1,351 research outputs found
Black holes without boundaries
We discuss some of the drawbacks of using event horizons to define black
holes and suggest ways in which black holes can be described without event
horizons, using trapping horizons. We show that these trapping horizons give
rise to thermodynamic behavior and possibly Hawking radiation too. This raises
the issue of whether the event horizon or the trapping horizon should be seen
as the true boundary of a black hole. This difference is important if we
believe that quantum gravity will resolve the central singularity of the black
hole and clarifies several of the issues associated with black hole
thermodynamics and information loss.Comment: 8 pages. Invited essay for special edition of the International
Journal of Modern Physics
Spherically symmetric trapping horizons, the Misner-Sharp mass and black hole evaporation
Understood in terms of pure states evolving into mixed states, the
possibility of information loss in black holes is closely related to the global
causal structure of spacetime, as is the existence of event horizons. However,
black holes need not be defined by event horizons, and in fact we argue that in
order to have a fully unitary evolution for black holes, they should be defined
in terms of something else, such as a trapping horizon. The Misner-Sharp mass
in spherical symmetry shows very simply how trapping horizons can give rise to
black hole thermodynamics, Hawking radiation and singularities. We show how the
Misner-Sharp mass can also be used to give insights into the process of
collapse and evaporation of locally defined black holes.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figure
An All Optical Fibre Quantum Controlled-NOT Gate
We report the first experimental demonstration of an optical controlled-NOT
gate constructed entirely in fibre. We operate the gate using two heralded
optical fibre single photon sources and find an average logical fidelity of 90%
and an average process fidelity of 0.83<F<0.91. On the basis of a simple model
we are able to conclude that imperfections are primarily due to the photon
sources, meaning that the gate itself works with very high fidelity.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, comments welcom
Radiation from the LTB black hole
Does a dynamical black hole embedded in a cosmological FRW background emit
Hawking radiation where a globally defined event horizon does not exist? What
are the differences to the Schwarzschild black hole? What about the first law
of black hole mechanics? We face these questions using the LTB cosmological
black hole model recently published. Using the Hamilton-Jacobi and radial null
geodesic-methods suitable for dynamical cases, we show that it is the apparent
horizon which contributes to the Hawking radiation and not the event horizon.
The Hawking temperature is calculated using the two different methods giving
the same result. The first law of LTB black hole dynamics and the thermal
character of the radiation is also dealt with.Comment: 9 pages, revised version, Europhysics Letter 2012 97 2900
Possible polarisation and spin dependent aspects of quantum gravity
We argue that quantum gravity theories that carry a Lie algebraic
modification of the Poincare' and Heisenberg algebras inevitably provide
inhomogeneities that may serve as seeds for cosmological structure formation.
Furthermore, in this class of theories one must expect a strong polarisation
and spin dependence of various quantum-gravity effects.Comment: Awarded an "honourable mention" in the 2007 Gravity Research
Foundation Essay Competitio
The horizon-entropy increase law for causal and quasi-local horizons and conformal field redefinitions
We explicitly prove the horizon-entropy increase law for both causal and
quasi-locally defined horizons in scalar-tensor and gravity theories.
Contrary to causal event horizons, future outer trapping horizons are not
conformally invariant and we provide a modification of trapping horizons to
complete the proof, using the idea of generalised entropy. This modification
means they are no longer foliated by marginally outer trapped surfaces but
fixes the location of the horizon under a conformal transformation. We also
discuss the behaviour of horizons in "veiled" general relativity and show,
using this new definition, how to locate cosmological horizons in flat
Minkowski space with varying units, which is physically identified with a
spatially flat FLRW spacetime.Comment: 23 page
Monovalent counterion distributions at highly charged water interfaces: Proton-transfer and Poisson-Boltzmann theory
Surface sensitive synchrotron-X-ray scattering studies reveal the
distributions of monovalent ions next to highly charged interfaces. A lipid
phosphate (dihexadecyl hydrogen-phosphate) was spread as a monolayer at the
air-water interface, containing CsI at various concentrations. Using anomalous
reflectivity off and at the Cs resonance, we provide, for the first
time, spatial counterion distributions (Cs) next to the negatively charged
interface over a wide range of ionic concentrations. We argue that at low salt
concentrations and for pure water the enhanced concentration of hydroniums
HO at the interface leads to proton-transfer back to the phosphate
group by a high contact-potential, whereas high salt concentrations lower the
contact-potential resulting in proton-release and increased surface
charge-density. The experimental ionic distributions are in excellent agreement
with a renormalized-surface-charge Poisson-Boltzmann theory without fitting
parameters or additional assumptions
Gauge Invariant Variational Approach with Fermions: the Schwinger Model
We extend the gauge invariant variational approach of Phys. Rev. D52 (1995)
3719, hep-th/9408081, to theories with fermions. As the simplest example we
consider the massless Schwinger model in 1+1 dimensions. We show that in this
solvable model the simple variational calculation gives exact results.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figur
Model-Assisted Fine-Tuning of Central Carbon Metabolism in Yeast through dCas9-Based Regulation
Engineering Saccharomyces cerevisiae for industrial-scale production of valuable chemicals involves extensive modulation of its metabolism. Here, we identified novel gene expression fine-tuning set-ups to enhance endogenous metabolic fluxes toward increasing levels of acetyl-CoA and malonyl-CoA. dCas9-based transcriptional regulation was combined together with a malonyl-CoA responsive intracellular biosensor to select for beneficial set-ups. The candidate genes for screening were predicted using a genome-scale metabolic model, and a gRNA library targeting a total of 168 selected genes was designed. After multiple rounds of fluorescence-activated cell sorting and library sequencing, the gRNAs that were functional and increased flux toward malonyl-CoA were assessed for their efficiency to enhance 3-hydroxypropionic acid (3-HP) production. 3-HP production was significantly improved upon fine-tuning genes involved in providing malonyl-CoA precursors, cofactor supply, as well as chromatin remodeling
Production and decay of evolving horizons
We consider a simple physical model for an evolving horizon that is strongly
interacting with its environment, exchanging arbitrarily large quantities of
matter with its environment in the form of both infalling material and outgoing
Hawking radiation. We permit fluxes of both lightlike and timelike particles to
cross the horizon, and ask how the horizon grows and shrinks in response to
such flows. We place a premium on providing a clear and straightforward
exposition with simple formulae.
To be able to handle such a highly dynamical situation in a simple manner we
make one significant physical restriction, that of spherical symmetry, and two
technical mathematical restrictions: (1) We choose to slice the spacetime in
such a way that the space-time foliations (and hence the horizons) are always
spherically symmetric. (2) Furthermore we adopt Painleve-Gullstrand coordinates
(which are well suited to the problem because they are nonsingular at the
horizon) in order to simplify the relevant calculations.
We find particularly simple forms for surface gravity, and for the first and
second law of black hole thermodynamics, in this general evolving horizon
situation. Furthermore we relate our results to Hawking's apparent horizon,
Ashtekar et al's isolated and dynamical horizons, and Hayward's trapping
horizons. The evolving black hole model discussed here will be of interest,
both from an astrophysical viewpoint in terms of discussing growing black
holes, and from a purely theoretical viewpoint in discussing black hole
evaporation via Hawking radiation.Comment: 25 pages, uses iopart.cls V2: 5 references added; minor typos; V3:
some additional clarifications, additional references, additional appendix on
the Viadya spacetime. This version published in Classical and Quiantum
Gravit
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