Europe’s Electricity Supply Security: Strengthening the Chain. CEPS Policy Brief No. 224/November 2010

Acknowledging that efficient development of electricity transmission infrastructure is crucial to achieving EU targets for a secure, competitive and sustainable electricity supply, this paper explores ways of strengthening the supply chain. Research for the paper was carried out in the context of the SECURE project (Security of Energy Considering its Uncertainties, Risks and Economic Implications), funded by the European Commission under the Seventh Framework Programme. The project develops appropriate tools for evaluating the vulnerability of the EU to the different energy supply risks, and for promoting the optimisation of EU energy insecurity mitigation strategies, including investment, demand side management and dialogue with producing countries

Inhomogeneous Quantum Mixmaster: from Classical toward Quantum Mechanics

Starting from the Hamiltonian formulation for the inhomogeneous Mixmaster dynam- ics, we approach its quantum features through the link of the quasi-classical limit. We fix the proper operator-ordering which ensures that the WKB continuity equation overlaps the Liouville theorem as restricted to the configuration space. We describe the full quantum dynamics of the model in some details, providing a characterization of the (discrete) spectrum with analytic expressions for the limit of high occupation number. One of the main achievements of our analysis relies on the description of the ground state morphology, showing how it is characterized by a non-vanishing zero-point energy associated to the Universe anisotropy degrees of freedomComment: 17 pages, 6 figures, to appear on Classical and Quantum Gravity PACS: 04.20.Jb, 98.80.Dr, 83

Models of free quantum field theories on curved backgrounds

Free quantum field theories on curved backgrounds are discussed via three explicit examples: the real scalar field, the Dirac field and the Proca field. The first step consists of outlining the main properties of globally hyperbolic spacetimes, that is the class of manifolds on which the classical dynamics of all physically relevant free fields can be written in terms of a Cauchy problem. The set of all smooth solutions of the latter encompasses the dynamically allowed configurations which are used to identify via a suitable pairing a collection of classical observables. As a last step we use such collection to construct a $*$-algebra which encodes the information on the dynamics and on the canonical commutation or anti-commutation relations depending whether the underlying field is a Fermion or a Boson.Comment: 41 page

Classical and Quantum Aspects of the Inhomogeneous Mixmaster Chaoticity

We refine Misner's analysis of the classical and quantum Mixmaster in the fully inhomogeneous picture; we both connect the quantum behavior to the ensemble representation, both describe the precise effect of the boundary conditions on the structure of the quantum states.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures, proceedings of the XI Marcel Grossmann meeting on Relativistic Astrophysics, July 23-29, 2006, Berli