Chiral Anomaly and Classical Negative Magnetoresistance of Weyl Metals

We consider the classical magnetoresistance of a Weyl metal in which the electron Fermi surface possess nonzero fluxes of the Berry curvature. Such a system may exhibit large negative magnetoresistance with unusual anisotropy as a function of the angle between the electric and magnetic fields. In this case the system can support a new type of plasma waves. These phenomena are consequences of chiral anomaly in electron transport theory.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Andreev Probe of Persistent Current States in Superconducting Quantum Circuits

Using the extraordinary sensitivity of Andreev interferometers to the superconducting phase difference associated with currents, we measure the persistent current quantum states in superconducting loops interrupted by Josephson junctions. Straightforward electrical resistance measurements of the interferometers give continuous read-out of the states, allowing us to construct the energy spectrum of the quantum circuit. The probe is estimated to be more precise and faster than previous methods, and can measure the local phase difference in a wide range of superconducting circuits.Comment: Changes made in light of referees comments; to appear in PR

Detecting an Intermittent Change of Unknown Duration

Oftentimes in practice, the observed process changes statistical properties at an unknown point in time and the duration of a change is substantially finite, in which case one says that the change is intermittent or transient. We provide an overview of existing approaches for intermittent change detection and advocate in favor of a particular setting driven by the intermittent nature of the change. We propose a novel optimization criterion that is more appropriate for many applied areas such as the detection of threats in physical-computer systems, near-Earth space informatics, epidemiology, pharmacokinetics, etc. We argue that controlling the local conditional probability of a false alarm, rather than the familiar average run length to a false alarm, and maximizing the local conditional probability of detection is a more reasonable approach versus a traditional quickest change detection approach that requires minimizing the expected delay to detection. We adopt the maximum likelihood (ML) approach with respect to the change duration and show that several commonly used detection rules (CUSUM, window-limited CUSUM, and FMA) are equivalent to the ML-based stopping times. We discuss how to choose design parameters for these rules and provide a comprehensive simulation study to corroborate intuitive expectations.Comment: 34 pages, 7 figures, 6 table

Effects of interaction on an adiabatic quantum electron pump

We study the effects of inter-electron interactions on the charge pumped through an adiabatic quantum electron pump. The pumping is through a system of barriers, whose heights are deformed adiabatically. (Weak) interaction effects are introduced through a renormalisation group flow of the scattering matrices and the pumped charge is shown to {\it always} approach a quantised value at low temperatures or long length scales. The maximum value of the pumped charge is set by the number of barriers and is given by $Q_{\rm max} = n_b -1$. The correlation between the transmission and the charge pumped is studied by seeing how much of the transmission is enclosed by the pumping contour. The (integer) value of the pumped charge at low temperatures is determined by the number of transmission maxima enclosed by the pumping contour. The dissipation at finite temperatures leading to the non-quantised values of the pumped charge scales as a power law with the temperature ($Q-Q_{\rm int} \propto T^{2\alpha}$), or with the system size ($Q-Q_{\rm int} \propto L_s^{-2\alpha}$), where $\alpha$ is a measure of the interactions and vanishes at $T=0 ~(L_s=\infty)$. For a double barrier system, our result agrees with the quantisation of pumped charge seen in Luttinger liquids.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, better quality figures available on request from author

Los organismos incrustantes del puerto de Mar del Plata

Prosiguiendo con las investigaciones sobre los organismos incrustantes del puerto de Mar del Plata, se estudian en el presente trabajo otras dos especien (Ralanus amphitrite y B. Trigonus) de alta resistencia tóxica. Sobre ambos cirripedios se determinan sus períodos de fijación, distribución Yertical, espacial y características morfométricas generales; todos ellos constituyen aspectos fundamentales para el conocimiento biológico y ecológico de las poblaciones locales de ambas especies. También se estudiaron aspectos referentes al crecimiento y a las marcas correspondientes a los procesos de muda, obteniéndose además la curva teórica de crecimiento de ambos cirripedios.The investigations of the fouling organisms in the port of Mar del Plata are continued by the present study of two other species (Balanus amphitrite and B. trigonus). both highly resistant to antifouling paints. Attachment cycles, vertical and spatial distribution and general morphometric characteristics of the two barnacles are analized; these are fundamental aspects for the biological and ecological knowledge of the local populations of both species. Growth and growth-lines are also considered in this paper. As a result, the theoretical growth-curve of the two studied species was obtained

