Confinement, average forces, and the Ehrenfest theorem for a one-dimensional particle

The topics of confinement, average forces, and the Ehrenfest theorem are examined for a particle in one spatial dimension. Two specific cases are considered: (i) A free particle moving on the entire real line, which is then permanently confined to a line segment or ‘a box’ (this situation is achieved by taking the limit V ₀?→?∞ in a finite well potential). This case is called ‘a particle-in-an-infinite-square-well-potential’. (ii) A free particle that has always been moving inside a box (in this case, an external potential is not necessary to confine the particle, only boundary conditions). This case is called ‘a particle-in-a-box’. After developing some basic results for the problem of a particle in a finite square well potential, the limiting procedure that allows us to obtain the average force of the infinite square well potential from the finite well potential problem is re-examined in detail. A general expression is derived for the mean value of the external classical force operator for a particle-in-an-infinite-square-well-potential, $\hat{F}$ . After calculating similar general expressions for the mean value of the position ( $\hat{X}$ ) and momentum ( $\hat{P}$ ) operators, the Ehrenfest theorem for a particle-in-an-infinite-square-well-potential (i.e., $\mathrm{d}\langle\hat{X}\rangle/\mathrm{d}t=\langle\hat{P}\rangle/M$ and $\mathrm{d}\langle\hat{P}\rangle/\mathrm{d}t=\langle\hat{F}\rangle$ ) is proven. The formal time derivatives of the mean value of the position ( $\hat{x}$ ) and momentum ( $\hat{p}$ ) operators for a particle-in-a-box are re-introduced. It is verified that these derivatives present terms that are evaluated at the ends of the box. Specifically, for the wave functions satisfying the Dirichlet boundary condition, the results, $\mathrm{d}\langle\hat{x}\rangle/\mathrm{d}t=\langle\hat{p}\rangle/M$ and $\mathrm{d}\langle\hat{p}\rangle/\mathrm{d}t=\mathrm{b.t.}+\langle\hat{f}\rangle$ , are obtained where b.t. denotes a boundary term and $\hat{f}$ is the external classical force operator for the particle-in-a-box. Thus, it appears that the expected Ehrenfest theorem is not entirely verified. However, by considering a normalized complex general state that is a combination of energy eigenstates to the Hamiltonian describing a particle-in-a-box with v(x)?=?0 ( $\Rightarrow\hat{f}=0$ ), the result that the b.t. is equal to the mean value of the external classical force operator for the particle-in-an-infinite-square-well-potential is obtained, i.e., $\mathrm{d}\langle\hat{p}\rangle/\mathrm{d}t$ is equal to $\langle\hat{F}\rangle$ . Moreover, the b.t. is written as the mean value of a quantity that is called boundary quantum force, f _B. Thus, the Ehrenfest theorem for a particle-in-a-box can be completed with the formula $\mathrm{d}\langle\hat{p}\rangle/\mathrm{d}t=\langle{{f_\mathrm{B}}}\rangle$ .     

On the {{\mathcal{N}}=2} Superconformal Index and Eigenfunctions of the Elliptic RS Model

We define an infinite sequence of superconformal indices, ${{\mathcal{I}}_n}$ , generalizing the Schur index for ${{\mathcal{N}}=2}$ theories. For theories of class ${{\mathcal{S}}}$ we then suggest a recursive technique to completely determine ${{\mathcal{I}}_n}$ . The information encoded in the sequence of indices is equivalent to the ${{\mathcal{N}}=2}$ superconformal index depending on a maximal set of fugacities. Mathematically, the procedure suggested in this note provides a perturbative algorithm for computing a set of eigenfunctions of the elliptic Ruijsenaars–Schneider model.     

