The Green's function for the radial Schramm-Loewner evolution

We prove the existence of the Green's function for radial SLE(k) for k<8. Unlike the chordal case where an explicit formula for the Green's function is known for all values of k<8, we give an explicit formula only for k=4. For other values of k, we give a formula in terms of an expectation with respect to SLE conditioned to go through a point.Comment: v1: 16 pages, 0 figure

Sectarian Catholicism and Mel Gibson

Mel Gibson is a self-confessed traditionalist Catholic, and the task assigned to me is to explain that contemporary traditionalist Catholicism. That explanation is the direct focus of this paper. To the extent that Gibson is a well-known traditionalist, and the son of an even better known traditionalist with bizarre and well-documented views, understanding traditionalism contributes indirectly to understanding Mel Gibson. Neither of those two understandings will permit me to make any judgment about Gibson\u27s film, The Passion of the Christ, which I have not seen, but they do raise and have raised questions about the film that would be very serious if verified

Emergent gauge dynamics of highly frustrated magnets

Condensed matter exhibits a wide variety of exotic emergent phenomena such as the fractional quantum Hall effect and the low temperature cooperative behavior of highly frustrated magnets. I consider the classical Hamiltonian dynamics of spins of the latter phenomena using a method introduced by Dirac in the 1950s by assuming they are constrained to their lowest energy configurations as a simplifying measure. Focusing on the kagome antiferromagnet as an example, I find it is a gauge system with topological dynamics and non-locally connected edge states for certain open boundary conditions similar to doubled Chern-Simons electrodynamics expected of a $Z_2$ spin liquid. These dynamics are also similar to electrons in the fractional quantum Hall effect. The classical theory presented here is a first step towards a controlled semi-classical description of the spin liquid phases of many pyrochlore and kagome antiferromagnets and towards a description of the low energy classical dynamics of the corresponding unconstrained Heisenberg models.Comment: Updated with some appendices moved to the main body of the paper and some additional improvements. 21 pages, 5 figure

Sexuality Education and the Catholic Teenager: A Report

This article reports on findings of a study of sexuality education in a Catholic diocese. The sample included seniors enrolled in either Catholic high schools or parish religious education programs. The range of findings include data about students’ knowledge of sexuality, their understanding of Catholic Church teaching about sexuality, their attitudes and values in regard to sexuality, who and what influences their attitudes and values, their sexual behaviors, and their experience of sexuality education. Recommendations for parents and formal sexuality education programs are offered

Interference of nematic quantum critical quasiparticles: a route to the octet model

Repeated observations of inhomogeneity in cuperate superconductors[1-5] make one immediately question the existance of coherent quasiparticles(qp's) and the applicability of a momentum space picture. Yet, obversations of interference effects[6-9] suggest that the qp's maintain a remarkable coherence under special circumstances. In particular, quasi-particle interference (QPI) imaging using scanning tunneling spectroscopy revealed a highly unusual form of coherence: accumulation of coherence only at special points in momentum space with a particular energy dispersion[5-7]. Here we show that nematic quantum critical fluctuations[10], combined with the known extreme velocity anisotropy[11] provide a natural mechanism for the accumulation of coherence at those special points. Our results raise the intriguing question of whether the nematic fluctuations provide the unique mechanism for such a phenomenon.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Quantum Hall Smectics, Sliding Symmetry and the Renormalization Group

In this paper we discuss the implication of the existence of a sliding symmetry, equivalent to the absence of a shear modulus, on the low-energy theory of the quantum hall smectic (QHS) state. We show, through renormalization group calculations, that such a symmetry causes the naive continuum approximation in the direction perpendicular to the stripes to break down through infrared divergent contributions originating from naively irrelevant operators. In particular, we show that the correct fixed point has the form of an array of sliding Luttinger liquids which is free from superficially "irrelevant operators". Similar considerations apply to all theories with sliding symmetries.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figure

Adoption Of ASL Classifiers As Delivered By Head-Mounted Displays In A Planetarium Show

