Comparison of models and lattice-gas simulations for Liesegang patterns

For more than a century Liesegang patterns -- self-organized, quasi-periodic structures occurring in diffusion-limited chemical reactions with two components -- have been attracting scientists. The pattern formation can be described by four basic empirical laws. In addition to many experiments, several models have been devised to understand the formation of the bands and rings. Here we review the most important models and complement them with detailed three-dimensional lattice-gas simulations. We show how the mean-field predictions can be reconciled with experimental data by a redefinition of the distances suggested by our lattice-gas simulations.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures, accepted for publication in EPJ Special Topic

Tuning the magnetic anisotropy of single molecules

The magnetism of single atoms and molecules is governed by the atomic scale environment. In general, the reduced symmetry of the surrounding splits the $d$ states and aligns the magnetic moment along certain favorable directions. Here, we show that we can reversibly modify the magnetocrystalline anisotropy by manipulating the environment of single iron(II) porphyrin molecules adsorbed on Pb(111) with the tip of a scanning tunneling microscope. When we decrease the tip--molecule distance, we first observe a small increase followed by an exponential decrease of the axial anisotropy on the molecules. This is in contrast to the monotonous increase observed earlier for the same molecule with an additional axial Cl ligand. We ascribe the changes in the anisotropy of both species to a deformation of the molecules in the presence of the attractive force of the tip, which leads to a change in the $d$ level alignment. These experiments demonstrate the feasibility of a precise tuning of the magnetic anisotropy of an individual molecule by mechanical control.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures; online at Nano Letters (2015

Astrophysical neutrinos flavored with Beyond the Standard Model physics

We systematically study the allowed parameter space for the flavor composition of astrophysical neutrinos measured at Earth, including beyond the Standard Model theories at production, during propagation, and at detection. One motivation is to illustrate the discrimination power of the next-generation neutrino telescopes such as IceCube-Gen2. We identify several examples that lead to potential deviations from the standard neutrino mixing expectation such as significant sterile neutrino production at the source, effective operators modifying the neutrino propagation at high energies, dark matter interactions in neutrino propagation, or non-standard interactions in Earth matter. IceCube-Gen2 can exclude about 90% of the allowed parameter space in these cases, and hence will allow to efficiently test and discriminate models. More detailed information can be obtained from additional observables such as the energy-dependence of the effect, fraction of electron antineutrinos at the Glashow resonance, or number of tau neutrino events.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures, 3 tables, v2: references added, typos corrected, conclusion unchanged, matches final version in PR

Consistent actions for massive particles interacting with electromagnetism and gravity

Consistent interactions with electromagnetism and gravity for mass $m$ particles of any spin are obtained. This is done by finding interactions which preserve the covariantized massive gauge symmetry present in recently constructed massive particle actions. This gauge principle is sufficient for finding consistent completions of minimal as well as non-minimal couplings of any type. For spins $s\geq 3/2$, consistency requires infinitely many interaction terms in the action, including arbitrarily high order derivatives of electromagnetic and gravitational curvatures, with correspondingly high powers of $1/m$. These interactions may be formally resummed and expressed in terms of non-local operators. The inherent non-locality is a manifestation of the known causality problems present in interacting massive particles with spin $s\geq 3/2$.Comment: v1, 29 pages; v2, 30 pages: interactions linear in matter fields adde

Covariant actions and propagators for all spins, masses, and dimensions

The explicit covariant actions and propagators are given for fields describing particles of all spins and masses, in any spacetime dimension. Massive particles are realized as "dimensionally reduced" massless particles. To obtain compact expressions for the propagators, it was useful to introduce an auxiliary vector coordinate $s^{\mu}$ and consider "hyperfields" that are functions of space $X^{\mu}$ and $s^{\mu}$. The actions and propagators serve as a basic starting point for concrete high spin computations amenable to dimensional regularization, provided that gauge invariant interactions are introduced.Comment: 37 page

Moving Five-Branes in Low-Energy Heterotic M-Theory

We construct cosmological solutions of four-dimensional effective heterotic M-theory with a moving five-brane and evolving dilaton and T modulus. It is shown that the five-brane generates a transition between two asymptotic rolling-radii solutions. Moreover, the five-brane motion always drives the solutions towards strong coupling asymptotically. We present an explicit example of a negative-time branch solution which ends in a brane collision accompanied by a small-instanton transition. The five-dimensional origin of some of our solutions is also discussed.Comment: 16 pages, Latex, 3 eps figure

On the Friedmann Equation in Brane-World Scenarios

The Friedmann law on the brane generically depends quadratically on the brane energy density and involves a ``dark radiation'' term due to the bulk Weyl tensor. Despite its unfamiliar form, we show how it can be derived from a standard four-dimensional Brans-Dicke theory at low energy. In particular, the dark radiation term is found to depend linearly on the brane energy densities. For any equation of state on the branes, the radion evolves such as to generate radiation-dominated cosmology. The radiation-dominated era is conventional and consistent with nucleosynthesis.Comment: 4 pages. v2,v3: discussion on BBN extended, minor correction