On the production of \pi^{+}_{} \pi^{+}_{} pairs in pp collisions at 0.8 GeV

Data accumulated recently for the exclusive measurement of the pp $ \rightarrow$ pp $ \pi^{+}_{}$ $ \pi^{-}_{}$ reaction at a beam energy of 0.793GeV using the COSY-TOF spectrometer have been analyzed with respect to possible events from the pp $ \rightarrow$ nn $ \pi^{+}_{}$ $ \pi^{+}_{}$ reaction channel. The latter is expected to be the only $ \pi$ $ \pi$ production channel, which contains no major contributions from resonance excitation close to threshold and hence should be a good testing ground for chiral dynamics in the $ \pi$ $ \pi$ production process. No single event has been found, which meets all conditions for being a candidate for the pp $ \rightarrow$ nn $ \pi^{+}_{}$ $ \pi^{+}_{}$ reaction. This gives an upper limit for the cross-section of 0.16μb (90% C.L.), which is more than an order of magnitude smaller than the cross-sections of the other two-pion production channels at the same incident energy.     

Phenomenological model for the \overline{{K}}N \rightarrow K \Xi reaction

A phenomenological model for the $ \overline{{K}}$ N $ \rightarrow$ K $ \Xi$ reaction is suggested. The model includes s and u channel exchanges by $ \Lambda$ , $ \Sigma$ , $ \Sigma$ (1385) , and $ \Lambda$ (1520) and s channel exchanges by above-threshold hyperonic resonances. The explicit expression for the propagator for a particle with spin 7/2 is presented. High-mass and high-spin resonances play a significant role in the process. We deal with the whole set of existing experimental data on the cross-sections and polarizations in the energy range from the threshold to 2.8GeV in the center-of-mass system and reach a good agreement with experiments. Applications of the model to other elementary reactions of $ \Xi$ production and to $ \Xi$ hypernuclear spectroscopy are briefly discussed.     

Stability of Black Holes and Black Branes

We establish a new criterion for the dynamical stability of black holes in D ≥ 4 spacetime dimensions in general relativity with respect to axisymmetric perturbations: Dynamical stability is equivalent to the positivity of the canonical energy, ${\mathcal{E}}$ , on a subspace, ${\mathcal{T}}$ , of linearized solutions that have vanishing linearized ADM mass, momentum, and angular momentum at infinity and satisfy certain gauge conditions at the horizon. This is shown by proving that—apart from pure gauge perturbations and perturbations towards other stationary black holes— ${\mathcal{E}}$ is nondegenerate on ${\mathcal{T}}$ and that, for axisymmetric perturbations, ${\mathcal{E}}$ has positive flux properties at both infinity and the horizon. We further show that ${\mathcal{E}}$ is related to the second order variations of mass, angular momentum, and horizon area by ${\mathcal{E} = \delta^2 M -\sum_A \Omega_A \delta^2 J_A - \frac{\kappa}{8\pi}\delta^2 A}$ , thereby establishing a close connection between dynamical stability and thermodynamic stability. Thermodynamic instability of a family of black holes need not imply dynamical instability because the perturbations towards other members of the family will not, in general, have vanishing linearized ADM mass and/or angular momentum. However, we prove that for any black brane corresponding to a thermodynamically unstable black hole, sufficiently long wavelength perturbations can be found with ${\mathcal{E} < 0}$ and vanishing linearized ADM quantities. Thus, all black branes corresponding to thermodynmically unstable black holes are dynamically unstable, as conjectured by Gubser and Mitra. We also prove that positivity of ${\mathcal{E}}$ on ${\mathcal{T}}$ is equivalent to the satisfaction of a “ local Penrose inequality,” thus showing that satisfaction of this local Penrose inequality is necessary and sufficient for dynamical stability. Although we restrict our considerations in this paper to vacuum general relativity, most of the results of this paper are derived using general Lagrangian and Hamiltonian methods and therefore can be straightforwardly generalized to allow for the presence of matter fields and/or to the case of an arbitrary diffeomorphism covariant gravitational action.     

Reichenbachian Common Cause Systems

A partition C_{i i∈ I} of a Boolean algebra $\mathcal{S}$ in a probability measure space $(\mathcal{S},p)$ is called a Reichenbachian common cause system for the correlated pair A,B of events in $\mathcal{S}$ if any two elements in the partition behave like a Reichenbachian common cause and its complement, the cardinality of the index set I is called the size of the common cause system. It is shown that given any correlation in $(\mathcal{S},p)$ , and given any finite size n>2, the probability space $(\mathcal{S},p)$ can be embedded into a larger probability space in such a manner that the larger space contains a Reichenbachian common cause system of size n for the correlation. It also is shown that every totally ordered subset in the partially ordered set of all partitions of $\mathcal{S}$ contains only one Reichenbachian common cause system. Some open problems concerning Reichenbachian common cause systems are formulated.     

