Thermodynamics and holography of tachyon cosmology

Recently, we have investigated the dynamics of the universe in tachyon cosmology with non-minimal coupling to matter (Farajollahi et al. in Mod Phys Lett A 26(15):1125–1135, 2011; Phys Lett B 711(3–4)15:225–231,2012; Phys Rev D 83:124042, 2011; JCAP 10:014, 20112011; JCAP 05:017, 2011). In particular, for the interacting holographic dark energy (IHDE), the model is studied in Farajollahi et al. (Astrophys Space Sci 336(2):461–467, 2011). In the current work, a significant observational program has been conducted to unveil the model’s thermodynamic properties. Our result shows that the IHDE version of our model better fits the observational data than $\Lambda $ CDM model. The first and generalized second thermodynamics laws for the universe enveloped by cosmological apparent and event horizon are revisited. From the results, both first and generalized second laws, constrained by the observational data, are satisfied on cosmological apparent horizon.In addition, the total entropy is verified with the observation only if the horizon of the universe is taken as apparent horizon. Then, due to validity of generalized second law, the current cosmic acceleration is also predicted.     

Gravitational Collapse with Heat Flux and Gravitational Waves

In this paper, we investigated the cylindrical gravitational collapse with heat flux by considering the appropriate geometry of the interior and exterior spacetimes. For this purpose, we matched collapsing fluid to an exterior containing gravitational waves.The effects of heat flux on gravitational collapse are investigated and matched with the results obtained by Herrera and Santos (Class. Quantum Gravity 22:2407, 2005).     

Non-Equilibrium Statistical Mechanics of Turbulence

The macroscopic study of hydrodynamic turbulence is equivalent, at an abstract level, to the microscopic study of a heat flow for a suitable mechanical system (Ruelle, PNAS 109:20344–20346, 2012). Turbulent fluctuations (intermittency) then correspond to thermal fluctuations, and this allows to estimate the exponents \(\tau _p\) and \(\zeta _p\) associated with moments of dissipation fluctuations and velocity fluctuations. This approach, initiated in an earlier note (Ruelle, 2012), is pursued here more carefully. In particular we derive probability distributions at finite Reynolds number for the dissipation and velocity fluctuations, and the latter permit an interpretation of numerical experiments (Schumacher, Preprint, 2014). Specifically, if \(p(z)dz\) is the probability distribution of the radial velocity gradient we can explain why, when the Reynolds number \(\mathcal{R}\) increases, \(\ln p(z)\) passes from a concave to a linear then to a convex profile for large \(z\) as observed in (Schumacher, 2014). We show that the central limit theorem applies to the dissipation and velocity distribution functions, so that a logical relation with the lognormal theory of Kolmogorov (J. Fluid Mech. 13:82–85, 1962) and Obukhov is established. We find however that the lognormal behavior of the distribution functions fails at large value of the argument, so that a lognormal theory cannot correctly predict the exponents \(\tau _p\) and \(\zeta _p\) .     

Optimal escape from circular orbits around black holes

An obvious strategy to escape from a stable circular orbit in the Schwarzschild spacetime is to employ a tangential instantaneous acceleration. Using the theory of optimal rocket trajectories in general relativity, recently developed in Henriques and Natário (J Optim Theory Appl 154:500–552; 2011), we show that this manoeuvre satisfies the optimality conditions for maximizing the rocket’s final energy (given a fixed amount of fuel) if and only if the magnitude of the acceleration is smaller than a certain bound. This is the general relativistic version of a result by Lawden (J Brit Interplan Soc 12:68–71; 1953).     

Sharp parameter bounds for certain maximal point lenses

Starting from an $n$ -point circular gravitational lens having $3n+1$ images, Rhie (ArXiv Astrophysics e-prints, 2003) used a perturbation argument to construct an $(n+1)$ -point lens producing $5n$ images. In this work we give a concise proof of Rhie’s result, and we extend the range of parameters in Rhie’s model for which maximal lensing occurs. We also study a slightly different construction given by Bayer and Dyer (Gen Relativ Gravit 39(9):1413–1418, 2007) arising from the $(3n+1)$ -point lens. In particular, we extend their results and give sharp parameter bounds for their lens model. By a substitution of variables and parameters we show that both models are equivalent in a certain sense.     

Some Exact Relativistic Models of Electrically Charged Self-bound Stars

In continuation of recent work done by the present authors (Int. J. Theor. Phys. 2013, doi:10.1007/s10773-013-1538-y, hereafter paper I) some new exact families of static spherically symmetric perfect fluid solution of Einstein–Maxwell gravitational field equations are presented. These solutions and the corresponding equations of state, presented in parametric form, may be astrophysically significant in constructing relativistic stellar models of electrically charged self-bound stars.     

