Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Energy Landscape Of D -Dimensional Q -Balls, Marcelo Gleiser, Joel Thorarinson Mar 2006

Energy Landscape Of D -Dimensional Q -Balls, Marcelo Gleiser, Joel Thorarinson

Dartmouth Scholarship

We investigate the properties of Q-balls in d spatial dimensions. First, a generalized virial relation for these objects is obtained. We then focus on potentials V(ϕϕ†)=∑3n=1an(ϕϕ†)n, where an is a constant and n is an integer, obtaining variational estimates for their energies for arbitrary charge Q. These analytical estimates are contrasted with numerical results and their accuracy evaluated. Based on the results, we offer a simple criterion to classify large and small d-dimensional Q-balls for this class of potentials. A minimum charge is then computed and its dependence on spatial dimensionality is shown to scale as Qmin∼exp(d). We also briefly …


Sudden Gravitational Transition, Robert R. Caldwell, William Komp, Leonard Parker, Daniel A. T. Vanzella Jan 2006

Sudden Gravitational Transition, Robert R. Caldwell, William Komp, Leonard Parker, Daniel A. T. Vanzella

Dartmouth Scholarship

We investigate the properties of a cosmological scenario which undergoes a gravitational phase transition at late times. In this scenario, the Universe evolves according to general relativity in the standard, hot big bang picture until a redshift z≲1. Nonperturbative phenomena associated with a minimally-coupled scalar field catalyzes a transition, whereby an order parameter consisting of curvature quantities such as R2, RabRab, RabcdRabcd acquires a constant expectation value. The ensuing cosmic acceleration appears driven by a dark-energy component with an equation-of-state w<−1. We evaluate the constraints from type 1a supernovae, the cosmic microwave background, and other cosmological observations. We find that a range of models making a sharp transition to cosmic acceleration are consistent with observations.