A simplified Fermi Accelerator Model under quadratic frictional force

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Phylogeny, Ecology, and Heart Position in Snakes

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

Use of Fruit Essential Oils to Assist Forest Regeneration by Bats

Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior (CAPES)

Existence and asymptotic behaviour for the parabolic-parabolic Keller-Segel system with singular data

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

An improved bait method for collecting Hymenoptera, especially social wasps (Vespidae: Polistinae)

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP)

The equivalence principle revisited

A precise fomulation of the strong Equivalence Principle is essential to the understanding of the relationship between gravitation and quantum mechanics. The relevant aspects are reviewed in a context including General Relativity but allowing for the presence of torsion. For the sake of brevity, a concise statement is proposed for the Principle: An ideal observer immersed in a gravitational field can choose a reference frame in which gravitation goes unnoticed. This statement is given a clear mathematical meaning through an accurate discussion of its terms. It holds for ideal observers (time-like smooth non-intersecting curves), but not for real, spatially extended observers. Analogous results hold for gauge fields. The difference between gravitation and the other fundamental interactions comes from their distinct roles in the equation of force.

Naturally light invisible axion in models with large local discrete symmetries

We show that by introducing appropriate local Z(N)(Ngreater than or equal to13) symmetries in electroweak models it is possible to implement an automatic Peccei-Quinn symmetry, at the same time keeping the axion protected against gravitational effects. Although we consider here only an extension of the standard model and a particular 3-3-1 model, the strategy can be used in any kind of electroweak model. An interesting feature of this 3-3-1 model is that if we add (i) right-handed neutrinos, (ii) the conservation of the total lepton number, and (iii) a Z(2) symmetry, the Z(13) and the chiral Peccei-Quinn U(1)P-Q symmetries are both accidental symmetries in the sense that they are not imposed on the Lagrangian but are just a consequence of the particle content of the model, its gauge invariance, renormalizability, and Lorentz invariance. In addition, this model has no domain wall problem.

Torsion and gravitation: A new view

According to the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity, curvature and torsion are two equivalent ways of describing the same gravitational field. Though equivalent, they act differently: curvature yields a geometric description, in which the concept of gravitational force is absent whereas torsion acts as a true gravitational force, quite similar to the Lorentz force of electrodynamics. As a consequence, the right-hand side of a spinless-particle equation of motion (which would represent a gravitational force) is always zero in the geometric description, but not in the teleparallel case. This means that the gravitational coupling prescription can be minimal only in the geometric case. Relying on this property, a new gravitational coupling prescription in the presence of curvature and torsion is proposed. It is constructed in such a way to preserve the equivalence between curvature and torsion, and its basic property is to be equivalent to the usual coupling prescription of general relativity. According to this view, no new physics is connected with torsion, which is just an alternative to curvature in the description of gravitation. An application of this formulation to the equations of motion of both a spinless and a spinning particle is discussed.

Teleparallel equivalent of non-Abelian Kaluza-Klein theory

Based on the equivalence between a gauge theory for the translation group and general relativity, a teleparallel version of the non-Abelian Kaluza-Klein theory is constructed. In this theory, only the fiber-space turns out to be higher dimensional, spacetime being kept always four dimensional. The resulting model is a gauge theory that unifies, in the Kaluza-Klein sense, gravitational and gauge fields. In contrast with the ordinary Kaluza-Klein models, this theory defines a natural length scale for the compact submanifold of the fiber space, which is shown to be of the order of the Planck length.

Propagator, tree-level unitarity and effective nonrelativistic potential for higher-derivative gravity theories in D dimensions

A prescription for computing the propagator for D-dimensional higher-derivative gravity theories, based on the Barnes-Rivers operators, is presented. A systematic study of the tree-level unitarity of these theories is developed and the agreement of their linearized versions with Newton's law is investigated by computing the corresponding effective nonrelativistic potential. Three-dimensional quadratic gravity with a gravitational Chern-Simons term is also analyzed. A discussion on the issue of light bending within the framework of both D-dimensional quadratic gravity and three-dimensional quadratic gravity with a Chern-Simons term is provided as well. (C) 2002 American Institute of Physics.

Exact Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation for real spin-0 particle in curved space

Up to now, the only known exact Foldy-Wouthuysen transformation (FWT) in curved space is that concerning Dirac particles coupled to static spacetime metrics. Here we construct the exact FWT related to a real spin-0 particle for the aforementioned spacetimes. This exact transformation exists independently of the value of the coupling between the scalar field and gravity. Moreover, the gravitational Darwin term written for the conformal coupling is one-third of the corresponding term in the fermionic case. There are some arguments in the literature that seem to favor the choice lambda=1/6. We rehearse a number of claims of these works.

Naturally light invisible axion and local Z(13)circle times Z(3) symmetries

We show that by imposing local Z(13)circle timesZ(3) symmetries in an SU(2)circle timesU(1) electroweak model we can implement an invisible axion in such a way that (i) the Peccei-Quinn symmetry is an automatic symmetry of the classical Lagrangian, and (ii) the axion is protected from semiclassical gravitational effects. In order to be able to implement such a large discrete symmetry, and at the same time allow a general mixing in each charge sector, we introduce right-handed neutrinos and enlarge the scalar sector of the model. The domain wall problem is briefly considered.

Stabilizing the invisible axion in 3-3-1 models

By introducing local Z(N) symmetries with N=11,13 in two 3-3-1 models, it is possible to implement an automatic Peccei-Quinn symmetry, keeping the axion protected against gravitational effects at the same time. Both models have a Z(2) domain wall problem and the neutrinos are strictly Dirac particles.

Conformal Klein-Gordon equations and quasinormal modes

Using conformal coordinates associated with conformal relativity-associated with de Sitter spacetime homeomorphic projection into Minkowski spacetime-we obtain a conformal Klein-Gordon partial differential equation, which is intimately related to the production of quasi-normal modes (QNMs) oscillations, in the context of electromagnetic and/or gravitational perturbations around, e.g., black holes. While QNMs arise as the solution of a wave-like equation with a Poschl-Teller potential, here we deduce and analytically solve a conformal 'radial' d'Alembert-like equation, from which we derive QNMs formal solutions, in a proposed alternative to more completely describe QNMs. As a by-product we show that this 'radial' equation can be identified with a Schrodinger-like equation in which the potential is exactly the second Poschl-Teller potential, and it can shed some new light on the investigations concerning QNMs.

Wakes in dilatonic current-carrying cosmic strings

In this work, we present the gravitational field generated by a cosmic string carrying a timelike current in the scalar-tensor gravities. The mechanism of formation and evolution of wakes is fully investigated in this framework. We show explicitly that the inclusion of electromagnetic properties for the string induces logarithmic divergences in the accretion problem.