Nonpecuniary Class Action Settlements

Miller and Singer offer a theoretical and empirical analysis of nonpecuniary class action settlements, including coupons, securities and fluid recoveries

Rapid Bayesian position reconstruction for gravitational-wave transients

Within the next few years, Advanced LIGO and Virgo should detect gravitational waves from binary neutron star and neutron star-black hole mergers. These sources are also predicted to power a broad array of electromagnetic transients. Because the electromagnetic signatures can be faint and fade rapidly, observing them hinges on rapidly inferring the sky location from the gravitational-wave observations. Markov chain Monte Carlo methods for gravitational-wave parameter estimation can take hours or more. We introduce BAYESTAR, a rapid, Bayesian, non-Markov chain Monte Carlo sky localization algorithm that takes just seconds to produce probability sky maps that are comparable in accuracy to the full analysis. Prompt localizations from BAYESTAR will make it possible to search electromagnetic counterparts of compact binary mergers.Comment: 23 pages, 12 figures, published in Phys. Rev.

Vegetarianism

Ethical vegetarians maintain that vegetarianism is morally required. The principal reasons offered in support of ethical vegetarianism are: (i) concern for the welfare and well-being of the animals being eaten, (ii) concern for the environment, (iii) concern over global food scarcity and the just distribution of resources, and (iv) concern for future generations. Each of these reasons is explored in turn, starting with a historical look at ethical vegetarianism and the moral status of animals

(63)Cu NQR Evidence for Spatial Variation of Hole Concentration in La(2-x)Sr(x)CuO(4)

We report experimental evidence for the spatial variation of hole concentration x_(hole) in the high Tc superconductor La(2-x)Sr(x)CuO(4) (0.04 <= x <= 0.16) by using (63)Cu NQR for (63)Cu isotope enriched samples. We demonstrate that the extent of the spatial variation of the local hole concentration D(x)_(hole) is reflected on (63)1/T1 and deduce the temperature dependence. D(x)_(hole) increases below 500 - 600K, and reaches values as large as D(x)_(hole)/x ~ 0.5 below ~ 150K. We estimate the length scale of the spatial variation in x_(hole) to be R_(hole) >~ 3nm from analysis of the NQR spectrum.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Theories with global gauge anomalies on the lattice

A global anomaly in a chiral gauge theory manifests itself in different ways in the continuum and on the lattice. In the continuum case, functional integration of the fermion determinant over the whole space of gauge fields yields zero. In the case of the lattice, it is not even possible to define a fermion measure over the whole space of gauge configurations. However, this is not necessary, and as in the continuum, a reduced functional integral is sufficient for the existence of the theory.Comment: Lattice 2000 (Topics in gauge theories); LaTeX with espcrc2, 4 page

Collective excitations and instability of an optical lattice due to unbalanced pumping

We solve self-consistently the coupled equations of motion for trapped particles and the field of a one-dimensional optical lattice. Optomechanical coupling creates long-range interaction between the particles, whose nature depends crucially on the relative power of the pump beams. For asymmetric pumping, traveling density wave-like collective oscillations arise in the lattice, even in the overdamped limit. Increasing the lattice size or pump asymmetry these waves can destabilize the lattice.Comment: 5 pages, minor changes (SI units, new references