1,530 research outputs found
Complex Effective Path: A Semi-Classical Probe of Quantum Effects
We discuss the notion of an effective, average, quantum mechanical path which
is a solution of the dynamical equations obtained by extremizing the quantum
effective action. Since the effective action can, in general, be complex, the
effective path will also, in general, be complex. The imaginary part of the
effective action is known to be related to the probability of particle creation
by an external source and hence we expect the imaginary part of the effective
path also to contain information about particle creation. We try to identify
such features using simple examples including that of effective path through
the black hole horizon leading to thermal radiation. Implications of this
approach are discussed.Comment: 20 pages; no figures; to appear in Phys.Rev.
Initial state of matter fields and trans-Planckian physics: Can CMB observations disentangle the two?
The standard, scale-invariant, inflationary perturbation spectrum will be
modified if the effects of trans-Planckian physics are incorporated into the
dynamics of the matter field in a phenomenological manner, say, by the
modification of the dispersion relation. The spectrum also changes if we retain
the standard dynamics but modify the initial quantum state of the matter field.
We show that, given {\it any} spectrum of perturbations, it is possible to
choose a class of initial quantum states which can exactly reproduce this
spectrum with the standard dynamics. We provide an explicit construction of the
quantum state which will produce the given spectrum. We find that the various
modified spectra that have been recently obtained from `trans-Planckian
considerations' can be constructed from suitable squeezed states above the
Bunch-Davies vacuum in the standard theory. Hence, the CMB observations can, at
most, be useful in determining the initial state of the matter field in the
standard theory, but it can {\it not} help us to discriminate between the
various Planck scale models of matter fields. We study the problem in the
Schrodinger picture, clarify various conceptual issues and determine the
criterion for negligible back reaction due to modified initial conditions.Comment: revtex4; 17 page
Dark Energy and Gravity
I review the problem of dark energy focusing on the cosmological constant as
the candidate and discuss its implications for the nature of gravity. Part 1
briefly overviews the currently popular `concordance cosmology' and summarises
the evidence for dark energy. It also provides the observational and
theoretical arguments in favour of the cosmological constant as the candidate
and emphasises why no other approach really solves the conceptual problems
usually attributed to the cosmological constant. Part 2 describes some of the
approaches to understand the nature of the cosmological constant and attempts
to extract the key ingredients which must be present in any viable solution. I
argue that (i)the cosmological constant problem cannot be satisfactorily solved
until gravitational action is made invariant under the shift of the matter
lagrangian by a constant and (ii) this cannot happen if the metric is the
dynamical variable. Hence the cosmological constant problem essentially has to
do with our (mis)understanding of the nature of gravity. Part 3 discusses an
alternative perspective on gravity in which the action is explicitly invariant
under the above transformation. Extremizing this action leads to an equation
determining the background geometry which gives Einstein's theory at the lowest
order with Lanczos-Lovelock type corrections. (Condensed abstract).Comment: Invited Review for a special Gen.Rel.Grav. issue on Dark Energy,
edited by G.F.R.Ellis, R.Maartens and H.Nicolai; revtex; 22 pages; 2 figure
Non-Gaussianity of the density distribution in accelerating universes
According to recent observations, the existence of the dark energy has been
considered. Even though we have obtained the constraint of the equation of the
state for dark energy () as by combining WMAP
data with other astronomical data, in order to pin down , it is necessary to
use other independent observational tools. For this purpose, we consider the
dependence of the non-Gaussianity of the density distribution generated by
nonlinear dynamics. To extract the non-Gaussianity, we follow a semi-analytic
approach based on Lagrangian linear perturbation theory, which provides an
accurate value for the quasi-nonlinear region. From our results, the difference
of the non-Gaussianity between and is about 4% while that
between and is about . For the highly non-linear
region, we estimate the difference by combining this perturbative approach with
N-body simulation executed for our previous paper. From this, we can expect the
difference to be more enhanced in the low- region, which suggests that the
non-Gaussianity of the density distribution potentially plays an important role
for extracting the information of dark energy.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in JCAP; v2: smoothing
scale has been change
UV divergence-free QFT on noncommutative plane
