Cold Quark Matter, Quadratic Corrections and Gauge/String Duality

We make an estimate of the quadratic correction in the pressure of cold quark matter using gauge/string duality.Comment: 7 pages; v.2: reference added; v.3: reference and comments added, version to appear in PRD; v4. final version to appear in PRD; v.5: key reference adde

Massive Fields and the 2D String

The first massive level of closed bosonic string theory is studied. Free-field equations are derived by imposing Weyl invariance on the world sheet. A two-parameter solution to the equation of motion and constraints is found in two dimensions with a flat linear-dilaton background. One-to-one tachyon scattering is studied in this background. The results support Dhar, Mandal and Wadia's proposal that 2D critical string theory corresponds to the c=1 matrix model in which both sides of the Fermi sea are excited.Comment: 17 pages, Latex. V2: One ref added, minor rephrasing of the first paragraph in Sec.3.1, typos in (56) and (57) correcte

Excitation gap of a graphene channel with superconducting boundaries

We calculate the density of states of electron-hole excitations in a superconductor/normal-metal/superconductor (SNS) junction in graphene, in the long-junction regime that the superconducting gap is much larger than the Thouless energy. If the normal region is undoped, the excitation spectrum consists of neutral modes that propagate along the boundaries - transporting energy but no charge. These ``Andreev modes'' are a coherent superposition of electron states from the conduction band and hole states from the valence band, coupled by specular Andreev reflection at the superconductor. The lowest Andreev mode has an excitation gap, which depends on the superconducting phase difference across the SNS graphene channel. At high doping the excitation gap vanishes and the usual gapless density of states of Andreev levels is recovered. We use our results to calculate the superconducting phase dependence of the thermal conductance of the graphene channel.Comment: 8 pages, 10 figure

Frobenius-Perron Resonances for Maps with a Mixed Phase Space

Resonances of the time evolution (Frobenius-Perron) operator P for phase space densities have recently been shown to play a key role for the interrelations of classical, semiclassical and quantum dynamics. Efficient methods to determine resonances are thus in demand, in particular for Hamiltonian systems displaying a mix of chaotic and regular behavior. We present a powerful method based on truncating P to a finite matrix which not only allows to identify resonances but also the associated phase space structures. It is demonstrated to work well for a prototypical dynamical system.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, 2nd version as published (minor changes

Polaritons and Pairing Phenomena in Bose--Hubbard Mixtures

Motivated by recent experiments on cold atomic gases in ultra high finesse optical cavities, we consider the problem of a two-band Bose--Hubbard model coupled to quantum light. Photoexcitation promotes carriers between the bands and we study the non-trivial interplay between Mott insulating behavior and superfluidity. The model displays a global U(1) X U(1) symmetry which supports the coexistence of Mott insulating and superfluid phases, and yields a rich phase diagram with multicritical points. This symmetry property is shared by several other problems of current experimental interest, including two-component Bose gases in optical lattices, and the bosonic BEC-BCS crossover problem for atom-molecule mixtures induced by a Feshbach resonance. We corroborate our findings by numerical simulations.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Fluctuations of the Josephson current and electron-electron interactions in superconducting weak links

We derive a microscopic effective action for superconducting contacts with arbitrary transmission distribution of conducting channels. Provided fluctuations of the Josephson phase remain sufficiently small our formalism allows to fully describe fluctuation and interaction effects in such systems. As compared to the well studied tunneling limit our analysis yields a number of qualitatively new features which occur due to the presence of subgap Andreev bound states in the system. We investigate the equilibrium supercurrent noise and evaluate the electron-electron interaction correction to the Josephson current across superconducting contacts. At T=0 this correction is found to vanish for fully transparent contacts indicating the absence of Coulomb effects in this limit.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figure

Testing the time dependence of the fundamental constants in the spectra of multicharged ions

A new method for measuring a possible time dependence of the fine-structure constant ($\alpha$) is proposed. The method is based on the level-crossing in two-electron highly-charged ions facilitating resonance laser measurements of the distance between the levels at the point of crossing. This provides an enhancement factor of about $10^{3}$ in Helium-like Europium and thus reduces the requirements for the relative accuracy of resonance laser measurements at about $10^{-12}$.Comment: 11 page

Atom-molecule coexistence and collective dynamics near a Feshbach resonance of cold fermions

Degenerate Fermi gas interacting with molecules near Feshbach resonance is unstable with respect to formation of a mixed state in which atoms and molecules coexist as a coherent superposition. Theory of this state is developed using a mapping to the Dicke model, treating molecular field in the single mode approximation. The results are accurate in the strong coupling regime relevant for current experimental efforts. The exact solution of the Dicke model is exploited to study stability, phase diagram, and nonadiabatic dynamics of molecular field in the mixed state.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figure