A new species of the basal araneomorph spider genus Ectatosticta (Araneae, Hypochilidae) from China

The hypochilid spider Ectatosticta davidi (Simon) is redescribed on the basis of adults from Mt. Taibaishan in Shaanxi Province, China; the specimens from Qinghai Province previously identified as E. davidi by most modern authors belong to a new species described as E. deltshevi. Keywords: Araneae, Araneomorphae, Hypochilidae, Ectatosticta, Chin

Higgsed Gauge-flation

We study a variant of Gauge-flation where the gauge symmetry is spontaneously broken by a Higgs sector. We work in the Stueckelberg limit and demonstrate that the dynamics remain (catastrophically) unstable for cases where the gauge field masses satisfy $\gamma < 2$, where $\gamma = g^2\psi^2/H^2$, $g$ is the gauge coupling, $\psi$ is the gauge field vacuum expectation value, and $H$ is the Hubble rate. We compute the spectrum of density fluctuations and gravitational waves, and show that the model can produce observationally viable spectra. The background gauge field texture violates parity, resulting in a chiral gravitational wave spectrum. This arises due to an exponential enhancement of one polarization of the spin-2 fluctuation of the gauge field. Higgsed Gauge-flation can produce observable gravitational waves at inflationary energy scales well below the GUT scale.Comment: 52 pages, 14 figure

Asymptotic Validity of the Bayes-Inspired Indifference Zone Procedure: The Non-Normal Known Variance Case

We consider the indifference-zone (IZ) formulation of the ranking and selection problem in which the goal is to choose an alternative with the largest mean with guaranteed probability, as long as the difference between this mean and the second largest exceeds a threshold. Conservatism leads classical IZ procedures to take too many samples in problems with many alternatives. The Bayes-inspired Indifference Zone (BIZ) procedure, proposed in Frazier (2014), is less conservative than previous procedures, but its proof of validity requires strong assumptions, specifically that samples are normal, and variances are known with an integer multiple structure. In this paper, we show asymptotic validity of a slight modification of the original BIZ procedure as the difference between the best alternative and the second best goes to zero,when the variances are known and finite, and samples are independent and identically distributed, but not necessarily normal

On the Invalidity of Fourier Series Expansions of Fractional Order

The purpose of this short paper is to show the invalidity of a Fourier series expansion of fractional order as derived by G. Jumarie in a series of papers. In his work the exponential functions $e^{in\omega x}$ are replaced by the Mittag-Leffler functions $E_\alpha \left (i (n\omega x)^\alpha\right) ,$ over the interval $[0, M_\alpha/ \omega]$ where $0< \omega<\infty$ and $M_\alpha$ is the period of the function $E_\alpha \left( ix^\alpha\right),$ i.e., $E_\alpha \left( ix^\alpha\right)=E_\alpha \left( i(x+M_\alpha)^\alpha\right).

A Comprehensive Coordinate Space Renormalization of Quantum Electrodynamics to 2-Loop Order

We develop a coordinate space renormalization of massless Quantum Electrodynamics using the powerful method of differential renormalization. Bare one-loop amplitudes are finite at non-coincident external points, but do not accept a Fourier transform into momentum space. The method provides a systematic procedure to obtain one-loop renormalized amplitudes with finite Fourier transforms in strictly four dimensions without the appearance of integrals or the use of a regulator. Higher loops are solved similarly by renormalizing from the inner singularities outwards to the global one. We compute all 1- and 2-loop 1PI diagrams, run renormalization group equations on them and check Ward identities. The method furthermore allows us to discern a particular pattern of renormalization under which certain amplitudes are seen not to contain higher-loop leading logarithms. We finally present the computation of the chiral triangle showing that differential renormalization emerges as a natural scheme to tackle $\gamma_5$ problems.Comment: 28 pages (figures not included