Welcher Weg? A trajectory representation of a quantum Young's diffraction experiment

The double slit problem is idealized by simplifying each slit by a point source. A composite reduced action for the two correlated point sources is developed. Contours of the reduced action, trajectories and loci of transit times are developed in the region near the two point sources. The trajectory through any point in Euclidian 3-space also passes simultaneously through both point sources.Comment: 12 pages LaTeX2e, 9 figures. Typos corrected. Author's final submission. A companion paper to "Interference, reduced action, and trajectories", quant-ph/0605120. Keywords: interference, Young's experiment, entanglement, nonlocality, trajectory representation, determinis

Is entanglement entropy proportional to area?

It is known that the entanglement entropy of a scalar field, found by tracing over its degrees of freedom inside a sphere of radius ${\cal R}$, is proportional to the area of the sphere (and not its volume). This suggests that the origin of black hole entropy, also proportional to its horizon area, may lie in the entanglement between the degrees of freedom inside and outside the horizon. We examine this proposal carefully by including excited states, to check probable deviations from the area law.Comment: 6 pages. Based on talk by S. Das at Theory Canada 1, Vancouver, 3 June, 2005. To be published in a special edition of the Canadian Journal of Physics. Minor changes to match published versio

Quantum Aspects of the Noncommutative Sine-Gordon Model

In this paper, we first use semi-classical methods to study quantum field theoretical aspects of the integrable noncommutative sine-Gordon model proposed in [hep-th/0406065]. In particular, we examine the fluctuations at quadratic order around the static kink solution using the background field method. We derive equations of motion for the fluctuations and argue that at O(theta^2) the spectrum of fluctuations remains essentially the same as that of the corresponding commutative theory. We compute the one-loop two-point functions of the sine-Gordon field and the additional scalar field present in the model and exhibit logarithmic divergences, only some of which lead to UV/IR mixing. We briefly discuss the one-loop renormalization in Euclidean signature and comment on the obstacles in determining the noncommutativity corrections to the quantum mass of the kink.Comment: 1+14 pages, 8 eps figures, Added references, Version to appear in JHE

Ground State H-Atom in Born-Infeld Theory

Within the context of Born-Infeld (BI) nonlinear electrodynamics (NED) we revisit the non-relativistic, spinless H-atom. The pair potential computed from the Born-Infeld equations is approximated by the Morse type potential with remarkable fit over the critical region where the convergence of both the short and long distance expansions slows down dramatically. The Morse potential is employed to determine both the ground state energy of the electron and the BI parameter.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, final version to appear in Foundation of Physic

Mass and charge transport in micro and nano-fluidic channels

We consider laminar flow of incompressible electrolytes in long, straight channels driven by pressure and electro-osmosis. We use a Hilbert space eigenfunction expansion to address the general problem of an arbitrary cross section and obtain general results in linear-response theory for the mass and charge transport coefficients which satisfy Onsager relations. In the limit of non-overlapping Debye layers the transport coefficients are simply expressed in terms of parameters of the electrolyte as well as the hydraulic radius R=2A/P with A and P being the cross-sectional area and perimeter, respectively. In articular, we consider the limits of thin non-overlapping as well as strongly overlapping Debye layers, respectively, and calculate the corrections to the hydraulic resistance due to electro-hydrodynamic interactions.Comment: Invited paper presented at the Second International Conference on Transport Phenomena in Micro and Nanodevices, Il Ciocco Hotel and Conference Center, Barga, Italy, 11-15 June 2006. Accepted for publication in a special issue of Nanoscale and Microscale Thermophysical Engineering (Taylor & Francis

A class of kinks in SU(N)\times Z_2

In a classical, quartic field theory with $SU(N) \times Z_2$ symmetry, a class of kink solutions can be found analytically for one special choice of parameters. We construct these solutions and determine their energies. In the limit $N\to \infty$, the energy of the kink is equal to that of a kink in a $Z_2$ model with the same mass parameter and quartic coupling (coefficient of ${\rm Tr}(\Phi^4)$). We prove the stability of the solutions to small perturbations but global stability remains unproven. We then argue that the continuum of choices for the boundary conditions leads to a whole space of kink solutions. The kinks in this space occur in classes that are determined by the chosen boundary conditions. Each class is described by the coset space $H/I$ where $H$ is the unbroken symmetry group and $I$ is the symmetry group that leaves the kink solution invariant.Comment: 7 pages; included discussion of gauge fields and other improvement

Alternative analysis to perturbation theory

We develop an alternative approach to time independent perturbation theory in non-relativistic quantum mechanics. The method developed has the advantage to provide in one operation the correction to the energy and to the wave function, additionally we can analyze the time evolution of the system. To verify our results, we apply our method to the harmonic oscillator perturbed by a quadratic potential. An alternative form of the Dyson series, in matrix form instead of integral form, is also obtained.Comment: 12 pages, no figure

Feynman's Propagator Applied to Network Models of Localization

Network models of dirty electronic systems are mapped onto an interacting field theory of lower dimensionality by intepreting one space dimension as time. This is accomplished via Feynman's interpretation of anti-particles as particles moving backwards in time. The method developed maps calculation of the moments of the Landauer conductance onto calculation of correlation functions of an interacting field theory of bosons and fermions. The resulting field theories are supersymmetric and closely related to the supersymmetric spin-chain representations of network models recently discussed by various authors. As an application of the method, the two-edge Chalker-Coddington model is shown to be Anderson localized, and a delocalization transition in a related two-edge network model (recently discussed by Balents and Fisher) is studied by calculation of the average Landauer conductance.Comment: Latex, 14 pages, 2 fig

On time-dependent AdS/CFT

We clarify aspects of the holographic AdS/CFT correspondence that are typical of Lorentzian signature, to lay the foundation for a treatment of time-dependent gravity and conformal field theory phenomena. We provide a derivation of bulk-to-boundary propagators associated to advanced, retarded and Feynman bulk propagators, and provide a better understanding of the boundary conditions satisfied by the bulk fields at the horizon. We interpret the subleading behavior of the wavefunctions in terms of specific vacuum expectation values, and compute two-point functions in our framework. We connect our bulk methods to the closed time path formalism in the boundary field theory.Comment: 19 pages, v2: added reference, JHEP versio