On the Geodesic Hypothesis in General Relativity

In this paper, we give a rigorous derivation of Einstein’s geodesic hypothesis in general relativity. We use small material bodies ${\phi^\epsilon}$ governed by the nonlinear Klein–Gordon equations to approximate the test particle. Given a vacuum spacetime ${([0, T]\times\mathbb{R}^3, h)}$ , we consider the initial value problem for the Einstein-scalar field system. For all sufficiently small ε and δ ≤ ε ^q , q > 1, where δ, ε are the amplitude and size of the particle, we show the existence of the solution ${([0, T]\times\mathbb{R}^3, g, \phi^\epsilon)}$ to the Einstein-scalar field system with the property that the energy of the particle ${\phi^\epsilon}$ is concentrated along a timelike geodesic. Moreover, the gravitational field produced by ${\phi^\epsilon}$ is negligibly small in C ¹, that is, the spacetime metric g is C ¹ close to the given vacuum metric h. These results generalize those obtained by Stuart in (Ann Sci École Norm Sup (4) 37(2):312–362, 2004, J Math Pures Appl (9) 83(5):541–587, 2004).     

On the power-law pressure dependence of the plastic strain rate of crystals under intense shock wave loading

The plastic deformation of metallic crystals under intense shock wave loading has been theoretically investigated. It has been experimentally found that the plastic strain rate $\dot \varepsilon $ and the pressure in the wave P are related by the empirical expression $\dot \varepsilon $ ～ P ⁴ (the Swegle-Grady law). The performed dislocation-kinetic analysis of the mechanism of the origin of this relationship has revealed that its power-law character is determined by the power-law pressure dependence of the density of geometrically necessary dislocations generated at the shock wave front ρ ～ P ³. In combination with the rate of viscous motion of dislocations, which varies linearly with pressure (u ～ P), this leads to the experimentally observed relationship $\dot \varepsilon $ ～ P ⁴ for a wide variety of materials with different types of crystal lattices in accordance with the Orowan relationship for the plastic strain rate $\dot \varepsilon $ = bρu (where b is the Burgers vector). In the framework of the unified dislocation-kinetic approach, it has been theoretically demonstrated that the dependence of the pressure (flow stress) on the plastic strain rate over a wide range from 10^?4 to 10¹⁰ s^?1 reflects three successively developing processes: the thermally activated motion of dislocations, the viscous drag of dislocations, and the generation of geometrically necessary dislocations at the shock wave front.     

An Algebraic Construction of Boundary Quantum Field Theory

We build up local, time translation covariant Boundary Quantum Field Theory nets of von Neumann algebras ${\mathcal A_V}$ on the Minkowski half-plane M ₊ starting with a local conformal net ${\mathcal A}$ of von Neumann algebras on ${\mathbb R}$ and an element V of a unitary semigroup ${\mathcal E(\mathcal A)}$ associated with ${\mathcal A}$ . The case V?=?1 reduces to the net ${\mathcal A_+}$ considered by Rehren and one of the authors; if the vacuum character of ${\mathcal A}$ is summable, ${\mathcal A_V}$ is locally isomorphic to ${\mathcal A_+}$ . We discuss the structure of the semigroup ${\mathcal E(\mathcal A)}$ . By using a one-particle version of Borchers theorem and standard subspace analysis, we provide an abstract analog of the Beurling-Lax theorem that allows us to describe, in particular, all unitaries on the one-particle Hilbert space whose second quantization promotion belongs to ${\mathcal E(\mathcal A^{(0)})}$ with ${\mathcal A^{(0)}}$ the U(1)-current net. Each such unitary is attached to a scattering function or, more generally, to a symmetric inner function. We then obtain families of models via any Buchholz-Mack-Todorov extension of ${\mathcal A^{(0)}}$ . A further family of models comes from the Ising model.     

