619 research outputs found
Acoustic black holes for relativistic fluids
We derive a new acoustic black hole metric from the Abelian Higgs model. In
the non-relativistic limit, while the Abelian Higgs model becomes the
Ginzburg-Landau model, the metric reduces to an ordinary Unruh type. We
investigate the possibility of using (type I and II) superconductors as the
acoustic black holes. We propose to realize experimental acoustic black holes
by using spiral vortices solutions from the Navier-stokes equation in the
non-relativistic classical fluids.Comment: 16 pages. typos corrected, contents expande
Lorentz violating kinematics: Threshold theorems
Recent tentative experimental indications, and the subsequent theoretical
speculations, regarding possible violations of Lorentz invariance have
attracted a vast amount of attention. An important technical issue that
considerably complicates detailed calculations in any such scenario, is that
once one violates Lorentz invariance the analysis of thresholds in both
scattering and decay processes becomes extremely subtle, with many new and
naively unexpected effects. In the current article we develop several extremely
general threshold theorems that depend only on the existence of some energy
momentum relation E(p), eschewing even assumptions of isotropy or monotonicity.
We shall argue that there are physically interesting situations where such a
level of generality is called for, and that existing (partial) results in the
literature make unnecessary technical assumptions. Even in this most general of
settings, we show that at threshold all final state particles move with the
same 3-velocity, while initial state particles must have 3-velocities
parallel/anti-parallel to the final state particles. In contrast the various
3-momenta can behave in a complicated and counter-intuitive manner.Comment: V1: 32 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables. V2: 5 references adde
A field-theoretic approach to the Wiener Sausage
The Wiener Sausage, the volume traced out by a sphere attached to a Brownian
particle, is a classical problem in statistics and mathematical physics.
Initially motivated by a range of field-theoretic, technical questions, we
present a single loop renormalised perturbation theory of a stochastic process
closely related to the Wiener Sausage, which, however, proves to be exact for
the exponents and some amplitudes. The field-theoretic approach is particularly
elegant and very enjoyable to see at work on such a classic problem. While we
recover a number of known, classical results, the field-theoretic techniques
deployed provide a particularly versatile framework, which allows easy
calculation with different boundary conditions even of higher momenta and more
complicated correlation functions. At the same time, we provide a highly
instructive, non-trivial example for some of the technical particularities of
the field-theoretic description of stochastic processes, such as excluded
volume, lack of translational invariance and immobile particles. The aim of the
present work is not to improve upon the well-established results for the Wiener
Sausage, but to provide a field-theoretic approach to it, in order to gain a
better understanding of the field-theoretic obstacles to overcome.Comment: 45 pages, 3 Figures, Springer styl
Stellar models with Schwarzschild and non-Schwarzschild vacuum exteriors
A striking characteristic of non-Schwarzschild vacuum exteriors is that they
contain not only the total gravitational mass of the source, but also an {\it
arbitrary} constant. In this work, we show that the constants appearing in the
"temporal Schwarzschild", "spatial Schwarzschild" and
"Reissner-Nordstr{\"o}m-like" exteriors are not arbitrary but are completely
determined by star's parameters, like the equation of state and the
gravitational potential. Consequently, in the braneworld scenario the
gravitational field outside of a star is no longer determined by the total mass
alone, but also depends on the details of the internal structure of the source.
We show that the general relativistic upper bound on the gravitational
potential , for perfect fluid stars, is significantly increased in
these exteriors. Namely, , and for the
temporal Schwarzschild, spatial Schwarzschild and Reissner-Nordstr{\"o}m-like
exteriors, respectively. Regarding the surface gravitational redshift, we find
that the general relativistic Schwarzschild exterior as well as the braneworld
spatial Schwarzschild exterior lead to the same upper bound, viz., .
