A note on the Penrose junction conditions

Impulsive pp-waves are commonly described either by a distributional spacetime metric or, alternatively, by a continuous one. The transformation $T$ relating these forms clearly has to be discontinuous, which causes two basic problems: First, it changes the manifold structure and second, the pullback of the distributional form of the metric under $T$ is not well defined within classical distribution theory. Nevertheless, from a physical point of view both pictures are equivalent. In this work, after calculating $T$ als well as the ''Rosen''-form of the metric in the general case of a pp-wave with arbitrary wave profile we give a precise meaning to the term ``physically equivalent'' by interpreting $T$ as the distributional limit of a suitably regularized sequence of diffeomorphisms. Moreover, it is shown that $T$ provides an example of a generalized coordinate transformation in the sense of Colombeau's generalized functions.Comment: 9 pages, RevTeX, no figures, final version (typos corrected, references updated

Orthogonal free quantum group factors are strongly 1-bounded

We prove that the orthogonal free quantum group factors $\mathcal{L}(\mathbb{F}O_N)$ are strongly $1$-bounded in the sense of Jung. In particular, they are not isomorphic to free group factors. This result is obtained by establishing a spectral regularity result for the edge reversing operator on the quantum Cayley tree associated to $\mathbb{F}O_N$, and combining this result with a recent free entropy dimension rank theorem of Jung and Shlyakhtenko.Comment: v3: accepted versio

Boundary Stabilization of Quasilinear Maxwell Equations

We investigate an initial-boundary value problem for a quasilinear nonhomogeneous, anisotropic Maxwell system subject to an absorbing boundary condition of Silver & M\"uller type in a smooth, bounded, strictly star-shaped domain of $\mathbb{R}^{3}$. Imposing usual smallness assumptions in addition to standard regularity and compatibility conditions, a nonlinear stabilizability inequality is obtained by showing nonlinear dissipativity and observability-like estimates enhanced by an intricate regularity analysis. With the stabilizability inequality at hand, the classic nonlinear barrier method is employed to prove that small initial data admit unique classical solutions that exist globally and decay to zero at an exponential rate. Our approach is based on a recently established local well-posedness theory in a class of $\mathcal{H}^{3}$-valued functions.Comment: 22 page

Anisotropic Hydrodynamic Mean-Field Theory for Semiflexible Polymers under Tension

We introduce an anisotropic mean-field approach for the dynamics of semiflexible polymers under intermediate tension, the force range where a chain is partially extended but not in the asymptotic regime of a nearly straight contour. The theory is designed to exactly reproduce the lowest order equilibrium averages of a stretched polymer, and treats the full complexity of the problem: the resulting dynamics include the coupled effects of long-range hydrodynamic interactions, backbone stiffness, and large-scale polymer contour fluctuations. Validated by Brownian hydrodynamics simulations and comparison to optical tweezer measurements on stretched DNA, the theory is highly accurate in the intermediate tension regime over a broad dynamical range, without the need for additional dynamic fitting parameters.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures; revised version with additional calculations and experimental comparison; accepted for publication in Macromolecule