Difference Operators of Sklyanin and van Diejen Type

The Sklyanin algebra ${\mathcal{S}_{\eta}}$ has a well-known family of infinite-dimensional representations ${\mathcal{D}(\mu), {\mu}\,{\in}\,\mathbb{C}^{\ast}}$ , in terms of difference operators with shift η acting on even meromorphic functions. We show that for generic η the coefficients of these operators have solely simple poles, with linear residue relations depending on their locations. More generally, we obtain explicit necessary and sufficient conditions on a difference operator for it to belong to ${\mathcal{D}(\mu)}$ . By definition, the even part of ${\mathcal{D}(\mu)}$ is generated by twofold products of the Sklyanin generators. We prove that any sum of the latter products yields a difference operator of van Diejen type. We also obtain kernel identities for the Sklyanin generators. They give rise to order-reversing involutive automorphisms of ${\mathcal{D}(\mu)}$ , and are shown to entail previously known kernel identities for the van Diejen operators. Moreover, for special μ they yield novel finite-dimensional representations of ${\mathcal{S}_{\eta}}$ .     

Fomenko–Mischenko Theory, Hessenberg Varieties, and Polarizations

The symmetric algebra ${S(\mathfrak{g})}$ over a Lie algebra ${\mathfrak{g}}$ has the structure of a Poisson algebra. Assume ${\mathfrak{g}}$ is complex semisimple. Then results of Fomenko–Mischenko (translation of invariants) and Tarasov construct a polynomial subalgebra ${{\mathcal {H}} = {\mathbb C}[q_1,\ldots,q_b]}$ of ${S(\mathfrak{g})}$ which is maximally Poisson commutative. Here b is the dimension of a Borel subalgebra of ${\mathfrak{g}}$ . Let G be the adjoint group of ${\mathfrak{g}}$ and let ? = rank ${\mathfrak{g}}$ . Using the Killing form, identify ${\mathfrak{g}}$ with its dual so that any G-orbit O in ${\mathfrak{g}}$ has the structure (KKS) of a symplectic manifold and ${S(\mathfrak{g})}$ can be identified with the affine algebra of ${\mathfrak{g}}$ . An element ${x\in \mathfrak{g}}$ will be called strongly regular if ${\{({\rm d}q_i)_x\},\,i=1,\ldots,b}$ , are linearly independent. Then the set ${\mathfrak{g}^{\rm{sreg}}}$ of all strongly regular elements is Zariski open and dense in ${\mathfrak{g}}$ and also ${\mathfrak{g}^{\rm{sreg}}\subset \mathfrak{g}^{\rm{ reg}}}$ where ${\mathfrak{g}^{\rm{reg}}}$ is the set of all regular elements in ${\mathfrak{g}}$ . A Hessenberg variety is the b-dimensional affine plane in ${\mathfrak{g}}$ , obtained by translating a Borel subalgebra by a suitable principal nilpotent element. Such a variety was introduced in Kostant (Am J Math 85:327–404, 1963). Defining Hess to be a particular Hessenberg variety, Tarasov has shown that ${{\rm{Hess}}\subset \mathfrak{g}^{\rm{sreg}}}$ . Let R be the set of all regular G-orbits in ${\mathfrak{g}}$ . Thus if ${O\in R}$ , then O is a symplectic manifold of dimension 2n where n = b ? ?. For any ${O\in R}$ let ${O^{\rm{sreg}} = \mathfrak{g}^{\rm{sreg}} \cap O}$ . One shows that O ^sreg is Zariski open and dense in O so that O ^sreg is again a symplectic manifold of dimension 2n. For any ${O\in R}$ let ${{\rm{Hess}}(O) = {\rm{Hess}}\cap O}$ . One proves that Hess(O) is a Lagrangian submanifold of O ^sreg and that $${\rm{Hess}} = \sqcup_{O\in R}{\rm{Hess}}(O).$$ The main result of this paper is to show that there exists simultaneously over all ${O\in R}$ , an explicit polarization (i.e., a “fibration” by Lagrangian submanifolds) of O ^sreg which makes O ^sreg simulate, in some sense, the cotangent bundle of Hess(O).     

