12,361 research outputs found
Radiative Contributions to the Effective Action of Self-Interacting Scalar Field on a Manifold with Boundary
The effect of quantum corrections to a conformally invariant field theory for
a self-interacting scalar field on a curved manifold with boundary is
considered. The analysis is most easily performed in a space of constant
curvature the boundary of which is characterised by constant extrinsic
curvature. An extension of the spherical formulation in the presence of a
boundary is attained through use of the method of images. Contrary to the
consolidated vanishing effect in maximally symmetric space-times the
contribution of the massless "tadpole" diagram no longer vanishes in
dimensional regularisation. As a result, conformal invariance is broken due to
boundary-related vacuum contributions. The evaluation of one-loop contributions
to the two-point function suggests an extension, in the presence of matter
couplings, of the simultaneous volume and boundary renormalisation in the
effective action.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figure. Additional references and minor elucidating
remarks added. To appear in Classical and Quantum Gravit
Theory of temperature dependence of the Fermi surface-induced splitting of the alloy diffuse-scattering intensity peak
The explanation is presented for the temperature dependence of the fourfold
intensity peak splitting found recently in diffuse scattering from the
disordered Cu3Au alloy. The wavevector and temperature dependence of the
self-energy is identified as the origin of the observed behaviour. Two
approaches for the calculation of the self-energy, the high-temperature
expansion and the alpha-expansion, are proposed. Applied to the Cu3Au alloy,
both methods predict the increase of the splitting with temperature, in
agreement with the experimental results.Comment: 4 pages, 3 EPS figures, RevTeX, submitted to J. Phys. Condens. Matter
(Letter to the Editor
Gravitating defects of codimension-two
Thin gravitating defects with conical singularities in higher codimensions
and with generalized Israel matching conditions are known to be inconsistent
for generic energy-momentum. A way to remove this inconsistency is proposed and
is realized for an axially symmetric gravitating codimension-two defect in six
dimensional Einstein gravity. By varying with respect to the brane embedding
fields, alternative matching conditions are derived, which are generalizations
of the Nambu-Goto equations of motion of the defect, consistent with bulk
gravity. For a maximally symmetric defect the standard picture is recovered.
The four-dimensional perfect fluid cosmology coincides with conventional FRW in
the case of radiation, but for dust it has rho^{4/3} instead of rho. A
four-dimensional black hole solution is presented having the Schwarzschild form
with a short-distance correction r^{-2}.Comment: Minor changes, to appear in Classical and Quantum Gravit
Black Holes with a Generalized Gravitational Action
Microscopic black holes are sensitive to higher dimension operators in the
gravitational action. We compute the influence of these operators on the
Schwarzschild solution using perturbation theory. All (time reversal invariant)
operators of dimension six are included (dimension four operators don't alter
the Schwarzschild solution). Corrections to the relation between the Hawking
temperature and the black hole mass are found. The entropy is calculated using
the Gibbons-Hawking prescription for the Euclidean path integral and using
naive thermodynamic reasoning. These two methods agree, however, the entropy is
not equal to 1/4 the area of the horizon.Comment: plain tex(uses phyzzx.tex), 8 pages, CALT-68-185
A comparison of systems for measuring methane emissions from sheep
Two experiments were conducted, at ADAS Drayton in the autumn and winter 1996/1997, to compare methane (CH4) emissions from sheep housed either in a polytunnel system or in open-circuit respiration chambers. In each system, the sheep received maintenance levels of either cut grass or high temperature dried grass pellets (HTDG). All experiments in the tunnel were conducted on concrete to avoid any interactions of the CH4 with the soil/plant environment. The results suggested that CH4 production from the open-circuit chambers was greater than from the tunnel system (26·9±0·46 v. 31·7±0·35 l/kg dry matter intake (±S.E.) for open circuit respiration chambers and tunnel, respectively). Recovery tests gave similar results for both systems (95·5–97·9% for tunnels and 89·2–96·7% for chambers), and confirmed that both methods give good quantitative recovery of added CH4, and can therefore be assumed to provide reliable estimates of emissions from animals. There is no technical explanation, therefore, for the different estimates of emissions provided by the two systems. Further studies are required to understand the reasons for the differences and in particular, the possible links between animal behaviour induced by the two systems and CH4 emission rates
A 4-unit-cell superstructure in optimally doped YBa2Cu3O6.92 superconductor
Using high-energy diffraction we show that a 4-unit-cell superstructure,
q0=(1/4,0,0), along the shorter Cu-Cu bonds coexists with superconductivity in
optimally doped YBCO. A complex set of anisotropic atomic displacements on
neighboring CuO chain planes, BaO planes, and CuO2 planes, respectively,
correlated over ~3-6 unit cells gives rise to diffuse superlattice peaks. Our
observations are consistent with the presence of Ortho-IV nanodomains
containing these displacements.Comment: Corrected typo in abstrac
Hamiltonians for Reduced Gravity
A generalised canonical formulation of gravity is devised for foliations of
spacetime with codimension . The new formalism retains n-dimensional
covariance and is especially suited to 2+2 decompositions of spacetime. It is
also possible to use the generalised formalism to obtain boundary contributions
to the 3+1 Hamiltonian.Comment: 18 pages, revtex, 3 postscript figures include
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