53 research outputs found
Relations Among Maternal and Paternal Behavior and Children\u27s Stress Biology
Parenting behavior has been shown to have a wide range of effects, influencing children’s psychological and biological stress outcomes. Most research focuses on maternal parenting behaviors, with few studies observing the effects of paternal behaviors or the influence of both parents on their children. In this study, the relationship between maternal and paternal parenting behaviors was examined in its association to predict children’s cortisol levels. Cultural differences in parenting styles was also observed. American (N=86) and Chinese (N=97) families participated in the study, with parents reporting their behaviors. Children’s cortisol was collected during a stressor task and correlational analysis was conducted. Overall, cortisol levels were higher in Chinese children than in American children. Results indicated that across both cultures, only supportive paternal parenting was a significant predictor in children’s cortisol levels. Additionally, there is a significant relationship within styles of parenting, indicating that mothers and fathers tend to have similar parenting styles
The Casimir Problem of Spherical Dielectrics: Quantum Statistical and Field Theoretical Approaches
The Casimir free energy for a system of two dielectric concentric nonmagnetic
spherical bodies is calculated with use of a quantum statistical mechanical
method, at arbitrary temperature. By means of this rather novel method, which
turns out to be quite powerful (we have shown this to be true in other
situations also), we consider first an explicit evaluation of the free energy
for the static case, corresponding to zero Matsubara frequency ().
Thereafter, the time-dependent case is examined. For comparison we consider the
calculation of the free energy with use of the more commonly known field
theoretical method, assuming for simplicity metallic boundary surfaces.Comment: 31 pages, LaTeX, one new reference; version to appear in Phys. Rev.
Calculating Casimir Energies in Renormalizable Quantum Field Theory
Quantum vacuum energy has been known to have observable consequences since
1948 when Casimir calculated the force of attraction between parallel uncharged
plates, a phenomenon confirmed experimentally with ever increasing precision.
Casimir himself suggested that a similar attractive self-stress existed for a
conducting spherical shell, but Boyer obtained a repulsive stress. Other
geometries and higher dimensions have been considered over the years. Local
effects, and divergences associated with surfaces and edges have been studied
by several authors. Quite recently, Graham et al. have re-examined such
calculations, using conventional techniques of perturbative quantum field
theory to remove divergences, and have suggested that previous self-stress
results may be suspect. Here we show that the examples considered in their work
are misleading; in particular, it is well-known that in two dimensions a
circular boundary has a divergence in the Casimir energy for massless fields,
while for general dimension not equal to an even integer the corresponding
Casimir energy arising from massless fields interior and exterior to a
hyperspherical shell is finite. It has also long been recognized that the
Casimir energy for massive fields is divergent for . These conclusions
are reinforced by a calculation of the relevant leading Feynman diagram in
and three dimensions. There is therefore no doubt of the validity of the
conventional finite Casimir calculations.Comment: 25 pages, REVTeX4, 1 ps figure. Revision includes new subsection 4B
and Appendix, and other minor correction
Vacuum local and global electromagnetic self-energies for a point-like and an extended field source
We consider the electric and magnetic energy densities (or equivalently field
fluctuations) in the space around a point-like field source in its ground
state, after having subtracted the spatially uniform zero-point energy terms,
and discuss the problem of their singular behavior at the source's position. We
show that the assumption of a point-like source leads, for a simple Hamiltonian
model of the interaction of the source with the electromagnetic radiation
field, to a divergence of the renormalized electric and magnetic energy density
at the position of the source. We analyze in detail the mathematical structure
of such singularity in terms of a delta function and its derivatives. We also
show that an appropriate consideration of these singular terms solves an
apparent inconsistency between the total field energy and the space integral of
its density. Thus the finite field energy stored in these singular terms gives
an important contribution to the self-energy of the source. We then consider
the case of an extended source, smeared out over a finite volume and described
by an appropriate form factor. We show that in this case all divergences in
local quantities such as the electric and the magnetic energy density, as well
as any inconsistency between global and space-integrated local self-energies,
disappear.Comment: 8 pages. The final publication is available at link.springer.co
Casimir Effect on the Worldline
We develop a method to compute the Casimir effect for arbitrary geometries.
