arXiv subjects

Jarah Evslin

Publications and source records attributed to Jarah Evslin.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

arXiv2011

Bouncing Galileon Cosmologies

We present nonsingular, homogeneous and isotropic bouncing solutions of the conformal Galileon model. We show that such solutions necessarily begin with a radiation-dominated contracting phase. This is followed by a quintom scenario in which the background equation of state crosses the cosmological constant boundary allowing for a nonsingular bounce which in turn is followed by Galilean Genesis. We analyze the spectrum of cosmological perturbations in this background. Our results show that the fluctuations evolve smoothly and without any pathology, but the adiabatic modes form a blue tilted spectrum. In order to achieve a scale-invariant primordial power spectrum as required by current observations, we introduce a light scalar field coupling to the Galileon kinetically. We find two couplings which yield a scale-invariant spectrum, one of which requires a fine tuning of the initial conditions. This model also predicts a blue tilted spectrum of gravitational waves stemming from quantum vacuum fluctuations in the contracting phase.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

Challenges Confronting Superluminal Neutrino Models

This talk opens the CosPA2011 session on OPERA's superluminal neutrino claim. I summarize relevant observations and constraints from OPERA, MINOS, ICARUS, KamLAND, IceCube and LEP as well as observations of SN1987A. I selectively review some models of neutrino superluminality which have been proposed since OPERA's announcement, focusing on a neutrino dark energy model. Powerful theoretical constraints on these models arise from Cohen-Glashow bremsstrahlung and from phase space requirements for the initial neutrino production. I discuss these constraints and how they might be evaded in models in which the maximum velocities of both neutrinos and charged leptons are equal but only superluminal inside of a dense medium.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Nonabelian Faddeev-Niemi Decomposition of the SU(3) Yang-Mills Theory

Faddeev and Niemi (FN) have introduced an abelian gauge theory which simulates dynamical abelianization in Yang-Mills theory (YM). It contains both YM instantons and Wu-Yang monopoles and appears to be able to describe the confining phase. Motivated by the meson degeneracy problem in dynamical abelianization models, in this note we present a generalization of the FN theory. We first generalize the Cho connection to dynamical symmetry breaking pattern SU(N+1) -> U(N), and subsequently try to complete the Faddeev-Niemi decomposition by keeping the missing degrees of freedom. While it is not possible to write an on-shell complete FN decomposition, in the case of SU(3) theory of physical interest we find an off-shell complete decomposition for SU(3) -> U(2) which amounts to partial gauge fixing, generalizing naturally the result found by Faddeev and Niemi for the abelian scenario SU(N+1) -> U(1)^N. We discuss general topological aspects of these breakings, demonstrating for example that the FN knot solitons never exist when the unbroken gauge symmetry is nonabelian, and recovering the usual no-go theorems for colored dyons.

hep-th↗

arXiv2011

Slow Burgers Vortices in Hot Conformal Fluids

The quintessential vortex solution in (3+1)-dimensional nonrelativistic, incompressible fluid mechanics is the Burgers vortex. We show that, in a finite domain, conformal fluids also admit hot vortex solutions with everywhere nonrelativistic speeds. These are identical to Burgers' solution, except that their radius is reduced by a factor of 2/sqrt(3). A rough calculation indicates that at RHIC these vortices are indeed smaller than the fireball itself during thermalization. Similarly to the Burgers vortex, these solutions manifest vortex stretching which avoids short distance singularities and so suggests that conformal fluid flows share the same nonsingularity as solutions of the Navier-Stokes equations. Naively generalizing this calculation to an arbitrary equation of state w, we observe that the Burgers vortex radius diverges as w crosses -1. While it has been argued that such a crossover leads to an instability in certain perfect fluids, the absence of Burgers vortices and therefore vortex stretching suggests that, in addition to the well-studied big rip singularities, viscous phantom fluids generically develop vorticity singularities.

hep-th↗

arXiv2010

On Holographic Superconductors with DC Current

We study direct currents in a simple holographic realization of a superconducting film. We investigate how the presence of a DC current affects the superconducting phase transition, which becomes first order for any non-vanishing value of the current, as well as several other properties of the superconductor such as the AC conductivity. Near the critical temperature we find a quantitative agreement with several properties of Ginzburg-Landau superconducting films, for example the squared ratio of the maximal and minimal condensate is equal to two thirds. We also comment on the extension of our construction to holographic Josephson junctions.

hep-th↗

arXiv2010

A Faddeev-Niemi Solution that Does Not Satisfy Gauss' Law

Faddeev and Niemi have proposed a reformulation of SU(2) Yang-Mills theory in terms of a U(1) gauge theory with 8 off-shell degrees of freedom. We present a solution to Faddeev and Niemi's formulation which does not solve the SU(2) Yang-Mills Gauss constraints. This demonstrates that the proposed reformulation is inequivalent to Yang-Mills, but instead describes Yang-Mills coupled to a particular choice of external charge.