Accommodating the planetarium experience to members of the deaf or hard-of-hearing community has often created situations that are either disruptive to the rest of the audience or provide an insufficient accommodation. To address this issue, we examined the use of head-mounted displays to deliver an American Sign Language sound track to learners in the planetarium Here we present results from a feasibility study to see if an ASL sound track delivered through a head-mount display can be understood by deaf junior to senior high aged students who are fluent in ASL. We examined the adoption of ASL classifiers that were used as part of the sound track for a full dome planetarium show. We found that about 90% of all students in our sample adopted at least one classifier from the show. In addition, those who viewed the sound track in a head-mounted display did at least as well as those who saw the sound track projected directly on the dome. These results suggest that ASL transmitted through head-mounted displays is a promising method to help improve learning for those whose primary language is ASL and merits further investigation

Proposal for a CFT interpretation of Watts' differential equation for percolation

G. M. T. Watts derived that in two dimensional critical percolation the crossing probability Pi_hv satisfies a fifth order differential equation which includes another one of third order whose independent solutions describe the physically relevant quantities 1, Pi_h, Pi_hv. We will show that this differential equation can be derived from a level three null vector condition of a rational c=-24 CFT and motivate how this solution may be fitted into known properties of percolation.Comment: LaTeX, 20p, added references, corrected typos and additional content

Lymph node macrophages restrict murine cytomegalovirus dissemination

Cytomegaloviruses (CMVs) establish chronic infections that spread from a primary entry site to secondary vascular sites, such as the spleen, and then to tertiary shedding sites, such as the salivary glands. Human CMV (HCMV) is difficult to analyze, because its spread precedes clinical presentation. Murine CMV (MCMV) offers a tractable model. It is hypothesized to spread from peripheral sites via vascular endothelial cells and associated monocytes. However, viral luciferase imaging showed footpad-inoculated MCMV first reaching the popliteal lymph nodes (PLN). PLN colonization was rapid and further spread was slow, implying that LN infection can be a significant bottleneck. Most acutely infected PLN cells were CD169(+) subcapsular sinus macrophages (SSM). Replication-deficient MCMV also reached them, indicating direct infection. Many SSM expressed viral reporter genes, but few expressed lytic genes. SSM expressed CD11c, and MCMV with a cre-sensitive fluorochrome switch showed switched infected cells in PLN of CD11c-cre mice but yielded little switched virus. SSM depletion with liposomal clodronate or via a CD169-diphtheria toxin receptor transgene shifted infection to ER-TR7(+) stromal cells, increased virus production, and accelerated its spread to the spleen. Therefore, MCMV disseminated via LN, and SSM slowed this spread by shielding permissive fibroblasts and poorly supporting viral lytic replication

Non-perturbative behavior of the quantum phase transition to a nematic Fermi fluid

We discuss shape (Pomeranchuk) instabilities of the Fermi surface of a two-dimensional Fermi system using bosonization. We consider in detail the quantum critical behavior of the transition of a two dimensional Fermi fluid to a nematic state which breaks spontaneously the rotational invariance of the Fermi liquid. We show that higher dimensional bosonization reproduces the quantum critical behavior expected from the Hertz-Millis analysis, and verify that this theory has dynamic critical exponent $z=3$. Going beyond this framework, we study the behavior of the fermion degrees of freedom directly, and show that at quantum criticality as well as in the the quantum nematic phase (except along a set of measure zero of symmetry-dictated directions) the quasi-particles of the normal Fermi liquid are generally wiped out. Instead, they exhibit short ranged spatial correlations that decay faster than any power-law, with the law $|x|^{-1} \exp(-\textrm{const.} |x|^{1/3})$ and we verify explicitely the vanishing of the fermion residue utilizing this expression. In contrast, the fermion auto-correlation function has the behavior $|t|^{-1} \exp(-{\rm const}. |t|^{-2/3})$. In this regime we also find that, at low frequency, the single-particle fermion density-of-states behaves as $N^*(\omega)=N^*(0)+ B \omega^{2/3} \log\omega +...$, where $N^*(0)$ is larger than the free Fermi value, N(0), and $B$ is a constant. These results confirm the non-Fermi liquid nature of both the quantum critical theory and of the nematic phase.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures, 1 table; new version with minor changes; new subsection 3C2 added with an explicit calculation of the quasiparticle residue at the nematic transition; minor typos corrected, new references; general beautification of the text and figure