356 research outputs found
Alkyl Phenols and Diethylhexyl Phthalate in Tissues of Sheep Grazing Pastures Fertilized with Sewage Sludge or Inorganic Fertilizer
We studied selected tissues from ewes and their lambs that were grazing pastures fertilized with either sewage sludge (treated) or inorganic fertilizer (control) and determined concentrations of alkylphenols and phthalates in these tissues. Mean tissue concentrations of alkylphenols were relatively low (< 10–400 μg/kg) in all animals and tissues. Phthalates were detected in tissues of both control and treated animals at relatively high concentrations (> 20,000 μg/kg in many tissue samples). The use of sludge as a fertilizer was not associated with consistently increased concentrations of either alkylphenols or phthalates in the tissues of animals grazing treated pastures relative to levels in control animal tissues. Concentrations of the two classes of chemicals differed but were of a similar order of magnitude in liver and muscle as well as in fat. Concentrations of each class of compound were broadly similar in tissues derived from ewes and lambs. Although there were significant differences (p < 0.01 or p < 0.001) between years (cohorts) in mean tissue concentrations of both nonylphenol (NP) and phthalate in each of the tissues from both ewes and lambs, the differences were not attributable to either the age (6 months or 5 years) of the animal or the duration of exposure to treatments. Octylphenol concentrations were generally undetectable. There was no consistent cumulative outcome of prolonged exposure on the tissue concentrations of either class of pollutant in any ewe tissue. Mean tissue concentrations of phthalate were higher (p < 0.001) in the liver and kidney fat of male compared with female lambs. We suggest that the addition of sewage sludge to pasture is unlikely to cause large increases in tissue concentrations of NP and phthalates in sheep and other animals with broadly similar diets and digestive systems (i.e., domestic ruminants) grazing such pasture
Black Holes in Gravity with Conformal Anomaly and Logarithmic Term in Black Hole Entropy
We present a class of exact analytic and static, spherically symmetric black
hole solutions in the semi-classical Einstein equations with Weyl anomaly. The
solutions have two branches, one is asymptotically flat and the other
asymptotically de Sitter. We study thermodynamic properties of the black hole
solutions and find that there exists a logarithmic correction to the well-known
Bekenstein-Hawking area entropy. The logarithmic term might come from non-local
terms in the effective action of gravity theories. The appearance of the
logarithmic term in the gravity side is quite important in the sense that with
this term one is able to compare black hole entropy up to the subleading order,
in the gravity side and in the microscopic statistical interpretation side.Comment: Revtex, 10 pages. v2: minor changes and to appear in JHE
Drowning is an apparent and unexpected recurrent cause of mass mortality of Common starlings (Sturnus vulgaris)
Drowning is infrequently reported as a cause of death of wild birds and such incidents typically involve individual, rather than multiple, birds. Over a 21-year period (1993 to 2013 inclusive), we investigated 12 incidents of mortality of multiple (2-80+) Common starlings (Sturnus vulgaris) in Great Britain that appeared to be due to drowning. More than ten birds were affected in ten of these reported incidents. These incidents always occurred during the spring and early summer months and usually involved juvenile birds. In all cases, circumstantial evidence and post-mortem examinations indicated drowning to be the most likely cause of death with no underlying disease found. A behavioural explanation seems likely, possibly related to the gregarious nature of this species combined with juvenile inexperience in identifying water hazards. A review of data from the ringed bird recovery scheme across Great Britain (1913-2013 inclusive) of both starlings and Common blackbirds (Turdus merula), also a common garden visitor, identified additional suspected drowning incidents, which were significantly more common in the former species, supporting a species predisposition to drowning. For each species there was a marked seasonal peak from April to August. Drowning should be included as a differential diagnosis when investigating incidents of multiple starling mortality, especially of juveniles
Quantum corrections to Schwarzschild black hole
Using effective field theory techniques, we compute quantum corrections to spherically symmetric solutions of Einstein’s gravity and focus in particular on the Schwarzschild black hole. Quantum modifications are covariantly encoded in a non-local effective action. We work to quadratic order in curvatures simultaneously taking local and non-local corrections into account. Looking for solutions perturbatively close to that of classical general relativity, we find that an eternal Schwarzschild black hole remains a solution and receives no quantum corrections up to this order in the curvature expansion. In contrast, the field of a massive star receives corrections which are fully determined by the effective field theory
The Entropy for General Extremal Black Holes
We use the Kerr/CFT correspondence to calculate the entropy for all known
extremal stationary and axisymmetric black holes. This is done with the help of
two ansatzs that are general enough to cover all such known solutions.
