Electronic Social Media: Friend or Foe for Judges

The use of electronic social communication has grown at a phenomenal rate. Facebook, the most popular social networking website, has over 1,968,000,000 users—a number that has exponentially grown since its inception in 2004. The number of judges accessing and using electronic social media (ESM) has also increased. However, unlike the general population, judges must consider constitutional, ethical, technical, and evidentiary implications when they use and access ESM. The First Amendment forbids “abridging the freedom of speech” and protects the expression of personal ideas, positions, and views. However, the American Bar Association’s Model Code of Judicial Conduct and the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct require a judge to “act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the independence, [] integrity, [] and impartiality [] of the judiciary and . . . [to] avoid impropriety and the appearance of impropriety” in all areas of the judge’s activities.” Additionally, for the judges that are elected, the essential use of ESM in campaigns creates an additional ethical dimension. The virality or the capability to share and re-share content exponentially, makes judges’ expression and conduct more vulnerable to public scrutiny. This Article examines ESM’s use and impact on the judiciary. It will examine the parameters imposed by the Texas Code of Judicial Conduct on the use of ESM by reviewing and comparing recent state and national developments

Fermi surface and superconductivity in low-density high-mobility {\delta}-doped SrTiO3

The electronic structure of low-density n-type SrTiO3 delta-doped heterostructures is investigated by angular dependent Shubnikov-de Haas oscillations. In addition to a controllable crossover from a three- to two-dimensional Fermi surface, clear beating patterns for decreasing dopant layer thicknesses are found. These indicate the lifting of the degeneracy of the conduction band due to subband quantization in the two-dimensional limit. Analysis of the temperature-dependent oscillations shows that similar effective masses are found for all components, associated with the splitting of the light electron pocket. The dimensionality crossover in the superconducting state is found to be distinct from the normal state, resulting in a rich phase diagram as a function of dopant layer thickness.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures, submitted for publicatio

A note on Hawking radiation via complex path analysis

As long as we neglect backreaction, the Hawking temperature of a given black hole would not depend upon the parameters of the particle species we are considering. In the semiclassical complex path analysis approach of Hawking radiation, this has been verified by taking scalar and Dirac spinors separately for different stationary spacetime metrics. Here we show, in a coordinate independent way that, for an arbitrary spacetime with any number of dimensions, the equations of motion for a Dirac spinor, a vector, spin-$2$ and spin-$\frac{3}{2}$ fields reduce to Klein-Gordon equations in the WKB semiclassical limit. We then obtain, under some suitable assumptions, the complex solutions of those resulting scalar equations across the Killing horizon of a stationary spacetime to get a coordinate independent expression for the emission probability identical for all particle species. Finally we consider some explicit examples to demonstrate the validity of that expression.Comment: 12 pages, v2; manuscript divided into sections, many discussions and references adde

Particle creation in Bose--Einstein condensates: Theoretical formulation based on conserving gapless mean field theory

We formulate particle creation phenomena in Bose--Einstein condensates in terms of conserving gapless mean field theory for weakly interacting Bose gases. The particle creation spectrum is calculated by rediagonalizing the Bogoliubov--de Gennes (BdG) Hamiltonian in mean field theory. The conservation implies that quasiparticle creation is accompanied by quantum backreaction to the condensates. Particle creation in this mean field theory is found to be equivalent to that in quantum field theory (QFT) in curved spacetime. An expression is obtained for an effective metric affected by quantum backreaction. The formula for the particle creation spectrum obtained in terms of QFT in curved spacetime is shown to be the same as that given by rediagonalizing the BdG Hamiltonian.Comment: 9 pages, typos correcte

Thermodynamics of Squashed Kaluza-Klein Black Holes and Black Strings -- A Comparison of Reference Backgrounds --

We investigate thermodynamics constructed on different background reference spacetimes for squashed Kaluza-Klein (SqKK) black hole and electrically charged black string in five-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell system. Two spacetimes are possible to be reference spacetimes giving finite gravitational classical actions: one is four-dimensional Minkowski times a circle and the other is the KK monopole. The boundary of the SqKK black hole can not be matched perfectly to that of the former reference spacetime because of the difference in topology. However, the resultant classical action coincides with that calculated by the counterterm subtraction scheme. The boundary of the KK monopole has the same topology with that of the SqKK black hole and can be matched to the boundary of the black hole perfectly. The resultant action takes different value from the result given by using the former reference spacetime. After a brief review of thermodynamic quantities of the black hole solutions, we calculate thermodynamic potentials relevant for several thermodynamic environments. The most stable state is different for each environment: For example, the KK monopole is the most stable state in isothermal environment with fixed gravitational tension. On the other hand, when the size of the extra-dimension is fixed, the Minkowski times a circle is the most stable. It is shown that these two spacetimes can be reference spacetimes of the five-dimensional black string.Comment: 28 pages; references added, typo corrected;version accepted for publication in Class. Quantum Gra

V1647 Orionis (IRAS 05436-0007) : A New Look at McNeil's Nebula

We present a study of the newly discovered McNeil's nebula in Orion using the JHKs-band simultaneous observations with the near-infrared (NIR) camera SIRIUS on the IRSF 1.4m telescope. The cometary infrared nebula is clearly seen extending toward north and south from the NIR source (V1647 Orionis) that illuminates McNeil's nebula. The compact nebula has an apparent diameter of about 70 arcsec. The nebula is blue (bright in J) and has a cavity structure with two rims extending toward north-east and north-west. The north-east rim is brighter and sharp, while the north-west rim is diffuse. The north-east rim can be traced out to ~ 40 arcsec from the location of the NIR source. In contrast, no cavity structure is seen toward the south, although diffuse nebula is extended out to ~ 20 arcsec. New NIR photometric data show a significant variation in the magnitudes (> 0.15 mag) of the source of McNeil's nebula within a period of one week, that is possibly under the phase of eruptive variables like FUors or EXors.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures in JPEG format. Accepted for the publication in PASJ Letter