Timelapse

We discuss the existence, in an arbitrary frame, of a finite time for the transformation of an initial quantum state into another, e.g., in a decay. This leads to the introduction of a timelapse $\tau $ , by analogy with the lifetime of a particle. An argument based upon the Heisenberg uncertainty principle suggests the value of $\tau $ =1/M ₀. Consequences for the exponential decay formula and the modifications which $\tau $ introduces into the Breit-Wigner mass formula are described.     

On Particle Phenomenology Without Particle Ontology: How Much Local Is Almost Local?

Recently, Clifton and Halvorson have tried to salvage a particle phenomenology in the absence of particle ontology within algebraic relativistic quantum field theory. Their idea is that the detection of a particle is the measurement of a local observable which simulates the measurement of an almost local observable that annihilates the vacuum. In this note, we argue that the measurements local particle detections are supposed to simulate probe radically holistic aspects of relativistic quantum fields. We prove that in an axiomatic (Haag-Araki) quantum field theory on Minkowski spacetime, formulated in a Hilbert space $\mathcal{H}$ , there is no positive observable C, with norm less than or equal to 1, satisfying the conditions: (1) the expectation value of C in the vacuum state Ω is zero, (2) there is at least one vector state Ψ in $\mathcal{H}$ in which the expectation value of C is different from zero, and (3) there exists at least one spacetime region $\mathcal{O}$ such that the non-selective measurement of C leaves the expectation values of all observables in the local algebra of that region unaltered regardless of the state the system is in. The result reveals a tension between intuitions regarding localization and intuitions regarding causality: to save “particle phenomena” in the absence of particle ontology, one has to feign “particle” detectors with “good” properties as to locality but “bad” behavior as to causality.     

Infinite-Dimensional Schur–Weyl Duality and the Coxeter–Laplace Operator

We extend the classical Schur–Weyl duality between representations of the groups ${SL(n, \mathbb{C})}$ and ${\mathfrak{S}_N}$ to the case of ${SL(n, \mathbb{C})}$ and the infinite symmetric group ${\mathfrak{S}_\mathbb{N}}$ . Our construction is based on a “dynamic,” or inductive, scheme of Schur–Weyl dualities. It leads to a new class of representations of the infinite symmetric group, which has not appeared earlier. We describe these representations and, in particular, find their spectral types with respect to the Gelfand–Tsetlin algebra. The main example of such a representation acts in an incomplete infinite tensor product. As an important application, we consider the weak limit of the so-called Coxeter–Laplace operator, which is essentially the Hamiltonian of the XXX Heisenberg model, in these representations.     

Percolation with Constant Freezing

We introduce and study a model of percolation with constant freezing (PCF) where edges open at constant rate $1$ , and clusters freeze at rate $\alpha $ independently of their size. Our main result is that the infinite volume process can be constructed on any amenable vertex transitive graph. This is in sharp contrast to models of percolation with freezing previously introduced, where the limit is known not to exist. Our interest is in the study of the percolative properties of the final configuration as a function of $\alpha $ . We also obtain more precise results in the case of trees. Surprisingly the algebraic exponent for the cluster size depends on the degree, suggesting that there is no lower critical dimension for the model. Moreover, even for $\alpha <\alpha _c$ , it is shown that finite clusters have algebraic tail decay, which is a signature of self organised criticality. Partial results are obtained on $\mathbb {Z}^d$ , and many open questions are discussed.     

Steering efficiency of a ultrarelativistic proton beam in a thin bent crystal

I apply FDR—a recently introduced four-dimensional approach to quantum field theories (QFTs)—to the computation of the NLO QCD corrections to $H \rightarrow gg$ in the large top mass limit. The calculation involves all key ingredients of QCD—namely ultraviolet, infrared, and collinear divergences, besides $\alpha _S$ renormalization—and paves the way for successful use of FDR in massless one-loop QFT computations. I show in detail how the correct result emerges in FDR, and discuss the translation rules to dimensional regularization.