The adjoint potential in the pseudoparticle approach: string breaking and Casimir scaling

We perform a detailed study of the adjoint static potential in the pseudoparticle approach, which is a model for SU(2) Yang-Mills theory. We find agreement with the Casimir scaling hypothesis and there is clear evidence for string breaking. At the same time the potential in the fundamental representation is linear for large separations. Our results are in qualitative agreement with results from lattice computations.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, talk given at "Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum VIII", September 1 - 6 2008, Mainz, German

The spectrum of static-light baryons in twisted mass lattice QCD

We compute the static-light baryon spectrum with N_f = 2 flavors of sea quarks using Wilson twisted mass lattice QCD. As light valence quarks we consider quarks, which have the same mass as the sea quarks with corresponding pion masses in the range 340 MeV < m_PS < 525 MeV, as well as partially quenched quarks, which have the mass of the physical s quark. We extract masses of states with isospin I = 0, 1/2, 1, with strangeness S = 0, -1, -2, with angular momentum of the light degrees of freedom j = 0, 1 and with parity P = +, -. We present a preliminary extrapolation in the light u/d and an interpolation in the heavy b quark mass to the physical point and compare with available experimental results.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures, talk given at the XXVIII International Symposium on Lattice Field Theory (Lattice 2010), June 14-19 2010, Villasimius, Ital

The Theory of Scanning Quantum Dot Microscopy

Electrostatic forces are among the most common interactions in nature and omnipresent at the nanoscale. Scanning probe methods represent a formidable approach to study these interactions locally. The lateral resolution of such images is, however, often limited as they are based on measuring the force (gradient) due to the entire tip interacting with the entire surface. Recently, we developed scanning quantum dot microscopy (SQDM), a new technique for the imaging and quantification of surface potentials which is based on the gating of a nanometer-size tip-attached quantum dot by the local surface potential and the detection of charge state changes via non-contact atomic force microscopy. Here, we present a rigorous formalism in the framework of which SQDM can be understood and interpreted quantitatively. In particular, we present a general theory of SQDM based on the classical boundary value problem of electrostatics, which is applicable to the full range of sample properties (conductive vs insulating, nanostructured vs homogeneously covered). We elaborate the general theory into a formalism suited for the quantitative analysis of images of nanostructured but predominantly flat and conductive samples

Age and gender composition of the workforce, productivity and profits: Evidence from a new type of data for German enterprises

This empirical paper documents the relationship between composition of a firm's workforce (with a special focus on age and gender) and its performance (productivity and profitability) for a large representative sample of enterprises from manufacturing industries in Germany. We use unique newly available data that for the first time combine information from the statistics of employees covered by social security that is aggregated at the enterprise level and information from enterprise level surveys performed by the Statistical Offices. Our microeconometric analysis confirms previous findings of concave age-productivity profiles, which are consistent with human capital theory, and adds a new finding of a rather negative effect of age on firms' profitability, which is consistent with deferred compensation considerations. Moreover, our analysis reveals for the first time that the ceteris paribus lower level of productivity in firms with a higher share of female employees does not go hand in hand with a lower level of profitability in these firms. If anything, profitability is (slightly) higher in firms with a larger share of female employees. This finding might indicate that lower productivity of women is (over)compensated by lower wage costs for women, which might be driven by general labor market discrimination against women.Ageing, firm performance, gender, productivity, profitability, Germany

Effects of the neutrino mass splitting on the non-linear matter power spectrum

We have performed cosmological N-body simulations which include the effect of the masses of the individual neutrino species. The simulations were aimed at studying the effect of different neutrino hierarchies on the matter power spectrum. Compared to the linear theory predictions, we find that non-linearities enhance the effect of hierarchy on the matter power spectrum at mildly non-linear scales. The difference between the different hierarchies is about 0.5% for a sum of neutrino masses of 0.1eV. Albeit this is a small effect, it is potentially measurable from upcoming surveys. In combination with neutrinoless double-beta decay experiments, this opens up the possibility of using the sky to determine if neutrinos are Majorana or Dirac fermions.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, submitted to ApJ