hep-th↗

arXiv2010

Vortices in (2+1)d Conformal Fluids

We study isolated, stationary, axially symmetric vortex solutions in (2+1)-dimensional viscous conformal fluids. The equations describing them can be brought to the form of three coupled first order ODEs for the radial and rotational velocities and the temperature. They have a rich space of solutions characterized by the radial energy and angular momentum fluxes. We do a detailed study of the phases in the one-parameter family of solutions with no energy flux. This parameter is the product of the asymptotic vorticity and temperature. When it is large, the radial fluid velocity reaches the speed of light at a finite inner radius. When it is below a critical value, the velocity is everywhere bounded, but at the origin there is a discontinuity. We comment on turbulence, potential gravity duals, non-viscous limits and non-relativistic limits.

hep-th↗

arXiv2010

The Surface Layers Dual to Hydrodynamic Boundaries

The AdS/hydrodynamics correspondence provides a 1-1 map between large wavelength features of AdS black branes and conformal fluid flows. In this note we consider boundaries between nonrelativistic flows, applying the usual boundary conditions for viscous fluids. We find that a naive application of the correspondence to these boundaries yields a surface layer in the gravity theory whose stress tensor is not equal to that given by the Israel matching conditions. In particular, while neither stress tensor satisfies the null energy condition and both have nonvanishing momentum, only Israel's tensor has stress. The disagreement arises entirely from corrections to the metric due to multiple derivatives of the flow velocity, which violate Israel's finiteness assumption in the thin wall limit.

hep-th↗

arXiv2009

The Black Di-Ring: An Inverse Scattering Construction

We use the inverse scattering method (ISM) to derive concentric non-supersymmetric black rings. The approach used here is fully five-dimensional, and has the modest advantage that it generalizes readily to the construction of more general axi-symmetric solutions.

hep-th↗

arXiv2009

ABJ(M) and Fractional M2's with Fractional M2 Charge

Recently Aharony, Bergman and Jafferis (ABJ) have argued that a 3d U(N+M)xU(N) Chern-Simons gauge theory at level (k,-k) may have a vacuum with N=6 supersymmetry only if M M(M-k)-1 with no restriction on the B-field. IIB brane cartoons and 11d supergravity solutions corresponding to N=3 vacua that do not preserve N=6 supersymmetry are argued to represent cascading gauge theories, generalizing the N=2 Seiberg duality conjectured by Giveon and Kutasov. While as usual the M2-brane charge runs as a result of the twisted Bianchi identity for *G_4, the M5-brane charge running relies on the fact that it wraps a torsion homology cycle.

hep-th↗

arXiv2009

Contrasting confinement in superQCD and superconductors

The vacuum of supersymmetric gauge theories (SQCD) with N=2 softly broken to N=1 resembles that of a BCS superconductor in that it has a condensate which collimates flux into vortices, leading to confinement. We embed the SQCD vortex into the BCS theory by identifying the N=1 vector multiplet mass and lightest massive chiral multiplet mass with the Fermi velocity divided by the London penetration depth and coherence length respectively. Thus embedded the superconductivity is type I and so the vortex core is smaller than the coherence length. Therefore nonlocal effects (Pippard electrodynamics) imply that the vortex solution is beyond the range of validity of the Landau-Ginzburg approximation implicit in the gauge theory. In other words, the vortex solution contains gradients greater than those for which the BCS and gauge theory descriptions agree. We consider more general superpotentials which are polynomial in the chiral multiplets and find that, unless one adds a SUSY breaking sector, one obtains type II superconductivity only when the superpotential perturbation is at least quadratic in the fundamental chiral multiplets and at least linear in the adjoint chiral multiplets, in which case there is no N=2 supersymmetry in the ultraviolet.

hep-th↗

arXiv2009

Which BPS Baryons Minimize Volume?

A BPS 3-cycle in a Sasaki-Einstein 5-manifold in general does not minimize volume in its homology class, as we illustrate with several examples of non-minimal volume BPS cycles on the 5-manifolds Y(p,q). Instead they minimize the energy of a wrapping D-brane, extremizing a generalized calibration. We present this generalized calibration and demonstrate that it reproduces both the Born-Infeld and the Wess-Zumino parts of the D3-brane energy.

hep-th↗

arXiv2008

Topology Change from (Heterotic) Narain T-Duality

We consider Narain T-duality on a nontrivially fibered n-torus bundle in the presence of a topologically nontrivial NS H flux. The action of the duality group on the topology and H flux of the corresponding type II and heterotic string backgrounds is determined. The topology change is specialized to the case of supersymmetric T^2-fibered torsional string backgrounds with nontrivial H flux. We prove that it preserves the global tadpole condition in the total space as well as on the base of the torus fibration. We find that some of these T-dualities exchange half of the field strength of an unbroken U(1) gauge symmetry with the anti-selfdual part of the curvature of a physical circle fibration. We verify that such T-dualities indeed exchange the supersymmetry condition for the circle bundle with that of the gauge bundle.

