Gluon Correlators in the Kogan-Kovner Model

The Lorentz-invariant gluon correlation functions, corresponding to scalar and pseudo-scalar glueballs, are calculated for Kogan's and Kovner's variational ansatz for the pure SU(N) Yang-Mills wavefunctional. One expects that only one dynamical mass scale should be present in QCD; the ansatz generates the expected scale for both glueballs, as well as an additional scale for the scalar glueball. The additional mass scale must therefore vanish, or be close to the expected one. This is shown to constrain the nature of the phase transition in the Kogan-Kovner ansatz.Comment: 9 pages, no figure

The impact of stochastic physics on climate sensitivity in EC-Earth

Stochastic schemes, designed to represent unresolved sub-grid scale variability, are frequently used in short and medium-range weather forecasts, where they are found to improve several aspects of the model. In recent years, the impact of stochastic physics has also been found to be beneficial for the model's long term climate. In this paper, we demonstrate for the first time that the inclusion of a stochastic physics scheme can notably affect a model's projection of global warming, as well as its historical climatological global temperature. Specifically, we find that when including the 'stochastically perturbed parametrisation tendencies' scheme (SPPT) in the fully coupled climate model EC-Earth v3.1, the predicted level of global warming between 1850 and 2100 is reduced by 10% under an RCP8.5 forcing scenario. We link this reduction in climate sensitivity to a change in the cloud feedbacks with SPPT. In particular, the scheme appears to reduce the positive low cloud cover feedback, and increase the negative cloud optical feedback. A key role is played by a robust, rapid increase in cloud liquid water with SPPT, which we speculate is due to the scheme's non-linear interaction with condensation.Comment: Under review in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmosphere

Quasi-hermitian Quantum Mechanics in Phase Space

We investigate quasi-hermitian quantum mechanics in phase space using standard deformation quantization methods: Groenewold star products and Wigner transforms. We focus on imaginary Liouville theory as a representative example where exact results are easily obtained. We emphasize spatially periodic solutions, compute various distribution functions and phase-space metrics, and explore the relationships between them.Comment: Accepted by Journal of Mathematical Physic

The shape of primordial non-Gaussianity and the CMB bispectrum

We present a set of formalisms for comparing, evolving and constraining primordial non-Gaussian models through the CMB bispectrum. We describe improved methods for efficient computation of the full CMB bispectrum for any general (non-separable) primordial bispectrum, incorporating a flat sky approximation and a new cubic interpolation. We review all the primordial non-Gaussian models in the present literature and calculate the CMB bispectrum up to l <2000 for each different model. This allows us to determine the observational independence of these models by calculating the cross-correlation of their CMB bispectra. We are able to identify several distinct classes of primordial shapes - including equilateral, local, warm, flat and feature (non-scale invariant) - which should be distinguishable given a significant detection of CMB non-Gaussianity. We demonstrate that a simple shape correlator provides a fast and reliable method for determining whether or not CMB shapes are well correlated. We use an eigenmode decomposition of the primordial shape to characterise and understand model independence. Finally, we advocate a standardised normalisation method for $f_{NL}$ based on the shape autocorrelator, so that observational limits and errors can be consistently compared for different models.Comment: 32 pages, 20 figure

Primordial non-Gaussianity and the CMB bispectrum

We present a new formalism, together with efficient numerical methods, to directly calculate the CMB bispectrum today from a given primordial bispectrum using the full linear radiation transfer functions. Unlike previous analyses which have assumed simple separable ansatze for the bispectrum, this work applies to a primordial bispectrum of almost arbitrary functional form, for which there may have been both horizon-crossing and superhorizon contributions. We employ adaptive methods on a hierarchical triangular grid and we establish their accuracy by direct comparison with an exact analytic solution, valid on large angular scales. We demonstrate that we can calculate the full CMB bispectrum to greater than 1% precision out to multipoles l<1800 on reasonable computational timescales. We plot the bispectrum for both the superhorizon ('local') and horizon-crossing ('equilateral') asymptotic limits, illustrating its oscillatory nature which is analogous to the CMB power spectrum

Radiation from an accelerated quark via AdS/CFT

In this paper we investigate radiation by an accelerated quark in a strongly coupled gauge theory via AdS/CFT correspondence. According to AdS/CFT dictionary, we can read off energy density or energy flux of the radiation from asymptotic gravitational field in AdS bulk sourced by an accelerated string trailing behind the quark. In the case of an oscillating quark with frequency $\Omega$, we show that the time averaged energy density is asymptotically isotropic and it falls off as $(g_{\text{YM}}^2 N)^{1/2} \Omega^4/R^{2}$ with distance $R$ from the source. In a toy model of a scattered quark by an external field, we simply estimate Poynting vector by the bremsstrahlung radiation and show that the energy flux is anisotropic outgoing radiation. Based on these investigations, we discuss the properties of strongly coupled gauge theory radiation in comparison with electromagnetic radiation.Comment: 16 pages, no figures, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Universal relaxational dynamics of gapped one dimensional models in the quantum sine-Gordon universality class

A semiclassical approach to the low-temperature real time dynamics of generic one-dimensional, gapped models in the sine-Gordon model universality class is developed. Asymptotically exact universal results for correlation functions are obtained in the temperature regime T << Delta, where Delta is the energy gap.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

The Cauchy Problem for the Wave Equation in the Schwarzschild Geometry

The Cauchy problem is considered for the scalar wave equation in the Schwarzschild geometry. We derive an integral spectral representation for the solution and prove pointwise decay in time.Comment: 33 page