4,888 research outputs found
Asset Price Shocks, Financial Constraints, and Investment: Evidence from Japan
This paper examines investment spending of Japanese firms around the "asset price bubble" in the late-1980s and makes three contributions to our understanding of how stock valuations affect investment. First, corporate investment responds significantly to nonfundamental components of stock valuations during asset price shocks; fundamentals matter less. Clearly, the stock market is not a 'sideshow'. Second, the time series variation in the sensitivity of investment to cash flow is affected more by changes in monetary policy than by shifts in collateral values. Finally, asset price shocks primarily affect firms that rely more on bank financing, and not necessarily those that use equity markets for financing. Only the investment of bank-dependent firms responds to nonfundamental valuations. In addition, the cash flow sensitivity of bank-dependent firms with large collateral assets decreases when asset prices become inflated, but increases dramatically when asset prices collapse and monetary policy tightens.Investment, liquidity, asset inflation, Japan
Ferroelectric Phase Transitions in Ultra-thin Films of BaTiO3
We present molecular dynamics simulations of a realistic model of an
ultrathin film of BaTiO sandwiched between short-circuited electrodes to
determine and understand effects of film thickness, epitaxial strain and the
nature of electrodes on its ferroelectric phase transitions as a function of
temperature. We determine a full epitaxial strain-temperature phase diagram in
the presence of perfect electrodes. Even with the vanishing depolarization
field, we find that ferroelectric phase transitions to states with in-plane and
out-of-plane components of polarization exhibit dependence on thickness; it
arises from the interactions of local dipoles with their electrostatic images
in the presence of electrodes. Secondly, in the presence of relatively bad
metal electrodes which only partly compensate the surface charges and
depolarization field, a qualitatively different phase with stripe-like domains
is stabilized at low temperature
Constraints from Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay
We examine the constraints from the recent HEIDELBERG-MOSCOW double beta
decay experiment. It leads us to the almost degenerate or inverse hierarchy
neutrino mass scenario. In this scenario, we obtain possible upper bounds for
the Majorana CP violating phase in the lepton sector by incorporating the data
from the neutrino oscillation, the single beta decay experiments, and from the
astrophysical observation. We also predict the neutrino mass that may be
measurable in the future beta decay experiments.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure
First-principles accurate total-energy surfaces for polar structural distortions of BaTiO3, PbTiO3, and SrTiO3: consequences to structural transition temperatures
Specific forms of the exchange correlation energy functionals in
first-principles density functional theory-based calculations, such as the
local density approximation (LDA) and generalized-gradient approximations
(GGA), give rise to structural lattice parameters with typical errors of -2%
and 2%. Due to a strong coupling between structure and polarization, the order
parameter of ferroelectric transitions, they result in large errors in
estimation of temperature dependent ferroelectric structural transition
properties. Here, we employ a recently developed GGA functional of Wu and Cohen
[Phys. Rev. B 73, 235116 (2006)] and determine total-energy surfaces for
zone-center distortions of BaTiO3, PbTiO3, and SrTiO3, and compare them with
the ones obtained with calculations based on standard LDA and GGA. Confirming
that the Wu and Cohen functional allows better estimation of structural
properties at 0 K, we determine a new set of parameters defining the effective
Hamiltonian for ferroelectric transition in BaTiO3. Using the new set of
parameters, we perform molecular-dynamics (MD) simulations under effective
pressures p=0.0 GPa, p=-2.0 GPa, and p=-0.005T GPa. The simulations under
p=-0.005T GPa, which is for simulating thermal expansion, show a clear
improvement in the cubic to tetragonal transition temperature and c/a parameter
of its ferroelectric tetragonal phase, while the description of transitions at
lower temperatures to orthorhombic and rhombohedral phases is marginally
improved. Our findings augur well for use of Wu-Cohen functional in studies of
ferroelectrics at nano-scale, particularly in the form of epitaxial films where
the properties depend crucially on the lattice mismatch.Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures, 3 tables, resubmitted to PR
A simple SO(10) GUT in five dimensions
A simple supersymmetric SO(10) GUT in five dimensions is considered. The
fifth dimension is compactified on the orbifold
possessing two inequivalent fixed points. In our setup, all matter and Higgs
multiplets reside on one brane (PS brane) where the original SO(10) gauge group
is broken down to the Pati-Salam (PS) gauge group, SU(4)_c \timesSU(2)_L
\times SU(2), by the orbifold boundary condition, while only the SO(10)
gauge multiplet resides in the bulk. The further breaking of the PS symmetry to
the Standard Model gauge group is realized by Higgs multiplets on the PS brane
as usual in four dimensional models. Proton decay is fully suppressed. In our
simple setup, the gauge coupling unification is realized after incorporating
threshold corrections of Kaluza-Klein modes. When supersymmetry is assumed to
be broken on the other brane, supersymmetry breaking is transmitted to the PS
brane through the gaugino mediation with the bulk gauge multiplet.Comment: 12 pages, 1 figure, some errors have been corrected (no change in
conclusions
Discrete R-symmetry anomalies in heterotic orbifold models
Anomalies of discrete R-symmetries appearing in heterotic orbifold models are
studied. We find that the mixed anomalies for different gauge groups satisfy
the universal Green-Schwarz (GS) condition, indicating that these anomalies are
canceled by the GS mechanism. An exact relation between the anomaly
coefficients of the discrete R-symmetries and one-loop beta-function
coefficients is obtained. We also find that the discrete R-symmetries have a
good chance to be unbroken down to the supersymmetry breaking scale. Even below
this scale a subgroup is unbroken, which may be an origin of the R-parity
of the minimal supersymmetric standard model. Relations between the R-symmetry
anomalies and T-duality anomalies are also investigated.Comment: 19 pages, no figur
Gravitational Lens Statistics and The Density Profile of Dark Halos
We investigate the influence of the inner profile of lens objects on
gravitational lens statistics taking into account of the effect of
magnification bias and both the evolution and the scatter of halo profiles. We
take the dark halos as the lens objects and consider the following three models
for the density profile of dark halos; SIS (singular isothermal sphere), the
NFW (Navarro Frenk White) profile, and the generalized NFW profile which has a
different slope at smaller radii. The mass function of dark halos is assumed to
be given by the Press-Schechter function. We find that magnification bias for
the NFW profile is order of magnitude larger than that for SIS. We estimate the
sensitivity of the lensing probability of distant sources to the inner profile
of lenses and to the cosmological parameters. It turns out that the lensing
probability is strongly dependent on the inner density profile as well as on
the cosmological constant. We compare the predictions with the largest
observational sample, the Cosmic Lens All-Sky Survey. The absence or presence
of large splitting events in larger surveys currently underway such as the 2dF
and SDSS could set constraints on the inner density profile of dark halos.Comment: 22 pages, minor changes and references added, accepted for
publication in Ap
Neutrino Magnetic Moments and Minimal Supersymmetric SO(10) Model
We examine supersymmetric contributions to transition magnetic moments of
Majorana neutrinos. We first give the general formula for it. In concrete
evaluations, informations of neutrino mass matrix elements including CP phases
are necessary. Using unambiguously determined neutrino mass matrices in
recently proposed minimal supersymmetric SO(10) model, the transition magnetic
moments are calculated. The resultant neutrino magnetic moments are found to be
roughly an order of magnitude larger than those calculated in the standard
model extended to incorporate the see-saw mechanism.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures, the version to be published in International
Journal of Modern Physics
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