arXiv subjects

E. Schreiber

Publications and source records attributed to E. Schreiber.

8 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2016

GEO 600 and the GEO-HF upgrade program: successes and challenges

The German-British laser-interferometric gravitational wave detector GEO 600 is in its 14th year of operation since its first lock in 2001. After GEO 600 participated in science runs with other first-generation detectors, a program known as GEO-HF began in 2009. The goal was to improve the detector sensitivity at high frequencies, around 1 kHz and above, with technologically advanced yet minimally invasive upgrades. Simultaneously, the detector would record science quality data in between commissioning activities. As of early 2014, all of the planned upgrades have been carried out and sensitivity improvements of up to a factor of four at the high-frequency end of the observation band have been achieved. Besides science data collection, an experimental program is ongoing with the goal to further improve the sensitivity and evaluate future detector technologies. We summarize the results of the GEO-HF program to date and discuss its successes and challenges.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2015

Cost-benefit analysis for commissioning decisions in GEO600

Gravitational wave interferometers are complex instruments, requiring years of commissioning to achieve the required sensitivities for the detection of gravitational waves, of order 10^-21 in dimensionless detector strain, in the tens of Hz to several kHz frequency band. Investigations carried out by the GEO600 detector characterisation group have shown that detector characterisation techniques are useful when planning for commissioning work. At the time of writing, GEO600 is the only large scale laser interferometer currently in operation running with a high duty factor, 70%, limited chiefly by the time spent commissioning the detector. The number of observable gravitational wave sources scales as the product of the volume of space to which the detector is sensitive and the observation time, so the goal of commissioning is to improve the detector sensitivity with the least possible detector down time. We demonstrate a method for increasing the number of sources observable by such a detector, by assessing the severity of non-astrophysical noise contaminations to efficiently guide commissioning. This method will be particularly useful in the early stages and during the initial science runs of the aLIGO and adVirgo detectors, as they are brought up to design performance.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2004

Five-Brane Thermodynamics from the Matrix Model

A certain sector of the matrix model for M-theory on a plane wave background has recently been shown to produce the transverse five-brane. We consider this theory at finite temperature. We find that, at a critical temperature it has a Gross-Witten phase transition which corresponds to deconfinement of the matrix model gauge theory. We interpret the phase transition as the Hagedorn transition of M-theory and of type II string theory in the five-brane background. We also show that there is no Hagedorn behaviour in the transverse membrane background case.

hep-th↗

arXiv2004

Excited Mesons and Quantization of String Endpoints

We argue that those field theories containing mesons that are dual to weakly curved string backgrounds are non-generic. The spectrum of highly excited mesons in confining field theories behaves as M_n ~ \sqrt{n} (where n is the radial excitation number), as does the spectrum of the dual mesons described by open strings ending on probe D branes. However, in the weakly coupled backgrounds, we show that the sector of (light) mesons with spin J <= 1, dual to the brane fluctuations, behaves as M_n ~ n, for confining and non--confining theories alike. In order to perform the analysis we suggest a method of quantization of the open string endpoints, and rely heavily on the semiclassical, or WKB, approximation.

hep-th↗

arXiv2001

Supergravity and Worldvolume Physics in the Dual Description of $\N=1^*$ Theory

We look at the string theory dual of the $\N=1^*$ theory, involving 5--branes, which was recently proposed by Polchinski and Strassler \cite{PolStr}. We argue that SUGRA alone is not enough in order to obtain the correct screening and confinement behaviour of the various massive field theory vacua, but that appropriate worldvolume phenomena of the 5--branes must be included. We therefore work within the SUGRA approximation, also taking into account the brane dynamics, and classify all the SUGRA configurations. In this level of analysis, we find multiple valid configurations for every given vacuum. We discuss some possible resolutions of this perplexing result. We also consider the spectrum of asymptotic states, and discuss the global symmetries of the SUGRA solution of the $\N=1^*$ theory and of the $\N=0^*$ theory obtained from it by explicit supersymmetry breaking.

hep-th↗

arXiv1999

Quantum fluctuations of Wilson loops from string models

We discuss the impact of quadratic quantum fluctuations on the Wilson loop extracted from classical string theory. We show that a large class of models, which includes the near horizon limit of D_p branes with 16 supersymmetries, admits a Lüscher type correction to the classical potential. We confirm that the quantum determinant associated with a BPS configuration of a single quark in the AdS_5 \times S^5 model is free from divergences. We find that for the Wilson loop in that model, unlike the situation in flat space-time, the fermionic determinant does not cancel the bosonic one. For string models that correspond to gauge theories in the confining phase, we show that the correction to the potential is of a Lüscher type and is attractive.

hep-th↗

arXiv1999

Precision "Measurements" of the $Q \bar{Q}$ Potential in MQCD

We compute the M theory corrections to the confining linear potential between a quark and an anti-quark in N=1 Super Yang-Mills theory. We find a constant term, and a term exponentially small with characteristic length of $Λ_{QCD}^{-1}$. The potential in the MQCD setup that corresponds to softly broken N=1 SYM is found to have a similar behavior.

hep-th↗

arXiv1998

$Q \bar{Q}$ Potential from Strings in Curved Spacetime - Classical Results

We compute the leading behaviour of the quark anti-quark potential from a generalized Nambu-Goto action associated with a curved space-time having an "extra dimension". The extra dimension can be the radial coordinate in the AdS/CFT correspondence, the Liouville field in Polyakov's approach, or an internal dimension in MQCD. In particular, we derive the condition for confinement, and in the case it occurs we find the string tension and the correction to the linear potential.

hep-th↗