Classical Myth and Margaret Mahy's Young Adult Fiction

<p>This thesis investigates the importance of classical myth in the young adult fiction of Margaret Mahy. Mahy's novels are full of references to classical myths, both direct and indirect, in names of characters like Dido, Ovid, Ariadne or Hero; in storylines such as Flora's journey to the Underworld-like Viridian to rescue her cousin Anthea, strongly reminiscent of Demeter's rescue of Persephone from Hades, which take their inspiration from classical myth; in seemingly incidental references like the persistent comparisons of Sorry to Charon, the classical ferryman of the dead, in The Changeover. These references point to a deep engagement with the heritage of classical myth. It is an engagement that has not gone unnoticed by scholars of Mahy's work, but it is one that has not enjoyed the dedicated critical attention it deserves. This thesis explores the full importance of classical myth to Mahy's young adult fiction, and shows how an understanding of the classical background of a large selection of Mahy's major novels can both enhance our appreciation of what is already there, as well as open up new avenues for critical engagement with her work.</p>

Classical Myth and Margaret Mahy's Young Adult Fiction

<p>This thesis investigates the importance of classical myth in the young adult fiction of Margaret Mahy. Mahy's novels are full of references to classical myths, both direct and indirect, in names of characters like Dido, Ovid, Ariadne or Hero; in storylines such as Flora's journey to the Underworld-like Viridian to rescue her cousin Anthea, strongly reminiscent of Demeter's rescue of Persephone from Hades, which take their inspiration from classical myth; in seemingly incidental references like the persistent comparisons of Sorry to Charon, the classical ferryman of the dead, in The Changeover. These references point to a deep engagement with the heritage of classical myth. It is an engagement that has not gone unnoticed by scholars of Mahy's work, but it is one that has not enjoyed the dedicated critical attention it deserves. This thesis explores the full importance of classical myth to Mahy's young adult fiction, and shows how an understanding of the classical background of a large selection of Mahy's major novels can both enhance our appreciation of what is already there, as well as open up new avenues for critical engagement with her work.</p>

Inflationary quantum dynamics and backreaction using a classical-quantum correspondence

We study inflationary dynamics using a recently introduced classical-quantum correspondence for investigating the backreaction of a quantum mechanical degree of freedom to a classical background. Using specifically a coupled Einstein–Klein–Gordon system, an approximation that holds well during the very early inflationary era when modes are very deep inside the Hubble horizon, we show that the backreaction of a mode of the quantum field will renormalize the Hubble parameter only if the mode’s wavelength is longer than some threshold Planckian length scale. Otherwise, the mode will destabilize the inflationary era. We also present an approximate analytical solution that supports the existence of such short-wavelength threshold and compare the results of the classical-quantum correspondence with the traditional perturbative-iterative method in semiclassical gravity.

Cosmological Particle Production in Quantum Gravity

Quantum theory of a test field on a quantum cosmological spacetime may be viewed as a theory of the test field on an emergent classical background. In such a case, the resulting dressed metric for the field propagation is a function of the quantum fluctuations of the original geometry. When the backreaction is negligible, massive modes can experience an anisotropic Bianchi type I background. The field modes propagating on such a quantum-gravity-induced spacetime can then unveil interesting phenomenological consequences of the super-Planckian scales, such as gravitational particle production. The aim of this paper is to address the issue of gravitational particle production associated with the massive modes in such an anisotropic dressed spacetime. By imposing a suitable adiabatic condition on the vacuum state and computing the energy density of the created particles, the significance of the particle production on the dynamics of the universe in Planck era is discussed.

Instantons, symmetries and anomalies in five dimensions

All five-dimensional non-abelian gauge theories have a U(1)I global symmetry associated with instantonic particles. We describe an obstruction to coupling U(1)I to a classical background gauge field that occurs whenever the theory has a one-form center symmetry. This is a finite-order mixed ’t Hooft anomaly between the two symmetries. We also show that a similar obstruction takes place in gauge theories with fundamental matter by studying twisted bundles for the ordinary flavor symmetry. We explore some general dynamical properties of the candidate phases implied by the anomaly. Finally, we apply our results to supersymmetric gauge theories in five dimensions and analyze the symmetry enhancement patterns occurring at their conjectured RG fixed points.

Logarithmic correction to the entropy of extremal black holes in $$ \mathcal{N} $$ = 1 Einstein-Maxwell supergravity

We study one-loop covariant effective action of “non-minimally coupled” $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 1, d = 4 Einstein-Maxwell supergravity theory by heat kernel tool. By fluctuating the fields around the classical background, we study the functional determinant of Laplacian differential operator following Seeley-DeWitt technique of heat kernel expansion in proper time. We then compute the Seeley-DeWitt coefficients obtained through the expansion. A particular Seeley-DeWitt coefficient is used for determining the logarithmic correction to Bekenstein-Hawking entropy of extremal black holes using quantum entropy function formalism. We thus determine the logarithmic correction to the entropy of Kerr-Newman, Kerr and Reissner-Nordström black holes in “non-minimally coupled” $$ \mathcal{N} $$ N = 1, d = 4 Einstein-Maxwell supergravity theory.

A COMPARATIVE STUDY ON GHREYA VAMAKA YOGA

The most important and widely used emetic is ‘Madanaphala yoga’ administered orally. While further elaborating the Vamana Karma classics also mentions that the persons who are reluctant to take medicine orally can be made to emit by giving the medicine as an errhine. With this classical background, the present study made an attempt to understand the olfactory route of medicine administration to induce Vamana against the oral route. Madanaphala (Randia Dumatorum) seed powder sprinkled over lotus and rose flow-er were used as Ghreya Vamaka Yoga in comparison with Madanaphala Yoga administered orally. Objec-tives: To evaluate the efficacy of Ghreya Yoga in inducing Vamana through Nasal Route. To evaluate the Olfaction effect through Rose medium, in comparison with Lotus medium. To evaluate the efficacy of Na-sal route as against the Oral route. Methods: A Comparative clinical study done on 45 subjects of both sexes, between the age group of 21-50years who were randomly assigned into 3 groups namely- Group-A, Group-B and Group-C. Vamana karma with Ghreya Madanaphala Pippali Churna sprinkled on lotus flower, rose flower and Madanaphala pippali yoga administered orally. The Vamana karma was done in the following order: Purva karma, Pradhana karma & Paschat karma. After the completion of the thera-py, the results were assessed by comparing the data collected during the therapy. Result: Nasal route of administration of Vamaka yoga also works efficiently, Ghreya yoga worked in par with oral yoga & Madanaphala Pippali Churna sprinkled over lotus and rose produced same effect in inducing Vamana.

Quantum fields as Cosmic Censors in (2 + 1)-dimensions

We discuss the effect of quantum fields on classical background spacetimes which contain timelike singularities. We do so for the case that the background is a [Formula: see text]-dimensional BTZ spacetime, whether corresponding to a rotating black hole ([Formula: see text]) or to a naked conical singularity ([Formula: see text]). In the black hole case, scalar quantum fields render its Cauchy horizon unstable, while for the conical geometry, they produce a horizon around the naked singularity. Thus, quantum effects improve the predictability of the spacetime acting as effective Cosmic Censors.