Gravitational Lorentz Violations from M-Theory

In an attempt to bridge the gap between M-theory and braneworld phenomenology, we present various gravitational Lorentz-violating braneworlds which arise from p-brane systems. Lorentz invariance is still preserved locally on the braneworld. For certain p-brane intersections, the massless graviton is quasi-localized. This also results from an M5-brane in a C-field. In the case of a p-brane perturbed from extremality, the quasi-localized graviton is massive. For a braneworld arising from global AdS_5, gravitons travel faster when further in the bulk, thereby apparently traversing distances faster than light.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure, LaTeX, references added, minor corrections and addition

From the warm magnetized atomic medium to molecular clouds

{It has recently been proposed that giant molecular complexes form at the sites where streams of diffuse warm atomic gas collide at transonic velocities.} {We study the global statistics of molecular clouds formed by large scale colliding flows of warm neutral atomic interstellar gas under ideal MHD conditions. The flows deliver material as well as kinetic energy and trigger thermal instability leading eventually to gravitational collapse.} {We perform adaptive mesh refinement MHD simulations which, for the first time in this context, treat self-consistently cooling and self-gravity.} {The clouds formed in the simulations develop a highly inhomogeneous density and temperature structure, with cold dense filaments and clumps condensing from converging flows of warm atomic gas. In the clouds, the column density probability density distribution (PDF) peaks at \sim 2 \times 10^{21} \psc and decays rapidly at higher values; the magnetic intensity correlates weakly with density from $n \sim 0.1$ to 10^4 \pcc, and then varies roughly as $n^{1/2}$ for higher densities.} {The global statistical properties of such molecular clouds are reasonably consistent with observational determinations. Our numerical simulations suggest that molecular clouds formed by the moderately supersonic collision of warm atomic gas streams.}Comment: submitted to A&