Graphene and the Zermelo Optical Metric of the BTZ Black Hole

It is well known that the low energy electron excitations of the curved graphene sheet $\Sigma$ are solutions of the massless Dirac equation on a 2+1 dimensional ultra-static metric on ${\Bbb R} \times \Sigma$. An externally applied electric field on the graphene sheet induces a gauge potential which could be mimicked by considering a stationary optical metric of the Zermelo form, which is conformal to the BTZ black hole when the sheet has a constant negative curvature. The Randers form of the metric can model a magnetic field, which is related by a boost to an electric one in the Zermelo frame. We also show that there is fundamental geometric obstacle to obtaining a model that extends all the way to the black hole horizon.Comment: 10 pages Latex, no figures, substantial revisions, relation between magnetic and electric fields and Randers and Zermelo forms clarifie

A String and M-theory Origin for the Salam-Sezgin Model

An M/string-theory origin for the six-dimensional Salam-Sezgin chiral gauged supergravity is obtained, by embedding it as a consistent Pauli-type reduction of type I or heterotic supergravity on the non-compact hyperboloid ${\cal H}^{2,2}$ times $S^1$. We can also obtain embeddings of larger, non-chiral, gauged supergravities in six dimensions, whose consistent truncation yields the Salam-Sezgin theory. The lift of the Salam-Sezgin (Minkowski)$_4\times S^2$ ground state to ten dimensions is asymptotic at large distances to the near-horizon geometry of the NS5-brane.Comment: Latex, 18 pages; minor correction

A genus six cyclic tetragonal reduction of the Benney equations

A reduction of Benney’s equations is constructed corresponding to Schwartz–Christoffel maps associated with a family of genus six cyclic tetragonal curves. The mapping function, a second kind Abelian integral on the associated Riemann surface, is constructed explicitly as a rational expression in derivatives of the Kleinian σ-function of the curve

On the Multiple Deaths of Whitehead's Theory of Gravity

Whitehead's 1922 theory of gravitation continues to attract the attention of philosophers, despite evidence presented in 1971 that it violates experiment. We demonstrate that the theory strongly fails five quite different experimental tests, and conclude that, notwithstanding its meritorious philosophical underpinnings, Whitehead's theory is truly dead.Comment: 22 pages; to be submitted to Studies In History And Philosophy Of Modern Physic

Gravitational Instantons, Confocal Quadrics and Separability of the Schr\"odinger and Hamilton-Jacobi equations

A hyperk\"ahler 4-metric with a triholomorphic SU(2) action gives rise to a family of confocal quadrics in Euclidean 3-space when cast in the canonical form of a hyperk\"ahler 4-metric metric with a triholomorphic circle action. Moreover, at least in the case of geodesics orthogonal to the U(1) fibres, both the covariant Schr\"odinger and the Hamilton-Jacobi equation is separable and the system integrable.Comment: 10 pages Late

A remark on kinks and time machines

We describe an elementary proof that a manifold with the topology of the Politzer time machine does not admit a nonsingular, asymptotically flat Lorentz metric.Comment: 4 page

Orientifolds and Slumps in G_2 and Spin(7) Metrics

We discuss some new metrics of special holonomy, and their roles in string theory and M-theory. First we consider Spin(7) metrics denoted by C_8, which are complete on a complex line bundle over CP^3. The principal orbits are S^7, described as a triaxially squashed S^3 bundle over S^4. The behaviour in the S^3 directions is similar to that in the Atiyah-Hitchin metric, and we show how this leads to an M-theory interpretation with orientifold D6-branes wrapped over S^4. We then consider new G_2 metrics which we denote by C_7, which are complete on an R^2 bundle over T^{1,1}, with principal orbits that are S^3\times S^3. We study the C_7 metrics using numerical methods, and we find that they have the remarkable property of admitting a U(1) Killing vector whose length is nowhere zero or infinite. This allows one to make an everywhere non-singular reduction of an M-theory solution to give a solution of the type IIA theory. The solution has two non-trivial S^2 cycles, and both carry magnetic charge with respect to the R-R vector field. We also discuss some four-dimensional hyper-Kahler metrics described recently by Cherkis and Kapustin, following earlier work by Kronheimer. We show that in certain cases these metrics, whose explicit form is known only asymptotically, can be related to metrics characterised by solutions of the su(\infty) Toda equation, which can provide a way of studying their interior structure.Comment: Latex, 45 pages; minor correction

Time-Dependent Multi-Centre Solutions from New Metrics with Holonomy Sim(n-2)

The classifications of holonomy groups in Lorentzian and in Euclidean signature are quite different. A group of interest in Lorentzian signature in n dimensions is the maximal proper subgroup of the Lorentz group, SIM(n-2). Ricci-flat metrics with SIM(2) holonomy were constructed by Kerr and Goldberg, and a single four-dimensional example with a non-zero cosmological constant was exhibited by Ghanam and Thompson. Here we reduce the problem of finding the general $n$-dimensional Einstein metric of SIM(n-2) holonomy, with and without a cosmological constant, to solving a set linear generalised Laplace and Poisson equations on an (n-2)-dimensional Einstein base manifold. Explicit examples may be constructed in terms of generalised harmonic functions. A dimensional reduction of these multi-centre solutions gives new time-dependent Kaluza-Klein black holes and monopoles, including time-dependent black holes in a cosmological background whose spatial sections have non-vanishing curvature.Comment: Typos corrected; 29 page

Extended uncertainty principle and the geometry of (anti)-de Sitter space

It has been proposed that on (anti)-de Sitter background, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle should be modified by the introduction of a term proportional to the cosmological constant. We show that this modification of the uncertainty principle can be derived straightforwardly from the geometric properties of (anti)-de Sitter spacetime. We also discuss the connection between the so-called extended generalized uncertainty principle and triply special relativity.Comment: 8 pages, plain TeX, references adde