15 research outputs found
Boson-fermion unification, superstrings, and Bohmian mechanics
Bosonic and fermionic particle currents can be introduced in a more unified
way, with the cost of introducing a preferred spacetime foliation. Such a
unified treatment of bosons and fermions naturally emerges from an analogous
superstring current, showing that the preferred spacetime foliation appears
only at the level of effective field theory, not at the fundamental superstring
level. The existence of the preferred spacetime foliation allows an objective
definition of particles associated with quantum field theory in curved
spacetime. Such an objective definition of particles makes the Bohmian
interpretation of particle quantum mechanics more appealing. The superstring
current allows a consistent Bohmian interpretation of superstrings themselves,
including a Bohmian description of string creation and destruction in terms of
string splitting. The Bohmian equations of motion and the corresponding
probabilistic predictions are fully relativistic covariant and do not depend on
the preferred foliation.Comment: 30 pages, 1 figure, revised, to appear in Found. Phy
The impact of tides on the capillary transition zone
The capillary transition zone, also known as the capillary fringe, is a zone where water saturations decrease with height above the water table/oil–water contact as a result of capillary action. In some oil reservoirs, this zone may contain a significant proportion of the oil in place. In groundwater assessments, the capillary fringe can profoundly affect contaminant transport. In this study, we investigated the influence of a tidally induced, semi-diurnal, change in water table depth on the water saturation distribution in the capillary fringe/transition zone. The investigation used a mixture of laboratory experiments, in which the change in saturation with depth was monitored over a period of 90 days, and numerical simulation. We show that tidal changes in water table depth can significantly alter the vertical water saturation profile from what would be predicted using capillary–gravity equilibrium and the drainage or imbibition capillary pressure curves