Chiral Bargmann–Wigner equations for spin-1 massive fields

A generalization of the original Bargmann–Wigner equations for spin-1 massive fields is employed, taking fully into account all internal degrees of freedom associated with the underlying chiral bases of the constituent spin-1/2 representations. Through the specification of a chiral basis, the chiral Bargmann–Wigner equations are reduced to a Proca-like form coupled by chirality to an auxiliary equation for a spin-0 massive field. The coupling derived is a new phenomenon whose physical implications are discussed in the context of identification of this field with the Higgs field and dark matter.

A Review on BGK Models for Gas Mixtures of Mono and Polyatomic Molecules

We consider the Bathnagar–Gross–Krook (BGK) model, an approximation of the Boltzmann equation, describing the time evolution of a single momoatomic rarefied gas and satisfying the same two main properties (conservation properties and entropy inequality). However, in practical applications, one often has to deal with two additional physical issues. First, a gas often does not consist of only one species, but it consists of a mixture of different species. Second, the particles can store energy not only in translational degrees of freedom but also in internal degrees of freedom such as rotations or vibrations (polyatomic molecules). Therefore, here, we will present recent BGK models for gas mixtures for mono- and polyatomic particles and the existing mathematical theory for these models.

Spinor vacuum and C, P, T inversions

We have developed the theory of Clifford reflections and extended spacetime inversions. This extended spacetime has two additional dimensions associated with the presence of internal degrees of freedom of spinors. Inversions C, P, and T contain not only reflections of the basis Clifford vectors and transformations of basis spinors, but also transformations of the components of vector and spinor quantities. The research is carried out on the basis of algebraic quantum field theory using the superalgebraic representation of spinors as well as the 8-component matrix representation of spinors. We have proved that due to the presence of internal degrees of freedom of spinors, there are two vacua, the vacuum of our Universe and an alternative vacuum. The inversion operators C and T transform the vacuum into an alternative one, and therefore cannot be operators of the exact symmetry of our Universe.

Islands with gravitating baths: towards ER = EPR

We study the Page curve and the island rule for black holes evaporating into gravitating baths, with an eye towards establishing a connection with the ER=EPR proposal. We consider several models of two entangled 2d black holes in Jackiw-Teitelboim (JT) gravity with negative cosmological constant. The first, “doubled PSSY,” model is one in which the black holes have end-of-the-world (ETW) branes with a flavour degree of freedom. We study highly entangled states of this flavour degree of freedom and find an entanglement-induced Hawking-Page-like transition from a geometry with two disconnected black holes to one with a pair of black holes connected by a wormhole, thus realising the ER = EPR proposal. The second model is a dynamical one in which the ETW branes do not have internal degrees of freedom but the JT gravity is coupled to a 2d CFT, and we entangle the black holes by coupling the two CFTs at the AdS boundary and evolving for a long time. We study the entanglement entropy between the two black holes and find that the story is substantially similar to that with a non-gravitating thermal bath. In the third model, we couple the two ends of a two-sided eternal black hole and evolve for a long time. Finally, we discuss the possibility of a Hawking-Page-like transition induced by real-time evolution that realises the ER = EPR proposal in this dynamical setting.

Influence through mixing: hotspots as benchmarks for basic black-hole behaviour

Effective theories are being developed for fields outside black holes, often with an unusual open-system feel due to the influence of large number of degrees of freedom that lie out of reach beyond the horizon. What is often difficult when interpreting such theories is the absence of comparisons to simpler systems that share these features. We propose here such a simple model, involving a single external scalar field that mixes in a limited region of space with a ‘hotspot’ containing a large number of hot internal degrees of freedom. Since the model is at heart gaussian it can be solved explicitly, and we do so for the mode functions and correlation functions for the external field once the hotspot fields are traced out. We compare with calculations that work perturbatively in the mixing parameter, and by doing so can precisely identify its domain of validity. We also show how renormalization-group EFT methods can allow some perturbative contributions to be resummed beyond leading order, verifying the result using the exact expression.

Structured 3D linear space–time light bullets by nonlocal nanophotonics

We propose the generation of 3D linear light bullets propagating in free space using a single passive nonlocal optical surface. The nonlocal nanophotonics can generate space–time coupling without any need for bulky pulse-shaping and spatial modulation techniques. Our approach provides simultaneous control of various properties of the light bullets, including the external properties such as the group velocity and the propagation distance, and internal degrees of freedom such as the spin angular momentum and the orbital angular momentum.

Optimal Relabeling of Water Molecules and Single-Molecule Entropy Estimation

Estimation of solvent entropy from equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations is a long-standing problem in statistical mechanics. In recent years, methods that estimate entropy using k-th nearest neighbours (kNN) have been applied to internal degrees of freedom in biomolecular simulations, and for the rigorous computation of positional-orientational entropy of one and two molecules. The mutual information expansion (MIE) and the maximum information spanning tree (MIST) methods were proposed and used to deal with a large number of non-independent degrees of freedom, providing estimates or bounds on the global entropy, thus complementing the kNN method. The application of the combination of such methods to solvent molecules appears problematic because of the indistinguishability of molecules and of their symmetric parts. All indistiguishable molecules span the same global conformational volume, making application of MIE and MIST methods difficult. Here, we address the problem of indistinguishability by relabeling water molecules in such a way that each water molecule spans only a local region throughout the simulation. Then, we work out approximations and show how to compute the single-molecule entropy for the system of relabeled molecules. The results suggest that relabeling water molecules is promising for computation of solvation entropy.