186 research outputs found
Dirichlet boundary value problem for Chern-Simons modified gravity
Chern-Simons modified gravity comprises the Einstein-Hilbert action and a
higher-derivative interaction containing the Chern-Pontryagin density. We
derive the analog of the Gibbons-Hawking-York boundary term required to render
the Dirichlet boundary value problem well-defined. It turns out to be a
boundary Chern-Simons action for the extrinsic curvature. We address
applications to black hole thermodynamics.Comment: 4 pages, revtex4, v2: added Refs., made one statement stronger, added
footnote and added paragraph on single field inflatio
The Interplay Between and T
We extend a recent computation of the dependence of the free energy, F, on
the noncommutative scale to theories with very different UV
sensitivity. The temperature dependence of strongly suggests that a reduced
number of degrees of freedom contributes to the free energy in the non-planar
sector, , at high temperature. This phenomenon seems generic,
independent of the UV sensitivity, and can be traced to modes whose thermal
wavelengths become smaller than the noncommutativity scale. The temperature
dependence of can then be calculated at high temperature using
classical statistical mechanics, without encountering a UV catastrophe even in
large number of dimensions. This result is a telltale sign of the low number of
degrees of freedom contributing to in the non-planar sector at high
temperature. Such behavior is in marked contrast to what would happen in a
field theory with a random set of higher derivative interactions.Comment: 14 pages, 1 eps figur
UV-divergences of Wilson Loops for Gauge/Gravity Duality
We analyze the structure of the UV divergences of the Wilson loop for a
general gauge/gravity duality. We find that, due to the presence of a
nontrivial NSNS B-field and metric, new divergences that cannot be subtracted
out by the conventional Legendre transform may arise. We also derive conditions
on the B-field and the metric, which when satisfied, the leading UV divergence
will become linear, and can be cancelled out by choosing the boundary condition
of the string appropriately. Our results, together with the recent result of
arXiv:0807.5127, where the effect of a nontrivial dilaton on the structure of
UV divergences in Wilson loop is analysed, allow us to conclude that Legendre
transform is at best capable of cancelling the linear UV divergences arising
from the area of the worldsheet, but is incapable to handle the divergences
associated with the dilaton or the B-field in general. We also solve the
conditions for the cancellation of the leading linear divergences generally and
find that many well-known supergravity backgrounds are of these kinds,
including examples such as the Sakai-Sugimoto QCD model or N=1 duality with
Sasaki-Einstein spaces. We also point out that Wilson loop in the
Klebanov-Strassler background have a divergence associated with the B-field
which cannot be cancelled away with the Legendre transform. Finally we end with
some comments on the form of the Wilson loop operator in the ABJM
superconformal Chern-Simons theory.Comment: 26 pages. LaTeX. v2: reference added. version to appear in JHE
Thermodynamics of Black Holes in Two (and Higher) Dimensions
A comprehensive treatment of black hole thermodynamics in two-dimensional
dilaton gravity is presented. We derive an improved action for these theories
and construct the Euclidean path integral. An essentially unique boundary
counterterm renders the improved action finite on-shell, and its variational
properties guarantee that the path integral has a well-defined semi-classical
limit. We give a detailed discussion of the canonical ensemble described by the
Euclidean partition function, and examine various issues related to stability.
Numerous examples are provided, including black hole backgrounds that appear in
two dimensional solutions of string theory. We show that the Exact String Black
Hole is one of the rare cases that admits a consistent thermodynamics without
the need for an external thermal reservoir. Our approach can also be applied to
certain higher-dimensional black holes, such as Schwarzschild-AdS,
Reissner-Nordstrom, and BTZ.Comment: 63 pages, 3 pdf figures, v2: added reference
Winding effects on brane/anti-brane pairs
We study a brane/anti-brane configuration which is separated along a compact
direction by constructing a tachyon effective action which takes into account
transverse scalars. Such an action is relevant in the study of HQCD model of
Sakai and Sugimoto of chiral symmetry breaking, where the size of the compact
circle sets the confinement scale. Our approach is motivated by string theory
orbifold constructions and gives a route to model inhomogeneous tachyon decay.
