Dispelling the Anthropic Principle from the Dimensionality Arguments

It is shown that in d=11 supergravity, under a very reasonable ansatz, the nearly flat spacetime in which we are living must be 4-dimensional without appealing to the Anthropic Principle. Can we dispel the Anthropic Principle completely from cosmology?Comment: 7 pages, Essa

A fracture mechanics-based method for prediction of cracking of circular and elliptical concrete rings under restrained shrinkage

A new experimental method, utilizing elliptical ring specimens, is developed for assessing the likelihood of cracking and cracking age of concrete subject to restrained shrinkage. To investigate the mechanism of this new ring test, a fracture mechanics-based numerical approach is proposed to predict crack initiation in restrained concrete rings by using the R-curve method. It has been found that numerical results accord well with experimental results in terms of cracking ages for both circular and elliptical concrete rings, indicating that the proposed fracture mechanics-based numerical approach is reliable for analyzing cracking in concrete ring specimens subject to restrained condition.UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council under the grant of EP/I031952/1, and the National Natural Science Foundation of China under the grant of NSFC 51121005/5110902

Intense terahertz laser fields on a two-dimensional electron gas with Rashba spin-orbit coupling

The spin-dependent density of states and the density of spin polarization of an InAs-based two-dimensional electron gas with the Rashba spin-orbit coupling under an intense terahertz laser field are investigated by utilizing the Floquet states to solve the time-dependent Schr\"odinger equation. It is found that both densities are strongly affected by the terahertz laser field. Especially a terahertz magnetic moment perpendicular to the external terahertz laser field in the electron gas is induced. This effect can be used to convert terahertz electric signals into terahertz magnetic ones efficiently.Comment: 3 pages, 3 figures, a typo in Fig. 3(b) is correcte

Hawking Radiation of Dirac Particles in an Arbitrarily Accelerating Kinnersley Black Hole

Quantum thermal effect of Dirac particles in an arbitrarily accelerating Kinnersley black hole is investigated by using the method of generalized tortoise coordinate transformation. Both the location and the temperature of the event horizon depend on the advanced time and the angles. The Hawking thermal radiation spectrum of Dirac particles contains a new term which represents the interaction between particles with spin and black holes with acceleration. This spin-acceleration coupling effect is absent from the thermal radiation spectrum of scalar particles.Comment: Revtex, 12pt, 16 pages, no figure, to appear in Gen. Rel. Grav. 34 (2002) N0.

Level sequence and splitting identification of closely-spaced energy levels by angle-resolved analysis of the fluorescence light

The angular distribution and linear polarization of the fluorescence light following the resonant photoexcitation is investigated within the framework of the density matrix and second-order perturbation theory. Emphasis has been placed on "signatures" for determining the level sequence and splitting of intermediate (partially) overlapping resonances, if analyzed as a function of the photon energy of the incident light. Detailed computations within the multiconfiguration Dirac-Fock method have been performed especially for the $1s^{2}2s^{2}2p^{6}3s\;\, J_{i}=1/2 \,+\, \gamma_{1} \:\rightarrow\: (1s^{2}2s2p^{6}3s)_{1}3p_{3/2}\;\, J=1/2, \, 3/2 \:\rightarrow\: 1s^{2}2s^{2}2p^{6}3s\;\, J_{f}=1/2 \,+\, \gamma_{2}$ photoexcitation and subsequent fluorescence emission of atomic sodium. A remarkably strong dependence of the angular distribution and linear polarization of the $\gamma_{2}$ fluorescence emission is found upon the level sequence and splitting of the intermediate $(1s^{2}2s2p^{6}3s)_{1}3p_{3/2}\;\, J=1/2, \, 3/2$ overlapping resonances owing to their finite lifetime (linewidth). We therefore suggest that accurate measurements of the angular distribution and linear polarization might help identify the sequence and small splittings of closely-spaced energy levels, even if they can not be spectroscopically resolved.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure