2,438 research outputs found
Advocatus, et non latro? Testing the Supplier-Induced-Demand Hypothesis for Italian Courts of Justice
We explore the relationship between litigation rates and the number of lawyers, in a typical supplier-induced demand (SID) frame. Drawing on an original panel dataset for the 169 Italian courts of justice between 2000 and 2007, we first document that the number of lawyers is positively correlated with different measures of litigation rate. Then, using an instrumental variables strategy we find that a 10 percent increase of lawyers over population is associated with an increase between 1.6 to 6 percent in civil litigation rates. Thus, our empirical analysis supports the SID hypothesis for the Italian lawyers: following an increase in their relative number, lawyers may exploit their informational advantage to induce clients to access to courts even when litigation is unnecessary or ineffective.Lawyers, Litigiosity, Causality
Fourth post-Newtonian effective-one-body Hamiltonians with generic spins
In a compact binary coalescence, the spins of the compact objects can have a significant effect on the orbital motion and gravitational-wave (GW) emission. For generic spin orientations, the orbital plane precesses, leading to characteristic modulations of the GW signal. The observation of precession effects is crucial to discriminate among different binary formation scenarios, and to carry out precise tests of General Relativity. Here, we work toward an improved description of spin effects in binary inspirals, within the effective-one-body (EOB) formalism, which is commonly used to build waveform models for LIGO and Virgo data analysis. We derive EOB Hamiltonians including the complete fourth post-Newtonian (4PN) conservative dynamics, which is the current state of the art. We place no restrictions on the spin orientations or magnitudes, or on the type of compact object (e.g., black hole or neutron star), and we produce the first generic-spin EOB Hamiltonians complete at 4PN order. We consider multiple spinning EOB Hamiltonians, which are more or less direct extensions of the varieties found in previous literature, and we suggest another simplified variant. Finally, we compare the circular-orbit, aligned-spin binding-energy functions derived from the EOB Hamiltonians to numerical-relativity simulations of the late inspiral. While finding that all proposed Hamiltonians perform reasonably well, we point out some interesting differences, which could guide the selection of a simpler, and thus faster-to-evolve EOB Hamiltonian to be used in future LIGO and Virgo inference studies
Symmetry breaking aspects of the effective Lagrangian for quantum black holes
The physical excitations entering the effective Lagrangian for quantum black
holes are related to a Goldstone boson which is present in the Rindler limit
and is due to the spontaneous breaking of the translation symmetry of the
underlying Minkowski space. This physical interpretation, which closely
parallels similar well-known results for the effective stringlike description
of flux tubes in QCD, gives a physical insight into the problem of describing
the quantum degrees of freedom of black holes. It also suggests that the
recently suggested concept of 'black hole complementarity' emerges at the
effective Lagrangian level rather than at the fundamental level.Comment: 11 pages, Latex,1 figur
A class of non-singular gravi-dilaton backgrounds
We present a class of static, spherically symmetric, non-singular solutions
of the tree-level string effective action, truncated to first order in
. In the string frame the solutions approach asymptotically (at and ) two different anti-de Sitter configurations, thus
interpolating between two maximally symmetric states of different constant
curvature. The radial-dependent dilaton defines a string coupling which is
everywhere finite, with a peak value that can be chosen arbitrarily small so as
to neglect quantum-loop corrections. This example stresses the possible
importance of finite-size corrections, typical of string theory, in
avoiding space-time singularities.Comment: 9 pages, LATEX, four figure included using EPSFIG. Essay written for
the 1997 Awards of the Gravity Research Foundation, and selected for
"Honorable Mention". To appear in Mod. Phys. Lett.