However, when the external spacetime is the temporal Schwarzschild metric or
the Reissner-Nordstr{\"o}m-like exterior there is no such constraint: . This infinite difference in the limiting value of is because for
these exteriors the effective pressure at the surface is negative. The results
of our work are potentially observable and can be used to test the theory.Comment: 19 pages, 3 figures and caption
Linearized stability analysis of gravastars in noncommutative geometry
In this work, we find exact gravastar solutions in the context of
noncommutative geometry, and explore their physical properties and
characteristics. The energy density of these geometries is a smeared and
particle-like gravitational source, where the mass is diffused throughout a
region of linear dimension due to the intrinsic uncertainty
encoded in the coordinate commutator. These solutions are then matched to an
exterior Schwarzschild spacetime. We further explore the dynamical stability of
the transition layer of these gravastars, for the specific case of
, where M is the black hole mass, to linearized
spherically symmetric radial perturbations about static equilibrium solutions.
It is found that large stability regions exist and, in particular, located
sufficiently close to where the event horizon is expected to form.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figure
Probe Branes, Time-dependent Couplings and Thermalization in AdS/CFT
We present holographic descriptions of thermalization in conformal field
theories using probe D-branes in AdS X S space-times. We find that the induced
metrics on Dp-brane worldvolumes which are rotating in an internal sphere
direction have horizons with characteristic Hawking temperatures even if there
is no black hole in the bulk AdS. The AdS/CFT correspondence applied to such
systems indeed reveals thermal properties such as Brownian motions and AC
conductivities in the dual conformal field theories. We also use this framework
to holographically analyze time-dependent systems undergoing a quantum quench,
where parameters in quantum field theories, such as a mass or a coupling
constant, are suddenly changed. We confirm that this leads to thermal behavior
by demonstrating the formation of apparent horizons in the induced metric after
a certain time.Comment: LaTeX, 47 pages, 14 figures; Typos corrected and references added
(v2); minor corrections, references added(v3
Asymptotically Lifshitz wormholes and black holes for Lovelock gravity in vacuum
Static asymptotically Lifshitz wormholes and black holes in vacuum are shown
to exist for a class of Lovelock theories in d=2n+1>7 dimensions, selected by
requiring that all but one of their n maximally symmetric vacua are AdS of
radius l and degenerate. The wormhole geometry is regular everywhere and
connects two Lifshitz spacetimes with a nontrivial geometry at the boundary.
The dynamical exponent z is determined by the quotient of the curvature radii
of the maximally symmetric vacua according to n(z^2-1)+1=(l/L)^2, where L
corresponds to the curvature radius of the nondegenerate vacuum. Light signals
are able to connect both asymptotic regions in finite time, and the
gravitational field pulls towards a fixed surface located at some arbitrary
proper distance to the neck. The asymptotically Lifshitz black hole possesses
the same dynamical exponent and a fixed Hawking temperature given by T=z/(2^z
pi l). Further analytic solutions, including pure Lifshitz spacetimes with a
nontrivial geometry at the spacelike boundary, and wormholes that interpolate
between asymptotically Lifshitz spacetimes with different dynamical exponents
are also found.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figur
Inconvenience due to travelers' diarrhea: a prospective follow-up study
<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Limited data exist documenting the degree to which travelers are inconvenienced by travelers' diarrhea (TD). We performed a prospective follow-up study at the travel clinic of Leiden University Medical Center in The Netherlands to determine the degree of inconvenience and to determine how experiencing TD affects travelers' perception.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>Healthy adults who intended to travel to the (sub)tropics for less than two months were invited to take part. Participants filled out a web-based questionnaire before departure and after returning home. TD was defined as three or more unformed stools during a 24-hour period.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>390 of 776 Eligible travelers completed both questionnaires. Participants' median age was 31 years and mean travel duration 23 days. Of 160 travelers who contracted TD (incidence proportion 41%, median duration of TD episode 2.5 days) the majority (107/160, 67%) could conduct their activity program as planned despite having diarrhea. However, 21% (33/160) were forced to alter their program and an additional 13% (20/160) were confined to their accommodation for one or more daylight days; 53 travelers (33%) used loperamide and 14 (9%) an antibiotic. Eight travelers (5%) consulted a physician for the diarrheal illness. When asked about the degree of inconvenience brought on by the diarrheal illness, 39% categorized it as minor or none at all, 34% as moderate and 27% as large or severe. In those who regarded the episode of TD a major inconvenience, severity of symptoms was greater and use of treatment and necessity to alter the activity program were more common. Travelers who contracted travelers' diarrhea considered it less of a problem in retrospect than they had thought it would be before departure.