Coulomb blockade in graphene nanoribbons

We propose that recent transport experiments revealing the existence of an energy gap in graphene nanoribbons may be understood in terms of Coulomb blockade. Electron interactions play a decisive role at the quantum dots which form due to the presence of necks arising from the roughness of the graphene edge. With the average transmission as the only fitting parameter, our theory shows good agreement with the experimental data.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Spectra of primordial fluctuations in two-perfect-fluid regular bounces

We introduce analytic solutions for a class of two components bouncing models, where the bounce is triggered by a negative energy density perfect fluid. The equation of state of the two components are constant in time, but otherwise unrelated. By numerically integrating regular equations for scalar cosmological perturbations, we find that the (would be) growing mode of the Newtonian potential before the bounce never matches with the the growing mode in the expanding stage. For the particular case of a negative energy density component with a stiff equation of state we give a detailed analytic study, which is in complete agreement with the numerical results. We also perform analytic and numerical calculations for long wavelength tensor perturbations, obtaining that, in most cases of interest, the tensor spectral index is independent of the negative energy fluid and given by the spectral index of the growing mode in the contracting stage. We compare our results with previous investigations in the literature.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure

Charged branes interactions via Kalb-Ramond field

Because of its versatility, the 2-form field has been employed to describe a multitude of scenarios that range from high energy to condensed matter physics. Pushing forward in this endeavor we study the interaction energy, intermediated by this kind of field, between branes in a variety of configurations. Also, the so-called Cremmer-Scherk-Kalb-Ramond model, which consists of the electromagnetic field coupled to the Kalb-Ramond gauge potential, is considered. It turns out that these models exhibit a much richer class of sources than usually thought, able to intermediate novel forms of interactions in different scenarios.Comment: 12 latex pages, more general result