7,733 research outputs found
M-Horizons
We solve the Killing spinor equations and determine the near horizon
geometries of M-theory that preserve at least one supersymmetry. The M-horizon
spatial sections are 9-dimensional manifolds with a Spin(7) structure
restricted by geometric constraints which we give explicitly. We also provide
an alternative characterization of the solutions of the Killing spinor
equation, utilizing the compactness of the horizon section and the field
equations, by proving a Lichnerowicz type of theorem which implies that the
zero modes of a Dirac operator coupled to 4-form fluxes are Killing spinors. We
use this, and the maximum principle, to solve the field equations of the theory
for some special cases and present some examples.Comment: 36 pages, latex. Reference added, minor typos correcte
High resolution amplitude and phase gratings in atom optics
An atom-field geometry is chosen in which an atomic beam traverses a field
interaction zone consisting of three fields, one having frequency propagating in the direction and the other two having
frequencies and propagating in the
- direction. For and , where and are positive integers and
is the pulse duration in the atomic rest frame, the atom-field interaction
results in the creation of atom amplitude and phase gratings having period . In this manner, one can use optical fields having
wavelength to produce atom gratings having periodicity much less
than .Comment: 11 pages, 14 figure
Disturbance-diversity relationships in two lakes of similar nutrient chemistry but contrasting disturbance regimes
Phytoplankton diversity was studied in two North German lakes of comparable nutrient chemistry but different exposure to winds. In both lakes, phytoplankton was primarily N-limited but diatoms were Si-limited. Plußsee had a very constant mixing depth during summer, while week-to-week changes of several meters were quite common in the more exposed Behler See. In Plußsee, phytoplankton biomass during summer came closer to the carrying capacity as defined by the available total N. In Plußsee there was a marked decline of diversity during the summer maximum of biomass, while this decline was less pronounced in Behler See. It is concluded that disturbances which prevented phytoplankton from reaching the carrying capacity also maintained a high level of diversity. A negative response of diversity to undisturbed conditions became apparent, after phytoplankton biomass had exceeded about 5% of the carrying capacity
Time-Dependent Current Partition in Mesoscopic Conductors
The currents at the terminals of a mesoscopic conductor are evaluated in the
presence of slowly oscillating potentials applied to the contacts of the
sample. The need to find a charge and current conserving solution to this
dynamic current partition problem is emphasized. We present results for the
electro-chemical admittance describing the long range Coulomb interaction in a
Hartree approach. For multiply connected samples we discuss the symmetry of the
admittance under reversal of an Aharonov-Bohm flux.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figures upon request, IBM RC 1971
Stress-energy tensor in the Bel-Szekeres space-time
In a recent work an approximation procedure was introduced to calculate the
vacuum expectation value of the stress-energy tensor for a conformal massless
scalar field in the classical background determined by a particular colliding
plane wave space-time. This approximation procedure consists in appropriately
modifying the space-time geometry throughout the causal past of the collision
center. This modification in the geometry allows to simplify the boundary
conditions involved in the calculation of the Hadamard function for the quantum
state which represents the vacuum in the flat region before the arrival of the
waves. In the present work this approximation procedure is applied to the
non-singular Bel-Szekeres solution, which describes the head on collision of
two electromagnetic plane waves. It is shown that the stress-energy tensor is
unbounded as the killing-Cauchy horizon of the interaction is approached and
its behavior coincides with a previous calculation in another example of
non-singular colliding plane wave space-time.Comment: 17 pages, LaTex file, 2 PostScript figure
Direct measurements of the effects of salt and surfactant on interaction forces between colloidal particles at water-oil interfaces
The forces between colloidal particles at a decane-water interface, in the
presence of low concentrations of a monovalent salt (NaCl) and of the
surfactant sodium dodecylsulfate (SDS) in the aqueous subphase, have been
studied using laser tweezers. In the absence of electrolyte and surfactant,
particle interactions exhibit a long-range repulsion, yet the variation of the
interaction for different particle pairs is found to be considerable. Averaging
over several particle pairs was hence found to be necessary to obtain reliable
assessment of the effects of salt and surfactant. It has previously been
suggested that the repulsion is consistent with electrostatic interactions
between a small number of dissociated charges in the oil phase, leading to a
decay with distance to the power -4 and an absence of any effect of electrolyte
concentration. However, the present work demonstrates that increasing the
electrolyte concentration does yield, on average, a reduction of the magnitude
of the interaction force with electrolyte concentration. This implies that
charges on the water side also contribute significantly to the electrostatic
interactions. An increase in the concentration of SDS leads to a similar
decrease of the interaction force. Moreover the repulsion at fixed SDS
concentrations decreases over longer times. Finally, measurements of three-body
interactions provide insight into the anisotropic nature of the interactions.
