Deformations of plane algebraic curves and integrable systems of hydrodynamic type

We describe our recent work on deformations of hyperelliptic curves by means of integrable hierarchy of hydrodynamic type (nlin.SI/0205012). We also discuss a further extension to the case of non-hyperelliptic curves.Comment: 7 pages, Submitted for the WSPC Proceedings of Gallipoli workshop July 26 - Aug. 6, 200

"Does e-Commerce Always Increase Social Welfare in the Long Run?"

We examine the effect of electronic commerce ("e-commerce") on social welfare, in the framework of conventional spatial competition models. We consider the case where both conventional and electronic retailers coexist in equilibrium. We show that e-commerce does not necessarily increase social welfare in the long run. In particular, when electronic retailers have clear cost advantage over conventional retailers, then the advent of e-commerce is shown to reduce social welfare.

The Strength and Nature of Bequest Motives in the United States

In this paper, we analyze the strength and nature of bequest motives in the United States using data from the 2000 Health and Retirement Study (HRS). The results of our analysis suggest that bequest motives are very strong in the United States and that they are altruistically motivated. This suggests that the altruism (or dynasty) model applies in the United States and that the selfish life cycle model does not apply. Moreover, our results also suggest that older, wealthier, married, more highly educated, Caucasian, healthy, and non-religious individuals are more likely to leave a bequest than other individuals.Bequests, Bequest Motives, Altruism, Life Cycle Model, Household Behavior

Non-Abelian statistics of vortices with non-Abelian Dirac fermions

We extend our previous analysis on the exchange statistics of vortices having a single Dirac fermion trapped in each core, to the case where vortices trap two Dirac fermions with U(2) symmetry. Such a system of vortices with non-Abelian Dirac fermions appears in color superconductors at extremely high densities, and in supersymmetric QCD. We show that the exchange of two vortices having doublet Dirac fermions in each core is expressed by non-Abelian representations of a braid group, which is explicitly verified in the matrix representation of the exchange operators when the number of vortices is up to four. We find that the result contains the matrices previously obtained for the vortices with a single Dirac fermion in each core as a special case. The whole braid group does not immediately imply non-Abelian statistics of identical particles because it also contains exchanges between vortices with different numbers of Dirac fermions. However, we find that it does contain, as its subgroup, a genuine non-Abelian statistics for the exchange of the identical particles, that is, vortices with the same number of Dirac fermions. This result is surprising compared with conventional understanding because all Dirac fermions are defined locally at each vortex, unlike the case of Majorana fermions for which Dirac fermions are defined non-locally by Majorana fermions located at two spatially separated vortices.Comment: 32 pages, no figures, v3: published versio

N-soliton solutions to the DKP equation and Weyl group actions

We study soliton solutions to the DKP equation which is defined by the Hirota bilinear form, {\begin{array}{llll} (-4D_xD_t+D_x^4+3D_y^2) \tau_n\cdot\tau_n=24\tau_{n-1}\tau_{n+1}, (2D_t+D_x^3\mp 3D_xD_y) \tau_{n\pm 1}\cdot\tau_n=0 \end{array} \quad n=1,2,.... where $\tau_0=1$. The $\tau$-functions $\tau_n$ are given by the pfaffians of certain skew-symmetric matrix. We identify one-soliton solution as an element of the Weyl group of D-type, and discuss a general structure of the interaction patterns among the solitons. Soliton solutions are characterized by $4N\times 4N$ skew-symmetric constant matrix which we call the $B$-matrices. We then find that one can have $M$-soliton solutions with $M$ being any number from $N$ to $2N-1$ for some of the $4N\times 4N$ $B$-matrices having only $2N$ nonzero entries in the upper triangular part (the number of solitons obtained from those $B$-matrices was previously expected to be just $N$).Comment: 22 pages, 12 figure

Rigid Limit in N=2 Supergravity and Weak-Gravity Conjecture

We analyze the coupled N=2 supergravity and Yang-Mills system using holomorphy, near the rigid limit where the former decouples from the latter. We find that there appears generically a new mass scale around g M_{pl} where g is the gauge coupling constant and M_{pl} is the Planck scale. This is in accord with the weak-gravity conjecture proposed recently. We also study the scale dependence of the gauge theory prepotential from its embedding into supergravity.Comment: 17 pages, minor correction

Soft-Fermion-Pole Mechanism to Single Spin Asymmetry in Hadronic Pion Production

Single spin asymmetry (SSA) is a twist-3 observable in the collinear factorization approach. We present a twist-3 single-spin-dependent cross section formula for the pion production in pp-collision, p^\uparrow p\to\pi X, relevant to RHIC experiment. In particular, we calculate the soft-fermion-pole (SFP) contribution to the cross section from the quark-gluon correlation functions. We show that its effect can be as large as the soft-gluon-pole (SGP) contribution owing to the large SFP partonic hard cross section, even though the derivative of the SFP function does not participate in the cross section.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure; to appear in the proceedings of the 18th International Symposium on Spin Physics (SPIN2008), October 6 - 11, 2008, Charlottesville, Virginia, US

Twist-3 Single-Spin Asymmetry for SIDIS and its Azimuthal Structure

We derive the complete twist-3 single-spin-dependent cross section for semi-inclusive DIS, $ep^\uparrow\to e\pi X$, associated with the complete set of the twist-3 quark-gluon correlation functions in the transversely polarized nucleon, extending our previous study. The cross section consists of five independent structure functions with different azimuthal dependences, consistently with the transverse-momentum-dependent (TMD) factorization approach in the low $q_T$ region. Correspondence with the inclusive DIS limit and comparison with the TMD approach are briefly discussed.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures; to appear in the proceedings of the 18th International Symposium on Spin Physics (SPIN2008), October 6 - 11, 2008, Charlottesville, Virginia, US

Quantum phase transition of dynamical resistance in a mesoscopic capacitor

We study theoretically dynamic response of a mesoscopic capacitor, which consists of a quantum dot connected to an electron reservoir via a point contact and capacitively coupled to a gate voltage. A quantum Hall edge state with a filling factor nu is realized in a strong magnetic field applied perpendicular to the two-dimensional electron gas. We discuss a noise-driven quantum phase transition of the transport property of the edge state by taking into account an ohmic bath connected to the gate voltage. Without the noise, the charge relaxation for nu>1/2 is universally quantized at R_q=h/(2e^2), while for nu<1/2, the system undergoes the Kosterlitz-Thouless transtion, which drastically changes the nature of the dynamical resistance. The phase transition is facilitated by the noisy gate voltage, and we see that it can occur even for an integer quantum Hall edge at nu=1. When the dissipation by the noise is sufficiently small, the quantized value of R_q is shifted by the bath impedance.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, proceeding of the 19th International Conference on the Application of High Magnetic Fields in Semiconductor Physics and Nanotechnology (HMF-19