1,439 research outputs found
Light--like Wilson loops and gauge invariance of Yang--Mills theory in 1+1 dimensions
A light-like Wilson loop is computed in perturbation theory up to for pure Yang--Mills theory in 1+1 dimensions, using Feynman and
light--cone gauges to check its gauge invariance. After dimensional
regularization in intermediate steps, a finite gauge invariant result is
obtained, which however does not exhibit abelian exponentiation. Our result is
at variance with the common belief that pure Yang--Mills theory is free in 1+1
dimensions, apart perhaps from topological effects.Comment: 10 pages, plain TeX, DFPD 94/TH/
Variational Approach to the Modulational Instability
We study the modulational stability of the nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation
(NLS) using a time-dependent variational approach. Within this framework, we
derive ordinary differential equations (ODEs) for the time evolution of the
amplitude and phase of modulational perturbations. Analyzing the ensuing ODEs,
we re-derive the classical modulational instability criterion. The case
(relevant to applications in optics and Bose-Einstein condensation) where the
coefficients of the equation are time-dependent, is also examined
Site investigation for the effects of vegetation on ground stability
The procedure for geotechnical site investigation is well established but little attention is currently given to investigating the potential of vegetation to assist with ground stability. This paper describes how routine investigation procedures may be adapted to consider the effects of the vegetation. It is recommended that the major part of the vegetation investigation is carried out, at relatively low cost, during the preliminary (desk) study phase of the investigation when there is maximum flexibility to take account of findings in the proposed design and construction. The techniques available for investigation of the effects of vegetation are reviewed and references provided for further consideration. As for general geotechnical investigation work, it is important that a balance of effort is maintained in the vegetation investigation between (a) site characterisation (defining and identifying the existing and proposed vegetation to suit the site and ground conditions), (b) testing (in-situ and laboratory testing of the vegetation and root systems to provide design parameters) and (c) modelling (to analyse the vegetation effects)
First-principles study of (BiScO3){1-x}-(PbTiO3){x} piezoelectric alloys
We report a first-principles study of a class of (BiScO3)_{1-x}-(PbTiO3)_x
(BS-PT) alloys recently proposed by Eitel et al. as promising materials for
piezoelectric actuator applications. We show that (i) BS-PT displays very large
structural distortions and polarizations at the morphotropic phase boundary
(MPB) (we obtain a c/a of ~1.05-1.08 and P_tet of ~1.1 C/m^2); (ii) the
ferroelectric and piezoelectric properties of BS-PT are dominated by the onset
of hybridization between Bi/Pb-6p and O-2p orbitals, a mechanism that is
enhanced upon substitution of Pb by Bi; and (iii) the piezoelectric responses
of BS-PT and Pb(Zr_{1-x}Ti_x)O3 (PZT) at the MPB are comparable, at least as
far as the computed values of the piezoelectric coefficient d_15 are concerned.
While our results are generally consistent with experiment, they also suggest
that certain intrinsic properties of BS-PT may be even better than has been
indicated by experiments to date. We also discuss results for PZT that
demonstrate the prominent role played by Pb displacements in its piezoelectric
properties.Comment: 6 pages, with 3 postscript figures embedded. Uses REVTEX and epsf
macros. Also available at
http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~dhv/preprints/ji_bi/index.htm
Quasiparticle excitation in and around the vortex core of underdoped YBa_2Cu_4O_8 studied by site-selective NMR
We report a site-selective ^{17}O spin-lattice relaxation rate T_1^{-1} in
the vortex state of underdoped YBa_2Cu_4O_8. We found that T_1^{-1} at the
planar sites exhibits an unusual nonmonotonic NMR frequency dependence. In the
region well outside the vortex core, T_1^{-1} cannot be simply explained by the
density of states of the Doppler-shifted quasiparticles in the d-wave
superconductor. Based on T_1^{-1} in the vortex core region, we establish
strong evidence that the local density of states within the vortex core is
strongly reduced.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figure
Sodium atoms and clusters on graphite: a density functional study
Sodium atoms and clusters (N<5) on graphite (0001) are studied using density
functional theory, pseudopotentials and periodic boundary conditions. A single
Na atom is observed to bind at a hollow site 2.45 A above the surface with an
adsorption energy of 0.51 eV. The small diffusion barrier of 0.06 eV indicates
a flat potential energy surface. Increased Na coverage results in a weak
adsorbate-substrate interaction, which is evident in the larger separation from
the surface in the cases of Na_3, Na_4, Na_5, and the (2x2) Na overlayer. The
binding is weak for Na_2, which has a full valence electron shell. The presence
of substrate modifies the structures of Na_3, Na_4, and Na_5 significantly, and
both Na_4 and Na_5 are distorted from planarity. The calculated formation
