852 research outputs found
Breaking the silence of the 500-year-old smiling garden of everlasting flowers: The En Tibi book herbarium
We reveal the enigmatic origin of one of the earliest surviving botanical collections. The 16th-century Italian En Tibi herbarium is a large, luxurious book with c. 500 dried plants, made in the Renaissance scholarly circles that developed botany as a distinct discipline. Its Latin inscription, translated as “Here for you a smiling garden of everlasting flowers”, suggests that this herbarium was a gift for a patron of the emerging botanical science. We follow an integrative approach that includes a botanical similarity estimation of the En Tibi with contemporary herbaria (Aldrovandi, Cesalpino, “Cibo”, Merini, Estense) and analysis of the book’s watermark, paper, binding, handwriting, Latin inscription and the morphology and DNA of hairs mounted under specimens. Rejecting the previous origin hypothesis (Ferrara, 1542–1544), we show that the En Tibi was made in Bologna around 1558. We attribute the En Tibi herbarium to Francesco Petrollini, a neglected 16th-century botanist, to whom also belongs, as clarified herein, the controversial “Erbario Cibo” kept in Rome. The En Tibi was probably a work on commission for Petrollini, who provided the plant material for the book. Other people were apparently involved in the compilation and offering of this precious gift to a yet unknown person, possibly the Habsburg Emperor Ferdinand I. The En Tibi herbarium is a Renaissance masterpiece of art and science, representing the quest for truth in herbal medicine and botany. Our multidisciplinary approach can serve as a guideline for deciphering other anonymous herbaria, kept safely “hidden” in treasure rooms of universities, libraries and museums
Liquid-Sensing Probe and Methods for Using the Same
A sensor assembly includes a main body, a sensor, and a filler. The main body includes an outer surface having a continuously-variable radius of curvature in at least one portion. A sensor in thermal communication with a region of that surface having relatively low radius of curvature is disposed in the assembly recessed from the outer surface. Liquid droplets adhered to the outer surface in this region tend to migrate to a distant location having a higher radius of curvature. The main body has low thermal conductivity. The filler has a relatively higher thermal conductivity and, in embodiments, fills an opening in the outer surface of the main body, providing a thermally-conductive pathway between the sensor and the surrounding environment via the opening. A probe having a plurality of such sensors, and methods of detecting the presence of liquid and phase transitions in a predetermined space are also disclosed
Loop quantum gravity without the Hamiltonian constraint
We show that under certain technical assumptions, including the existence of
a constant mean curvature (CMC) slice and strict positivity of the scalar
field, general relativity conformally coupled to a scalar field can be
quantised on a partially reduced phase space, meaning reduced only with respect
to the Hamiltonian constraint and a proper gauge fixing. More precisely, we
introduce, in close analogy to shape dynamics, the generator of a local
conformal transformation acting on both, the metric and the scalar field, which
coincides with the CMC gauge condition. A new metric, which is invariant under
this transformation, is constructed and used to define connection variables
which can be quantised by standard loop quantum gravity methods. While it is
hard to address dynamical problems in this framework (due to the complicated
'time' function), it seems, due to good accessibility properties of the CMC
gauge, to be well suited for problems such as the computation of black hole
entropy, where actual physical states can be counted and the dynamics is only
of indirect importance. The corresponding calculation yields the surprising
result that the usual prescription of fixing the Barbero-Immirzi parameter beta
to a constant value in order to obtain the well-known formula S = a(Phi) A/(4G)
does not work for the black holes under consideration, while a recently
proposed prescription involving an analytic continuation of beta to the case of
a self-dual space-time connection yields the correct result. Also, the
interpretation of the geometric operators gets an interesting twist, which
exemplifies the deep relationship between observables and the choice of a time
function and has consequences for loop quantum cosmology.Comment: 8 pages. v2: Journal version. Black hole state counting based on
physical states added. Applications to loop quantum cosmology discussed.
