Partially Massless Spin 2 Electrodynamics

We propose that maximal depth, partially massless, higher spin excitations can mediate charged matter interactions in a de Sitter universe. The proposal is motivated by similarities between these theories and their traditional Maxwell counterpart: their propagation is lightlike and corresponds to the same Laplacian eigenmodes as the de Sitter photon; they are conformal in four dimensions; their gauge invariance has a single scalar parameter and actions can be expressed as squares of single derivative curvature tensors. We examine this proposal in detail for its simplest spin 2 example. We find that it is possible to construct a natural and consistent interaction scheme to conserved vector electromagnetic currents primarily coupled to the helicity 1 partially massless modes. The resulting current-current single ``partial-photon'' exchange amplitude is the (very unCoulombic) sum of contact and shorter-range terms, so the partial photon cannot replace the traditional one, but rather modifies short range electromagnetic interactions. We also write the gauge invariant fourth-derivative effective actions that might appear as effective corrections to the model, and their contributions to the tree amplitude are also obtained.Comment: 15 pages, LaTe

Topologically massive gravity as a Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillator

We give a detailed account of the free field spectrum and the Newtonian limit of the linearized "massive" (Pauli-Fierz), "topologically massive" (Einstein-Hilbert-Chern-Simons) gravity in 2+1 dimensions about a Minkowski spacetime. For a certain ratio of the parameters, the linearized free theory is Jordan-diagonalizable and reduces to a degenerate "Pais-Uhlenbeck" oscillator which, despite being a higher derivative theory, is ghost-free.Comment: 9 pages, no figures, RevTEX4; version 2: a new paragraph and a reference added to the Introduction, a new appendix added to review Pais-Uhlenbeck oscillators; accepted for publication in Class. Quant. Gra

Symmetry Induced 4-Wave Capillary Wave Turbulence

We report theoretical and experimental results on 4-wave capillary wave turbulence. A system consisting of two inmiscible and incompressible fluids of the same density can be written in a Hamiltonian way for the conjugated pair $(\eta,\Psi)$. When given the symmetry $z\to-z$, the set of weakly non-linear interacting waves display a Kolmogorov-Zakharov (KZ) spectrum $n_k\sim k^{-4}$ in wave vector space. The wave system was studied experimentally with two inmiscible fluids of almost equal densities (water and silicon oil) where the capillary surface waves are excited by a low frequency random forcing. The power spectral density (PSD) and probability density function (PDF) of the local wave amplitude are studied. Both theoretical and experimental results are in fairly good agreement with each other.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

Coexistence of Weak and Strong Wave Turbulence in a Swell Propagation

By performing two parallel numerical experiments -- solving the dynamical Hamiltonian equations and solving the Hasselmann kinetic equation -- we examined the applicability of the theory of weak turbulence to the description of the time evolution of an ensemble of free surface waves (a swell) on deep water. We observed qualitative coincidence of the results. To achieve quantitative coincidence, we augmented the kinetic equation by an empirical dissipation term modelling the strongly nonlinear process of white-capping. Fitting the two experiments, we determined the dissipation function due to wave breaking and found that it depends very sharply on the parameter of nonlinearity (the surface steepness). The onset of white-capping can be compared to a second-order phase transition. This result corroborates with experimental observations by Banner, Babanin, Young.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, Submitted in Phys. Rev. Letter

Stabilization of a light bullet in a layered Kerr medium with sign-changing nonlinearity

Using the numerical solution of the nonlinear Schr\"odinger equation and a variational method it is shown that (3+1)-dimensional spatiotemporal optical solitons, known as light bullets, can be stabilized in a layered Kerr medium with sign-changing nonlinearity along the propagation direction.Comment: 4 pages, 3 PS figure

On the relationship between nonlinear equations integrable by the method of characteristics and equations associated with commuting vector fields

It was shown recently that Frobenius reduction of the matrix fields reveals interesting relations among the nonlinear Partial Differential Equations (PDEs) integrable by the Inverse Spectral Transform Method ($S$-integrable PDEs), linearizable by the Hoph-Cole substitution ($C$-integrable PDEs) and integrable by the method of characteristics ($Ch$-integrable PDEs). However, only two classes of $S$-integrable PDEs have been involved: soliton equations like Korteweg-de Vries, Nonlinear Shr\"odinger, Kadomtsev-Petviashvili and Davey-Stewartson equations, and GL(N,\CC) Self-dual type PDEs, like Yang-Mills equation. In this paper we consider the simple five-dimensional nonlinear PDE from another class of $S$-integrable PDEs, namely, scalar nonlinear PDE which is commutativity condition of the pair of vector fields. We show its origin from the (1+1)-dimensional hierarchy of $Ch$-integrable PDEs after certain composition of Frobenius type and differential reductions imposed on the matrix fields. Matrix generalization of the above scalar nonlinear PDE will be derived as well.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figur

Localized eigenmodes of the covariant lattice Laplacian

We study numerically the eigenmode spectrum of the covariant lattice Laplacian, in the fundamental SU(2) color group representation. It is found that eigenmodes at the lower and upper ends of the spectrum are localized, and that the localization volume scales. In contrast, the eigenmodes of the lattice Faddeev-Popov operator are all extended rather than localized (as required for confinement) despite the similarity of the kinetic and Faddeev-Popov operators.Comment: Talk presented by J. Greensite at Lattice2005 (Topology and Confinement), Dublin, July 25-30, 2005; 6 pages, 4 figures, uses PoS.cls; to appear in Proceedings of Scienc