Cosmological Perturbations in Renormalization Group Derived Cosmologies

A linear cosmological perturbation theory of an almost homogeneous and isotropic perfect fluid Universe with dynamically evolving Newton constant $G$ and cosmological constant $\Lambda$ is presented. A gauge-invariant formalism is developed by means of the covariant approach, and the acoustic propagation equations governing the evolution of the comoving fractional spatial gradients of the matter density, $G$, and $\Lambda$ are thus obtained. Explicit solutions are discussed in cosmologies where both $G$ and $\Lambda$ vary according to renormalization group equations in the vicinity of a fixed point.Comment: 22 pages, revtex, subeqn.sty, to appear on IJMP

The neutron star in Cassiopeia A: equation of state, superfluidity, and Joule heating

The thermomagnetic evolution of the young neutron star in Cassiopea A is studied by considering fast neutrino emission processes. In particular, we consider neutron star models obtained from the equation of state computed in the framework of the Brueckner-Bethe-Goldstone many-body theory and variational methods, and models obtained with the Akmal-Pandharipande-Ravenhall equation of state. It is shown that it is possible to explain a fast cooling regime as the one observed in the neutron star in Cassiopea A if the Joule heating produced by dissipation of the small-scale magnetic field in the crust is taken into account. We thus argue that it is difficult to put severe constraints on the superfluid gap if the Joule heating is considered.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to appear on A&A Letter

Flow Equations for U_k and Z_k

By considering the gradient expansion for the wilsonian effective action S_k of a single component scalar field theory truncated to the first two terms, the potential U_k and the kinetic term Z_k, I show that the recent claim that different expansion of the fluctuation determinant give rise to different renormalization group equations for Z_k is incorrect. The correct procedure to derive this equation is presented and the set of coupled differential equations for U_k and Z_k is definitely established.Comment: 5 page

Networks of equities in financial markets

We review the recent approach of correlation based networks of financial equities. We investigate portfolio of stocks at different time horizons, financial indices and volatility time series and we show that meaningful economic information can be extracted from noise dressed correlation matrices. We show that the method can be used to falsify widespread market models by directly comparing the topological properties of networks of real and artificial markets.Comment: 9 pages, 8 figures. Accepted for publication in EPJ

The MEV project: design and testing of a new high-resolution telescope for Muography of Etna Volcano

The MEV project aims at developing a muon telescope expressly designed for the muography of Etna Volcano. In particular, one of the active craters in the summit area of the volcano would be a suitable target for this experiment. A muon tracking telescope with high imaging resolution was built and tested during 2017. The telescope is a tracker based on extruded scintillating bars with WLS fibres and featuring an innovative read-out architecture. It is composed of three XY planes with a sensitive area of \SI{1}{m^2}; the angular resolution does not exceeds \SI{0.4}{\milli\steradian} and the total angular aperture is about $\pm$\SI{45}{\degree}. A special effort concerned the design of mechanics and electronics in order to meet the requirements of a detector capable to work in a hostile environment such as the top of a tall volcano, at a far distance from any facility. The test phase started in January 2017 and ended successfully at the end of July 2017. An extinct volcanic crater (the Monti Rossi, in the village of Nicolosi, about 15km from Catania) is the target of the measurement. The detector acquired data for about 120 days and the preliminary results are reported in this work

Conclusions

This section summarises the archaeological results and the conclusions to be drawn from them about the site of Ħal Millieri. The concluding section discusses the significance of the excavations for the history of the casale and for Maltese historiography, and their relationship to the development of medieval church architecture in Malta. The excavations have added a certain amount to what was known about the site of Ħal Millieri prior to the building of its churches and to the first written documentation in 1419/20. The earliest archaeological features are admittedly not very informative. Beneath the church of the Visitation some shallow channels cut into the rock were clearly man-made, but they produced no dating evidence nor were they uncovered over a sufficient area for their purpose to be demonstrable.peer-reviewe

Averaging procedure in variable-G cosmologies

Previous work in the literature had built a formalism for spatially averaged equations for the scale factor, giving rise to an averaged Raychaudhuri equation and averaged Hamiltonian constraint, which involve a backreaction source term. The present paper extends these equations to include models with variable Newton parameter and variable cosmological term, motivated by the nonperturbative renormalization program for quantum gravity based upon the Einstein-Hilbert action. We focus on the Brans-Dicke form of the renormalization-group improved action functional. The coupling between backreaction and spatially averaged three-dimensional scalar curvature is found to survive, and a variable-G cosmic quintet is found to emerge. Interestingly, under suitable assumptions, an approximate solution can be found where the early universe tends to a FLRW model, while keeping track of the original inhomogeneities through three effective fluids. The resulting qualitative picture is that of a universe consisting of baryons only, while inhomogeneities average out to give rise to the full dark-side phenomenology.Comment: 20 pages. In the new version, all original calculations have been improved, and the presentation has been further improved as wel

The role of Background Independence for Asymptotic Safety in Quantum Einstein Gravity

We discuss various basic conceptual issues related to coarse graining flows in quantum gravity. In particular the requirement of background independence is shown to lead to renormalization group (RG) flows which are significantly different from their analogs on a rigid background spacetime. The importance of these findings for the asymptotic safety approach to Quantum Einstein Gravity (QEG) is demonstrated in a simplified setting where only the conformal factor is quantized. We identify background independence as a (the ?) key prerequisite for the existence of a non-Gaussian RG fixed point and the renormalizability of QEG.Comment: 2 figures. Talk given by M.R. at the WE-Heraeus-Seminar "Quantum Gravity: Challenges and Perspectives", Bad Honnef, April 14-16, 2008; to appear in General Relativity and Gravitatio