Collisions of rigidly rotating disks of dust in General Relativity

We discuss inelastic collisions of two rotating disks by using the conservation laws for baryonic mass and angular momentum. In particular, we formulate conditions for the formation of a new disk after the collision and calculate the total energy loss to obtain upper limits for the emitted gravitational energy.Comment: 30 pages, 9 figure

Relativistic Dyson Rings and Their Black Hole Limit

In this Letter we investigate uniformly rotating, homogeneous and axisymmetric relativistic fluid bodies with a toroidal shape. The corresponding field equations are solved by means of a multi-domain spectral method, which yields highly accurate numerical solutions. For a prescribed, sufficiently large ratio of inner to outer coordinate radius, the toroids exhibit a continuous transition to the extreme Kerr black hole. Otherwise, the most relativistic configuration rotates at the mass-shedding limit. For a given mass-density, there seems to be no bound to the gravitational mass as one approaches the black-hole limit and a radius ratio of unity.Comment: 13 pages, 1 table, 5 figures, v2: some discussion and two references added, accepted for publication in Astrophys. J. Let

Phase transitions in open quantum systems

We consider the behaviour of open quantum systems in dependence on the coupling to one decay channel by introducing the coupling parameter $\alpha$ being proportional to the average degree of overlapping. Under critical conditions, a reorganization of the spectrum takes place which creates a bifurcation of the time scales with respect to the lifetimes of the resonance states. We derive analytically the conditions under which the reorganization process can be understood as a second-order phase transition and illustrate our results by numerical investigations. The conditions are fulfilled e.g. for a picket fence with equal coupling of the states to the continuum. Energy dependencies within the system are included. We consider also the generic case of an unfolded Gaussian Orthogonal Ensemble. In all these cases, the reorganization of the spectrum occurs at the critical value $\alpha_{crit}$ of the control parameter globally over the whole energy range of the spectrum. All states act cooperatively.Comment: 28 pages, 22 Postscript figure

Interfering Doorway States and Giant Resonances. I: Resonance Spectrum and Multipole Strengths

A phenomenological schematic model of multipole giant resonances (GR) is considered which treats the external interaction via common decay channels on the same footing as the coherent part of the internal residual interaction. The damping due to the coupling to the sea of complicated states is neglected. As a result, the formation of GR is governed by the interplay and competition of two kinds of collectivity, the internal and the external one. The mixing of the doorway components of a GR due to the external interaction influences significantly their multipole strengths, widths and positions in energy. In particular, a narrow resonance state with an appreciable multipole strength is formed when the doorway components strongly overlap.Comment: 20 pages, LaTeX, 3 ps-figures, to appear in PRC (July 1997

Spectral Decorrelation of Nuclear Levels in the Presence of Continuum Decay

The fluctuation properties of nuclear giant resonance spectra are studied in the presence of continuum decay. The subspace of quasi-bound states is specified by one-particle one-hole and two-particle two-hole excitations and the continuum coupling is generated by a scattering ensemble. It is found that, with increasing number of open channels, the real parts of the complex eigenvalues quickly decorrelate. This appears to be related to the transition from power-law to exponential time behavior of the survival probability of an initially non-stationary state.Comment: 10 Pages, REVTEX, 4 PostScript figure

Resonance trapping and saturation of decay widths

Resonance trapping appears in open many-particle quantum systems at high level density when the coupling to the continuum of decay channels reaches a critical strength. Here a reorganization of the system takes place and a separation of different time scales appears. We investigate it under the influence of additional weakly coupled channels as well as by taking into account the real part of the coupling term between system and continuum. We observe a saturation of the mean width of the trapped states. Also the decay rates saturate as a function of the coupling strength. The mechanism of the saturation is studied in detail. In any case, the critical region of reorganization is enlarged. When the transmission coefficients for the different channels are different, the width distribution is broadened as compared to a chi_K^2 distribution where K is the number of channels. Resonance trapping takes place before the broad state overlaps regions beyond the extension of the spectrum of the closed system.Comment: 18 pages, 8 figures, accepted by Phys. Rev.

Signatures of the correlation hole in total and partial cross sections

In a complex scattering system with few open channels, say a quantum dot with leads, the correlation properties of the poles of the scattering matrix are most directly related to the internal dynamics of the system. We may ask how to extract these properties from an analysis of cross sections. In general this is very difficult, if we leave the domain of isolated resonances. We propose to consider the cross correlation function of two different elastic or total cross sections. For these we can show numerically and to some extent also analytically a significant dependence on the correlations between the scattering poles. The difference between uncorrelated and strongly correlated poles is clearly visible, even for strongly overlapping resonances.Comment: 25 pages, 13 Postscript figures, typos corrected and references adde

Shaping the global communications milieu : the EU's influence on internet and telecommunications governance

This article evaluates the European Union's (EU) influence in shaping the global governance for telecommunications and the Internet. Through analysing EU behaviour within an actorness framework, we demonstrate how the external opportunity structure and the EU's internal environment has impacted on its ability to exert and maximize its presence in order to meet its goals and aims in these two very different sub-sectors of global communications in terms of evolution and development. Such a comparison of EU actorness, we argue, is revealing in terms of uncovering the underlying factors and conditions that allow the EU to influence two important and dynamic communications sub-sectors