Experiential design on cause-related marketing: lessons from the fill-the-bottle challenge

Purpose Based on a “Fill-the-Bottle” (FTB) challenge, this research explores how experiential design can help cause-related marketing. This study aims to show that experiences designed as anti-structural and anti-functional can raise awareness through action. Design/methodology/approach The authors study a corpus of 52 introspective journals and 60 pictures about the challenge, which entails filling empty bottles with cigarette butts from the streets as quickly as possible, then sharing pictures of the bottles on social media. Findings The anti-structural design of the experience activates the participants’ experiential system, and the social interactions between the participants and pedestrians construct meaning for the experience. The results further indicate that as follows: individuals’ frames of reference can explain whether they perceive the experience as liberatory or stochastic; anti-structural design can serve cause-related marketing by focusing on three stages: doing, showing and sharing; and experiential marketing can serve societal and social causes. Research limitations/implications This research involved a single field. Further research with more heterogeneous participants would be insightful. The power of experiential marketing to serve meaningful and collective causes should be encouraged. Further research should be conducted to understand and conceptualize these collective attempts to fight the dark sides of consumption. Practical implications In line with Pine and Gilmore’s (1999) advice to stage memorable experiences by working cautiously on cues, the FTB challenge analysis indicates that by focusing on material evidence and staging a specific sequence of doing something about it, showing everyone what is being done and expanding visibility by sharing artifacts of the action on social media, one can actually make people think about and remember the action. Social implications The “do-show-share” design that the FTB challenge uses can be relevant for many cause-related marketing efforts because it operates on both individual and collective levels. Originality/value This research offers a new perspective on experiential marketing by studying how experiences designed to be anti-structural can renew social, cause-related marketing tools.

Large power spectrum and primordial black holes in the effective theory of inflation

We study the generation of a large power spectrum, necessary for primordial black hole formation, within the effective theory of single-field inflation. The mechanisms we consider include a transition into a ghost-inflation-like phase and scenarios where an exponentially growing mode is temporarily turned on. In the cases we discuss, the enhancement in the power spectrum results from either a swift change in some effective coupling or a modification of the dispersion relation for the perturbations, while the background evolution remains unchanged and approximately de Sitter throughout inflation. The robustness of the results is guaranteed thanks to a weakly broken galileon symmetry, which protects the effective couplings against large quantum corrections. We discuss how the enhancement of the power spectrum is related to the energy scale of the operators with weakly broken galileon invariance, and study the limits imposed by strong coupling and the validity of the perturbative expansion.

Potential reconstruction from general power spectrum in single-field inflation

We suggest a new method to reconstruct, within canonical single-field inflation, the inflaton potential directly from the primordial power spectrum which may deviate significantly from near scale-invariance. Our approach relies on a more generalized slow-roll approximation than the standard one, and can probe the properties of the inflaton potential reliably. We give a few examples for reconstructing potential and discuss the validity of our method.

Four-mode squeezed states: two-field quantum systems and the symplectic group $$\mathrm {Sp}(4,{\mathbb {R}})$$

We construct the four-mode squeezed states and study their physical properties. These states describe two linearly-coupled quantum scalar fields, which makes them physically relevant in various contexts such as cosmology. They are shown to generalise the usual two-mode squeezed states of single-field systems, with additional transfers of quanta between the fields. To build them in the Fock space, we use the symplectic structure of the phase space. For this reason, we first present a pedagogical analysis of the symplectic group $$\mathrm {Sp}(4,{\mathbb {R}})$$ Sp ( 4 , R ) and its Lie algebra, from which we construct the four-mode squeezed states and discuss their structure. We also study the reduced single-field system obtained by tracing out one of the two fields. This procedure being easier in the phase space, it motivates the use of the Wigner function which we introduce as an alternative description of the state. It allows us to discuss environmental effects in the case of linear interactions. In particular, we find that there is always a range of interaction coupling for which decoherence occurs without substantially affecting the power spectra (hence the observables) of the system.

Baryogenesis from ultra-slow-roll inflation

The ultra-slow-roll (USR) inflation represents a class of single-field models with sharp deceleration of the rolling dynamics on small scales, leading to a significantly enhanced power spectrum of the curvature perturbations and primordial black hole (PBH) formation. Such a sharp transition of the inflationary background can trigger the coherent motion of scalar condensates with effective potentials governed by the rolling rate of the inflaton field. We show that a scalar condensate carrying (a combination of) baryon or lepton number can achieve successful baryogenesis through the Affleck-Dine mechanism from unconventional initial conditions excited by the USR transition. Viable parameter space for creating the correct baryon asymmetry of the Universe naturally incorporates the specific limit for PBHs to contribute significantly to dark matter, shedding light on the cosmic coincidence problem between the baryon and dark matter densities today.

