The effects on topic familiarity on online search behaviour and use of relevance criteria

This paper presents an experimental study on the effect of topic familiarity on the assessment behaviour of online searchers. In particular we investigate the effect of topic familiarity on the resources and relevance criteria used by searchers. Our results indicate that searching on an unfamiliar topic leads to use of more generic and fewer specialised resources and that searchers employ different relevance criteria when searching on less familiar topics

Phases of the generalized two-leg spin ladder: A view from the SU(4) symmetry

The zero-temperature phases of a generalized two-leg spin ladder with four-spin exchanges are discussed by means of a low-energy field theory approach starting from an SU(4) quantum critical point. The latter fixed point is shown to be a rich multicritical point which unifies different competing dimerized orders and a scalar chirality phase which breaks spontaneously the time-reversal symmetry. The quantum phase transition between these phases is governed by spin-singlet fluctuations and belongs to the Luttinger universality class due to the existence of an exact U(1) self-duality symmetry.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figur

Parity-Violating Nuclear Force as derived from QCD Sum Rules

Parity-violating nuclear force, as may be accessed from parity violation studies in nuclear systems, represents an area of nonleptonic weak interactions which has been the subject of experimental investigations for several decades. In the simple meson-exchange picture, parity-violating nuclear force may be parameterized as arising from exchange of \pi, \rho, \omega, or other meson(s) with strong meson-nucleon coupling at one vertex and weak parity-violating meson-nucleon coupling at the other vertex. The QCD sum rule method allows for a fairly complicated, but nevertheless straightforward, leading-order loop-contribution determination of the various parity-violating MNN couplings starting from QCD (with the nontrivial vacuum) and Glashow-Salam-Weinberg electroweak theory. We continue our earlier investigation of parity-violating \pi NN coupling (by Henley, Hwang, and Kisslinger) to other parity-violating couplings. Our predictions are in reasonable overall agreement with the results estimated on phenomenological grounds, such as in the now classic paper of Desplanques, Donoghue, and Holstein (DDH), in the global experimental fit of Adelberger and Haxton (AH), or the effective field theory (EFT) thinking of Ramsey-Musolf and Page (RP).Comment: 17 pages, 5 figure

Bose-Einstein condensation in an optical lattice

In this paper we develop an analytic expression for the critical temperature for a gas of ideal bosons in a combined harmonic lattice potential, relevant to current experiments using optical lattices. We give corrections to the critical temperature arising from effective mass modifications of the low energy spectrum, finite size effects and excited band states. We compute the critical temperature using numerical methods and compare to our analytic result. We study condensation in an optical lattice over a wide parameter regime and demonstrate that the critical temperature can be increased or reduced relative to the purely harmonic case by adjusting the harmonic trap frequency. We show that a simple numerical procedure based on a piecewise analytic density of states provides an accurate prediction for the critical temperature.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figure

Constraint on the early Universe by relic gravitational waves: From pulsar timing observations

Recent pulsar timing observations by the Parkers Pulsar Timing Array and European Pulsar Timing Array teams obtained the constraint on the relic gravitational waves at the frequency $f_*=1/{\rm yr}$, which provides the opportunity to constrain $H_*$, the Hubble parameter when these waves crossed the horizon during inflation. In this paper, we investigate this constraint by considering the general scenario for the early Universe: we assume that the effective (average) equation-of-state $w$ before the big bang nucleosynthesis stage is a free parameter. In the standard hot big-bang scenario with $w=1/3$, we find that the current PPTA result follows a bound H_*\leq 1.15\times10^{-1}\mpl, and the EPTA result follows H_*\leq 6.92\times10^{-2}\mpl. We also find that these bounds become much tighter in the nonstandard scenarios with $w>1/3$. When $w=1$, the bounds become H_*\leq5.89\times10^{-3}\mpl for the current PPTA and H_*\leq3.39\times10^{-3}\mpl for the current EPTA. In contrast, in the nonstandard scenario with $w=0$, the bound becomes H_*\leq7.76\mpl for the current PPTA.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures, 1 table, PRD in pres