51 research outputs found
Chaos in the Gauge/Gravity Correspondence
We study the motion of a string in the background of the Schwarzschild black
hole in AdS_5 by applying the standard arsenal of dynamical systems. Our
description of the phase space includes: the power spectrum, the largest
Lyapunov exponent, Poincare sections and basins of attractions. We find
convincing evidence that the motion is chaotic. We discuss the implications of
some of the quantities associated with chaotic systems for aspects of the
gauge/gravity correspondence. In particular, we suggest some potential
relevance for the information loss paradox.Comment: 29 pages, 11 figure
Charged particles in higher dimensional homogeneous gravitational field: self-energy and self-force
Kerr-CFT From Black-Hole Thermodynamics
We analyze the near-horizon limit of a general black hole with two commuting
killing vector fields in the limit of zero temperature. We use black hole
thermodynamics methods to relate asymptotic charges of the complete spacetime
to those obtained in the near-horizon limit. We then show that some
diffeomorphisms do alter asymptotic charges of the full spacetime, even though
they are defined in the near horizon limit and, therefore, count black hole
states. We show that these conditions are essentially the same as considered in
the Kerr/CFT corresponcence. From the algebra constructed from these
diffeomorphisms, one can extract its central charge and then obtain the black
hole entropy by use of Cardy's formula.Comment: 19 pages, JHEP3, no figures. V2: References added, small typos fixe
f(R) theories
Over the past decade, f(R) theories have been extensively studied as one of
the simplest modifications to General Relativity. In this article we review
various applications of f(R) theories to cosmology and gravity - such as
inflation, dark energy, local gravity constraints, cosmological perturbations,
and spherically symmetric solutions in weak and strong gravitational
backgrounds. We present a number of ways to distinguish those theories from
General Relativity observationally and experimentally. We also discuss the
extension to other modified gravity theories such as Brans-Dicke theory and
Gauss-Bonnet gravity, and address models that can satisfy both cosmological and
local gravity constraints.Comment: 156 pages, 14 figures, Invited review article in Living Reviews in
Relativity, Published version, Comments are welcom
Hunting down the X17 boson at the CERN SPS
Recently, the ATOMKI experiment has reported new evidence for the excess of
events with a mass 17 MeV in the nuclear transitions of He,
that they previously observed in measurements with Be. These observations
could be explained by the existence of a new vector boson. So far, the
search for the decay with the NA64 experiment at the
CERN SPS gave negative results. Here, we present a new technique that could be
implemented in NA64 aiming to improve the sensitivity and to cover the
remaining parameter space. If a signal-like event is detected, an
unambiguous observation is achieved by reconstructing the invariant mass of the
decay with the proposed method. To reach this goal an optimization of the
production target, as well as an efficient and accurate reconstruction of
two close decay tracks, is required. A dedicated analysis of the available
experimental data making use of the trackers information is presented. This
method provides independent confirmation of the NA64 published results [Phys.
Rev. D101, 071101 (2020)], validating the tracking procedure. The detailed
Monte Carlo study of the proposed setup and the background estimate shows that
the goal of the proposed search is feasible
Fructan and its relationship to abiotic stress tolerance in plants
Numerous studies have been published that attempted to correlate fructan concentrations with freezing and drought tolerance. Studies investigating the effect of fructan on liposomes indicated that a direct interaction between membranes and fructan was possible. This new area of research began to move fructan and its association with stress beyond mere correlation by confirming that fructan has the capacity to stabilize membranes during drying by inserting at least part of the polysaccharide into the lipid headgroup region of the membrane. This helps prevent leakage when water is removed from the system either during freezing or drought. When plants were transformed with the ability to synthesize fructan, a concomitant increase in drought and/or freezing tolerance was confirmed. These experiments indicate that besides an indirect effect of supplying tissues with hexose sugars, fructan has a direct protective effect that can be demonstrated by both model systems and genetic transformation
Planck 2015 results. XVI. Isotropy and statistics of the CMB
We test the statistical isotropy and Gaussianity of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies using observations made by the Planck satellite. Our results are based mainly on the full Planck mission for temperature, but also include some polarization measurements. In particular, we consider the CMB anisotropy maps derived from the multi-frequency Planck data by several component-separation methods. For the temperature anisotropies, we find excellent agreement between results based on these sky maps over both a very large fraction of the sky and a broad range of angular scales, establishing that potential foreground residuals do not affect our studies. Tests of skewness, kurtosis, multi-normality, N-point functions, and Minkowski functionals indicate consistency with Gaussianity, while a power deficit at large angular scales is manifested in several ways, for example low map variance. The results of a peak statistics analysis are consistent with the expectations of a Gaussian random field. The âCold Spotâ is detected with several methods, including map kurtosis, peak statistics, and mean temperature profile. We thoroughly probe the large-scale dipolar power asymmetry, detecting it with several independent tests, and address the subject of a posteriori correction. Tests of directionality suggest the presence of angular clustering from large to small scales, but at a significance that is dependent on the details of the approach. We perform the first examination of polarization data, finding the morphology of stacked peaks to be consistent with the expectations of statistically isotropic simulations. Where they overlap, these results are consistent with the Planck 2013 analysis based on the nominal mission data and provide our most thorough view of the statistics of the CMB fluctuations to date
Planck 2015 results. XX. Constraints on inflation
We present the implications for cosmic inflation of the Planck measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies in both temperature and polarization based on the full Planck survey. The Planck full mission temperature data and a first release of polarization data on large angular scales measure the spectral index of curvature perturbations to be n s = 0.968 ± 0.006 and tightly constrain its scale dependence to dn s /dlnk = â0.003 ± 0.007 when combined with the Planck lensing likelihood. When the high-â polarization data is included, the results are consistent and uncertainties are reduced. The upper bound on the tensor-to-scalar ratio is r 0.002 <0.11 (95% CL), consistent with the B-mode polarization constraint r<0.12 (95% CL) obtained from a joint BICEP2/Keck Array and Planck analysis. These results imply that V(Ï)âÏ 2 and natural inflation are now disfavoured compared to models predicting a smaller tensor-to-scalar ratio, such as R 2 inflation. Three independent methods reconstructing the primordial power spectrum are investigated. The Planck data are consistent with adiabatic primordial perturbations. We investigate inflationary models producing an anisotropic modulation of the primordial curvature power spectrum as well as generalized models of inflation not governed by a scalar field with a canonical kinetic term. The 2015 results are consistent with the 2013 analysis based on the nominal mission data
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