Primordial perturbations and non-gaussianities in Ho?ava-Lifshitz gravity

We investigate primordial perturbations and non-gaussianities in the Ho?ava-Lifshitz theory of gravitation. In the UV limit, the scalar perturbation in the Ho?ava theory is naturally scale-invariant, ignoring the details of the expansion of the Universe. One may thus relax the exponential inflation and the slow-roll conditions for the inflaton field. As a result, it is possible that the primordial non-gaussianities, which are " slow-roll suppressed” in the standard scenarios, become large. We calculate the non-gaussianities from the bispectrum of the perturbation and find that the equilateral-type non-gaussianity is of the order of unity, while the local-type non-gaussianity remains small, as in the usual single-field slow-roll inflation model in general relativity. Our result is a new constraint on Ho?ava-Lifshitz gravity.     

Fabrication and characterisation of microscale air bridges in?conductive gallium nitride

Fabrication and electrical characterisation of microscale air bridges consisting of GaN heavily doped with silicon is described. These were made from GaN–AlInN–GaN epitaxial trilayers on sapphire substrates, in which the AlInN was close to the composition lattice matched to GaN at ∼17% InN fraction. The start of the fabrication sequence used inductively coupled plasma etching with chlorine chemistry to define mesas. In situ monitoring by laser reflectometry indicated an AlInN vertical etch rate of 400 nm/minute, ∼70% of the etch rate of GaN. Processing was completed by lateral wet etching of the AlInN in hot nitric acid to leave GaN microbridges supported between anchor posts at both ends. Deposition of Ti–Au contact pads onto the anchor posts allowed study of the electrical characteristics. At low applied voltages, vertical conduction through the undoped AlInN layers was minimal in comparison with the current path through the Si:GaN bridges. Typical structures showed highly linear current-voltage characteristics at low applied voltages, and had resistances of 1050 Ω. The observed resistance values are compared with the predicted value based on materials parameters and an idealised geometry. The microbridges showed damage from Joule heating only at current densities above 2×10⁵ A cm⁻².     

Does the Chapman-Enskog expansion for sheared granular gases converge?

The fundamental question addressed in this Letter is whether or not the partial Chapman-Enskog expansion P(xy)= [see text for formula] of the shear stress converges for a gas of inelastic hard spheres. By using a simple kinetic model it is shown that, in contrast to the elastic case, the above series does converge, the radius of convergence increasing with inelasticity. It is argued that this paradoxical conclusion is not an artifact of the kinetic model and can be understood in terms of the time evolution of the scaled shear rate in the uniform shear flow.     

Decoupling and reduction in Chern–Simons modified gravity

We show that for four-dimensional spacetimes with a non-null hypersurface orthogonal Killing vector and for a Chern–Simons (CS) background (non-dynamical) scalar field, which is constant along the Killing vector, the source-free equations of CS modified gravity decouple into their Einstein and Cotton constituents. Thus, the model supports only general relativity solutions. We also show that, when the cosmological constant vanishes and the gradient of the CS scalar field is parallel to the non-null hypersurface orthogonal Killing vector of constant length, CS modified gravity reduces to topologically massive gravity in three dimensions. Meanwhile, with the cosmological constant such a reduction requires an appropriate source term for CS modified gravity.     

Can gravity distinguish between Dirac and Majorana neutrinos?

We show that spin-gravity interaction can distinguish between Dirac and Majorana neutrino wave packets propagating in a Lense-Thirring background. Using time-independent perturbation theory and the gravitational phase to generate a perturbation Hamiltonian with spin-gravity coupling, we show that the associated matrix element for the Majorana neutrino differs significantly from its Dirac counterpart. This difference can be demonstrated through significant gravitational corrections to the neutrino oscillation length for a two-flavor system, as shown explicitly for SN 1987A.     

Nonlinear optical and magneto-optical effects in non-spherical magnetic granular composite

The magnetization-induced nonlinear optical and nonlinear magneto-optical properties in a magnetic metal-insulator composite are studied based on a tensor effective medium approximation with shape factor and Taylor-expansion method. There is a weakly nonlinear relation between electric displacement D and electric field E in the composite. The results of our studies on the effective dielectric tensor and the nonlinear susceptibility tensor in a magnetic nanocomposite are surveyed. It is shown that such a metal-insulator composite exhibits the enhancements of optical and magneto-optical nonlinearity. The frequencies at which the enhancements occur, and the amplitude of the enhancement factors depend on the concentration and shape of the magnetic grains.     

Probing Ho?ava-Lifshitz gravity using particle and photon dynamics in the presence of plasma

We study the particle motion around a black hole(BH) in Ho?ava-Lifshitz(HL) gravity with the Kehagias-Sfetsos(KS) parameter. First, the innermost stable circular orbit(ISCO) is obtained for massive particles around the BH in HL gravity. We find that the radii of the ISCOs decrease as the KS parameter decreases, meaning that the parameter ? causes the orbits of particles to move inward with respect to that of the Schwarzschild BH case.Then, the optical properties of a KS BH are studied in detail,...     