Considering only the contribution from the Einstein-Hilbert action to the
central charge(s), we find that the entropy obtained by using Cardy's formula
exactly matches with the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy.Comment: Minor corrections, section 5 refined, references added
Trace anomalies in chiral theories revisited
Motivated by the search for possible CP violating terms in the trace of the
energy-momentum tensor in theories coupled to gravity we revisit the problem of trace
anomalies in chiral theories. We recalculate the latter and ascertain that in the trace of
the energy-momentum tensor of theories with chiral fermions at one-loop the Pontryagin
density appears with an imaginary coefficient. We argue that this may break unitarity, in
which case the trace anomaly has to be used as a selective criterion for theories, analogous
to the chiral anomalies in gauge theories. We analyze some remarkable consequences of
this fact, that seem to have been overlooked in the literature
Exact Black Holes and Universality in the Backreaction of non-linear Sigma Models with a potential in (A)dS4
The aim of this paper is to construct accelerated, stationary and
axisymmetric exact solutions of the Einstein theory with self interacting
scalar fields in (A)dS4. To warm up, the backreaction of the (non)-minimally
coupled scalar field is solved, the scalar field equations are integrated and
all the potentials compatible with the metric ansatz and Einstein gravity are
found. With these results at hand the non-linear sigma model is tackled. The
scalar field Lagrangian is generic; neither the coupling to the curvature,
neither the metric in the scalar manifold nor the potential, are fixed ab
initio. The unique assumption in the analysis is the metric ansatz: it has the
form of the most general Petrov type D vacuum solution of general relativity;
it is a a cohomogeneity two Weyl rescaling of the Carter metric and therefore
it has the typical Plebanski-Demianski form with two arbitrary functions of one
variable and one arbitrary functions of two variables. It is shown, by an
straightforward manipulation of the field equations, that the metric is
completely integrable without necessity of specifiying anything in the scalar
Lagrangian. This results in that the backreaction of the scalar fields, within
this class of metrics, is universal. The metric functions generically show an
explicit dependence on a dynamical exponent that allows to smoothly connect
this new family of solutions with the actual Plebanski-Demianski spacetime. The
remaining field equations imply that the scalar fields follow geodesics in the
scalar manifold with an affine parameter given by a non-linear function of the
spacetime coordinates and define the on-shell form of the potential plus a
functional equation that it has to satisfy. Finally, a general family of (A)dS4
static hairy black holes is explicitly constructed and its properties are
outlined.Comment: Several typos correcte
Bosonic excitations of the AdS4 Reissner-Nordstrom black hole
We study the long-lived modes of the charge density and energy density
correlators in the strongly-coupled, finite density field theory dual to the
AdS4 Reissner-Nordstrom black hole. For small momenta q<<\mu, these correlators
contain a pole due to sound propagation, as well as a pole due to a long-lived,
purely imaginary mode analogous to the \mu=0 hydrodynamic charge diffusion
mode. As the temperature is raised in the range T\lesssim\mu, the sound
attenuation shows no significant temperature dependence. When T\gtrsim\mu, it
quickly approaches the \mu=0 hydrodynamic result where it decreases like 1/T.
It does not share any of the temperature-dependent properties of the 'zero
sound' of Landau Fermi liquids observed in the strongly-coupled D3/D7 field
theory. For such small momenta, the energy density spectral function is
dominated by the sound mode at all temperatures, whereas the charge density
spectral function undergoes a crossover from being dominated by the sound mode
at low temperatures to being dominated by the diffusion mode when T \mu^2/q.
This crossover occurs due to the changing residue at each pole. We also compute
the momentum dependence of these spectral functions and their corresponding
long-lived poles at fixed, low temperatures T<<\mu.Comment: 33 pages, 21 figures, 6 animation
Warped black holes in 3D general massive gravity
We study regular spacelike warped black holes in the three dimensional
general massive gravity model, which contains both the gravitational
Chern-Simons term and the linear combination of curvature squared terms
characterizing the new massive gravity besides the Einstein-Hilbert term. The
parameters of the metric are found by solving a quartic equation constrained by
an inequality that imposes the absence of closed timelike curves. Explicit
expressions for the central charges are suggested by exploiting the fact that
these black holes are discrete quotients of spacelike warped AdS(3) and a known
formula for the entropy. Previous results obtained separately in topological
massive gravity and in new massive gravity are recovered as special cases.Comment: 38 pages, 7 figures. v2: minor changes, added refs and an appendix on
self-dual and null z-warped black hole
Comments on Holographic Entanglement Entropy and RG Flows
Using holographic entanglement entropy for strip geometry, we construct a
candidate for a c-function in arbitrary dimensions. For holographic theories
dual to Einstein gravity, this c-function is shown to decrease monotonically
along RG flows. A sufficient condition required for this monotonic flow is that
the stress tensor of the matter fields driving the holographic RG flow must
satisfy the null energy condition over the holographic surface used to
calculate the entanglement entropy. In the case where the bulk theory is
described by Gauss-Bonnet gravity, the latter condition alone is not sufficient
to establish the monotonic flow of the c-function. We also observe that for
certain holographic RG flows, the entanglement entropy undergoes a 'phase
transition' as the size of the system grows and as a result, evolution of the
c-function may exhibit a discontinuous drop.Comment: References adde
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