A note on the area spectrum of d-dimensional pure de Sitter Space-time

Consistent supercurrent multiplets are naturally associated with linearized off-shell supergravity models. In S.M. Kuzenko, J. High Energy Phys. 1004, 022 (2010) we presented the hierarchy of such supercurrents which correspond to all the models for linearized 4D $\mathcal{N}=1$ supergravity classified a few years ago. Here we analyze the correspondence between the most general supercurrent given in S.M. Kuzenko, J. High Energy Phys. 1004, 022 (2010) and the one obtained eight years ago in M. Magro et al., Ann. Phys. 298, 123 (2002) using the superfield Noether procedure. We apply the Noether procedure to the general $\mathcal{N}=1$ supersymmetric nonlinear sigma-model and show that it naturally leads to the so-called $\mathcal{S}$ -multiplet, revitalized in Z. Komargodski, N. Seiberg, J. High Energy Phys. 1007, 017 (2010).     

The Isotopic Field-Charge Assumption Applied to the Electromagnetic Interaction

This paper applies the isotopic field-charge spin theory (Darvas in Int. J. Theor. Phys. 50(10):2961–2991, 2011) to the electromagnetic interaction. First, a modified Dirac equation in the presence of a velocity dependent gauge field and isotopic field charges (namely Coulomb and Lorentz type electric charges, as well as gravitational and inertial masses) is derived. This equation is compared with the classical Dirac equation. It is shown that, since the presence of isotopic field-charges would distort the Lorentz invariance of the equation, there is a transformation, which together with the Lorenz transformation restores the invariance of the equation, in accordance with the conservation of the isotopic field-charge spin (Darvas in Concepts Phys. VI 1:3–16, 2009). The paper discusses conclusions derived from the extensions of the Dirac equation. It is shown that in semi-classical approximation the model returns the original Dirac equation, and at significantly relativistic velocities it approaches the Schrödinger equation. Among other conclusions, the clue gives physical meaning to the electric moment. The closing section summarises a few further conclusions and shows a few developments to be discussed in detail in a subsequent paper (Darvas in Int. J. Theor. Phys., 2013).     

Instability of black hole formation under small pressure perturbations

We investigate here the spectrum of gravitational collapse endstates when arbitrarily small perfect fluid pressures are introduced in the classic black hole formation scenario as described by Oppenheimer, Snyder and Datt (OSD) (Oppenheimer and Snyder in Phys Rev 56:455, 1939; Datt in Zs f Phys 108:314, 1938). This extends a previous result on tangential pressures (Joshi and Malafarina Phys Rev D 83:024009, 2011) to the physically more realistic scenario of perfect fluid collapse. The existence of classes of pressure perturbations is shown explicitly, which has the property that injecting any smallest pressure changes the final fate of the dynamical collapse from a black hole to a naked singularity. It is therefore seen that any smallest neighborhood of the OSD model, in the space of initial data, contains collapse evolutions that go to a naked singularity outcome. This gives an intriguing insight on the nature of naked singularity formation in gravitational collapse.     

Quantum Correlations and the Measurement Problem

The transition from classical to quantum mechanics rests on the recognition that the structure of information is not what we thought it was: there are operational, i.e., phenomenal, probabilistic correlations that lie outside the polytope of local correlations. Such correlations cannot be simulated with classical resources, which generate classical correlations represented by the points in a simplex, where the vertices of the simplex represent joint deterministic states that are the common causes of the correlations. The ‘no go’ hidden variable theorems tell us that we can’t shoe-horn phenomenal correlations outside the local polytope into a classical simplex by supposing that something has been left out of the story. The replacement of the classical simplex by the quantum convex set as the structure representing probabilistic correlations is the analogue for quantum mechanics of the replacement of Newton’s Euclidean space and time by Minkowski spacetime in special relativity. The nonclassical features of quantum mechanics, including the irreducible information loss on measurement, are generic features of correlations that lie outside the classical simplex. This paper is an elaboration of these ideas, which have their source in work by Pitowsky (J. Math. Phys. 27:1556, 1986; Math. Program. 50:395, 1991; Phys. Rev. A 77:062109, 2008), Garg and Mermin (Found. Phys. 14:1–39, 1984), Barrett (Phys. Rev. A 75:032304, 2007; Phys. Rev. A 7:022101, 2005) and others, e.g., Brunner et al. (arXiv:1303.2849, 2013), but the literature goes back to Boole (An Investigation of the Laws of Thought, Dover, New York, 1951). The final section looks at the measurement problem of quantum mechanics in this context. A large part of the problem is removed by seeing that the inconsistency in reconciling the entangled state at the end of a quantum measurement process with the definiteness of the macroscopic pointer reading and the definiteness of the correlated value of the measured micro-observable depends on a stipulation that is not required by the structure of the quantum possibility space. Replacing this stipulation by an alternative consistent stipulation is the first step to resolving the problem.     