We illustrate the techniques involved with a relatively simple example of a
harmonic oscillator on a circle. We will then repeat the analysis for the
Sakai-Sugimoto model and show that by integrating out the winding modes will
provide us with a renormalized action with a lower energy than that of
truncating to zero winding sector.Comment: 21 pages, 3 figures. v3: discussion and references added, published
versio
N-body Gravity and the Schroedinger Equation
We consider the problem of the motion of bodies in a self-gravitating
system in two spacetime dimensions. We point out that this system can be mapped
onto the quantum-mechanical problem of an N-body generalization of the problem
of the H molecular ion in one dimension. The canonical gravitational
N-body formalism can be extended to include electromagnetic charges. We derive
a general algorithm for solving this problem, and show how it reduces to known
results for the 2-body and 3-body systems.Comment: 15 pages, Latex, references added, typos corrected, final version
that appears in CQ
Correlation Functions of Operators and Wilson Surfaces in the d=6, (0,2) Theory in the Large N Limit
We compute the two and three-point correlation functions of chiral primary
operators in the large N limit of the (0,2), d=6 superconformal theory. We also
consider the operator product expansion of Wilson surfaces in the (0,2) theory
and compute the OPE coefficients of the chiral primary operators at large N
from the correlation functions of surfaces.Comment: 34 pages, using utarticle.cls (included), array.sty, amsmath.sty,
amsfonts.sty, latexsym.sty, epsfig. Bibtex style: utphys.bst (.bbl file
included
String theory duals of Lifshitz-Chern-Simons gauge theories
We propose candidate gravity duals for a class of non-Abelian z=2 Lifshitz
Chern-Simons (LCS) gauge theories studied by Mulligan, Kachru and Nayak. These
are nonrelativistic gauge theories in 2+1 dimensions in which parity and
time-reversal symmetries are explicitly broken by the presence of a
Chern-Simons term. We show that these field theories can be realized as
deformations of DLCQ N=4 super Yang-Mills theory. Using the holographic
dictionary, we identify the bulk fields that are dual to these deformations.
The geometries describing the groundstates of the non-Abelian LCS gauge
theories realized here exhibit a mass gap.Comment: 25+14 pages, 3 figures; v2: significant corrections regarding IR
geometry, resulting in new section 5; journal versio
Nuclear matter to strange matter transition in holographic QCD
We construct a simple holographic QCD model to study nuclear matter to
strange matter transition. The interaction of dense medium and hadrons is taken
care of by imposing the force balancing condition for stable D4/D6/D6
configuration. By considering the intermediate and light flavor branes
interacting with baryon vertex homogeneously distributed along R^3 space and
requesting the energy minimization, we find that there is a well defined
transition density as a function of current quark mass. We also find that as
density goes up very high, intermediate (or heavy) and light quarks populate
equally as expected from the Pauli principle. In this sense, the effect of the
Pauli principle is realized as dynamics of D-branes.Comment: 13 pages, 14 figure
Inhibition of Cholinergic Signaling Causes Apoptosis in Human Bronchioalveolar Carcinoma
Recent case-controlled clinical studies show that bronchioalveolar carcinomas (BAC) are correlated with smoking. Nicotine, the addictive component of cigarettes, accelerates cell proliferation through nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChR). In this study, we show that human BACs produce acetylcholine (ACh) and contain several cholinergic factors including acetylcholinesterase (AChE), choline acetyltransferase (ChAT), choline transporter 1 (CHT1, SLC5A7), vesicular acetylcholine transporter (VAChT, SLC18A3), and nACh receptors (AChRs, CHRNAs). Nicotine increased the production of ACh in human BACs, and ACh acts as a growth factor for these cells. Nicotine-induced ACh production was mediated by α7-, α3ÎČ2-, and ÎČ3-nAChRs, ChAT and VAChT pathways. We observed that nicotine upregulated ChAT and VAChT. Therefore, we conjectured that VAChT antagonists, such as vesamicol, may suppress the growth of human BACs. Vesamicol induced potent apoptosis of human BACs in cell culture and nude mice models. Vesamicol did not have any effect on EGF or insulin-like growth factor-IIâinduced growth of human BACs. siRNA-mediated attenuation of VAChT reversed the apoptotic activity of vesamicol. We also observed that vesamicol inhibited Akt phosphorylation during cell death and that overexpression of constitutively active Akt reversed the apoptotic activity of vesamicol. Taken together, our results suggested that disruption of nicotine-induced cholinergic signaling by agents such as vesamicol may have applications in BAC therapy
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