Trajectories in a space with a spherically symmetric dislocation

We consider a new type of defect in the scope of linear elasticity theory, using geometrical methods. This defect is produced by a spherically symmetric dislocation, or ball dislocation. We derive the induced metric as well as the affine connections and curvature tensors. Since the induced metric is discontinuous, one can expect ambiguity coming from these quantities, due to products between delta functions or its derivatives, plaguing a description of ball dislocations based on the Geometric Theory of Defects. However, exactly as in the previous case of cylindric defect, one can obtain some well-defined physical predictions of the induced geometry. In particular, we explore some properties of test particle trajectories around the defect and show that these trajectories are curved but can not be circular orbits.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure

Vulnerabilidade do patrimônio ambiental tombado em Campinas-SP e sua relação com índice de vegetação.

Research conducted in forest fragments have contributed to the development of models for recovery of degraded areas, generating decrease deployment costs with increased efficiency, helping in forest management studies, and effectively preserving the remaining vegetation when considering the dynamics of regeneration compared to patterns of space occupation. The survey of the occupation history for the surrounding urban forest fragments located in the city of Campinas, São Paulo, Brazil, structured in a Geographical Information System (GIS), allowed to establish a classification which indicates the degree of vulnerability of these forests remnants based on the degree of deterioration of the landscape caused by the incidence of certain activities. The survey was made using legal decisions, occupation history, fauna and flora surveys, environmental reports, information on plant and animal biodiversity as well as the physical characteristics of the fragment?s area, which exemplified the degree and pattern of human occupation. The extraction of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) for each area allowed to establish a relation between the occupation pattern for the surrounding and the changes in vegetation cover within these forests fragments, which presented a good match with the degree of vulnerability attributed in previous step

Future dynamics in f(R) theories

The $f(R)$ gravity theories provide an alternative way to explain the current cosmic acceleration without invoking dark energy matter component. However, the freedom in the choice of the functional forms of $f(R)$ gives rise to the problem of how to constrain and break the degeneracy among these gravity theories on theoretical and/or observational grounds. In this paper to proceed further with the investigation on the potentialities, difficulties and limitations of $f(R)$ gravity, we examine the question as to whether the future dynamics can be used to break the degeneracy between $f(R)$ gravity theories by investigating the future dynamics of spatially homogeneous and isotropic dust flat models in two $f(R)$ gravity theories, namely the well known $f(R) = R + \alpha R^{n}$ gravity and another by A. Aviles et al., whose motivation comes from the cosmographic approach to $f(R)$ gravity. To this end we perform a detailed numerical study of the future dynamic of these flat model in these theories taking into account the recent constraints on the cosmological parameters made by the Planck team. We show that besides being powerful for discriminating between $f(R)$ gravity theories, the future dynamics technique can also be used to determine the fate of the Universe in the framework of these $f(R)$ gravity theories. Moreover, there emerges from our numerical analysis that if we do not invoke a dark energy component with equation-of-state parameter $\omega < -1$ one still has dust flat FLRW solution with a big rip, if gravity deviates from general relativity via $f(R) = R + \alpha R^n$. We also show that FLRW dust solutions with $f''<0$ do not necessarily lead to singularity.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures. V2: Generality and implications of the results are emphasized, connection with the recent literature improved, typos corrected, references adde

Teleparallel Equivalent of Non-Abelian Kaluza-Klein Theory

Based on the equivalence between a gauge theory for the translation group and general relativity, a teleparallel version of the non-abelian Kaluza-Klein theory is constructed. In this theory, only the fiber-space turns out to be higher-dimensional, spacetime being kept always four-dimensional. The resulting model is a gauge theory that unifies, in the Kaluza-Klein sense, gravitational and gauge fields. In contrast to the ordinary Kaluza-Klein models, this theory defines a natural length-scale for the compact sub-manifold of the fiber space, which is shown to be of the order of the Planck length.Comment: Revtex4, 7 pages, no figures, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Renormalization of the N=1 Abelian Super-Chern-Simons Theory Coupled to Parity-Preserving Matter

We analyse the renormalizability of an Abelian N=1 super-Chern-Simons model coupled to parity-preserving matter on the light of the regularization independent algebraic method. The model shows to be stable under radiative corrections and to be gauge anomaly free.Comment: Latex, 7 pages, no figure