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>Conventional definitions of TD encompass many mild cases of TD (in our study at least a third of all cases) for which treatment is unlikely to provide a significant health benefit. By measuring the degree of inconvenience brought on by TD, researchers and policy makers may be able to better distinguish 'significant TD' from mild TD, thus allowing for a more precise estimation of the size of the target population for vaccination or stand-by antibiotic prescription and of the benefit of such measures.</p
Extreme genetic fragility of the HIV-1 capsid
Genetic robustness, or fragility, is defined as the ability, or lack thereof, of a biological entity to maintain function in the face of mutations. Viruses that replicate via RNA intermediates exhibit high mutation rates, and robustness should be particularly advantageous to them. The capsid (CA) domain of the HIV-1 Gag protein is under strong pressure to conserve functional roles in viral assembly, maturation, uncoating, and nuclear import. However, CA is also under strong immunological pressure to diversify. Therefore, it would be particularly advantageous for CA to evolve genetic robustness. To measure the genetic robustness of HIV-1 CA, we generated a library of single amino acid substitution mutants, encompassing almost half the residues in CA. Strikingly, we found HIV-1 CA to be the most genetically fragile protein that has been analyzed using such an approach, with 70% of mutations yielding replication-defective viruses. Although CA participates in several steps in HIV-1 replication, analysis of conditionally (temperature sensitive) and constitutively non-viable mutants revealed that the biological basis for its genetic fragility was primarily the need to coordinate the accurate and efficient assembly of mature virions. All mutations that exist in naturally occurring HIV-1 subtype B populations at a frequency >3%, and were also present in the mutant library, had fitness levels that were >40% of WT. However, a substantial fraction of mutations with high fitness did not occur in natural populations, suggesting another form of selection pressure limiting variation in vivo. Additionally, known protective CTL epitopes occurred preferentially in domains of the HIV-1 CA that were even more genetically fragile than HIV-1 CA as a whole. The extreme genetic fragility of HIV-1 CA may be one reason why cell-mediated immune responses to Gag correlate with better prognosis in HIV-1 infection, and suggests that CA is a good target for therapy and vaccination strategies
Brane-World Gravity
The observable universe could be a 1+3-surface (the "brane") embedded in a
1+3+\textit{d}-dimensional spacetime (the "bulk"), with Standard Model
particles and fields trapped on the brane while gravity is free to access the
bulk. At least one of the \textit{d} extra spatial dimensions could be very
large relative to the Planck scale, which lowers the fundamental gravity scale,
possibly even down to the electroweak ( TeV) level. This revolutionary
picture arises in the framework of recent developments in M theory. The
1+10-dimensional M theory encompasses the known 1+9-dimensional superstring
theories, and is widely considered to be a promising potential route to quantum
gravity. At low energies, gravity is localized at the brane and general
relativity is recovered, but at high energies gravity "leaks" into the bulk,
behaving in a truly higher-dimensional way. This introduces significant changes
to gravitational dynamics and perturbations, with interesting and potentially
testable implications for high-energy astrophysics, black holes, and cosmology.
Brane-world models offer a phenomenological way to test some of the novel
predictions and corrections to general relativity that are implied by M theory.
This review analyzes the geometry, dynamics and perturbations of simple
brane-world models for cosmology and astrophysics, mainly focusing on warped
5-dimensional brane-worlds based on the Randall--Sundrum models. We also cover
the simplest brane-world models in which 4-dimensional gravity on the brane is
modified at \emph{low} energies -- the 5-dimensional Dvali--Gabadadze--Porrati
models. Then we discuss co-dimension two branes in 6-dimensional models.Comment: A major update of Living Reviews in Relativity 7:7 (2004)
"Brane-World Gravity", 119 pages, 28 figures, the update contains new
material on RS perturbations, including full numerical solutions of
gravitational waves and scalar perturbations, on DGP models, and also on 6D
models. A published version in Living Reviews in Relativit
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