4,097 research outputs found
The Cosmological Constant is Back
A diverse set of observations now compellingly suggest that Universe
possesses a nonzero cosmological constant. In the context of quantum-field
theory a cosmological constant corresponds to the energy density of the vacuum,
and the wanted value for the cosmological constant corresponds to a very tiny
vacuum energy density. We discuss future observational tests for a cosmological
constant as well as the fundamental theoretical challenges---and
opportunities---that this poses for particle physics and for extending our
understanding of the evolution of the Universe back to the earliest moments.Comment: latex, 8 pages plus one ps figure available as separate compressed
uuencoded fil
Dynamics of Extremal Black Holes
Particle scattering and radiation by a magnetically charged, dilatonic black
hole is investigated near the extremal limit at which the mass is a constant
times the charge. Near this limit a neighborhood of the horizon of the black
hole is closely approximated by a trivial product of a two-dimensional black
hole with a sphere. This is shown to imply that the scattering of
long-wavelength particles can be described by a (previously analyzed)
two-dimensional effective field theory, and is related to the
formation/evaporation of two-dimensional black holes. The scattering proceeds
via particle capture followed by Hawking re-emission, and naively appears to
violate unitarity. However this conclusion can be altered when the effects of
backreaction are included. Particle-hole scattering is discussed in the light
of a recent analysis of the two-dimensional backreaction problem. It is argued
that the quantum mechanical possibility of scattering off of extremal black
holes implies the potential existence of additional quantum numbers - referred
to as ``quantum whiskers'' - characterizing the black hole.Comment: 31 page
Astrophysical factors:Zero energy vs. Most effective energy
Effective astrophysical factors for non-resonant astrophysical nuclear
reaction are invariably calculated with respect to a zero energy limit. In the
present work that limit is shown to be very disadvantageous compared to the
more natural effective energy limit. The latter is used in order to modify the
thermonuclear reaction rate formula so that it takes into account both plasma
and laboratory screening effects.Comment: 7 RevTex pages. Accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.
The Einstein static universe with torsion and the sign problem of the cosmological constant
In the field equations of Einstein-Cartan theory with cosmological constant a
static spherically symmetric perfect fluid with spin density satisfying the
Weyssenhoff restriction is considered. This serves as a rough model of space
filled with (fermionic) dark matter. From this the Einstein static universe
with constant torsion is constructed, generalising the Einstein Cosmos to
Einstein-Cartan theory.
The interplay between torsion and the cosmological constant is discussed. A
possible way out of the cosmological constant's sign problem is suggested.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX; minor layout changes, typos corrected, one new
equation, new reference [5], completed reference [13], two references adde
THEORETICAL STUDIES OF BILIPROTEIN CHROMOPHORES AND RELATED BILE PIGMENTS BY MOLECULAR ORBITAL AND RAMACHANDRAN TYPE CALCULATIONS
Ramachandran calculations have been used to gain insight into steric hindrance in bile
pigments related to biliprotein chromophores. The high optical activity of denatured phycocyanin, as
compared to phycoerythrin, has been related to the asymmetric substitution at ring A, which shifts the
equilibrium towards the P-helical form of the chromophore. Geometric effects on the electronic structures
and transitions have then been studied by molecular orbital calculations for several conjugation
systems including the chromophores of phycocyanin. phytochrome P,, cations, cation radicals and
tautomeric forms. For these different chromophores some general trends can be deduced. For instance,
for a given change in the gross shape (e.g. either unfolding of the molecule from a cyclic-helical to a fully
extended geometry, or upon out-of-plane twists of the pyrrole ring A) of the molecules under study, the
predicted absorption spectra all change in a simikar way. Nonetheless, there are characteristic distinctions
between the different n-systems, both in the transition energies and the charge distribution, which
can be related to their known differences in spectroscopic properties and their reactivity
New Mechanism for Electronic Energy Relaxation in Nanocrystals
The low-frequency vibrational spectrum of an isolated nanometer-scale solid
differs dramatically from that of a bulk crystal, causing the decay of a
localized electronic state by phonon emission to be inhibited. We show,
however, that an electron can also interact with the rigid translational motion
of a nanocrystal. The form of the coupling is dictated by the equivalence
principle and is independent of the ordinary electron-phonon interaction. We
calculate the rate of nonradiative energy relaxation provided by this mechanism
and establish its experimental observability.Comment: 4 pages, Submitted to Physical Review
A simple formula for the L-gap width of a face-centered-cubic photonic crystal
The width of the first Bragg's scattering peak in the (111)
direction of a face-centered-cubic lattice of air spheres can be well
approximated by a simple formula which only involves the volume averaged
and over the lattice unit cell, being the
(position dependent) dielectric constant of the medium, and the effective
dielectric constant in the long-wavelength limit approximated
by Maxwell-Garnett's formula. Apparently, our formula describes the asymptotic
behaviour of the absolute gap width for high dielectric contrast
exactly. The standard deviation steadily decreases well below
1% as increases. For example for the sphere filling
fraction and . On the interval , our
formula still approximates the absolute gap width (the relative
gap width ) with a reasonable precision, namely with a standard
deviation 3% (4.2%) for low filling fractions up to 6.5% (8%) for the
close-packed case. Differences between the case of air spheres in a dielectric
and dielectric spheres in air are briefly discussed.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figs., RevTex, two references added. For more info see
http://www.amolf.nl/external/wwwlab/atoms/theory/index.htm
Are Textures Natural?
We make the simple observation that, because of global symmetry violating
higher-dimension operators expected to be induced by Planck-scale physics,
textures are generically much too short-lived to be of use for large-scale
structure formation.Comment: 9p
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