118485314
A novel channel for vacuum decay
Abstract I show that cosmological bubble walls in the thin wall approximation are unstable to the creation of “barnacles” – loci of different wall tension adjacent to regions filled with a third vacuum. Barnacle formation appears to have the same observational consequences as the extensively studied bubble collision scenario, but occurs exponentially more often. The process is described by a saddle point of the thin wall action with two negative modes.
16140829
Typicality versus thermality: an analytic distinction
In systems with a large degeneracy of states such as black holes, one expects that the average value of probe correlation functions will be well approximated by the thermal ensemble. To understand how correlation functions in individual microstates differ from the canonical ensemble average and from each other, we study the variances in correlators. Using general statistical considerations, we show that the variance between microstates will be exponentially suppressed in the entropy. However, by exploiting the analytic properties of correlation functions we argue that these variances are amplified in imaginary time, thereby distinguishing pure states from the thermal density matrix. We demonstrate our general results in specific examples and argue that our results apply to the microstates of black holes.
84181918
Bulk curves from boundary data in holography
We embed spherical Rindler space—a geometry with a spherical hole in its center—in asymptotically anti– de Sitter (AdS) spacetime and show that it carries a gravitational entropy proportional to the area of the hole. Spherical AdS-Rindler space is holographically dual to an ultraviolet sector of the boundary field theory given by restriction to a strip of finite duration in time. Because measurements have finite durations, local observers in the field theory can only access information about bounded spatial regions. We propose a notion of differential entropy that captures uncertainty about the state of a system left by the collection of local, finite-time observables. For two-dimensional conformal field theories we use holography and the strong subadditivity of entanglement to propose a formula for differential entropy and show that it precisely reproduces the areas of circular holes in AdS3. Extending the notion to field theories on strips with variable durations in time, we show more generally that differential entropy computes the areas of all closed, inhomogeneous curves on a spatial slice of AdS3. We discuss the extension to higher-dimensional field theories, the relation of differential entropy to entanglement between scales, and some implications for the emergence of space from the renormalization group flow of entangled field theories.
15617697
Trace Anomaly in Geometric Discretization
I develop the simplest geometric-discretized analogue of two dimensional scalar field theory, which qualitatively reproduces the trace anomaly of the continuous theory. The discrete analogue provides an interpretation of the trace anomaly in terms of a non-trivial transformation of electric-magnetic duality-invariant modes of resistor networks that accommodate both electric and magnetic charge currents.
118461064
The Grainy multiverse
I consider a landscape containing three vacua and study the topology of global spacelike slices in eternal inflation. A discrete toy model, which generalizes the well studied Mandelbrot model, reveals a rich phase structure. Novel phases include monochromatic tubular phases, which contain crossing curves of only one vacuum, and a democratic tubular phase, which contains crossing curves of all three types of vacua. I discuss the generalization to realistic landscapes consisting of many vacua. Generically, the system ends up in a grainy phase, which contains no crossing curves or surfaces and consists of packed regions of different vacua. Other topological phases arise on the scale of several generations of nucleations.
4364283
The entropy of a hole in spacetime
A bstractWe compute the gravitational entropy of “spherical Rindler space”, a timedependent, spherically symmetric generalization of ordinary Rindler space, defined with reference to a family of observers traveling along non-parallel, accelerated trajectories. All these observers are causally disconnected from a spherical region H (a “hole”) located at the origin of Minkowski space. The entropy evaluates to S = $ \mathcal{A} $/4G, where $ \mathcal{A} $ is the area of the spherical acceleration horizon, which coincides with the boundary of H. We propose that S is the entropy of entanglement between quantum gravitational degrees of freedom supporting the interior and the exterior of the sphere H.
16807669
Nuclear multifragmentation and fission: Similarity and differences
Thermal multifragmentation of hot nuclei is interpreted as the nuclear liquid–fog phase transition inside the spinodal region. The experimental data for p(8.1GeV)+Au collisions are analyzed. It is concluded that the decay process of hot nuclei is characterized by two size parameters: one density at the transition state and one at the kinetic freeze-out. The similarity between the dynamics of fragmentation and ordinary fission is discussed. The IMF emission time is related to the mean rupture time at the multiscission point, which corresponds to the kinetic freeze-out configuration.
117764751
Tracing a phase transition with fluctuations of the largest fragment size: Statistical multifragmentation models and the ALADIN S254 data
A phase transition signature associated with cumulants of the largest fragment size distribution has been identified in statistical multifragmentation models and examined in analysis of the ALADIN S254 data on fragmentation of neutron-poor and neutron-rich projectiles. Characteristics of the transition point indicated by this signature are weakly dependent on the A/Z ratio of the fragmenting spectator source. In particular, chemical freeze-out temperatures are estimated within the range 5.9 to 6.5 MeV. The experimental results are well reproduced by the SMM model.
118568605
Mass and isospin dependence in multifragmentation
Challenging motivations for isotopic studies in nuclear multifragmentation are derived from the the importance of the density dependence of the symmetry term of the nuclear equation of state for astrophysical applications and for effects linked to the manifestation of the nuclear liquid-gas phase transition. In a recent experiment with the ALADIN spectrometer at GSI, the possibility of using secondary beams for reaction studies at relativistic energies has been explored. Beams of $^{107}$Sn, $^{124}$Sn, $^{124}$La, and $^{197}$Au were used to investigate the mass and isospin dependence of multifragmentation. The status of the project and first results are reported and discussed.
118436488
Isospin-dependent multifragmentation of relativistic projectiles
The N/Z dependence of projectile fragmentation at relativistic energies has been studied with the ALADIN forward spectrometer at the GSI Schwerionen Synchrotron (SIS). Stable and radioactive Sn and La beams with an incident energy of 600 MeV per nucleon have been used in order to explore a wide range of isotopic compositions. For the interpretation of the data, calculations with the statistical multifragmentation model for a properly chosen ensemble of excited sources were performed. The parameters of the ensemble, representing the variety of excited spectator nuclei expected in a participant-spectator scenario, are determined empirically by searching for an optimum reproduction of the measured fragment-charge distributions and correlations. An overall very good agreement is obtained. The possible modification of the liquid-drop parameters of the fragment description in the hot freeze-out environment is studied, and a significant reduction of the symmetry-term coefficient is found necessary to reproduce the mean neutron-to-proton ratios /Z and the isoscaling parameters of Z{<=}10 fragments. The calculations are, furthermore, used to address open questions regarding the modification of the surface-term coefficient at freeze-out, the N/Z dependence of the nuclear caloric curve, and the isotopic evolution of the spectator system between its formation during the initial cascade stage ofmore » the reaction and its subsequent breakup.« less
92609323
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