774 research outputs found
Metastable Vacua in Brane Worlds
We analyze vacuum decay in brane world setups, where a free scalar field in
five dimensions has a localized potential admitting metastable vacua. We study
in particular the bounce solution and its properties in flat and warped spaces.
In the latter case, placing into a deeply warped region the term in the
potential that lifts the vacuum degeneracy, can increase indefinitely the
lifetime of the false vacuum. We discuss the application to metastable vacua in
supersymmetric brane-world constructions.Comment: LaTeX, 24 page
The confining trailing string
We extend the holographic trailing string picture of a heavy quark to the
case of a bulk geometry dual to a confining gauge theory. We compute the
classical trailing confining string solution for a static as well as a
uniformly moving quark. The trailing string is infinitely extended and
approaches a confining horizon, situated at a critical value of the radial
coordinate, along one of the space-time directions, breaking boundary
rotational invariance. We compute the equations for the fluctuations around the
classical solutions, which are used to obtain boundary force correlators
controlling the Langevin dynamics of the quark. The imaginary part of the
correlators has a non-trivial low-frequency limit, which gives rise to a
viscous friction coefficient induced by the confining vacuum. The vacuum
correlators are used to define finite-temperature dressed Langevin correlators
with an appropriate high-frequency behavior.Comment: 63 pages plus appendices, 19 figures; version accepted for
publication in JHE
Improved Holographic Yang-Mills at Finite Temperature: Comparison with Data
The semi-phenomenological improved holographic model for QCD is confronted
with data of the pure glue, large-Nc gauge theory. After fitting two
phenomenological parameters in the potential, the model can reproduce in detail
all thermodynamic functions at finite temperature. It also reproduces in detail
all known spin-0 and spin-2 glueball observables at zero temperature and
predicts the rest of the 0++ and 2++ towers. A similar two parameter fit in the
CP-odd sector postdicts the correct second 0+- glueball mass, and predicts the
rest of the 0+- tower.Comment: 36 pages, 10 figures; references added, minor typos corrected; v3:
corrected numerical mistake in section 5.4
Holographic neutrino transport in dense strongly-coupled matter
A (toy) model for cold and luke-warm strongly-coupled nuclear matter at
finite baryon density and isospin chemical potential is used to study neutrino
transport. The complete charged current two-point correlators are computed in
the strongly-coupled medium and their impact on neutrino transport is analyzed.
The full result is compared with various approximations for the current
correlators and the distributions, including the degenerate approximation, the
hydrodynamic approximation as well as the diffusive approximation and we
comment on their successes. Further improvements are discussed.Comment: 69 pages + Appendix; 27 figure
Numerical methods for fluctuation driven interactions between dielectrics
We develop a discretized theory of thermal Casimir interactions to
numerically calculate the interactions between fluctuating dielectrics. From a
constrained partition function we derive a surface free energy, while handling
divergences that depend on system size and discretization. We derive analytic
results for parallel plate geometry in order to check the convergence of the
numerical methods. We use the method to calculate vertical and lateral Casimir
forces for a set of grooves.Comment: revtex, 20 page
Smooth-rough asymmetric PLGA structure made of dip coating membrane and electrospun nanofibrous scaffolds meant to be used for guided tissue regeneration of periodontium
A surgical procedure for the repair of damaged periodontal tissue is Guided Tissue Regeneration (GTR), which involves the use of a barrier membrane to prevent soft tissue ingrowth and create a space for slow regeneration of periodontium and bone. GTR membrane should have pores able to facilitate the diffusion of fluids, oxygen, nutrients, and bioactive substances for cell growth, but also be impermeable to epithelial cells or gingival fibroblasts, which could overpopulate the defect space and inhibit infiltration and activity of bone-forming cells. In this paper, a bilayer PLGA membrane was realized by coupling the dip coating and electrospinning techniques. The rough layer of the double-sided structure was electrospun on the previously prepared smooth dip-coated membrane. A rotating drum collector at two rotating speeds was used to generate different fibers orientation. The bilayer membrane with different superimposed surfaces was successfully fabricated and characterized from a morphological, physicochemical, and the mechanical point of view. Performed analyses revealed that the membrane possesses suitable properties, especially from mechanical point of view, for its possible use as a scaffold for the GTR of periodontum. A high fiber alignment and improved mechanical properties with respect to available GTR membranes characterized the product resulting from this study
An Easy Route to Enantiomerically Enriched 7- and 8-Hydroxystearic Acids by Olefin Metathesis - Based Approach
The synthesis of enantiomerically enriched 7- and 8-hydroxystearic acids (7- and 8-HSA) has been successfully accomplished starting from chiral non racemic 1-pentadecen-4-ol and 1-tetradecen-4-ol respectively. Their Yamaguchi\u2019s esterification with 4-pentenoic and 5-hexenoic acids respectively afforded the suitable dienic esters which were submitted to ring closing metathesis reaction. After hydrogenation and basic hydrolysis of the complex reaction mixture, chiral non racemic 7- and 8-HSA were obtained in about 40% total yield
Naturalness in Cosmological Initial Conditions
We propose a novel approach to the problem of constraining cosmological
initial conditions. Within the framework of effective field theory, we classify
initial conditions in terms of boundary terms added to the effective action
describing the cosmological evolution below Planckian energies. These boundary
terms can be thought of as spacelike branes which may support extra
instantaneous degrees of freedom and extra operators. Interactions and
renormalization of these boundary terms allow us to apply to the boundary terms
the field-theoretical requirement of naturalness, i.e. stability under
radiative corrections. We apply this requirement to slow-roll inflation with
non-adiabatic initial conditions, and to cyclic cosmology. This allows us to
define in a precise sense when some of these models are fine-tuned. We also
describe how to parametrize in a model-independent way non-Gaussian initial
conditions; we show that in some cases they are both potentially observable and
pass our naturalness requirement.Comment: 35 pages, 8 figure
On the use of COSMO/SkyMed data and Weather Models for interferometric DEM generation
AbstractThis work experiments the potentialities of COSMO/SkyMed (CSK) data in providing interferometric Digital Elevation Model (DEM). We processed a stack of CSK data for measuring with meter accuracy the ground elevation on the available coherent targets, and used these values to check the accuracy of DEMs derived from 5 tandem-like CSK pairs. In order to suppress the atmospheric signal we experimented a classical spatial filtering of the differential phase as well as the use of numerical weather prediction (NWP) model RAMS. Tandem-like pairs with normal baselines higher than 300 m allows to derive DEMs fulfilling the HRTI Level 3 specifications on the relative vertical accuracy, while the use of NWP models still seems unfeasible especially for X-band
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