Scalar-tensor theories and asymmetric resonant cavities

Recently published experimental results indicate the appeareance of unusual forces on asymmetric, electromagnetic resonant cavities. It is argued here that a particular class of scalar-tensor theories of gravity could account for this effect.Comment: 14 pages, no figures (this version was revised and corrected

Decay of massless Dirac field around the Born-Infeld Black Hole

In this paper we investigate the perturbations by a massless Dirac spinor of a Born-Infeld black hole. The decay rates of the spinor field which is given by the quasinormal mode frequencies are computed using the sixth order WKB approximation. The behavior of the quasi normal modes with the non-linear parameter, temperature and charge of the black hole are analyzed in detail. We also compare the decay rates of the Born-Infeld black hole with its linear counter-part Reissner-Nordstrom black hole.Comment: Latex, 11 figures, references added, new data and new graphs adde

Productivity of Nations: a Stochastic Frontier Approach to Tfp Decomposition

This Paper Tackles the Problem of Aggregate Tfp Measurement Using Stochastic Frontier Analysis (Sfa). Data From Penn World Table 6.1 are Used to Estimate a World Production Frontier For a Sample of 75 Countries Over a Long Period (1950-2000) Taking Advantage of the Model Offered By Battese and Coelli (1992). We Also Apply the Decomposition of Tfp Suggested By Bauer (1990) and Kumbhakar (2000) to a Smaller Sample of 36 Countries Over the Period 1970-2000 in Order to Evaluate the Effects of Changes in Efficiency (Technical and Allocative), Scale Effects and Technical Change. This Allows Us to Analyze the Role of Productivity and Its Components in Economic Growth of Developed and Developing Nations in Addition to the Importance of Factor Accumulation. Although not Much Explored in the Study of Economic Growth, Frontier Techniques Seem to Be of Particular Interest For That Purpose Since the Separation of Efficiency Effects and Technical Change Has a Direct Interpretation in Terms of the Catch-Up Debate. The Estimated Technical Efficiency Scores Reveal the Efficiency of Nations in the Production of Non Tradable Goods Since the Gdp Series Used is Ppp-Adjusted. We Also Provide a Second Set of Efficiency Scores Corrected in Order to Reveal Efficiency in the Production of Tradable Goods and Rank Them. When Compared to the Rankings of Productivity Indexes Offered By Non-Frontier Studies of Hall and Jones (1996) and Islam (1995) Our Ranking Shows a Somewhat More Intuitive Order of Countries. Rankings of the Technical Change and Scale Effects Components of Tfp Change are Also Very Intuitive. We Also Show That Productivity is Responsible For Virtually All the Differences of Performance Between Developed and Developing Countries in Terms of Rates of Growth of Income Per Worker. More Important, We Find That Changes in Allocative Efficiency Play a Crucial Role in Explaining Differences in the Productivity of Developed and Developing Nations, Even Larger Than the One Played By the Technology Gap

Conformal covariance of massless free nets

In the present paper we review in a fibre bundle context the covariant and massless canonical representations of the Poincare' group as well as certain unitary representations of the conformal group (in 4 dimensions). We give a simplified proof of the well-known fact that massless canonical representations with discrete helicity extend to unitary and irreducible representations of the conformal group mentioned before. Further we give a simple new proof that massless free nets for any helicity value are covariant under the conformal group. Free nets are the result of a direct (i.e. independent of any explicit use of quantum fields) and natural way of constructing nets of abstract C*-algebras indexed by open and bounded regions in Minkowski space that satisfy standard axioms of local quantum physics. We also give a group theoretical interpretation of the embedding {\got I} that completely characterizes the free net: it reduces the (algebraically) reducible covariant representation in terms of the unitary canonical ones. Finally, as a consequence of the conformal covariance we also mention for these models some of the expected algebraic properties that are a direct consequence of the conformal covariance (essential duality, PCT--symmetry etc.).Comment: 31 pages, Latex2