158 research outputs found
Higher Loop Spin Field Correlators in D=4 Superstring Theory
We develop calculational tools to determine higher loop superstring
correlators involving massless fermionic and spin fields in four space time
dimensions. These correlation functions are basic ingredients for the
calculation of loop amplitudes involving both bosons and fermions in D=4
heterotic and superstring theories. To obtain the full amplitudes in Lorentz
covariant form the loop correlators of fermionic and spin fields have to be
expressed in terms of SO(1,3) tensors. This is one of the main achievements in
this work.Comment: 59 pages, 1 figure; v2: final version published in JHE
Classical theta constants vs. lattice theta series, and super string partition functions
Recently, various possible expressions for the vacuum-to-vacuum superstring
amplitudes has been proposed at genus . To compare the different
proposals, here we will present a careful analysis of the comparison between
the two main technical tools adopted to realize the proposals: the classical
theta constants and the lattice theta series. We compute the relevant Fourier
coefficients in order to relate the two spaces. We will prove the equivalence
up to genus 4. In genus five we will show that the solutions are equivalent
modulo the Schottky form and coincide if we impose the vanishing of the
cosmological constant.Comment: 21 page
Decorrelation and efficient coding by retinal ganglion cells
An influential theory of visual processing asserts that retinal center-surround receptive fields remove spatial correlations in the visual world, producing ganglion cell spike trains that are less redundant than the corresponding image pixels. For bright, high-contrast images, this decorrelation would enhance coding efficiency in optic nerve fibers of limited capacity. We tested the central prediction of the theory and found that the spike trains of retinal ganglion cells were indeed decorrelated compared with the visual input. However, most of the decorrelation was accomplished not by the receptive fields, but by nonlinear processing in the retina. We found that a steep response threshold enhanced efficient coding by noisy spike trains and that the effect of this nonlinearity was near optimal in both salamander and macaque retina. These results offer an explanation for the sparseness of retinal spike trains and highlight the importance of treating the full nonlinear character of neural codes
Quantum gravity effects on statistics and compact star configurations
The thermodynamics of classical and quantum ideal gases based on the
Generalized uncertainty principle (GUP) are investigated. At low temperatures,
we calculate corrections to the energy and entropy. The equations of state
receive small modifications. We study a system comprised of a zero temperature
ultra-relativistic Fermi gas. It turns out that at low Fermi energy
, the degenerate pressure and energy are lifted. The
Chandrasekhar limit receives a small positive correction. We discuss the
applications on configurations of compact stars. As increases,
the radius, total number of fermions and mass first reach their nonvanishing
minima and then diverge. Beyond a critical Fermi energy, the radius of a
compact star becomes smaller than the Schwarzschild one. The stability of the
configurations is also addressed. We find that beyond another critical value of
the Fermi energy, the configurations are stable. At large radius, the increment
of the degenerate pressure is accelerated at a rate proportional to the radius.Comment: V2. discussions on the stability of star configurations added, 17
pages, 2 figures, typos corrected, version to appear in JHE
The anomalous U(1) global symmetry and flavors from an SU(5) x SU(5) GUT in orbifold compactification
In string compactifications, frequently there appears the anomalous U(1)
gauge symmetry which belonged to E8E8 of the heterotic string. This
anomalous U(1) gauge boson obtains mass at the compactification scale, just
below GeV, by absorbing one pseudoscalar (corresponding to the
model-independent axion) from the second rank anti-symmetric tensor field
.
Below the compactification scale, there results a global symmetry U(1) whose charge is the original gauge U(1) charge. This is
the most natural global symmetry, realizing the "invisible" axion. This global
symmetry U(1) is suitable for a flavor symmetry. In the simplest
compactification model with the flipped SU(5) grand unification, we calculate
all the low energy parameters in terms of the vacuum expectation values of the
standard model singlets.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figur
Thermodynamics of Superstring on Near-extremal NS5 and Effective Hagedorn Behavior
We study the thermodynamical torus partition function of superstring on the
near-extremal black NS5-brane background. The exact partition function has been
computed with the helps of our previous works:[arXiv:1012.5721 [hep-th]],
[arXiv:1109.3365 [hep-th]], and naturally decomposed into two parts. The first
part is contributed from strings freely propagating in the asymptotic region,
which are identified as the superstring gas at the Hawking temperature on the
linear-dilaton background. The second part includes the contribution localized
around the `tip of cigar', which characterizes the non-extremality. Remarkably,
the latter part includes massless excitations with non-vanishing thermal
winding, which signifies that the Hagedorn-like behavior effectively appears,
even though the Hawking temperature is much lower than the Hagedorn
temperature. We also explore the high-temperature backgrounds defined by the
orbifolding along the Euclidean time direction. In those cases, the thermal
winding modes localized around the tip are found to be tachyonic, reflecting
the singularities of Euclidean backgrounds caused by orbifolding.Comment: 1+29 pages, no figure; v2 the footnote 1 is enhanced, to appear in
JHE
The heterotic string at high temperature (or with strong supersymmetry breaking)
Perturbative heterotic string theory develops a single complex tachyonic mode
beyond the Hagedorn temperature. We calculate the quartic effective potential
for this tachyonic mode at the critical temperature. Equivalently, we determine
the quartic effective potential for strong supersymmetric breaking via
anti-perdiodic boundary conditions for fermions on a small circle. We give many
details of the heterotic tachyon scattering amplitudes, including a unitarity
check to fix all normalization constants. We discuss difficulties in obtaining
an effective action valid at all radii. We argue that in certain variables, the
quartic term in the potential is radius independent. Speculations on the
properties of a new strongly curved phase that could occur after tachyon
condensation are offered.Comment: 22 pages; v2: minor corrections, references adde
Natural images from the birthplace of the human eye
Here we introduce a database of calibrated natural images publicly available
through an easy-to-use web interface. Using a Nikon D70 digital SLR camera, we
acquired about 5000 six-megapixel images of Okavango Delta of Botswana, a
tropical savanna habitat similar to where the human eye is thought to have
evolved. Some sequences of images were captured unsystematically while
following a baboon troop, while others were designed to vary a single parameter
such as aperture, object distance, time of day or position on the horizon.
Images are available in the raw RGB format and in grayscale. Images are also
available in units relevant to the physiology of human cone photoreceptors,
where pixel values represent the expected number of photoisomerizations per
second for cones sensitive to long (L), medium (M) and short (S) wavelengths.
This database is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial
Unported license to facilitate research in computer vision, psychophysics of
perception, and visual neuroscience.Comment: Submitted to PLoS ON
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