Estimating spinning binary parameters and testing alternative theories of gravity with LISA
We investigate the effect of spin-orbit and spin-spin couplings on the
estimation of parameters for inspiralling compact binaries of massive black
holes, and for neutron stars inspiralling into intermediate-mass black holes,
using hypothetical data from the proposed Laser Interferometer Space Antenna
(LISA). We work both in Einstein's theory and in alternative theories of
gravity of the scalar-tensor and massive-graviton types. We restrict the
analysis to non-precessing spinning binaries, i.e. to cases where the spins are
aligned normal to the orbital plane. We find that the accuracy with which
intrinsic binary parameters such as chirp mass and reduced mass can be
estimated within general relativity is degraded by between one and two orders
of magnitude. We find that the bound on the coupling parameter omega_BD of
scalar-tensor gravity is significantly reduced by the presence of spin
couplings, while the reduction in the graviton-mass bound is milder. Using fast
Monte-Carlo simulations of 10^4 binaries, we show that inclusion of spin terms
in massive black-hole binaries has little effect on the angular resolution or
on distance determination accuracy. For stellar mass inspirals into
intermediate-mass black holes, the angular resolution and the distance are
determined only poorly, in all cases considered. We also show that, if LISA's
low-frequency noise sensitivity can be extrapolated from 10^-4 Hz to as low as
10^-5 Hz, the accuracy of determining both extrinsic parameters (distance, sky
location) and intrinsic parameters (chirp mass, reduced mass) of massive
binaries may be greatly improved.Comment: 29 pages, 9 figures. Matches version accepted in Physical Review D.
More stringent checks in the inversion of the Fisher matri
Discriminating between a Stochastic Gravitational Wave Background and Instrument Noise
The detection of a stochastic background of gravitational waves could
significantly impact our understanding of the physical processes that shaped
the early Universe. The challenge lies in separating the cosmological signal
from other stochastic processes such as instrument noise and astrophysical
foregrounds. One approach is to build two or more detectors and cross correlate
their output, thereby enhancing the common gravitational wave signal relative
to the uncorrelated instrument noise. When only one detector is available, as
will likely be the case with the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA),
alternative analysis techniques must be developed. Here we show that models of
the noise and signal transfer functions can be used to tease apart the
gravitational and instrument noise contributions. We discuss the role of
gravitational wave insensitive "null channels" formed from particular
combinations of the time delay interferometry, and derive a new combination
that maintains this insensitivity for unequal arm length detectors. We show
that, in the absence of astrophysical foregrounds, LISA could detect signals
with energy densities as low as with just
one month of data. We describe an end-to-end Bayesian analysis pipeline that is
able to search for, characterize and assign confidence levels for the detection
of a stochastic gravitational wave background, and demonstrate the
effectiveness of this approach using simulated data from the third round of
Mock LISA Data Challenges.Comment: 10 Pages, 10 Figure
Optical noise correlations and beating the standard quantum limit in advanced gravitational-wave detectors
The uncertainty principle, applied naively to the test masses of a
laser-interferometer gravitational-wave detector, produces a Standard Quantum
Limit (SQL) on the interferometer's sensitivity. It has long been thought that
beating this SQL would require a radical redesign of interferometers. However,
we show that LIGO-II interferometers, currently planned for 2006, can beat the
SQL by as much as a factor two over a bandwidth \Delta f \sim f, if their
thermal noise can be pushed low enough. This is due to dynamical correlations
between photon shot noise and radiation-pressure noise, produced by the LIGO-II
signal-recycling mirror.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures; minor changes, some references adde
Gravitational waves from inspiraling binary black holes
Binary black holes are the most promising candidate sources for the first
generation of earth-based interferometric gravitational-wave detectors. We
summarize and discuss the state-of-the-art analytic techniques developed during
the last years to better describe the late dynamical evolution of binary black
holes of comparable masses.Comment: References added and updated; few typos correcte
New Photodetection Method Using Unbalanced Sidebands for Squeezed Quantum Noise in Gravitational Wave Interferometer
Homodyne detection is one of the ways to circumvent the standard quantum
limit for a gravitational wave detector. In this paper it will be shown that
the same quantum-non-demolition effect using homodyne detection can be realized
by heterodyne detection with unbalanced RF sidebands. Furthermore, a broadband
quantum-non-demolition readout scheme can also be realized by the unbalanced
sideband detection.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figure
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