Chirality in Liquid Crystals: from Microscopic Origins to Macroscopic Structure

Molecular chirality leads to a wonderful variety of equilibrium structures, from the simple cholesteric phase to the twist-grain-boundary phases, and it is responsible for interesting and technologically important materials like ferroelectric liquid crystals. This paper will review some recent advances in our understanding of the connection between the chiral geometry of individual molecules and the important phenomenological parameters that determine macroscopic chiral structure. It will then consider chiral structure in columnar systems and propose a new equilibrium phase consisting of a regular lattice of twisted ropes.Comment: 20 pages with 6 epsf figure

Semiclassical Calculations of Vibrational Energy Levels for Non-Separable Systems Using the Birkhoff-Gustavson Normal Form

We present a semiclassical method of calculating vibrational energy levels for a system of nonseparable coupled oscillators. For a Hamiltonian written as a power series in which the leading terms are given by a sum of one‐dimensional harmonic oscillator Hamiltonians, the method involves transforming the original classical Hamiltonian via a succession of canonical transformations into a normal form which is a power series originally defined by Birkhoff and later generalized by Gustavson. Two cases are distinguished. If the harmonic oscillator frequencies in the unperturbed Hamiltonian are incommensurable, then the normal form is a power series whose terms are products of one‐dimensional harmonic oscillator Hamiltonians; if the frequencies in the unperturbed Hamiltonian are commensurable, then additional terms which cannot be written as products of one‐dimensional harmonic oscillator Hamiltonians enter into the normal form. Once the normal form is obtained, semiclassical quantization of action variables is straightforward. The incommensurable case yields a formula for the energy spectrum which is a power series in the quantum numbers. The commensurable case is more complicated, and yields a form from which energy levels may be obtained individually by numerical calculation and quantization of a one‐dimensional phase integral. Nonseparable two‐dimensional examples are treated for each case. The results obtained for both cases show excellent agreement with quantum mechanical calculations. The quantum calculations indicate that all of the energy levels fall into a regular pattern. Correction to this article: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.44550

Brane in 6D with increasing gravitational trapping potential

A new solution to Einstein equations in (1+5)-spacetime with an embedded (1+3) brane is given. This solution localizes the zero modes of all kinds of matter fields and 4-gravity on the (1+3) brane by an increasing, transverse gravitational potential. This localization occurs despite the fact that the gravitational potential is not a decreasing exponential, and asymptotically approaches a finite value rather than zero.Comment: Revised paper. 6 pages, revtex 4. to be published in PR

Active galactic nucleus feedback in clusters of galaxies

Observations made during the last ten years with the Chandra X-ray Observatory have shed much light on the cooling gas in the centers of clusters of galaxies and the role of active galactic nucleus (AGN) heating. Cooling of the hot intracluster medium in cluster centers can feed the supermassive black holes found in the nuclei of the dominant cluster galaxies leading to AGN outbursts which can reheat the gas, suppressing cooling and large amounts of star formation. AGN heating can come in the form of shocks, buoyantly rising bubbles that have been inflated by radio lobes, and the dissipation of sound waves.Comment: Refereed review article published in Chandra's First Decade of Discovery Special Feature edition of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science

Genomic islands of divergence in the Yellow Tang and the Brushtail Tang Surgeonfishes.

The current ease of obtaining thousands of molecular markers challenges the notion that full phylogenetic concordance, as proposed by phylogenetic species concepts, is a requirement for defining species delimitations. Indeed, the presence of genomic islands of divergence, which may be the cause, or in some cases the consequence, of speciation, precludes concordance. Here, we explore this issue using thousands of RAD markers on two sister species of surgeonfishes (Teleostei: Acanthuridae), Zebrasoma flavescens and Z. scopas, and several populations within each species. Species are readily distinguished based on their colors (solid yellow and solid brown, respectively), yet populations and species are neither distinguishable using mitochondrial markers (cytochrome c oxidase 1), nor using 5193 SNPs (pairwise Φst = 0.034). In contrast, when using outlier loci, some of them presumably under selection, species delimitations, and strong population structure follow recognized taxonomic positions (pairwise Φst = 0.326). Species and population delimitation differences based on neutral and selected markers are likely due to local adaptation, thus being consistent with the idea that these genomic islands of divergence arose as a consequence of isolation. These findings, which are not unique, raise the question of a potentially important pathway of divergence based on local adaptation that is only evident when looking at thousands of loci

Scalar-Tensor Gravity in Two 3-brane System

We derive the low-energy effective action of four-dimensional gravity in the Randall-Sundrum scenario in which two 3-branes of opposite tension reside in a five-dimensional spacetime. The dimensional reduction with the Ansatz for the radion field by Charmousis et al., which solves five-dimensional linearized field equations, results in a class of scalar-tensor gravity theories. In the limit of vanishing radion fluctuations, the effective action reduces to the Brans-Dicke gravity in accord with the results of Garriga and Tanaka: Brans-Dicke gravity with the corresponding Brans-Dicke parameter $0< \omega < \infty$ (for positive tension brane) and $-3/2< \omega <0$ (for negative tension brane). In general the gravity induced a brane belongs to a class of scalar-tensor gravity with the Brans-Dicke parameter which is a function of the interval and the radion. In particular, gravity on a positive tension brane contains an attractor mechanism toward the Einstein gravity.Comment: 8 pages, discussion expanded, references adde

On a Covariant Determination of Mass Scales in Warped Backgrounds

We propose a method of determining masses in brane scenarios which is independent of coordinate transformations. We apply our method to the scenario of Randall and Sundrum (RS) with two branes, which provides a solution to the hierarchy problem. The core of our proposal is the use of covariant equations and expressing all coordinate quantities in terms of invariant distances. In the RS model we find that massive brane fields propagate proper distances inversely proportional to masses that are not exponentially suppressed. The hierarchy between the gravitational and weak interactions is nevertheless preserved on the visible brane due to suppression of gravitational interactions on that brane. The towers of Kaluza-Klein states for bulk fields are observed to have different spacings on different branes when all masses are measured in units of the fundamental scale. Ratios of masses on each brane are the same in our covariant and the standard interpretations. Since masses of brane fields are not exponentiated, the fundamental scale of higher-dimensional gravity must be of the order of the weak scale.Comment: 14 page

From Black Strings to Black Holes

Using recently developed numerical methods, we examine neutral compactified non-uniform black strings which connect to the Gregory-Laflamme critical point. By studying the geometry of the horizon we give evidence that this branch of solutions may connect to the black hole solutions, as conjectured by Kol. We find the geometry of the topology changing solution is likely to be nakedly singular at the point where the horizon radius is zero. We show that these solutions can all be expressed in the coordinate system discussed by Harmark and Obers.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, RevTe