13,512 research outputs found
Electromagnetic Zero Point Field as Active Energy Source in the Intergalactic Medium
For over twenty years the possibility that the electromagnetic zero point
field (ZPF) may actively accelerate electromagnetically interacting particles
in regions of extremely low particle density (as those extant in intergalactic
space (IGS) with n < 1 particle/m^3 has been studied and analyzed. This
energizing phenomenon has been one of the few contenders for acceleration of
cosmic rays (CR), particularly at ultrahigh energies. The recent finding by the
AGASA collaboration (Phys. Rev. Lett., 81, 1163, 1998) that the CR energy
spectrum does not display any signs of the Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin cut-off
(that should be present if these CR particles were indeed generated in
localized ultrahigh energies CR sources, as e.g., quasars and other highly
active galactic nuclei), may indicate the need for an acceleration mechanism
that is distributed throughout IGS as is the case with the ZPF. Other
unexplained phenomena that receive an explanation from this mechanism are the
generation of X-ray and gamma-ray backgrounds and the existence of Cosmic
Voids. However recently, a statistical mechanics kind of challenge to the
classical (not the quantum) version of the zero-point acceleration mechanism
has been posed (de la Pena and Cetto, The Quantum Dice, 1996). Here we briefly
examine the consequences of this challenge and a prospective resolution.Comment: 7 pages, no figure
Constitutional Analogies in the International Legal System
This Article explores issues at the frontier of international law and constitutional law. It considers five key structural and systemic challenges that the international legal system now faces: (1) decentralization and disaggregation; (2) normative and institutional hierarchies; (3) compliance and enforcement; (4) exit and escape; and (5) democracy and legitimacy. Each of these issues raises questions of governance, institutional design, and allocation of authority paralleling the questions that domestic legal systems have answered in constitutional terms. For each of these issues, I survey the international legal landscape and consider the salience of potential analogies to domestic constitutions, drawing upon and extending the writings of international legal scholars and international relations theorists. I also offer some preliminary thoughts about why some treaties and institutions, but not others, more readily lend themselves to analysis in constitutional terms. And I distinguish those legal and political issues that may generate useful insights for scholars studying the growing intersections of international and constitutional law from other areas that may be more resistant to constitutional analogies
Distinguishing the “Truly National” From the “Truly Local”: Customary Allocation, Commercial Activity, and Collective Action
This Essay makes two claims about different methods of defining the expanse and limits of the Commerce Clause. My first claim is that approaches that privilege traditional subjects of state regulation are unworkable and undesirable. These approaches are unworkable in light of the frequency with which the federal government and the states regulate the same subject matter in our world of largely overlapping federal and state legislative jurisdiction. The approaches are undesirable because the question of customary allocation is unrelated to the principal reason why Congress possesses the power to regulate interstate commerce: solving collective action problems involving multiple states. These problems are evident in the way that some federal judges invoked regulatory custom in litigation over the constitutionality of the minimum coverage provision in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The areas of health insurance and health care are not of exclusive state concern, and it is impossible to lose—or to win—a competition requiring skillful lawyers or judges to describe them as more state than federal, or more federal than state. Nor is it most important what the answer is.
