1,852 research outputs found
Are All Particles Identical?
We consider the possibility that all particles in the world are fundamentally
identical, i.e., belong to the same species. Different masses, charges, spins,
flavors, or colors then merely correspond to different quantum states of the
same particle, just as spin-up and spin-down do. The implications of this
viewpoint can be best appreciated within Bohmian mechanics, a precise
formulation of quantum mechanics with particle trajectories. The implementation
of this viewpoint in such a theory leads to trajectories different from those
of the usual formulation, and thus to a version of Bohmian mechanics that is
inequivalent to, though arguably empirically indistinguishable from, the usual
one. The mathematical core of this viewpoint is however rather independent of
the detailed dynamical scheme Bohmian mechanics provides, and it amounts to the
assertion that the configuration space for N particles, even N
``distinguishable particles,'' is the set of all N-point subsets of physical
3-space.Comment: 12 pages LaTeX, no figure
Bell-Type Quantum Field Theories
In [Phys. Rep. 137, 49 (1986)] John S. Bell proposed how to associate
particle trajectories with a lattice quantum field theory, yielding what can be
regarded as a |Psi|^2-distributed Markov process on the appropriate
configuration space. A similar process can be defined in the continuum, for
more or less any regularized quantum field theory; such processes we call
Bell-type quantum field theories. We describe methods for explicitly
constructing these processes. These concern, in addition to the definition of
the Markov processes, the efficient calculation of jump rates, how to obtain
the process from the processes corresponding to the free and interaction
Hamiltonian alone, and how to obtain the free process from the free Hamiltonian
or, alternatively, from the one-particle process by a construction analogous to
"second quantization." As an example, we consider the process for a second
quantized Dirac field in an external electromagnetic field.Comment: 53 pages LaTeX, no figure
Trajectories and Particle Creation and Annihilation in Quantum Field Theory
We develop a theory based on Bohmian mechanics in which particle world lines
can begin and end. Such a theory provides a realist description of creation and
annihilation events and thus a further step towards a "beable-based"
formulation of quantum field theory, as opposed to the usual "observable-based"
formulation which is plagued by the conceptual difficulties--like the
measurement problem--of quantum mechanics.Comment: 11 pages LaTeX, no figures; v2: references added and update
Seven Steps Towards the Classical World
Classical physics is about real objects, like apples falling from trees,
whose motion is governed by Newtonian laws. In standard Quantum Mechanics only
the wave function or the results of measurements exist, and to answer the
question of how the classical world can be part of the quantum world is a
rather formidable task. However, this is not the case for Bohmian mechanics,
which, like classical mechanics, is a theory about real objects. In Bohmian
terms, the problem of the classical limit becomes very simple: when do the
Bohmian trajectories look Newtonian?Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX, uses latexsy
On the Role of Density Matrices in Bohmian Mechanics
It is well known that density matrices can be used in quantum mechanics to
represent the information available to an observer about either a system with a
random wave function (``statistical mixture'') or a system that is entangled
with another system (``reduced density matrix''). We point out another role,
previously unnoticed in the literature, that a density matrix can play: it can
be the ``conditional density matrix,'' conditional on the configuration of the
environment. A precise definition can be given in the context of Bohmian
mechanics, whereas orthodox quantum mechanics is too vague to allow a sharp
definition, except perhaps in special cases. In contrast to statistical and
reduced density matrices, forming the conditional density matrix involves no
averaging. In Bohmian mechanics with spin, the conditional density matrix
replaces the notion of conditional wave function, as the object with the same
dynamical significance as the wave function of a Bohmian system.Comment: 16 pages LaTeX, no figure
Chloroplast microsatellites: measures of genetic diversity and the effect of homoplasy
Chloroplast microsatellites have been widely used in population genetic
studies of conifers in recent years. However, their haplotype configurations
suggest that they could have high levels of homoplasy, thus limiting the power
of these molecular markers. A coalescent-based computer simulation was used to
explore the influence of homoplasy on measures of genetic diversity based on
chloroplast microsatellites. The conditions of the simulation were defined to
fit isolated populations originating from the colonization of one single
haplotype into an area left available after a glacial retreat. Simulated data
were compared with empirical data available from the literature for a species
of Pinus that has expanded north after the Last Glacial Maximum. In the
evaluation of genetic diversity, homoplasy was found to have little influence
on Nei's unbiased haplotype diversity (H(E)) while Goldstein's genetic distance
estimates (D2sh) were much more affected. The effect of the number of
chloroplast microsatellite loci for evaluation of genetic diversity is also
discussed
On the Flux-Across-Surfaces Theorem
The quantum probability flux of a particle integrated over time and a distant
surface gives the probability for the particle crossing that surface at some
time. We prove the free Flux-Across-Surfaces Theorem, which was conjectured by
Combes, Newton and Shtokhamer, and which relates the integrated quantum flux to
the usual quantum mechanical formula for the cross section. The integrated
quantum flux is equal to the probability of outward crossings of surfaces by
Bohmian trajectories in the scattering regime.Comment: 13 pages, latex, 1 figure, very minor revisions, to appear in Letters
in Mathematical Physics, Vol. 38, Nr.
Clocking the Lyme Spirochete
In order to clear the body of infecting spirochetes, phagocytic cells must be able to get hold of them. In real-time phase-contrast videomicroscopy we were able to measure the speed of Borrelia burgdorferi (Bb), the Lyme spirochete, moving back and forth across a platelet to which it was tethered. Its mean crossing speed was 1,636 µm/min (N = 28), maximum, 2800 µm/min (N = 3). This is the fastest speed recorded for a spirochete, and upward of two orders of magnitude above the speed of a human neutrophil, the fastest cell in the body. This alacrity and its interpretation, in an organism with bidirectional motor capacity, may well contribute to difficulties in spirochete clearance by the host
Culture shapes how we look at faces
Background: Face processing, amongst many basic visual skills, is thought to be invariant across all humans. From as early as 1965, studies of eye movements have consistently revealed a systematic triangular sequence of fixations over the eyes and the mouth, suggesting that faces elicit a universal, biologically-determined information extraction pattern. Methodology/Principal Findings: Here we monitored the eye movements of Western Caucasian and East Asian observers while they learned, recognized, and categorized by race Western Caucasian and East Asian faces. Western Caucasian observers reproduced a scattered triangular pattern of fixations for faces of both races and across tasks. Contrary to intuition, East Asian observers focused more on the central region of the face. Conclusions/Significance: These results demonstrate that face processing can no longer be considered as arising from a universal series of perceptual events. The strategy employed to extract visual information from faces differs across cultures
First-order flows and stabilisation equations for non-BPS extremal black holes
We derive a generalised form of flow equations for extremal static and
rotating non-BPS black holes in four-dimensional ungauged N = 2 supergravity
coupled to vector multiplets. For particular charge vectors, we give
stabilisation equations for the scalars, analogous to the BPS case, describing
full known solutions. Based on this, we propose a generic ansatz for the
stabilisation equations, which surprisingly includes ratios of harmonic
functions.Comment: 27 pages; v2: presentation improved and references added as in the
published versio
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