424 research outputs found
A Higgs Mechanism for Gravity
In this paper we elaborate on the idea of an emergent spacetime which arises
due to the dynamical breaking of diffeomorphism invariance in the early
universe. In preparation for an explicit symmetry breaking scenario, we
consider nonlinear realizations of the group of analytical diffeomorphisms
which provide a unified description of spacetime structures. We find that
gravitational fields, such as the affine connection, metric and coordinates,
can all be interpreted as Goldstone fields of the diffeomorphism group. We then
construct a Higgs mechanism for gravity in which an affine spacetime evolves
into a Riemannian one by the condensation of a metric. The symmetry breaking
potential is identical to that of hybrid inflation but with the non-inflaton
scalar extended to a symmetric second rank tensor. This tensor is required for
the realization of the metric as a Higgs field. We finally comment on the role
of Goldstone coordinates as a dynamical fluid of reference.Comment: 15 pages, 2 figures, 3 tables, appendix C on on-shell d.o.f. added,
references adde
Geometry of spin-field coupling on the worldline
We derive a geometric representation of couplings between spin degrees of
freedom and gauge fields within the worldline approach to quantum field theory.
We combine the string-inspired methods of the worldline formalism with elements
of the loop-space approach to gauge theory. In particular, we employ the loop
(or area) derivative operator on the space of all holonomies which can
immediately be applied to the worldline representation of the effective action.
This results in a spin factor that associates the information about spin with
"zigzag" motion of the fluctuating field. Concentrating on the case of quantum
electrodynamics in external fields, we obtain a purely geometric representation
of the Pauli term. To one-loop order, we confirm our formalism by rederiving
the Heisenberg-Euler effective action. Furthermore, we give closed-form
worldline representations for the all-loop order effective action to lowest
nontrivial order in a small-N_f expansion.Comment: 18 pages, v2: references added, minor changes, matches PRD versio
Bogoliubov Excitations of Disordered Bose-Einstein Condensates
We describe repulsively interacting Bose-Einstein condensates in spatially
correlated disorder potentials of arbitrary dimension. The first effect of
disorder is to deform the mean-field condensate. Secondly, the quantum
excitation spectrum and condensate population are affected. By a saddle-point
expansion of the many-body Hamiltonian around the deformed mean-field ground
state, we derive the fundamental quadratic Hamiltonian of quantum fluctuations.
Importantly, a basis is used such that excitations are orthogonal to the
deformed condensate. Via Bogoliubov-Nambu perturbation theory, we compute the
effective excitation dispersion, including mean free paths and localization
lengths. Corrections to the speed of sound and average density of states are
calculated, due to correlated disorder in arbitrary dimensions, extending to
the case of weak lattice potentials.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figure
Attitudes towards complementary and alternative medicine in chronic pain syndromes: a questionnaire-based comparison between primary headache and low back pain
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) is widely used and popular among patients with primary headache or low back pain (LBP). Aim of the study was to analyze attitudes of headache and LBP patients towards the use of CAM.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Two questionnaire-based surveys were applied comparing 432 primary headache and 194 LBP patients.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In total, 84.75% of all patients reported use of CAM; with significantly more LBP patients. The most frequently-used CAM therapies in headache were acupuncture (71.4%), massages (56.4%), and thermotherapy (29.2%), in LBP thermotherapy (77.4%), massages (62.7%), and acupuncture (51.4%). The most frequent attitudes towards CAM use in headache vs. LBP: "leave nothing undone" (62.5% vs. 52.1%; p = 0.006), "take action against the disease" (56.8% vs. 43.2%; p = 0.006). Nearly all patients with previous experience with CAM currently use CAM in both conditions (93.6% in headache; 100% in LBP). However, the majority of the patients had no previous experience.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Understanding motivations for CAM treatment is important, because attitudes derive from wishes for non-pharmacological treatment, to be more involved in treatment and avoid side effects. Despite higher age and more permanent pain in LBP, both groups show high use of CAM with only little specific difference in preferred methods and attitudes towards CAM use. This may reflect deficits and unfulfilled goals in conventional treatment. Maybe CAM can decrease the gap between patients' expectations about pain therapy and treatment reality, considering that both conditions are often chronic diseases, causing high burdens for daily life.</p
Canonical Gravity, Diffeomorphisms and Objective Histories
This paper discusses the implementation of diffeomorphism invariance in
purely Hamiltonian formulations of General Relativity. We observe that, if a
constrained Hamiltonian formulation derives from a manifestly covariant
Lagrangian, the diffeomorphism invariance of the Lagrangian results in the
following properties of the constrained Hamiltonian theory: the diffeomorphisms
are generated by constraints on the phase space so that a) The algebra of the
generators reflects the algebra of the diffeomorphism group. b) The Poisson
brackets of the basic fields with the generators reflects the space-time
transformation properties of these basic fields. This suggests that in a purely
Hamiltonian approach the requirement of diffeomorphism invariance should be
interpreted to include b) and not just a) as one might naively suppose. Giving
up b) amounts to giving up objective histories, even at the classical level.
