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Smith College

Mathematics Sciences: Faculty Publications

2005

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Schwinger Pair Creation Of Kaluza-Klein Particles: Pair Creation Without Tunneling, Tamar Friedmann, Herman Verlinde Mar 2005

Schwinger Pair Creation Of Kaluza-Klein Particles: Pair Creation Without Tunneling, Tamar Friedmann, Herman Verlinde

Mathematics Sciences: Faculty Publications

We study Schwinger pair creation of charged Kaluza-Klein (KK) particles from a static KK electric field. We find that the gravitational backreaction of the electric field on the geometry—which is incorporated via the electric KK-Melvin solution—prevents the electrostatic potential from overcoming the rest mass of the KK particles, thus impeding the tunneling mechanism which is often thought of as responsible for the pair creation. However, we find that pair creation still occurs with a finite rate formally similar to the classic Schwinger result, but via an apparently different mechanism, involving a combination of the Unruh effect and vacuum polarization due …


The Aronsson-Euler Equation For Absolutely Minimizing Lipschitz Extensions With Respect To Carnot-Carathéodory Metrics, Thomas Bieske, Luca Capogna Feb 2005

The Aronsson-Euler Equation For Absolutely Minimizing Lipschitz Extensions With Respect To Carnot-Carathéodory Metrics, Thomas Bieske, Luca Capogna

Mathematics Sciences: Faculty Publications

We derive the Euler-Lagrange equation (also known in this setting as the Aronsson-Euler equation) for absolute minimizers of the L ∞ variational problem inf∥∇ 0u∥L∞(Ω), u = g ε Lip(∂Ω) on ∂Ω, where Ω ⊂ G is an open subset of a Carnot group, ∇ 0u denotes the horizontal gradient of u: Ω ℝ R, and the Lipschitz class is defined in relation to the Carnot-Carathéodory metric. In particular, we show that absolute minimizers are infinite harmonic in the viscosity sense. As a corollary we obtain the uniqueness of absolute minimizers in a large class of groups. This result extends …