trabectome, iStent, canaloplasty and endocyclophotocoagulation— including descriptions of the procedures and evidence behind them

Boundary Entropy Can Increase Under Bulk RG Flow

The boundary entropy log(g) of a critical one-dimensional quantum system (or two-dimensional conformal field theory) is known to decrease under renormalization group (RG) flow of the boundary theory. We study instead the behavior of the boundary entropy as the bulk theory flows between two nearby critical points. We use conformal perturbation theory to calculate the change in g due to a slightly relevant bulk perturbation and find that it has no preferred sign. The boundary entropy log(g) can therefore increase during appropriate bulk flows. This is demonstrated explicitly in flows between minimal models. We discuss the applications of this result to D-branes in string theory and to impurity problems in condensed matter.Comment: 20 page

Valley Bifurcation in an O(3)O(3) σ\sigma Model: Implications for High-Energy Baryon Number Violation

The valley method for computing the total high-energy anomalous cross section $S_{anom}$ is the extension of the optical theorem to the case of instanton-antiinstanton backgrounds. As a toy model for baryon number violation in Electroweak theory, we consider a version of the $O(3)$ $\sigma$ model in which the conformal invariance is broken perturbatively. We show that at a critical energy the saddle-point values of the instanton size and instanton-antiinstanton separation bifurcate into complex conjugate pairs. This nonanalytic behavior signals the breakdown of the valley method at an energy where $S_{anom}$ is still exponentially suppressed. (Figures replaced 5/3/93).Comment: (14 pages, Los Alamos Preprint LA-UR-93-811). 3 uuencoded figures include

D3-branes on the Coulomb branch and instantons

The relative coefficients of higher derivative interactions of the IIB effective action of the form C^4, (D F_5)^4, F_5^8, ... (where C is the Weyl tensor and F_5 is the five-form field strength) are motivated by supersymmetry arguments. It is shown that the classical supergravity solution for N parallel D3-branes is unaltered by this combination of terms. The non-vanishing of \zeroC^2 in this background (where \zero C is the background value of the Weyl tensor) leads to effective O(1/alpha') interactions, such as C^2 and Lambda^8 (where Lambda is the dilatino). These contain D-instanton contributions in addition to tree and one-loop terms. The near horizon limit of the N D3-brane system describes a multi-AdS_5xS^5 geometry that is dual to \calN=4 SU(N) Yang-Mills theory spontaneously broken to S(U(M_1)x...xU(M_r)). Here, the N D3-branes are grouped into r coincident bunches with M_r in each group, with M_r/N = m_r fixed as N goes to infinity. The boundary correlation function of eight Lambda's is constructed explicitly. The second part of the paper considers effects of a constrained instanton in this large-N Yang-Mills theory by an extension of the analysis of Dorey, Hollowood and Khoze of the one-instanton measure at finite N. This makes precise the correspondence with the supergravity D-instanton measure at leading order in the 1/N expansion. However, the duality between instanton-induced correlation functions in Yang-Mills theory and the dual supergravity is somewhat obscured by complications relating to the structure of constrained instantons.Comment: 30 pages, JHEP style. Typos corrected and minor clarifications adde

Quantization of Sine-Gordon solitons on the circle: semiclassical vs. exact results

We consider the semiclassical quantization of sine-Gordon solitons on the circle with periodic and anti-periodic boundary conditions. The 1-loop quantum corrections to the mass of the solitons are determined using zeta function regularization in the integral representation. We compare the semiclassical results with exact numerical calculations in the literature and find excellent agreement even outside the plain semiclassical regime.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure

Conserved charges and soliton solutions in affine Toda theory

We study the conserved charges of affine Toda field theories by making use of the conformally invariant extension of these theories. We compute the values of all charges for the single soliton solutions, and show that these are related to eigenvectors of the Cartan matrix of the finite-dimensional Lie algebra underlying the theory.Comment: 18 pages, plain tex, minor changes, references adde

Heterotic/type I duality, D-instantons and an N=2 AdS/CFT correspondence

D-instanton effects are studied for the IIB orientifold T^2/I\Omega(-1)^{F_L} of Sen using type I/heterotic duality. An exact one loop threshold calculation of t_8 \tr F^4 and t_8(\tr F^2)^2 terms for the heterotic string on T^2 with Wilson lines breaking SO(32) to SO(8)^4 is related to D-instanton induced terms in the worldvolume of D7 branes in the orientifold. Introducing D3 branes and using the AdS/CFT correspondence in this case, these terms are used to calculate Yang-Mills instanton contributions to four point functions of the large N_c limit of N=2 USp(2N_c) SYM with four fundamental and one antisymmetric tensor hypermultiplets.Comment: 25 pages, harvmac(b), one figure, v2: minor changes, version to appear in PR