2D multifunctional SiAs2/GeAs2 van der waals heterostructure

The structural and electronic properties of two-dimensional (2D) SiAs2/GeAs2 van der Waals heterostructure (vdWH) and its applications are investigated by combing first-principles calculations and Silvaco Atlas simulations. The stable SiAs2/GeAs2 vdWH exhibits an indirect bandgap of 0.99 eV in type II band alignment for light detection and energy harvesting. The vdWH can exhibit a direct bandgap up to 0.66 eV by applying an appropriate electric field (Eext). Due to the Eext induced charge redistribution, its band alignment can be transformed from type II to type I for light-emitting. Further simulation shows that the band alignment of SiAs2/GeAs2 vdWH can be tuned back and forth between type II and type I by gate voltage in a single field-effect transistor for multiple functional applications. These results may be useful for applications of the SiAs2/GeAs2 heterostructure in future electronic and optoelectronic devices.

How a Single Field Development is Becoming a Hub

The work presented in this paper shows how a single development evolved in a main Production Hub to unlock stranded resources, fast tracking subsequent marginal gas discoveries, by improving the flexibility of the subsea and treatment facilities. The approach was supported by a coherent activity about exploration program in the area, JV partnership and contracting strategy. During the Execution phase of a subsea development, a new discovery was made in deep water, 35 km from the Floating Production Unit (FPU). Following this discovery, given the potential for further developments in the area (stranded gas reservoirs and further new gas discoveries), the decision of considering the FPU as a future Production Hub has been taken and FPU has been converted accordingly. The inlet facilities have been designed to guarantee the possibility of receiving well fluids at different pressure levels (high pressure for the new developments and low pressure for productions in depletion) with high production flexibility. Several verifications have been performed to maximize the production flowrates at different pressure values, according to the envelope of data from exploration activities, via adequate arrangements for future expansion. These verifications considered the FPU as it is and with the implementation of minor and major modifications (including retrofitting offshore of new process modules). Design and timing of new equipment as minor/major brownfield modification have been set-up to cope with the modulate field profiles to keep FPU operating flowrate to its maximum value for longer time. In particular, the choice of new booster gas compressors has been planned, in order to select the best configuration for the most recent Hub development plan and to install them at the right time. Converting a barycentric infrastructure in a Hub ensures a significant reduction of CAPEX for future developments (limited to subsea tie-backs only), allowing to reconsider projects previously evaluated economically unsustainable. Moreover, the Hub shall guarantee a long-term gas production by continuous addition of new discoveries in the area, making it an essential facility for the energy future of the Country.

Lattice simulations of inflation

The scalar field theory of cosmological inflation constitutes nowadays one of the preferred scenarios for the physics of the early universe. In this paper we aim at studying the inflationary universe making use of a numerical lattice simulation. Various lattice codes have been written in the last decades and have been extensively used for understating the reheating phase of the universe, but they have never been used to study the inflationary phase itself far from the end of inflation (i.e. about 50 e-folds before the end of inflation). In this paper we use a lattice simulation to reproduce the well-known results of some simple models of single-field inflation, particularly for the scalar field perturbation. The main model that we consider is the standard slow-roll inflation with an harmonic potential for the inflaton field. We explore the technical aspects that need to be accounted for in order to reproduce with precision the nearly scale invariant power spectrum of inflaton perturbations. We also consider the case of a step potential, and show that the simulation is able to correctly reproduce the oscillatory features in the power spectrum of this model. Even if a lattice simulation is not needed in these cases, that are well within the regime of validity of linear perturbation theory, this sets the basis to future work on using lattice simulations to study more complicated models of inflation.

Triple crossing positivity bounds for multi-field theories

We develop a formalism to extract triple crossing symmetric positivity bounds for effective field theories with multiple degrees of freedom, by making use of su symmetric dispersion relations supplemented with positivity of the partial waves, st null constraints and the generalized optical theorem. This generalizes the convex cone approach to constrain the s2 coefficient space to higher orders. Optimal positive bounds can be extracted by semi-definite programs with a continuous decision variable, compared with linear programs for the case of a single field. As an example, we explicitly compute the positivity constraints on bi-scalar theories, and find all the Wilson coefficients can be constrained in a finite region, including the coefficients with odd powers of s, which are absent in the single scalar case.