Black-hole entropy from supergravity superstrata states

This work of JdB was supported in part by the Foundation of Fundamental Research on Matter (FOM) and by an NWO Spinoza grant. The work of MS was supported in part by Grant-in-Aid for Young Scientists (B) 24740159 from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS)

Cardy and Kerr

The Kerr/CFT correspondence employs the Cardy formula to compute the entropy of the left moving CFT states. This computation, which correctly reproduces the Bekenstein--Hawking entropy of the four-dimensional extremal Kerr black hole, is performed in a regime where the temperature is of order unity rather than in a high-temperature regime. We show that the comparison of the entropy of the extreme Kerr black hole and the entropy in the CFT can be understood within the Cardy regime by considering a D0-D6 system with the same entropic properties.Comment: 20 pages; LaTeX; JHEP format; v.2 references added, v.3 Section 4 adde

Differences in trait impulsivity indicate diversification of dog breeds into working and show lines

Impulsiveness describes the inability to inhibit behaviour in the presence of salient cues. Trait-level impulsivity exists on a continuum and individual differences can be adaptive in different contexts. While breed related differences in behavioural tendency in the domestic dog (Canis familiaris) are well established, the phenomenon within lines of a breed which have been selected more recently is not well studied, although it may challenge the popular notion of breed-typical behaviour. We describe differences in impulsivity between and within two dog breeds with working and show lines selected for different levels of impulsivity: Border Collies (herding work) and Labrador Retrievers (gun work). Recent show line selection might have lessened differences in impulsivity between breeds. We tested this hypothesis on a dataset of 1161 individuals assessed using a validated psychometric tool (Dog Impulsivity Assessment Scale - DIAS). Collies were more impulsive on average, consistent with the original purpose of breed selection. Regarding line, working Collies differed from working Labradors, but show lines from the two breeds were not significantly different. Altered or relaxed artificial selection for behavioural traits when appearance rather than behaviour become the primary focus for breeders may reduce average differences in impulsivity between breeds in show lines

A General Black String and its Microscopics

Using G2(2) dualities we construct the most general black string solution of minimal five-dimensional ungauged supergravity. The black string has five independent parameters, namely, the magnetic one-brane charge, smeared electric zero-brane charge, boost along the string direction, energy above the BPS bound, and rotation in the transverse space. In one extremal limit it reduces to the three parameter supersymmetric string of five-dimensional minimal supergravity; in another extremal limit it reduces to the three parameter non-supersymmetric extremal string of five-dimensional minimal supergravity. It also admits an extremal limit when it has maximal rotation in the four-dimensional transverse space. The decoupling limit of our general black string is a BTZ black hole times a two sphere. The macroscopic entropy of the string is reproduced by the Maldacena-Strominger-Witten CFT in appropriate ranges of the parameters. When the pressureless condition is imposed, our string describes the infinite radius limit of the most general class of black rings of minimal supergravity. We discuss implications our solution has for extremal and non-extremal black rings of minimal supergravity.Comment: 35 pages; 3 figures; v2 section 4.1.1 rewritten + minor changes + ref adde

State-space Manifold and Rotating Black Holes

We study a class of fluctuating higher dimensional black hole configurations obtained in string theory/ $M$-theory compactifications. We explore the intrinsic Riemannian geometric nature of Gaussian fluctuations arising from the Hessian of the coarse graining entropy, defined over an ensemble of brane microstates. It has been shown that the state-space geometry spanned by the set of invariant parameters is non-degenerate, regular and has a negative scalar curvature for the rotating Myers-Perry black holes, Kaluza-Klein black holes, supersymmetric $AdS_5$ black holes, $D_1$-$D_5$ configurations and the associated BMPV black holes. Interestingly, these solutions demonstrate that the principal components of the state-space metric tensor admit a positive definite form, while the off diagonal components do not. Furthermore, the ratio of diagonal components weakens relatively faster than the off diagonal components, and thus they swiftly come into an equilibrium statistical configuration. Novel aspects of the scaling property suggest that the brane-brane statistical pair correlation functions divulge an asymmetric nature, in comparison with the others. This approach indicates that all above configurations are effectively attractive and stable, on an arbitrary hyper-surface of the state-space manifolds. It is nevertheless noticed that there exists an intriguing relationship between non-ideal inter-brane statistical interactions and phase transitions. The ramifications thus described are consistent with the existing picture of the microscopic CFTs. We conclude with an extended discussion of the implications of this work for the physics of black holes in string theory.Comment: 44 pages, Keywords: Rotating Black Holes; State-space Geometry; Statistical Configurations, String Theory, M-Theory. PACS numbers: 04.70.-s Physics of black holes; 04.70.Bw Classical black holes; 04.70.Dy Quantum aspects of black holes, evaporation, thermodynamics; 04.50.Gh Higher-dimensional black holes, black strings, and related objects. Edited the bibliograph

Stationary Black Holes: Uniqueness and Beyond

The spectrum of known black-hole solutions to the stationary Einstein equations has been steadily increasing, sometimes in unexpected ways. In particular, it has turned out that not all black-hole-equilibrium configurations are characterized by their mass, angular momentum and global charges. Moreover, the high degree of symmetry displayed by vacuum and electro-vacuum black-hole spacetimes ceases to exist in self-gravitating non-linear field theories. This text aims to review some developments in the subject and to discuss them in light of the uniqueness theorem for the Einstein-Maxwell system.Comment: Major update of the original version by Markus Heusler from 1998. Piotr T. Chru\'sciel and Jo\~ao Lopes Costa succeeded to this review's authorship. Significantly restructured and updated all sections; changes are too numerous to be usefully described here. The number of references increased from 186 to 32