High harmonic generation in a gas-filled hollow-core photonic crystal fiber

High harmonic generation (HHG) of intense infrared laser radiation (Ferray et al., J. Phys. B: At. Mol. Opt. Phys. 21:L31, 1988; McPherson et al., J. Opt. Soc. Am. B 4:595, 1987) enables coherent vacuum-UV (VUV) to soft-X-ray sources. In the usual setup, energetic femtosecond laser pulses are strongly focused into a gas jet, restricting the interaction length to the Rayleigh range of the focus. The average photon flux is limited by the low conversion efficiency and the low average power of the complex laser amplifier systems (Keller, Nature 424:831, 2003; Südmeyer et al., Nat. Photonics 2:599, 2008; Röser et al., Opt. Lett. 30:2754, 2005; Eidam et al., IEEE J. Sel. Top. Quantum Electron. 15:187, 2009) which typically operate at kilohertz repetition rates. This represents a severe limitation for many experiments using the harmonic radiation in fields such as metrology or high-resolution imaging. Driving HHG with novel high-power diode-pumped multi-megahertz laser systems has the potential to significantly increase the average photon flux. However, the higher average power comes at the expense of lower pulse energies because the repetition rate is increased by more than a thousand times, and efficient HHG is not possible in the usual geometry. So far, two promising techniques for HHG at lower pulse energies were developed: external build-up cavities (Gohle et al., Nature 436:234, 2005; Jones et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 94:193, 2005) and resonant field enhancement in nanostructured targets (Kim et al., Nature 453:757, 2008). Here we present a third technique, which has advantages in terms of ease of HHG light extraction, transverse beam quality, and the possibility to substantially increase conversion efficiency by phase-matching (Paul et al., Nature 421:51, 2003; Ren et al., Opt. Express 16:17052, 2008; Serebryannikov et al., Phys. Rev. E (Stat. Nonlinear Soft Matter Phys.) 70:66611, 2004; Serebryannikov et al., Opt. Lett. 33:977, 2008; Zhang et al., Nat. Phys. 3:270, 2007). The interaction between the laser pulses and the gas occurs in a Kagome-type Hollow-Core Photonic Crystal Fiber (HC-PCF) (Benabid et al., Science 298:399, 2002), which reduces the detection threshold for HHG to only 200 nJ. This novel type of fiber guides nearly all of the light in the hollow core (Couny et al., Science 318:1118, 2007), preventing damage even at intensities required for HHG. Our fiber guided 30-fs pulses with a pulse energy of more than 10 μJ, which is more than five times higher than for any other photonic crystal fiber (Hensley et al., Conference on Lasers and Electro-Optics (CLEO), IEEE Press, New York, 2008).     

An Alternative Approach to Understanding the Observed Positron Fraction

Space-based observations by PAMELA (Adriani et al., Nature 458, 607, 2009), Fermi-LAT (Ackerman et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 105, 01103, 2012), and AMS (Aguilar et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 141102, 2013) have demonstrated that the positron fraction (e+/total-e) increases with increasing energy above about 10 GeV. According to the propagation model for Galactic cosmic rays in widespread use (Moskalenko & Strong, Astrophys. J. 493, 693, 1998), the production of secondary positrons from interaction of cosmic-ray protons and heavier nuclei with the interstellar medium gives a generally falling positron fraction between 10 and 100 GeV, with secondary positrons accounting for only ～20 % of the observed positron fraction at 100 GeV; so some other physical phenomena have been proposed to explain the data. An alternative approach to interpreting the positron observations is to consider these data as presenting an opportunity for re-examining models of Galactic cosmic-ray propagation. Following release of the PAMELA data, three groups published propagation models (Shaviv, et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 103, 111302, 2009, Cowsik and Burch, Phys. Rev. D. 82, 023009, 2010, Katz et al., Mon. Not. R. Aston. Soc. 405, 1458 2010) in which the observed positron fraction is explained entirely by secondary positrons produced in the interstellar medium. In May of this year, stimulated by the AMS extension of the positron data to higher energy with excellent statistics, two of those groups presented further development of their calculations (Cowsik et al. 2013, Blum et al. 2013), again concluding that the observed positrons can be understood as secondaries. None of the authors of these five papers was registered for the 33rd International Cosmic Ray Conference (ICRC). Although I am not an author of any of these papers, I have some close familiarity with one of these recent papers, so the conference organizers invited me to bring this alternative approach to the attention of the conference. The present paper is a summary of the material I presented, along with a brief comment about reaction at the conference to this approach.     