hep-th↗

arXiv2008

Metastable Black Saturns

Black Saturns have multiple horizons and so offer a testing ground for the ideas of black hole thermodynamics. In this note, we numerically scan for phases that are in equilibrium by extremizing total entropy in the 2-dimensional moduli space of stationary, singly rotating black Saturns with fixed total mass and angular momentum. On top of the known T_H=T_R, Omega_H=Omega_R configurations, we find phases that do not balance the temperature and angular velocity of the ring and the hole. But these (and most of the balanced Saturns) go away when we demand that the system is metastable, by imposing that the Hessian of the entropy is negative definite. Metastablity occurs when the dimensionless total angular momentum lies in a narrow window 0.92457<j<0.92463 of the thin ring branch. This is consistent with the expected range of classical stability of black Saturns and therefore may imply that thermal stability is tied to classical stability, in analogy with Gubser-Mitra in the translationally-invariant case. We also comment on the possibility of constructing plasma configurations that are dual to black Saturns in AdS.

hep-th↗

arXiv2008

Geometric Engineering 5d Black Holes with Rod Diagrams

Static solutions of 5-dimensional gravity with two spatial Killing vectors are characterized by their rod structures. In this note we describe how the orbifold singularities and the topologies of the horizons and asymptotic regions can be determined from the corresponding rod diagrams. As an example we introduce the black lens, a static 5-dimensional black hole with a horizon of lens space topology which is asymptotically Minkowski space. The solution is novel in that the asymptotic Minkowski space is not quotiented. However it suffers from a naked singularity. While the conical and orbifold singularities have been removed, two spherical curvature singularities remain. These singularities do not contribute to the ADM mass, and the thermodynamics of the black lens is well behaved, although its entropy is lower than that of a Tangherlini black hole of the same mass.

hep-th↗

arXiv2008

Topological strings live on attractive manifolds

We add to the mounting evidence that the topological B model's normalized holomorphic three-form has integral periods by demonstrating that otherwise the B2-brane partition function is ill-defined. The resulting Calabi-Yau manifolds are roughly fixed points of attractor flows. We propose here that any admissible background for topological strings requires a quantized (twisted) integrable pure spinor, yielding a quantized (twisted) generalized Calabi-Yau structure. This proposal would imply in particular that the A model is consistent only on those Calabi-Yau manifolds that correspond to melting crystals. When a pure spinor is not quantized, type change occurs on positive codimension submanifolds. We find that quantized pure spinors in topological A-model instead change type only when crossing a coisotropic 5-brane. Quantized generalized Calabi-Yau structures do correspond to twisted K-theory classes, but some twisted K-theory classes correspond to either zero or to multiple structures.

hep-th↗

arXiv2008

Trivializing a Family of Sasaki-Einstein Spaces

We construct an explicit diffeomorphism between the Sasaki-Einstein spaces Y^{p,q} and the product space S^3 \times S^2 in the cases q \le 2. When q=1 we express the Kähler quotient coordinates as an SU(2) bundle over S^2 which we trivialize. When q=2 the quotient coordinates yield a non-trivial SO(3) bundle over S^2 with characteristic class p, which is rotated to a bundle with characteristic class 1 and re-expressed as Y^{2,1}, reducing the problem to the case q=1. When q>2 the fiber is a lens space which is not a Lie group, and this construction fails. We relate the S^2 \times S^3 coordinates to those for which the Sasaki-Einstein metric is known. We check that the RR flux on the S^3 is normalized in accordance with Gauss' law and use this normalization to determine the homology classes represented by the calibrated cycles. As a by-product of our discussion we find a diffeomorphism between T^{p,q} and Y^{p,q} spaces, which means that T^{p,q} manifolds are also topologically S^3 \times S^2.

hep-th↗

arXiv2007

D-brane networks in flux vacua, generalized cycles and calibrations

We consider chains of generalized submanifolds, as defined by Gualtieri in the context of generalized complex geometry, and define a boundary operator that acts on them. This allows us to define generalized cycles and the corresponding homology theory. Gauge invariance demands that D-brane networks on flux vacua must wrap these generalized cycles, while deformations of generalized cycles inside of a certain homology class describe physical processes such as the dissolution of D-branes in higher-dimensional D-branes and MMS-like instantonic transitions. We introduce calibrations that identify the supersymmetric D-brane networks, which minimize their energy inside of the corresponding homology class of generalized cycles. Such a calibration is explicitly presented for type II N=1 flux compactifications to four dimensions. In particular networks of walls and strings in compactifications on warped Calabi-Yau's are treated, with explicit examples on a toroidal orientifold vacuum and on the Klebanov-Strassler geometry.

hep-th↗