614 research outputs found
The holographic principle
There is strong evidence that the area of any surface limits the information
content of adjacent spacetime regions, at 10^(69) bits per square meter. We
review the developments that have led to the recognition of this entropy bound,
placing special emphasis on the quantum properties of black holes. The
construction of light-sheets, which associate relevant spacetime regions to any
given surface, is discussed in detail. We explain how the bound is tested and
demonstrate its validity in a wide range of examples.
A universal relation between geometry and information is thus uncovered. It
has yet to be explained. The holographic principle asserts that its origin must
lie in the number of fundamental degrees of freedom involved in a unified
description of spacetime and matter. It must be manifest in an underlying
quantum theory of gravity. We survey some successes and challenges in
implementing the holographic principle.Comment: 52 pages, 10 figures, invited review for Rev. Mod. Phys; v2:
reference adde
Distributions of charged massive scalars and fermions from evaporating higher-dimensional black holes
A detailed numerical analysis is performed to obtain the Hawking spectrum for
charged, massive brane scalars and fermions on the approximate background of a
brane charged rotating higher-dimensional black hole constructed in
arXiv:0907.5107. We formulate the problem in terms of a "spinor-like" first
order system of differential wave equations not only for fermions, but for
scalars as well and integrate it numerically. Flux spectra are presented for
non-zero mass, charge and rotation, confirming and extending previous results
based on analytic approximations. In particular we describe an inverted charge
splitting at low energies, which is not present in four or five dimensions and
increases with the number of extra dimensions. This provides another signature
of the evaporation of higher-dimensional black holes in TeV scale gravity
scenarios.Comment: 19 pages, 6 figures, minor typos corrected, 1 page added with a
discussion on higher spins, added reference
Organic Geochemical Studies. I. Molecular Criteria for Hydrocarbon Genesis
In recent years the search for life-forms at the earliest periods of geological time has been continued not only at the morphological level but also at the molecular level. This has been possible as a result of the increase in the biochemical knowledge and with the advent of analytical techniques that are capable of describing the intimate molecular architecture of individual molecules in acute detail. The fundamental premises upon which this organic geochemical approach rest are the following: that certain molecules, possessing a characteristic structural skeleton, show a reasonable stability to degradation over long periods of geological time; that their structural specificity can be understood in terms of known biosynthetic sequences; and that their formation by any non-biological means is of negligible probability. In this manuscript it is proposed to critically re-examine these premises and to establish criteria whereby one can differentiate molecules derived from biological systems from those that have their origin in non-biological processes. The importance of establishing such criteria lies in the significance these criteria have in determining whether life exists, or has existed, on other planets. Within the very near future it may be possible to provide an initial answer to this question when the first lunar samples are returned to the earth for analysis
Stringy effects in black hole decay
We compute the low energy decay rates of near-extremal three(four) charge
black holes in five(four) dimensional N=4 string theory to sub-leading order in
the large charge approximation. This involves studying stringy corrections to
scattering amplitudes of a scalar field off a black hole. We adapt and use
recently developed techniques to compute such amplitudes as near-horizon
quantities. We then compare this with the corresponding calculation in the
microscopic configuration carrying the same charges as the black hole. We find
perfect agreement between the microscopic and macroscopic calculations; in the
cases we study, the zero energy limit of the scattering cross section is equal
to four times the Wald entropy of the black hole.Comment: 32 page
Lovelock gravity from entropic force
In this paper, we first generalize the formulation of entropic gravity to
(n+1)-dimensional spacetime. Then, we propose an entropic origin for
Gauss-Bonnet gravity and more general Lovelock gravity in arbitrary dimensions.
As a result, we are able to derive Newton's law of gravitation as well as the
corresponding Friedmann equations in these gravity theories. This procedure
naturally leads to a derivation of the higher dimensional gravitational
coupling constant of Friedmann/Einstein equation which is in complete agreement
with the results obtained by comparing the weak field limit of Einstein
equation with Poisson equation in higher dimensions. Our study shows that the
approach presented here is powerful enough to derive the gravitational field
equations in any gravity theory. PACS: 04.20.Cv, 04.50.-h, 04.70.Dy.Comment: 10 pages, new versio
The entropy of black holes: a primer
After recalling the definition of black holes, and reviewing their energetics
and their classical thermodynamics, one expounds the conjecture of Bekenstein,
attributing an entropy to black holes, and the calculation by Hawking of the
semi-classical radiation spectrum of a black hole, involving a thermal
(Planckian) factor. One then discusses the attempts to interpret the black-hole
entropy as the logarithm of the number of quantum micro-states of a macroscopic
black hole, with particular emphasis on results obtained within string theory.
After mentioning the (technically cleaner, but conceptually more intricate)
case of supersymmetric (BPS) black holes and the corresponding counting of the
degeneracy of Dirichlet-brane systems, one discusses in some detail the
``correspondence'' between massive string states and non-supersymmetric
Schwarzschild black holes.Comment: 51 pages, 4 figures, talk given at the "Poincare seminar" (Paris, 6
December 2003), to appear in Poincare Seminar 2003 (Birkhauser
Quantum Fluctuations and the Unruh Effect in Strongly-Coupled Conformal Field Theories
Through the AdS/CFT correspondence, we study a uniformly accelerated quark in
the vacuum of strongly-coupled conformal field theories in various dimensions,
and determine the resulting stochastic fluctuations of the quark trajectory.
From the perspective of an inertial observer, these are quantum fluctuations
induced by the gluonic radiation emitted by the accelerated quark. From the
point of view of the quark itself, they originate from the thermal medium
predicted by the Unruh effect. We scrutinize the relation between these two
descriptions in the gravity side of the correspondence, and show in particular
that upon transforming the conformal field theory from Rindler space to the
open Einstein universe, the acceleration horizon disappears from the boundary
theory but is preserved in the bulk. This transformation allows us to directly
connect our calculation of radiation-induced fluctuations in vacuum with the
analysis by de Boer et al. of the Brownian motion of a quark that is on average
static within a thermal medium. Combining this same bulk transformation with
previous results of Emparan, we are also able to compute the stress-energy
tensor of the Unruh thermal medium.Comment: 1+31 pages; v2: reference adde
?2-Microglobulin Amyloid Fibril-Induced Membrane Disruption Is Enhanced by Endosomal Lipids and Acidic pH
Although the molecular mechanisms underlying the pathology of amyloidoses are not well understood, the interaction between amyloid proteins and cell membranes is thought to play a role in several amyloid diseases. Amyloid fibrils of ?2-microglobulin (?2m), associated with dialysis-related amyloidosis (DRA), have been shown to cause disruption of anionic lipid bilayers in vitro. However, the effect of lipid composition and the chemical environment in which ?2m-lipid interactions occur have not been investigated previously. Here we examine membrane damage resulting from the interaction of ?2m monomers and fibrils with lipid bilayers. Using dye release, tryptophan fluorescence quenching and fluorescence confocal microscopy assays we investigate the effect of anionic lipid composition and pH on the susceptibility of liposomes to fibril-induced membrane damage. We show that ?2m fibril-induced membrane disruption is modulated by anionic lipid composition and is enhanced by acidic pH. Most strikingly, the greatest degree of membrane disruption is observed for liposomes containing bis(monoacylglycero)phosphate (BMP) at acidic pH, conditions likely to reflect those encountered in the endocytic pathway. The results suggest that the interaction between ?2m fibrils and membranes of endosomal origin may play a role in the molecular mechanism of ?2m amyloid-associated osteoarticular tissue destruction in DRA
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