energies suggest that clustering of atoms is energetically favorable, and that
the open shell clusters (e.g. Na_3 and Na_5) can be more abundant on graphite
than in the gas phase. Analysis of the lateral charge density distributions of
Na and Na_3 shows a charge transfer of about 0.5 electrons in both cases.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figure
Identifying diachronic topic-based research communities by clustering shared research trajectories
Communities of academic authors are usually identified by means of standard community detection algorithms, which exploit âstaticâ relations, such as co-authorship or citation networks. In contrast with these approaches, here we focus on diachronic topic-based communities âi.e., communities of people who appear to work on semantically related topics at the same time. These communities are interesting because their analysis allows us to make sense of the dynamics of the research world âe.g., migration of researchers from one topic to another, new communities being spawn by older ones, communities splitting, merging, ceasing to exist, etc. To this purpose, we are interested in developing clustering methods that are able to handle correctly the dynamic aspects of topic-based community formation, prioritizing the relationship between researchers who appear to follow the same research trajectories. We thus present a novel approach called Temporal Semantic Topic-Based Clustering (TST), which exploits a novel metric for clustering researchers according to their research trajectories, defined as distributions of semantic topics over time. The approach has been evaluated through an empirical study involving 25 experts from the Semantic Web and Human-Computer Interaction areas. The evaluation shows that TST exhibits a performance comparable to the one achieved by human experts
Chaotic scalar fields as models for dark energy
We consider stochastically quantized self-interacting scalar fields as
suitable models to generate dark energy in the universe. Second quantization
effects lead to new and unexpected phenomena is the self interaction strength
is strong. The stochastically quantized dynamics can degenerate to a chaotic
dynamics conjugated to a Bernoulli shift in fictitious time, and the right
amount of vacuum energy density can be generated without fine tuning. It is
numerically observed that the scalar field dynamics distinguishes fundamental
parameters such as the electroweak and strong coupling constants as
corresponding to local minima in the dark energy landscape. Chaotic fields can
offer possible solutions to the cosmological coincidence problem, as well as to
the problem of uniqueness of vacua.Comment: 30 pages, 3 figures. Replaced by final version accepted by Phys. Rev.
Methods to Determine Neutrino Flux at Low Energies:Investigation of the Low Method
We investigate the "low-" method (developed by the CCFR/NUTEV
collaborations) to determine the neutrino flux in a wide band neutrino beam at
very low energies, a region of interest to neutrino oscillations experiments.
Events with low hadronic final state energy (of 1, 2 and 5 GeV)
were used by the MINOS collaboration to determine the neutrino flux in their
measurements of neutrino () and antineutrino (\nub_\mu) total cross
sections. The lowest energy for which the method was used in MINOS is
3.5 GeV, and the lowest \nub_\mu energy is 6 GeV. At these energies, the
cross sections are dominated by inelastic processes. We investigate the
application of the method to determine the neutrino flux for ,
\nub_\mu energies as low as 0.7 GeV where the cross sections are dominated by
quasielastic scattering and (1232) resonance production. We find that
the method can be extended to low energies by using values of 0.25
and 0.50 GeV, which is feasible in fully active neutrino detectors such as
MINERvA.Comment: 25 pages, 32 figures, to be published in European Physics Journal
A hybrid semantic approach to building dynamic maps of research communities
In the last ten years, ontology-based recommender systems have been shown to be effective tools for predicting user preferences and suggesting items. There are however some issues associated with the ontologies adopted by these approaches, such as: 1) their crafting is not a cheap process, being time consuming and calling for specialist expertise; 2) they may not represent accurately the viewpoint of the targeted user community; 3) they tend to provide rather static models, which fail to keep track of evolving user perspectives. To address these issues, we propose Klink UM, an approach for extracting emergent semantics from user feedbacks, with the aim of tailoring the ontology to the users and improving the recommendations accuracy. Klink UM uses statistical and machine learning techniques for finding hierarchical and similarity relationships between keywords associated with rated items and can be used for: 1) building a conceptual taxonomy from scratch, 2) enriching and correcting an existing ontology, 3) providing a numerical estimate of the intensity of semantic relationships according to the users. The evaluation shows that Klink UM performs well with respect to handcrafted ontologies and can significantly increase the accuracy of suggestions in content-based recommender systems
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