More promising are the approaches that view congressional authority as turning on either commercial activity or collective action problems facing the states. My second claim is that these two approaches have advantages and disadvantages, and that the choice between them exemplifies the more general tension between applying rules and applying their background justifications. I have previously defended a collective action approach to Article I, Section 8. My primary purpose in this Essay is to clarify the jurisprudential stakes in adopting one method or the other and to identify the problems that advocates of each approach must address
The impact of QCD plasma instabilities on bottom-up thermalization
QCD plasma instabilities, caused by an anisotropic momentum distributions of
the particles in the plasma, are likely to play an important role in
thermalization in heavy ion collisions. We consider plasmas with two different
components of particles, one strongly anisotropic and one isotropic or nearly
isotropic. The isotropic component does not eliminate instabilities but it
decreases their growth rates. We investigate the impact of plasma instabilities
on the first stage of the ``bottom-up'' thermalization scenario in which such a
two-component plasma emerges, and find that even in the case of non-abelian
saturation instabilities qualitatively change the bottom-up picture.Comment: 12 pages, latex, one typo corrected, several minor changes in the
abstract and the text, to appear in JHE
The ambivalent shadow of the pre-Wilsonian rise of international law
The generation of American international lawyers who founded the American Society of International Law in 1906 and nurtured the soil for what has been retrospectively called a “moralistic legalistic approach to international relations” remains little studied. A survey of the rise of international legal literature in the U.S. from the mid-19th century to the eve of the Great War serves as a backdrop to the examination of the boosting effect on international law of the Spanish American War in 1898. An examination of the Insular Cases before the US Supreme Court is then accompanied by the analysis of a number of influential factors behind the pre-war rise of international law in the U.S. The work concludes with an examination of the rise of natural law doctrines in international law during the interwar period and the critiques addressed.by the realist founders of the field of “international relations” to the “moralistic legalistic approach to international relation
Recommended from our members
"Sub-Hertz" Dielectric Spectroscopy
Dielectric spectroscopy measurements below 1 Hz are often dominated by “conduction-like” effects. For this reason, they often appear to be dismissed as being of little interest. In this paper two “sub-hertz” responses are considered that give insights into the insulating sys-tems concerned. The first system is that of cross-linked polyethylene, taken from a power cable system. Measurements at temperatures between 60°C and close to melting at 100°C show a change in characteristic from a percolation process to a “true” DC conduction at close to the melting point. Using DC conductivities, it appears to be possible to show whether the cable has been subjected to thermo-electric ageing. This might give insights into where the conduction and hence the ageing in the XLPE is occurring. The second system is an epoxy composite. By considering the sub-hertz response, it is possible to demonstrate the effect of the interface between the filler and the epoxy matrix. In this system, ageing, resulting in delamination between the glass fiber filler and the epoxy, is clearly detected by sub-hertz dielectric spectroscopy. This process is likely to be facilitated by the presence of water, which is known to lead to mechanical failure in such systems, and which can also be detected by "sub-hertz" dielectric spectroscopy. The implications for nano-dielectrics are then briefly considered
Primordial Entropy Production and Lambda-driven Inflation from Quantum Einstein Gravity
We review recent work on renormalization group (RG) improved cosmologies
based upon a RG trajectory of Quantum Einstein Gravity (QEG) with realistic
parameter values. In particular we argue that QEG effects can account for the
entire entropy of the present Universe in the massless sector and give rise to
a phase of inflationary expansion. This phase is a pure quantum effect and
requires no classical inflaton field.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures, IGCG-07 Pun
Spacetime Defects: von K\'arm\'an vortex street like configurations
A special arrangement of spinning strings with dislocations similar to a von
K\'arm\'an vortex street is studied. We numerically solve the geodesic
equations for the special case of a test particle moving along twoinfinite rows
of pure dislocations and also discuss the case of pure spinning defects.Comment: 9 pages, 2figures, CQG in pres
Network synchronization: Optimal and Pessimal Scale-Free Topologies
By employing a recently introduced optimization algorithm we explicitely
design optimally synchronizable (unweighted) networks for any given scale-free
degree distribution. We explore how the optimization process affects
degree-degree correlations and observe a generic tendency towards
disassortativity. Still, we show that there is not a one-to-one correspondence
between synchronizability and disassortativity. On the other hand, we study the
nature of optimally un-synchronizable networks, that is, networks whose
topology minimizes the range of stability of the synchronous state. The
resulting ``pessimal networks'' turn out to have a highly assortative
string-like structure. We also derive a rigorous lower bound for the Laplacian
eigenvalue ratio controlling synchronizability, which helps understanding the
impact of degree correlations on network synchronizability.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figs, submitted to J. Phys. A (proceedings of Complex
Networks 2007
A new orthogonalization procedure with an extremal property
Various methods of constructing an orthonomal set out of a given set of
linearly independent vectors are discussed. Particular attention is paid to the
Gram-Schmidt and the Schweinler-Wigner orthogonalization procedures. A new
orthogonalization procedure which, like the Schweinler- Wigner procedure, is
democratic and is endowed with an extremal property is suggested.Comment: 7 pages, latex, no figures, To appear in J. Phys
- …