This observation has implications for Loop Quantum Gravity which are spelled
out in a companion paper. We also describe an analogy between canonical gravity
and Relativistic particle dynamics to illustrate our main point.Comment: Latex 16 Pages, no figures, revised in the light of referees'
comments, accepted for publication in Classical and Quantum Gravit
Homogeneous Loop Quantum Cosmology: The Role of the Spin Connection
Homogeneous cosmological models with non-vanishing intrinsic curvature
require a special treatment when they are quantized with loop quantum
cosmological methods. Guidance from the full theory which is lost in this
context can be replaced by two criteria for an acceptable quantization,
admissibility of a continuum approximation and local stability. A quantization
of the corresponding Hamiltonian constraints is presented and shown to lead to
a locally stable, non-singular evolution compatible with almost classical
behavior at large volume. As an application, the Bianchi IX model and its
modified behavior close to its classical singularity is explored.Comment: revtex4, 36 pages, 10 figures. In version 2 the introduction is
expanded, section III E is added and a paragraph on relevance of results is
added in the conclusions. Refs updated, results unchanged. To appear in
Class. Quant. Gravit
Proton acceleration by irradiation of isolated spheres with an intense laser pulse
We report on experiments irradiating isolated plastic spheres with a peak laser intensity of 2-3 x 10(20) W cm(-2). With a laser focal spot size of 10 mu m full width half maximum (FWHM) the sphere diameter was varied between 520 nm and 19.3 mu m. Maximum proton energies of similar to 25 MeV are achieved for targets matching the focal spot size of 10 mu m in diameter or being slightly smaller. For smaller spheres the kinetic energy distributions of protons become nonmonotonic, indicating a change in the accelerating mechanism from ambipolar expansion towards a regime dominated by effects caused by Coulomb repulsion of ions. The energy conversion efficiency from laser energy to proton kinetic energy is optimized when the target diameter matches the laser focal spot size with efficiencies reaching the percent level. The change of proton acceleration efficiency with target size can be attributed to the reduced cross-sectional overlap of subfocus targets with the laser. Reported experimental observations are in line with 3D3V particle in cell simulations. They make use of well-defined targets and point out pathways for future applications and experiments.DFG via the Cluster of Excellence Munich-Centre for Advanced Photonics (MAP) Transregio SFB TR18NNSA DE-NA0002008Super-MUC pr48meIvo CermakCGC Instruments in design and realization of the Paul trap systemIMPRS-APSLMUexcellent Junior Research FundDAAD|ToIFEEuropean Union's Horizon research and innovation programme 633053Physic
A phenomenological description of quantum-gravity-induced space-time noise
I propose a phenomenological description of space-time foam and discuss the
experimental limits that are within reach of forthcoming experiments.Comment: 10 pages, LaTex, 1 figure. Short paper, omitting most technical
details. More detailed analysis was reported in gr-qc/010400
Spacetime as a Feynman diagram: the connection formulation
Spin foam models are the path integral counterparts to loop quantized
canonical theories. In the last few years several spin foam models of gravity
have been proposed, most of which live on finite simplicial lattice spacetime.
The lattice truncates the presumably infinite set of gravitational degrees of
freedom down to a finite set. Models that can accomodate an infinite set of
degrees of freedom and that are independent of any background simplicial
structure, or indeed any a priori spacetime topology, can be obtained from the
lattice models by summing them over all lattice spacetimes. Here we show that
this sum can be realized as the sum over Feynman diagrams of a quantum field
theory living on a suitable group manifold, with each Feynman diagram defining
a particular lattice spacetime. We give an explicit formula for the action of
the field theory corresponding to any given spin foam model in a wide class
which includes several gravity models. Such a field theory was recently found
for a particular gravity model [De Pietri et al, hep-th/9907154]. Our work
generalizes this result as well as Boulatov's and Ooguri's models of three and
four dimensional topological field theories, and ultimately the old matrix
models of two dimensional systems with dynamical topology. A first version of
our result has appeared in a companion paper [gr-qc\0002083]: here we present a
new and more detailed derivation based on the connection formulation of the
spin foam models.Comment: 32 pages, 2 figure
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