An introduction to quantum gravity

After an overview of the physical motivations for studying quantum gravity, we reprint THE FORMAL STRUCTURE OF QUANTUM GRAVITY, i.e. the 1978 Cargese Lectures by Professor B.S. DeWitt, with kind permission of Springer. The reader is therefore introduced, in a pedagogical way, to the functional integral quantization of gravitation and Yang-Mills theory. It is hoped that such a paper will remain useful for all lecturers or Ph.D. students who face the task of introducing (resp. learning) some basic concepts in quantum gravity in a relatively short time. In the second part, we outline selected topics such as the braneworld picture with the same covariant formalism of the first part, and spectral asymptotics of Euclidean quantum gravity with diffeomorphism-invariant boundary conditions. The latter might have implications for singularity avoidance in quantum cosmology.Comment: 68 pages, Latex file. Sections from 2 to 17 are published thanks to kind permission of Springe

A theory of \pi/2 superconducting Josephson junctions

We consider theoretically a Josephson junction with a superconducting critical current density which has a random sign along the junction's surface. We show that the ground state of the junction corresponds to the phase difference equal to \pi/2. Such a situation can take place in superconductor- ferromagnet junction

Embedding initial data for black hole collisions

We discuss isometric embedding diagrams for the visualization of initial data for the problem of the head-on collision of two black holes. The problem of constructing the embedding diagrams is explicitly presented for the best studied initial data, the Misner geometry. We present a partial solution of the embedding diagrams and discuss issues related to completing the solution.Comment: (27pp text, 11 figures

Hamiltonian Frenet-Serret dynamics

The Hamiltonian formulation of the dynamics of a relativistic particle described by a higher-derivative action that depends both on the first and the second Frenet-Serret curvatures is considered from a geometrical perspective. We demonstrate how reparametrization covariant dynamical variables and their projections onto the Frenet-Serret frame can be exploited to provide not only a significant simplification of but also novel insights into the canonical analysis. The constraint algebra and the Hamiltonian equations of motion are written down and a geometrical interpretation is provided for the canonical variables.Comment: Latex file, 14 pages, no figures. Revised version to appear in Class. Quant. Gra

Covariant coarse-graining of inhomogeneous dust flow in General Relativity

A new definition of coarse-grained quantities describing the dust flow in General Relativity is proposed. It assigns the coarse--grained expansion, shear and vorticity to finite-size comoving domains of fluid in a covariant, coordinate-independent manner. The coarse--grained quantities are all quasi-local functionals, depending only on the geometry of the boundary of the considered domain. They can be thought of as relativistic generalizations of simple volume averages of local quantities in a flat space. The procedure is based on the isometric embedding theorem for S^2 surfaces and thus requires the boundary of the domain in question to have spherical topology and positive scalar curvature. We prove that in the limit of infinitesimally small volume the proposed quantities reproduce the local expansion, shear and vorticity. In case of irrotational flow we derive the time evolution for the coarse-grained quantities and show that its structure is very similar to the evolution equation for their local counterparts. Additional terms appearing in it may serve as a measure of the backreacton of small-scale inhomogeneities of the flow on the large-scale motion of the fluid inside the domain and therefore the result may be interesting in the context of the cosmological backreaction problem. We also consider the application of the proposed coarse-graining procedure to a number of known exact solutions of Einstein equations with dust and show that it yields reasonable results.Comment: 17 pages, 5 figures. Version accepted in Classical and Quantum Gravity