The unique time-dependent and anisotropic interactions between particles at the
oil-water interface allow tailoring of the aggregation kinetics and structure
of the suspension structure.Comment: Submitted to Langmui
Computational Indistinguishability between Quantum States and Its Cryptographic Application
We introduce a computational problem of distinguishing between two specific
quantum states as a new cryptographic problem to design a quantum cryptographic
scheme that is "secure" against any polynomial-time quantum adversary. Our
problem, QSCDff, is to distinguish between two types of random coset states
with a hidden permutation over the symmetric group of finite degree. This
naturally generalizes the commonly-used distinction problem between two
probability distributions in computational cryptography. As our major
contribution, we show that QSCDff has three properties of cryptographic
interest: (i) QSCDff has a trapdoor; (ii) the average-case hardness of QSCDff
coincides with its worst-case hardness; and (iii) QSCDff is computationally at
least as hard as the graph automorphism problem in the worst case. These
cryptographic properties enable us to construct a quantum public-key
cryptosystem, which is likely to withstand any chosen plaintext attack of a
polynomial-time quantum adversary. We further discuss a generalization of
QSCDff, called QSCDcyc, and introduce a multi-bit encryption scheme that relies
on similar cryptographic properties of QSCDcyc.Comment: 24 pages, 2 figures. We improved presentation, and added more detail
proofs and follow-up of recent wor
The Mass Function of an X-Ray Flux-Limited Sample of Galaxy Clusters
A new X-ray selected and X-ray flux-limited galaxy cluster sample is
presented. Based on the ROSAT All-Sky Survey the 63 brightest clusters with
galactic latitude |bII| >= 20 deg and flux fx(0.1-2.4 keV) >= 2 * 10^{-11}
ergs/s/cm^2 have been compiled. Gravitational masses have been determined
utilizing intracluster gas density profiles, derived mainly from ROSAT PSPC
pointed observations, and gas temperatures, as published mainly from ASCA
observations, assuming hydrostatic equilibrium. This sample and an extended
sample of 106 galaxy clusters is used to establish the X-ray
luminosity--gravitational mass relation. From the complete sample the galaxy
cluster mass function is determined and used to constrain the mean cosmic
matter density and the amplitude of mass fluctuations. Comparison to
Press--Schechter type model mass functions in the framework of Cold Dark Matter
cosmological models and a Harrison--Zeldovich initial density fluctuation
spectrum yields the constraints OmegaM = 0.12^{+0.06}_{-0.04} and sigma8 =
0.96^{+0.15}_{-0.12} (90% c.l.). Various possible systematic uncertainties are
quantified. Adding all identified systematic uncertainties to the statistical
uncertainty in a worst case fashion results in an upper limit OmegaM < 0.31.
For comparison to previous results a relation sigma8 = 0.43 OmegaM^{-0.38} is
derived. The mass function is integrated to show that the contribution of mass
bound within virialized cluster regions to the total matter density is small,
i.e., OmegaCluster = 0.012^{+0.003}_{-0.004} for cluster masses larger than
6.4^{+0.7}_{-0.6} * 10^{13} h_{50}^{-1} Msun.Comment: 35 pages; accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal; this
and related papers, supplementary information, as well as electronic files of
the tables given in this paper are available at
http://www.astro.virginia.edu/~thr4f
Conformational effects on the Circular Dichroism of Human Carbonic Anhydrase II: a multilevel computational study
Circular Dichroism (CD) spectroscopy is a powerful method for investigating conformational changes in proteins and therefore has numerous applications in structural and molecular biology. Here a computational investigation of the CD spectrum of the Human Carbonic Anhydrase II (HCAII), with main focus on the near-UV CD spectra of the wild-type enzyme and it seven tryptophan mutant forms, is presented and compared to experimental studies. Multilevel computational methods (Molecular Dynamics, Semiempirical Quantum Mechanics, Time-Dependent Density Functional Theory) were applied in order to gain insight into the mechanisms of interaction between the aromatic chromophores within the protein environment and understand how the conformational flexibility of the protein influences these mechanisms. The analysis suggests that combining CD semi empirical calculations, crystal structures and molecular dynamics (MD) could help in achieving a better agreement between the computed and experimental protein spectra and provide some unique insight into the dynamic nature of the mechanisms of chromophore interactions
A scalar field instability of rotating and charged black holes in (4+1)-dimensional Anti-de Sitter space-time
We study the stability of static as well as of rotating and charged black
holes in (4+1)-dimensional Anti-de Sitter space-time which possess spherical
horizon topology. We observe a non-linear instability related to the
condensation of a charged, tachyonic scalar field and construct "hairy" black
hole solutions of the full system of coupled Einstein, Maxwell and scalar field
equations. We observe that the limiting solution for small horizon radius is
either a hairy soliton solution or a singular solution that is not a regular
extremal solution. Within the context of the gauge/gravity duality the
condensation of the scalar field describes a holographic
conductor/superconductor phase transition on the surface of a sphere.Comment: 16 pages including 8 figures, v2: discussion on soliton solutions
extended; v3: matches version accepted for publication in JHE
- …