The method is based on the string-inspired worldline approach to quantum field
theory and its numerical realization with Monte-Carlo techniques. Concentrating
on Casimir forces between rigid bodies induced by a fluctuating scalar field,
we test our method with the parallel-plate configuration. For the
experimentally relevant sphere-plate configuration, we study curvature effects
quantitatively and perform a comparison with the ``proximity force
approximation'', which is the standard approximation technique. Sizable
curvature effects are found for a distance-to-curvature-radius ratio of a/R >~
0.02. Our method is embedded in renormalizable quantum field theory with a
controlled treatment of the UV divergencies. As a technical by-product, we
develop various efficient algorithms for generating closed-loop ensembles with
Gaussian distribution.Comment: 27 pages, 10 figures, Sect. 2.1 more self-contained, improved data
for Fig. 6, minor corrections, new Refs, version to be published in JHE
Normal and Lateral Casimir Forces between Deformed Plates
The Casimir force between macroscopic bodies depends strongly on their shape
and orientation. To study this geometry dependence in the case of two deformed
metal plates, we use a path integral quantization of the electromagnetic field
which properly treats the many-body nature of the interaction, going beyond the
commonly used pairwise summation (PWS) of van der Waals forces. For arbitrary
deformations we provide an analytical result for the deformation induced change
in Casimir energy, which is exact to second order in the deformation amplitude.
For the specific case of sinusoidally corrugated plates, we calculate both the
normal and the lateral Casimir forces. The deformation induced change in the
Casimir interaction of a flat and a corrugated plate shows an interesting
crossover as a function of the ratio of the mean platedistance H to the
corrugation length \lambda: For \lambda \ll H we find a slower decay \sim
H^{-4}, compared to the H^{-5} behavior predicted by PWS which we show to be
valid only for \lambda \gg H. The amplitude of the lateral force between two
corrugated plates which are out of registry is shown to have a maximum at an
optimal wavelength of \lambda \approx 2.5 H. With increasing H/\lambda \gtrsim
0.3 the PWS approach becomes a progressively worse description of the lateral
force due to many-body effects. These results may be of relevance for the
design and operation of novel microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) and other
nanoscale devices.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figure
Casimir interaction between two concentric cylinders: exact versus semiclassical results
The Casimir interaction between two perfectly conducting, infinite,
concentric cylinders is computed using a semiclassical approximation that takes
into account families of classical periodic orbits that reflect off both
cylinders. It is then compared with the exact result obtained by the
mode-by-mode summation technique. We analyze the validity of the semiclassical
approximation and show that it improves the results obtained through the
proximity theorem.Comment: 28 pages, 5 figures include
Massive 3+1 Aharonov-Bohm fermions in an MIT cylinder
We study the effect of a background flux string on the vacuum energy of
massive Dirac fermions in 3+1 dimensions confined to a finite spatial region
through MIT boundary conditions. We treat two admissible self-adjoint
extensions of the Hamiltonian. The external sector is also studied and
unambiguous results for the Casimir energy of massive fermions in the whole
space are obtained.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, LaTe
The Casimir effect for parallel plates in the spacetime with a fractal extra compactified dimension
The Casimir effect for massless scalar fields satisfying Dirichlet boundary
conditions on the parallel plates in the presence of one fractal extra
compactified dimension is analyzed. We obtain the Casimir energy density by
means of the regularization of multiple zeta function with one arbitrary
exponent. We find a limit on the scale dimension like to keep the
negative sign of the renormalized Casimir energy which is the difference
between the regularized energy for two parallel plates and the one with no
plates. We derive and calculate the Casimir force relating to the influence
from the fractal additional compactified dimension between the parallel plates.
The larger scale dimension leads to the greater revision on the original
Casimir force. The two kinds of curves of Casimir force in the case of
integer-numbered extra compactified dimension or fractal one are not
superposition, which means that the Casimir force show whether the
dimensionality of additional compactified space is integer or fraction.Comment: 9 pages, 3 figure
Geometry and material effects in Casimir physics - Scattering theory
We give a comprehensive presentation of methods for calculating the Casimir
force to arbitrary accuracy, for any number of objects, arbitrary shapes,
susceptibility functions, and separations. The technique is applicable to
objects immersed in media other than vacuum, to nonzero temperatures, and to
spatial arrangements in which one object is enclosed in another. Our method
combines each object's classical electromagnetic scattering amplitude with
universal translation matrices, which convert between the bases used to
calculate scattering for each object, but are otherwise independent of the
details of the individual objects. This approach, which combines methods of
statistical physics and scattering theory, is well suited to analyze many
diverse phenomena. We illustrate its power and versatility by a number of
examples, which show how the interplay of geometry and material properties
helps to understand and control Casimir forces. We also examine whether
electrodynamic Casimir forces can lead to stable levitation. Neglecting
permeabilities, we prove that any equilibrium position of objects subject to
such forces is unstable if the permittivities of all objects are higher or
lower than that of the enveloping medium; the former being the generic case for
ordinary materials in vacuum.Comment: 44 pages, 11 figures, to appear in upcoming Lecture Notes in Physics
volume in Casimir physic
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