We formulate Noncommutative Qauntum Field Theory in terms of fields defined
as mean value over coherent states of the noncommutative plane. No *-product is
needed in this formulation and noncommutativity is carried by a modified
Fourier transform of fields. As a result the theory is UV finite and the cutoff
is provided by the noncommutative parameter theta.Comment: 6 pages, Latex, no figures. Accepted for publication in J.Phys.A. New
references adde
Membrane Paradigm and Horizon Thermodynamics in Lanczos-Lovelock gravity
We study the membrane paradigm for horizons in Lanczos-Lovelock models of
gravity in arbitrary D dimensions and find compact expressions for the pressure
p and viscosity coefficients \eta and \zeta of the membrane fluid. We show that
the membrane pressure is intimately connected with the Noether charge entropy
S_Wald of the horizon when we consider a specific m-th order Lanczos-Lovelock
model, through the relation pA/T=(D-2m)/(D-2)S_Wald, where T is the temperature
and A is the area of the horizon. Similarly, the viscosity coefficients are
expressible in terms of entropy and quasi-local energy associated with the
horizons. The bulk and shear viscosity coefficients are found to obey the
relation \zeta=-2(D-3)/(D-2)\eta.Comment: v1: 13 pages, no figure. (v2): refs added, typos corrected, new
subsection added on the ratio \eta/s. (v3): some clarification added, typos
corrected, to appear in JHE
Effect of amino acid substitutions at the subunit interface on the stability and aggregation properties of a dimeric protein: role of Arg 178 and Arg 218 at the dimer interface of thymidylate synthase
The significance of two interface arginine residues on the structural integrity of an obligatory dimeric enzyme thymidylate synthase (TS) from Lactobacillus casei was investigated by thermal and chemical denaturation. While the R178F mutant showed apparent stability to thermal denaturation by its decreased tendency to aggregate, the Tm of the R218K mutant was lowered by 5°C. Equilibrium denaturation studies in guanidinium chloride (GdmCl) and urea indicate that in both the mutants, replacement of Arg residues results in more labile quaternary and tertiary interactions. Circular dichroism studies in aqueous buffer suggest that the protein interior in R218K may be less well-packed as compared to the wild type protein. The results emphasize that quaternary interactions may influence the stability of the tertiary fold of TS. The amino acid replacements also lead to notable alteration in the ability of the unfolding intermediate of TS to aggregate. The aggregated state of partially unfolded intermediate in the R178F mutant is stable over a narrower range of denaturant concentrations. In contrast, there is an exaggerated tendency on the part of R218K to aggregate in intermediate concentrations of the denaturant. The 3 Å crystal structure of the R178F mutant reveals no major structural change as a consequence of amino acid substitution. The results may be rationalized in terms of mutational effects on both the folded and unfolded state of the protein. Site specific amino acid substitutions are useful in identifying specific regions of TS involved in association of non-native protein structures
Noncommutative effects in astrophysical objects: a survey
The main implications of noncommutativity over astrophysical objects are
examined. Noncommutativity is introduced through a deformed dispersion relation
and the relevant
thermodynamical quantities are calculated using the grand canonical ensemble
formalism. These results are applied to simple physical models describing
main-sequence stars, white-dwarfs and neutron stars. The stability of
main-sequence stars and white dwarfs is discussed.Comment: 10 pages. Talk presented by C. Z. at the "First Mediterranean
Conference on Classical and Quantum Gravity", Kolymbari (Crete, Greece),
September 14-18, 2009. To appear in the Proceeding
Short Wavelength Analysis of the Evolution of Perturbations in a Two-component Cosmological Fluid
The equations describing a two-component cosmological fluid with linearized
density perturbations are investigated in the small wavelength or large
limit. The equations are formulated to include a baryonic component, as well as
either a hot dark matter (HDM) or cold dark matter (CDM) component. Previous
work done on such a system in static spacetime is extended to reveal some
interesting physical properties, such as the Jeans wavenumber of the mixture,
and resonant mode amplitudes. A WKB technique is then developed to study the
expanding universe equations in detail, and to see whether such physical
properties are also of relevance in this more realistic scenario. The Jeans
wavenumber of the mixture is re-interpreted for the case of an expanding
background spacetime. The various modes are obtained to leading order, and the
amplitudes of the modes are examined in detail to compare to the resonances
observed in the static spacetime results. It is found that some conclusions
made in the literature about static spacetime results cannot be carried over to
an expanding cosmology.Comment: 42 pages, 12 figure
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