Nonexistence theorems for traversable wormholes

Gauss-Bonnet formula is used to derive a new and simple theorem of nonexistence of vacuum static nonsingular lorentzian wormholes. We also derive simple proofs for the nonexistence of lorentzian wormhole solutions for some classes of static matter such as, for instance, real scalar fields with a generic potential obeying $\phi V'(\phi) \ge 0$ and massless fermions fields

Finite temperature Casimir effect for massive scalar field in spacetime with extra dimensions

We compute the finite temperature Casimir energy for massive scalar field with general curvature coupling subject to Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions on the walls of a closed cylinder with arbitrary cross section, located in a background spacetime of the form $M^{d_1+1}\times \mathcal{N}^n$, where $M^{d_1+1}$ is the $(d_1+1)$-dimensional Minkowski spacetime and $\mathcal{N}^n$ is an $n$-dimensional internal manifold. The Casimir energy is regularized using the criteria that it should vanish in the infinite mass limit. The Casimir force acting on a piston moving freely inside the closed cylinder is derived and it is shown that it is independent of the regularization procedure. By letting one of the chambers of the cylinder divided by the piston to be infinitely long, we obtain the Casimir force acting on two parallel plates embedded in the cylinder. It is shown that if both the plates assume Dirichlet or Neumann boundary conditions, the strength of the Casimir force is reduced by the increase in mass. Under certain conditions, the passage from massless to massive will change the nature of the force from long range to short range. Other properties of the Casimir force such as its sign, its behavior at low and high temperature, and its behavior at small and large plate separations, are found to be similar to the massless case. Explicit exact formulas and asymptotic behaviors of the Casimir force at different limits are derived. The Casimir force when one plate assumes Dirichlet boundary condition and one plate assumes Neumann boundary condition is also derived and shown to be repulsive.Comment: 28 pages, 4 figure

Finite Temperature Casimir Effect in Randall-Sundrum Models

The finite temperature Casimir effect for a scalar field in the bulk region of the two Randall-Sundrum models, RSI and RSII, is studied. We calculate the Casimir energy and the Casimir force for two parallel plates with separation $a$ on the visible brane in the RSI model. High-temperature and low-temperature cases are covered. Attractiveness versus repulsiveness of the temperature correction to the force is discussed in the typical special cases of Dirichlet-Dirichlet, Neumann-Neumann, and Dirichlet-Neumann boundary conditions at low temperature. The Abel-Plana summation formula is made use of, as this turns out to be most convenient. Some comments are made on the related contemporary literature.Comment: 33 pages latex, 2 figures. Some changes in the discussion. To appear in New J. Phy

A Storage Ring for Neutral Atoms

We have demonstrated a storage ring for ultra-cold neutral atoms. Atoms with mean velocities of 1 m/s corresponding to kinetic energies of ~100 neV are confined to a 2 cm diameter ring by magnetic forces produced by two current-carrying wires. Up to 10^6 atoms are loaded at a time in the ring, and 7 revolutions are clearly observed. Additionally, we have demonstrated multiple loading of the ring and deterministic manipulation of the longitudinal velocity distribution of the atoms using applied laser pulses. Applications of this ring include large area atom interferometers and cw monochromatic atomic beam generation.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Evidence for the Role of Instantons in Hadron Structure from Lattice QCD

Cooling is used as a filter on a set of gluon fields sampling the Wilson action to selectively remove essentially all fluctuations of the gluon field except for the instantons. The close agreement between quenched lattice QCD results with cooled and uncooled configurations for vacuum correlation functions of hadronic currents and for density-density correlation functions in hadronic bound states provides strong evidence for the dominant role of instantons in determining light hadron structure and quark propagation in the QCD vacuum.Comment: 26 pages in REVTeX, plus 10 figures, uuencoded. Submitted to Physical Review D. MIT-CTP-226

Sugarcane mosaic virus infects Stenotaphrum secundatum in Australia

This study presents the first report of sugarcane mosaic virus (SCMV) infecting Stenotaphrum secundatum (buffalo grass) in Australia, from a turf farm in the Hunter Valley, New South Wales. The plant displayed mosaic symptoms and contained flexuous, filamentous virions of 700–750 × 10–11 nm typical of members of the genus Potyvirus. Infection of the sample by SCMV was confirmed by double antibody sandwich ELISA and RT-PCR amplification of the coat protein coding region of the viral genome. In a phylogenetic analysis, the buffalo grass isolate was sister to a clade of maize-infecting isolates of SCMV from eastern Africa and was 75.8% and 79.4% identical to the exemplar isolate of SCMV at nucleotide and amino acid levels, respectively

Local Structure of La1-xSrxCoO3 determined from EXAFS and neutron PDF studies

The combined local structure techniques, extended x-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) and neutron pair distribution function analysis, have been used for temperatures 4 <= T <= 330 K to rule out a large Jahn-Teller (JT) distortion of the Co-O bond in La1-xSrxCoO3 for a significant fraction of Co sites (x <= 0.35), indicating few, if any, JT-active, singly occupied e_g Co sites exist.Comment: 5 page

Novel Ferromagnetic Atom Waveguide with in situ loading

Magneto-optic and magnetostatic trapping is realized near a surface using current carrying coils wrapped around magnetizable cores. A cloud of 10^7 Cesium atoms is created with currents less than 50 mA. Ramping up the current while maintaining optical dissipation leads to tightly confined atom clouds with an aspect ratio of 1:1000. We study the 3D character of the magnetic potential and characterize atom number and density as a function of the applied current. The field gradient in the transverse dimension has been varied from < 10 G/cm to > 1 kG/cm. By loading and cooling atoms in-situ, we have eliminated the problem of coupling from a MOT into a smaller phase space.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Multi-black hole solutions in five dimensions

Using a recently developed generalized Weyl formalism, we construct an asymptotically flat, static vacuum Einstein solution that describes a superposition of multiple five-dimensional Schwarzschild black holes. The spacetime exhibits a U(1)\times U(1) rotational symmetry. It is argued that for certain choices of parameters, the black holes are collinear and so may be regarded as a five-dimensional generalization of the Israel-Khan solution. The black holes are kept in equilibrium by membrane-like conical singularities along the two rotational axes; however, they still distort one another by their mutual gravitational attraction. We also generalize this solution to one describing multiple charged black holes, with fixed mass-to-charge ratio, in Einstein-Maxwell-dilaton theory.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figure

Geometrical locus of massive test particle orbits in the space of physical parameters in Kerr space-time

Gravitational radiation of binary systems can be studied by using the adiabatic approximation in General Relativity. In this approach a small astrophysical object follows a trajectory consisting of a chained series of bounded geodesics (orbits) in the outer region of a Kerr Black Hole, representing the space time created by a bigger object. In our paper we study the entire class of orbits, both of constant radius (spherical orbits), as well as non-null eccentricity orbits, showing a number of properties on the physical parameters and trajectories. The main result is the determination of the geometrical locus of all the orbits in the space of physical parameters in Kerr space-time. This becomes a powerful tool to know if different orbits can be connected by a continuous change of their physical parameters. A discussion on the influence of different values of the angular momentum of the hole is given. Main results have been obtained by analytical methods.Comment: 26 pages, 12 figure