Discrete Painlevé equations and their appearance in quantum gravity

We discuss an algorithmic approach for both deriving discrete analogues of Painlevé equations as well as using such equations to characterize similarity reductions of spatially discrete integrable evolution equations. As a concrete example we show that a discrete analogue of Painlevé I can be used to characterize similarity solutions of the Kac-Moerbeke equation. It turns out that these similarity solutions also satisfy a special case of Painlevé IV equation. In addition we discuss a methodology for obtaining the relevant continuous limits not only at the level of equations but also at the level of solutions. As an example we use the WKB method in the presence of two turning points of the third order to parametrize (at the continuous limit) the solution of Painlevé I in terms of the solution of discrete Painlevé I. Finally we show that these results are useful for investigating the partition function of the matrix model in 2D quantum gravity associated with the measure exp [–t ₁ z ² –t ₂ z ⁴ –t ₃ z ⁶].     

What if gravity becomes really repulsive in the future?

The current acceleration of the Universe is one of the most puzzling issues in theoretical physics nowadays. We are far from giving an answer in this letter to the question of its nature. Yet, with the observations we have at hand, we analyse the different patterns that the gravitational potential can show in the future. Surprisingly, gravity not only can get weaker in the near future, it can even become repulsive; or equivalently, the gravitational potential may become negative. We show this remark by using one of the simplest phenomenological model we can imagine for dark energy. We have also reviewed the statefinder approach of these models. For completeness, we have also showed the behaviour of the density contrast of dark matter and dark energy for these simple (yet illustrative models). Our results are displayed and we see how they shall evolve in the future.     

Quantizing gravity and spacetime: Where do we stand ?

We review five possible solutions to the riddle posed by Quantum Gravity: (1) Gravity should stay as a classical theory (L. Rosenfeld); (2) Quantum Gravity requires a formalism which will take the human mind (or the intelligent observer) into account, resolving at the same time the riddle of the collapse of the wave function/state vector in Quantum Mechanics in general (Penrose); (3) Perturbative Quantization; (4) Hamiltonian Quantization (Dirac, Ashtekar); (5) String Theory. We also discuss the quantization of spacetime.     

Can secondary nucleation exist in ice banding of freezing colloidal suspensions?

The formation mechanism of ice banding in the system of freezing colloidal suspensions, which is of significance in frost heaving, ice-templating porous materials and biological materials, is still a mystery. Recently, the theory of secondary nucleation and growth of ice has been proposed to explain the emergence of a new ice lens. However, this theory has not been quantitatively examined. Here, we quantitatively measure the initial interfacial undercooling of a new ice lens and the nucleation undercoolings of suspensions. We find that the interfacial undercooling cannot satisfy the nucleation undercooling of ice and hence disprove the secondary nucleation mechanism for ice banding.     

Geonic black holes and remnants in Eddington-inspired Born–Infeld gravity

We show that electrically charged solutions within the Eddington-inspired Born–Infeld theory of gravity replace the central singularity by a wormhole supported by the electric field. As a result, the total energy associated with the electric field is finite and similar to that found in the Born–Infeld electromagnetic theory. When a certain charge-to-mass ratio is satisfied, in the lowest part of the mass and charge spectrum the event horizon disappears, yielding stable remnants. We argue that quantum effects in the matter sector can lower the mass of these remnants from the Planck scale down to the TeV scale.     

New force or model-dependent effect in the mine gravity measurements?

The exact solution for the oblate spheroidal layer model of the earth is applied to recent gravity data measured at the Hilton mine, Mount Isa, Queensland. We find that our extracted values of the gravitational constant from the Hilton mine data are consistent with the laboratory value within the accuracy of the mass density profile determination made at the Hilton mine and the surrounding area.     

Electromagnetic internal gravity waves in the Earth?s ionospheric E-layer

In the Earth?s ionospheric E-layer existence of the new waves connecting with the electromagnetic nature of internal gravity waves is shown. They represent the mixture of the ordinary internal gravity waves and the new type of dispersive Alfven waves.     

Lorentz invariance and quantum gravity: an additional fine-tuning problem?

Trying to combine standard quantum field theories with gravity leads to a breakdown of the usual structure of space time at around the Planck length, 1.6x10(-35) m, with possible violations of Lorentz invariance. Calculations of preferred-frame effects in quantum gravity have further motivated high precision searches for Lorentz violation. Here, we explain that combining known elementary particle interactions with a Planck-scale preferred frame gives rise to Lorentz violation at the percent level, some 20 orders of magnitude higher than earlier estimates, unless the bare parameters of the theory are unnaturally strongly fine tuned. Therefore an important task is not just the improvement of the precision of searches for violations of Lorentz invariance, but also the search for theoretical mechanisms for automatically preserving Lorentz invariance.