Antiproton reflection by a solid surface

The AE?IS experiment (Antimatter Experiment: Gravity, Interferometry, Spectroscopy (Drobychev et al., 2007)), aims at directly measuring the gravitational acceleration g on a beam of cold antihydrogen ( $\overline{\rm H}$ ). After production, the $\overline{\rm H}$ atoms will be driven to fly horizontally with a velocity of a few 100 m/s for a path length of about 1 meter. The small deflection, few tens of μm, will be measured using two material gratings coupled to a position-sensitive detector working as a Moiré deflectometer similarly to what has been done with atoms (Oberthaler et al., Phys Rev A 54:3165, 1996). Details about the detection of the $\overline{\rm H}$ annihilation point at the end of the flight path with a position-sensitive microstrip detector and a silicon tracker system will be discussed.     

Probing compositeness with Higgs Boson decays at the LHC

We study how massive ghost-free gravity \(f(R)\) -modified theories, MGFTs, can be encoded into generic off-diagonal Einstein spaces. Using “auxiliary” connections completely defined by the metric fields and adapted to nonholonomic frames with associated nonlinear connection structure, we decouple and integrate in certain general forms the field equations in MGFT. Imposing additional nonholonomic constraints, we can generate Levi-Civita, LC, configurations and mimic MGFT effects via off-diagonal interactions of effective Einstein and/or Einstein–Cartan gravity with nonholonomically induced torsion. We show that imposing nonholonomic constraints it is possible reproduce very specific models of massive \(f(R)\) gravity studied in Cai et al. (arXiv:1307.7150, 2013), Klusoňet al. (Phys Lett B 726:918, 2013), Nojiri and Odintov (Phys Lett B 716:377, 2012) and Nojiri et al. (JCAP 1305:020, 2013). The cosmological evolution of ghost-free off-diagonal Einstein spaces is investigated. Certain compatibility of MGFT cosmology to small off-diagonal deformations of \(\Lambda \) CDM models is established.     

Observation of the Antimatter Nuclei in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions

Recently antimatter hyper-triton nuclei ${(_{\bar{\Lambda}}^3\bar{H})}$ and antimatter helium nuclei ${(_2^4\bar{He})}$ are discovered with the Solenoidal Tracker At Rhic detector in relativistic heavy ion collisions at Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) (STAR Collaboration in Science 328(5974):58–62, 2010; STAR Collaboration in Nature 473:353–356, 2011). In this presentation, discoveries of antimatter particle are historically scanned and the recent observations at RHIC are reported in details as well as potential possibilities of discovery of antimatter nuclei at ALICE.     

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).     

A response to ‘Comments on the effect of liquid layering on the thermal conductivity of nanofluids’, E. Doroodchi, T. M. Evans & B. Moghtaderi, 2009. J Nanopart Res 11(6):1501–1507

This article provides a response to a recent brief communication ‘Comments on the effect of liquid layering on the thermal conductivity of nanofluids’ by Doroodchi et al. in J Nanopart Res 11(6):1501–1507, 2009. It provides an opportunity for us to clarify the fundamental differences between the models of Yu and Choi (2003) and Leong et al. (2006) mentioned in the communication, followed by an explanation of the development of Leong et al.’s model. While we re-affirm that the model of Leong et al. (2006) was developed based on the right methodology, appropriate boundary conditions and mathematical basis and is therefore valid, there are at least three incorrect equations in Doroodchi et al.’s communication which raise serious doubts on their results calculated from the above models. Hence, the comments by Doroodchi et al. (2009) about the model of Leong et al. (2006) are not well-justified.     

Metastability for a Non-reversible Dynamics: The Evolution of the Condensate in Totally Asymmetric Zero Range Processes

It has been observed (Evans in Braz J Phys 30:42–57, 2000; Jeon et al. in Ann Probab 28:1162–1194, 2000) that some zero-range processes exhibit condensation, a macroscopic fraction of particles concentrates on one single site. We examined in (Beltrán and Landim in Probab Theory Relat Fields 152:781–807, 2012) the asymptotic evolution of the condensate in the case where the dynamics is reversible, the number of sites is fixed, and the total number of particles diverges. We proved in that paper that in an appropriate time-scale the condensate evolves according to a symmetric random walk whose transition rates are proportional to the capacities of the underlying random walk. In this article, we extend this result to the condensing totally asymmetric zero-range process, a non-reversible dynamics.     

Some charged polytropic models

The Einstein–Maxwell equations with anisotropic pressures and electromagnetic field are studied with a polytropic equation of state. New exact solutions to the field equations are generated in terms of elementary functions. Special cases of the uncharged solutions of Feroze and Siddiqui (Gen Relativ Gravit 43:1025, 2011) and Maharaj and Mafa Takisa (Gen Relativ Gravit 44:1419, 2012) are recovered. We also obtain exact solutions for a neutral anisotropic gravitating body for a polytrope from our general treatment. Graphical plots indicate that the energy density, tangential pressure and anisotropy profiles are consistent with earlier treatments which suggest relevance in describing relativistic compact stars.