Probing strongly coupled anisotropic plasma

We calculate the static potential, the drag force and the jet quenching parameter in strongly coupled anisotropic N=4 super Yang-Mills plasma. We find that the jet quenching is in general enhanced in presence of anisotropy compared to the isotropic case and that its value depends strongly on the direction of the moving quark and the direction along which the momentum broadening occurs. The jet quenching is strongly enhanced for a quark moving along the anisotropic direction and momentum broadening happens along the transverse one. The parameter gets lower for a quark moving along the transverse direction and the momentum broadening considered along the anisotropic one. Finally, a weaker enhancement is observed when the quark moves in the transverse plane and the broadening occurs on the same plane. The drag force for quark motion parallel to the anisotropy is always enhanced. For motion in the transverse space the drag force is enhanced compared to the isotropic case only for quarks having velocity above a critical value. Below this critical value the force is decreased. Moreover, the drag force along the anisotropic direction is always stronger than the force in the transverse space. The diffusion time follows exactly the inverse relations of the drag forces. The static potential is decreased and stronger decrease observed for quark-antiquark pair aligned along the anisotropic direction than the transverse one. We finally comment on our results and elaborate on their similarities and differences with the weakly coupled plasmas.Comment: 1+44 pages, 18 Figures; Added results on static force; Added references; version published in JHE

African ancestry of New World, Bemisia tabaci-whitefly species

Bemisia tabaci whitefly species are some of the world’s most devastating agricultural pests and plant-virus disease vectors. Elucidation of the phylogenetic relationships in the group is the basis for understanding their evolution, biogeography, gene-functions and development of novel control technologies. We report here the discovery of five new Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) B. tabaci putative species, using the partial mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase 1 gene: SSA9, SSA10, SSA11, SSA12 and SSA13. Two of them, SSA10 and SSA11 clustered with the New World species and shared 84.8‒86.5% sequence identities. SSA10 and SSA11 provide new evidence for a close evolutionary link between the Old and New World species. Re-analysis of the evolutionary history of B. tabaci species group indicates that the new African species (SSA10 and SSA11) diverged from the New World clade c. 25 million years ago. The new putative species enable us to: (i) re-evaluate current models of B. tabaci evolution, (ii) recognise increased diversity within this cryptic species group and (iii) re-estimate divergence dates in evolutionary time

Familiarity bias and physiological responses in contagious yawning by dogs support link to empathy

In humans, the susceptibility to yawn contagion has been theoretically and empirically related to our capacity for empathy. Because of its relevance to evolutionary biology, this phenomenon has been the focus of recent investigations in nonhuman species. In line with the empathic hypothesis, contagious yawning has been shown to correlate with the level of social attachment in several primate species. Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) have also shown the ability to yawn contagiously. To date, however, the social modulation of dog contagious yawning has received contradictory support and alternative explanations (i.e., yawn as a mild distress response) could explain positive evidence. The present study aims to replicate contagious yawning in dogs and to discriminate between the two possible mediating mechanisms (i.e., empathic vs. distress related response). Twenty-five dogs observed familiar (dog’s owner) and unfamiliar human models (experimenter) acting out a yawn or control mouth movements. Concurrent physiological measures (heart rate) were additionally monitored for twenty-one of the subjects. The occurrence of yawn contagion was significantly higher during the yawning condition than during the control mouth movements. Furthermore, the dogs yawned more frequently when watching the familiar model than the unfamiliar one demonstrating that the contagiousness of yawning in dogs correlated with the level of emotional proximity. Moreover, subjects’ heart rate did not differ among conditions suggesting that the phenomenon of contagious yawning in dogs is unrelated to stressful events. Our findings are consistent with the view that contagious yawning is modulated by affective components of the behavior and may indicate that rudimentary forms of empathy could be present in domesticated dogs

Multi-tissue transcriptomics delineates the diversity of airway T cell functions in asthma

Asthma arises from the complex interplay of inflammatory pathways in diverse cell types and tissues. We sought to undertake a comprehensive transcriptomic assessment of the epithelium and airway T cells that remain understudied in asthma, and investigate interactions between multiple cells and tissues. Epithelial brushings and flow-sorted CD3+ T cells from sputum and bronchoalveolar lavage were obtained from healthy subjects (N=19) and asthmatic patients (mild, moderate and severe asthma; N=46). Gene expression was assessed using Affymetrix HT HG-U133+ PM GeneChips and results were validated by real-time quantitative PCR. In the epithelium, IL-13 response genes (POSTN, SERPINB2, CLCA1), mast cell mediators (CPA3, TPSAB1), inducible nitric oxide synthase and cystatins (CST1, CST2, CST4) were upregulated in mild asthma but, except for cystatins, were suppressed by corticosteroids in moderate asthma. In severe asthma – with predominantly neutrophilic phenotype – several distinct processes were upregulated including neutrophilia (TCN1, MMP9), mucins and oxidative stress responses. The majority of the disease signature was evident in sputum T cells in severe asthma, where 267 genes were differentially regulated compared to health, highlighting compartmentalisation of inflammation. This signature included IL- 17-inducible chemokines (CXCL1, CXCL2, CXCL3, IL8, CSF3) and chemoattractants for neutrophils (IL8, CCL3, LGALS3), T cells and monocytes. A protein interaction network in severe asthma highlighted signatures of responses to bacterial infections across tissues (CEACAM5, CD14, TLR2) including toll-like receptor signalling. In conclusion, the activation of innate immune pathways in the airways suggests that activated T cells may be driving neutrophilic inflammation and steroid-insensitive IL-17 response in severe asthma