Gauge condition used shown to coincide with CMC gauge. Minor clarifications.
v3: Erroneous topology dependence of the entropy in journal version
corrected, conclusions fixed accordingly. Main results unaffecte
New Variables for Classical and Quantum Gravity in all Dimensions II. Lagrangian Analysis
We rederive the results of our companion paper, for matching spacetime and
internal signature, by applying in detail the Dirac algorithm to the Palatini
action. While the constraint set of the Palatini action contains second class
constraints, by an appeal to the method of gauge unfixing, we map the second
class system to an equivalent first class system which turns out to be
identical to the first class constraint system obtained via the extension of
the ADM phase space performed in our companion paper. Central to our analysis
is again the appropriate treatment of the simplicity constraint. Remarkably,
the simplicity constraint invariant extension of the Hamiltonian constraint,
that is a necessary step in the gauge unfixing procedure, involves a correction
term which is precisely the one found in the companion paper and which makes
sure that the Hamiltonian constraint derived from the Palatini Lagrangian
coincides with the ADM Hamiltonian constraint when Gauss and simplicity
constraints are satisfied. We therefore have rederived our new connection
formulation of General Relativity from an independent starting point, thus
confirming the consistency of this framework.Comment: 42 pages. v2: Journal version. Some nonessential sign errors in
section 2 corrected. Minor clarification
On a partially reduced phase space quantisation of general relativity conformally coupled to a scalar field
The purpose of this paper is twofold: On the one hand, after a thorough
review of the matter free case, we supplement the derivations in our companion
paper on 'loop quantum gravity without the Hamiltonian constraint' with
calculational details and extend the results to standard model matter, a
cosmological constant, and non-compact spatial slices. On the other hand, we
provide a discussion on the role of observables, focussed on the situation of a
symmetry exchange, which is key to our derivation. Furthermore, we comment on
the relation of our model to reduced phase space quantisations based on
deparametrisation.Comment: 51 pages, 5 figures. v2: Gauge condition used shown to coincide with
CMC gauge. Minor clarifications and correction
Towards Loop Quantum Supergravity (LQSG) II. p-Form Sector
In our companion paper, we focussed on the quantisation of the
Rarita-Schwinger sector of Supergravity theories in various dimensions by using
an extension of Loop Quantum Gravity to all spacetime dimensions. In this
paper, we extend this analysis by considering the quantisation of additional
bosonic fields necessary to obtain a complete SUSY multiplet next to graviton
and gravitino in various dimensions. As a generic example, we study concretely
the quantisation of the 3-index photon of 11d SUGRA, but our methods easily
extend to more general p-form fields. Due to the presence of a Chern-Simons
term for the 3-index photon, which is due to local SUSY, the theory is
self-interacting and its quantisation far from straightforward. Nevertheless,
we show that a reduced phase space quantisation with respect to the 3-index
photon Gauss constraint is possible. Specifically, the Weyl algebra of
observables, which deviates from the usual CCR Weyl algebras by an interesting
twist contribution proportional to the level of the Chern-Simons theory, admits
a background independent state of the Narnhofer-Thirring type.Comment: 12 pages. v2: Journal version. Minor clarifications and correction
Coherent X-ray Scattering from Manganite Charge and Orbital Domains
We report coherent x-ray scattering studies of charge and orbital domains in
manganite systems. The experiments were carried out on LaMnO_3 and
Pr_{0.6}Ca_{0.4}MnO_3, with the incident photon energy tuned near the Mn K
edge. At room temperature, the orbital speckle pattern of LaMnO_3 was observed
to be constant over a timescale of at least minutes, which is indicative of
static orbital domains on this timescale. For Pr_{0.6}Ca_{0.4}MnO_3, both
charge and orbital speckle patterns were observed. The observation of the
latter rules out the presence of fast orbital fluctuations, while long time
series data-- on the order of several minutes-- were suggestive of slow dynamic
behavior. In contrast, the charge order speckle patterns were static.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figure
Interfaces in Diblocks: A Study of Miktoarm Star Copolymers
We study AB miktoarm star block copolymers in the strong segregation
limit, focussing on the role that the AB interface plays in determining the
phase behavior. We develop an extension of the kinked-path approach which
allows us to explore the energetic dependence on interfacial shape. We consider
a one-parameter family of interfaces to study the columnar to lamellar
transition in asymmetric stars. We compare with recent experimental results. We
discuss the stability of the A15 lattice of sphere-like micelles in the context
of interfacial energy minimization. We corroborate our theory by implementing a
numerically exact self-consistent field theory to probe the phase diagram and
the shape of the AB interface.Comment: 12 pages, 11 included figure
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