Racetrack inflation with matter fields and cosmic strings

We consider the coupling of racetrack inflation to matter fields as realized in the D3/D7 brane system. In particular, we investigate the possibility of cosmic string formation in this system. We find that strings can form before or at the onset of racetrack inflation is possible, but they are then inflated away. Furthermore, string formation at the end of inflation is prevented by the presence of the moduli sector. As a consequence, no strings survive racetrack inflation

Cosmic Strings and Cooper Pairs

It is shown that it is possible for bound fermions on a cosmic string to form a superconducting state. Due to the attractive force between them, particles moving in opposite directions along the string form bound pairs. This involves a similar mechanism to superconductivity in metals at low temperatures. The method of Gorkov is used to analyse the system. In contrast to the situation in metals, the unusual properties of the string fermion spectrum allow a massless Abelian gauge field to provide the required attractive force. This results in far stronger superconductivity than usual. A massive gauge field can also be used, in which case the standard results apply.Comment: 12 page

The waiting time paradox: population based retrospective study of treatment delay and survival of women with endometrial cancer in Scotland

No abstract available

Fermion zero modes in N=2 supervortices

We study the fermionic zero modes of BPS semilocal magnetic vortices in N=2 supersymmetric QED with a Fayet-Iliopoulos term and two matter hypermultiplets of opposite charge. There is a one-parameter family of vortices with arbitrarily wide magnetic cores. Contrary to the situation in pure Nielsen-Olesen vortices, new zero modes are found which get their masses from Yukawa couplings to scalar fields that do not wind and are non-zero at the core. We clarify the relation between fermion mass and zero modes. The new zero modes have opposite chiralities and therefore do not affect the net counting (left minus right) of zero modes coming from index theorems but manage to evade other index theorems in the literature that count the total number (left plus right) of zero modes in simpler systems.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure. Uses Revtex4. Revised version includes discussion about the back-reaction of the fermions on the background vortex. Version to be published in Phys. Rev.

Brane Cosmology Solutions with Bulk Scalar Fields

Brane cosmologies with static, five-dimensional and Z_2 symmetric bulks are analysed. A general solution generating mechanism is outlined. The qualatitive cosmological behaviour of all such solutions is determined. Conditions for avoiding naked bulk singularities are also discussed. The restrictions placed on the solutions by the assumption of such a static bulk are investigated. In particular the requirement of a non-standard energy-momentum conservation law. The failure of such solutions to provide viable quintessence terms in the Friedmann equations is also discussed.Comment: 15 pages, references added, minor change

Brane Universes with Gauss-Bonnet-Induced-Gravity

The DGP brane world model allows us to get the observed late time acceleration via modified gravity, without the need for a ``dark energy'' field. This can then be generalised by the inclusion of high energy terms, in the form of a Gauss-Bonnet bulk. This is the basis of the Gauss-Bonnet-Induced-Gravity (GBIG) model explored here with both early and late time modifications to the cosmological evolution. Recently the simplest GBIG models (Minkowski bulk and no brane tension) have been analysed. Two of the three possible branches in these models start with a finite density ``Big-Bang'' and with late time acceleration. Here we present a comprehensive analysis of more general models where we include a bulk cosmological constant and brane tension. We show that by including these factors it is possible to have late time phantom behaviour.Comment: 12 pages, 19 figures. Minor modifications to text, comments on phantom behaviour added. References added. As submitted to JCA

Supercurvaton

We discuss observational consequences of the curvaton scenario, which naturally appears in the context of the simplest model of chaotic inflation in supergravity. The non-gaussianity parameter f_NL in this scenario can take values in the observationally interesting range from O(10) to O(100). These values may be different in different parts of the universe. The regions where f_NL is particularly large form a curvaton web resembling a net of thick domain walls, strings, or global monopoles.Comment: 17 pages, 1 figure. Non-perturbative effects related to non-gaussianity in the curvaton scenario are discussed, some references are added. This is the version accepted in JCA

Resonance- and Chaos-Assisted Tunneling

We consider dynamical tunneling between two symmetry-related regular islands that are separated in phase space by a chaotic sea. Such tunneling processes are dominantly governed by nonlinear resonances, which induce a coupling mechanism between ``regular'' quantum states within and ``chaotic'' states outside the islands. By means of a random matrix ansatz for the chaotic part of the Hamiltonian, one can show that the corresponding coupling matrix element directly determines the level splitting between the symmetric and the antisymmetric eigenstates of the pair of islands. We show in detail how this matrix element can be expressed in terms of elementary classical quantities that are associated with the resonance. The validity of this theory is demonstrated with the kicked Harper model.Comment: 25 pages, 5 figure

Inflation driven by scalar field with non-minimal kinetic coupling with Higgs and quadratic potentials

We study a scalar field with non-minimal kinetic coupling to itself and to the curvature. The slow rolling conditions allowing an inflationary background have been found. The quadratic and Higgs type potentials have been considered, and the corresponding values for the scalar fields at the end of inflation allows to recover the connection with particle physics.Comment: 16 pages, to appear in JCA

Recurrence plot statistics and the effect of embedding

Recurrence plots provide a graphical representation of the recurrent patterns in a timeseries, the quantification of which is a relatively new field. Here we derive analytical expressions which relate the values of key statistics, notably determinism and entropy of line length distribution, to the correlation sum as a function of embedding dimension. These expressions are obtained by deriving the transformation which generates an embedded recurrence plot from an unembedded plot. A single unembedded recurrence plot thus provides the statistics of all possible embedded recurrence plots. If the correlation sum scales exponentially with embedding dimension, we show that these statistics are determined entirely by the exponent of the exponential. This explains the results of Iwanski and Bradley (Chaos 8 [1998] 861-871) who found that certain recurrence plot statistics are apparently invariant to embedding dimension for certain low-dimensional systems. We also examine the relationship between the mutual information content of two timeseries and the common recurrent structure seen in their recurrence plots. This allows time-localized contributions to mutual information to be visualized. This technique is demonstrated using geomagnetic index data; we show that the AU and AL geomagnetic indices share half their information, and find the timescale on which mutual features appear