436 research outputs found
Source population synthesis and the Galactic diffuse gamma-ray emission
Population synthesis is used to study the contribution from undetected
sources to the Galactic ridge emission measured by EGRET. Synthesized source
counts are compared with the 3rd EGRET catalogue at low and high latitudes. For
pulsar-like populations, 5-10% of the emission >100 MeV comes from sources
below the EGRET threshold. A steeper luminosity function can increase this to
20% without violating EGRET source statistics. Less luminous populations can
produce much higher values without being detected. Since the unresolved source
spectrum is different from the interstellar spectrum, it could provide an
explanation of the observed MeV and GeV excesses above the predictions, and we
give an explicit example of how this could work.Comment: Astrophysics and Space Science, in press. (Proceedings of Conference
'The multi-messenger approach to high-energy gamma-ray sources', Barcelona,
2006). Minor changes for accepted version, updated reference
Brownian motion in AdS/CFT
We study Brownian motion and the associated Langevin equation in AdS/CFT. The
Brownian particle is realized in the bulk spacetime as a probe fundamental
string in an asymptotically AdS black hole background, stretching between the
AdS boundary and the horizon. The modes on the string are excited by the
thermal black hole environment and consequently the string endpoint at the
boundary undergoes an erratic motion, which is identified with an external
quark in the boundary CFT exhibiting Brownian motion. Semiclassically, the
modes on the string are thermally excited due to Hawking radiation, which
translates into the random force appearing in the boundary Langevin equation,
while the friction in the Langevin equation corresponds to the excitation on
the string being absorbed by the black hole. We give a bulk proof of the
fluctuation-dissipation theorem relating the random force and friction. This
work can be regarded as a step toward understanding the quantum microphysics
underlying the fluid-gravity correspondence. We also initiate a study of the
properties of the effective membrane or stretched horizon picture of black
holes using our bulk description of Brownian motion.Comment: 54 pages (38 pages + 5 appendices), 5 figures. v2: references added,
clarifications in 6.2. v3: clarifications, version submitted to JHE
Membrane paradigm realized?
Are there any degrees of freedom on the black hole horizon? Using the
`membrane paradigm' we can reproduce coarse-grained physics outside the hole by
assuming a fictitious membrane just outside the horizon. But to solve the
information puzzle we need `real' degrees of freedom at the horizon, which can
modify Hawking's evolution of quantum modes. We argue that recent results on
gravitational microstates imply a set of real degrees of freedom just outside
the horizon; the state of the hole is a linear combination of rapidly
oscillating gravitational solutions with support concentrated just outside the
horizon radius. The collective behavior of these microstate solutions may give
a realization of the membrane paradigm, with the fictitious membrane now
replaced by real, explicit degrees of freedom.Comment: 8 pages, Latex, 3 figures (Essay given second place in Gravity
Research Foundation essay competition 2010
Logarithmic Corrections to N=2 Black Hole Entropy: An Infrared Window into the Microstates
Logarithmic corrections to the extremal black hole entropy can be computed
purely in terms of the low energy data -- the spectrum of massless fields and
their interaction. The demand of reproducing these corrections provides a
strong constraint on any microscopic theory of quantum gravity that attempts to
explain the black hole entropy. Using quantum entropy function formalism we
compute logarithmic corrections to the entropy of half BPS black holes in N=2
supersymmetric string theories. Our results allow us to test various proposals
for the measure in the OSV formula, and we find agreement with the measure
proposed by Denef and Moore if we assume their result to be valid at weak
topological string coupling. Our analysis also gives the logarithmic
corrections to the entropy of extremal Reissner-Nordstrom black holes in
ordinary Einstein-Maxwell theory.Comment: LaTeX file, 66 page
Off-Diagonal Elements of the DeWitt Expansion from the Quantum Mechanical Path Integral
The DeWitt expansion of the matrix element M_{xy} = \left\langle x \right|
\exp -[\case{1}{2} (p-A)^2 + V]t \left| y \right\rangle, in
powers of can be made in a number of ways. For (the case of interest
when doing one-loop calculations) numerous approaches have been employed to
determine this expansion to very high order; when (relevant for
doing calculations beyond one-loop) there appear to be but two examples of
performing the DeWitt expansion. In this paper we compute the off-diagonal
elements of the DeWitt expansion coefficients using the Fock-Schwinger gauge.
Our technique is based on representing by a quantum mechanical path
integral. We also generalize our method to the case of curved space, allowing
us to determine the DeWitt expansion of \tilde M_{xy} = \langle x| \exp
\case{1}{2} [\case{1}{\sqrt {g}} (\partial_\mu - i
A_\mu)g^{\mu\nu}{\sqrt{g}}(\partial_\nu - i A_\nu) ] t| y \rangle by use of
normal coordinates. By comparison with results for the DeWitt expansion of this
matrix element obtained by the iterative solution of the diffusion equation,
the relative merit of different approaches to the representation of as a quantum mechanical path integral can be assessed. Furthermore, the
exact dependence of on some geometric scalars can be
determined. In two appendices, we discuss boundary effects in the
one-dimensional quantum mechanical path integral, and the curved space
generalization of the Fock-Schwinger gauge.Comment: 16pp, REVTeX. One additional appendix concerning end-point effects
for finite proper-time intervals; inclusion of these effects seem to make our
results consistent with those from explicit heat-kernel method
Anomalous U(1) symmetry and lepton flavor violation
We show that in a large class of models based on anomalous U(1) symmetry
which addresses the fermion mass hierarchy problem, leptonic flavor changing
processes are induced that are in the experimentally interesting range. The
flavor violation occurs through the renormalization group evolution of the soft
SUSY breaking parameters between the string scale and the U(1)_A breaking
scale. We derive general expressions for the evolution of these parameters in
the presence of higher dimensional operators. Several sources for the flavor
violation are identified: flavor-dependent contributions to the soft masses
from the U(1)_A gaugino, scalar mass corrections proportional to the trace of
U(1)_A charge, non-proportional A-terms from vertex corrections, and the U(1)_A
D-term. Quantitative estimates for the decays \mu -> e \gamma and \tau -> \mu
\gamma are presented in supergravity models which accommodate the relic
abundance of neutralino dark matter.Comment: References added, typos corrected, 28 pages LaTeX, includes 14 eps
figure
Phenomenology of the Lense-Thirring effect in the Solar System
Recent years have seen increasing efforts to directly measure some aspects of
the general relativistic gravitomagnetic interaction in several astronomical
scenarios in the solar system. After briefly overviewing the concept of
gravitomagnetism from a theoretical point of view, we review the performed or
proposed attempts to detect the Lense-Thirring effect affecting the orbital
motions of natural and artificial bodies in the gravitational fields of the
Sun, Earth, Mars and Jupiter. In particular, we will focus on the evaluation of
the impact of several sources of systematic uncertainties of dynamical origin
to realistically elucidate the present and future perspectives in directly
measuring such an elusive relativistic effect.Comment: LaTex, 51 pages, 14 figures, 22 tables. Invited review, to appear in
Astrophysics and Space Science (ApSS). Some uncited references in the text
now correctly quoted. One reference added. A footnote adde
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