1,720,955 research outputs found
Classical and quantum perturbations to the primordial universe
Get PDFIn this Ph.D. thesis we analyse both classical and quantum effects relevant for the study of cosmological perturbations. We choose this particular topic because, through the analysis of cosmological perturbations, it is possible to explore a wide range of different physical phenomena. Moreover, they are a central and important piece in the puzzle of the history of the universe.
The most obvious relevance of cosmological perturbations is the study of structure formation and the large scale structure of the universe. In this regard, such perturbations are related to primordial gravitational waves and primordial magnetic fields. Given their dependence on pre-recombination phenomena, they could give us some information on the universe before hydrogen recombination.
Classical perturbations have been widely studied in literature, with the main focus on isotropic cosmological models. While this is usually a good approximation, the presence of a primordial magnetic field causes a coupling between different algebraic modes of the usual decomposition, connecting density perturbations, primordial magnetic fields and primordial gravitational waves. Moreover, the presence of the magnetic field requires the use of an anisotropic cosmological model. While small, these relations are important in the evolution of anisotropic structures. Furthermore, such primordial seeds of the magnetic fields are widely believed to be the origin of the magnetic fields measured today in galaxies. In the first part of this thesis, we analyse these relations, together with the possible effects that a non ideal, i.e. viscous, cosmological fluid could have on the growth of perturbations. We focus our attention to a Bianchi I model, improving the results of some preceding papers.
The second part of the thesis focuses on the semiclassical approximation of quantum gravity. Quantum effects are believed to influence the birth and dynamics of perturbation seeds and, in general, the dynamics of the primordial universe. This way, the mathematical scheme used to represent these effects is a central point in the description of quantum gravity regarding such seeds.
Furthermore, even more care is required to split the WKB action between embedding variables and physical degrees of freedom, and in many models the quantum gravity corrections to the Schrödinger equation violate the unitarity of the system evolution. This decomposition shares some similarities with the Born-Oppenheimer approximation of molecular physics.
We perform a critical analysis of two different ways to apply this decomposition. In particular, we analyse limits and perspectives of the different proposals to solve the non unitarity problem, even comparing expansions in different fundamental physical constants (Planck constant and mass). We find the source of non-unitary effects in a common assumption in the definition of WKB time, and we propose an alternative formulation. Also, we show how the usual assumptions of classicality of the physical quantities must be handled with care, focusing our attention to the implementation of the classical background in the perturbation scheme.
Studies in this research field are very important because they could bind CMB measurements and primordial gravitational waves to quantum gravity, bringing us finally an experimental playground
Linear perturbations of an anisotropic Bianchi I model with a uniform magnetic field
Get PDFIn this work, we study the effect of a magnetic field on the growth of cosmological perturbations. We develop a mathematical consistent treatment in which a perfect fluid and a uniform magnetic field evolve together in a Bianchi I universe. We then study the energy density perturbations on this background with particular emphasis on the effect of the background magnetic field. We develop a full relativistic solution which refines previous analysis in the relativistic limit, recovers the known ones in the Newtonian treatment with adiabatic sound speed, and it adds anisotropic effects to the relativistic ones for perturbations with wavelength within the Hubble horizon. This represents a refined approach on the perturbation theory of an isotropic universe in GR, since most of the present studies deal with fully isotropic systems
Nonunitarity problem in quantum gravity corrections to quantum field theory with Born-Oppenheimer approximation
Get PDFThe problem of time is one of the most relevant open issues in canonical quantum gravity. Although there is a huge literature about this topic, a commonly accepted solution has not been found yet. Here, we focus on the semiclassical approach to the problem of time, that has the main goal of reproducing quantum field theory on a fixed Wentzel-Kramers-Brillouin (WKB) background accounting also for quantum gravity corrections. We analyze the different choices of the expansion parameter and discuss the problems arising in previous proposals, where a nonunitary evolution emerges as an effect of quantum gravity corrections. In this work, we develop a new approach to solve this problem by performing the WKB expansion with the introduction of the so-called kinematical action as a clock for quantum matter, that allows to recover a unitary dynamics
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Get PDFThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Variations on the Author
Get PDF“Variations on the Author” discusses two of Eduardo Coutinho’s recent films (Um Dia na Vida, from 2010, and Últimas Conversas, posthumously released in 2015) and their contribution to the general question of documentary authorship. The director’s filmography is characterized by a consistent yet self-effacing form of authorial self-inscription: Coutinho often features as an interviewer that rather than express opinions propels discourses; an interviewer that is good at listening. This mode of self-inscription characterizes him as an author who is not expressive but who is nonetheless markedly present on the screen. In Um Dia na Vida, however, Coutinho is completely absent form the image, while Últimas Conversas, on the contrary, includes a confessional prologue that moves the director from the margins to the center of his films. This article examines the ways in which these works stand out in the filmography of a director who offers new insights into the notion of cinematic authorship
Appropriate Similarity Measures for Author Cocitation Analysis
Get PDFWe provide a number of new insights into the methodological discussion about author cocitation analysis. We first argue that the use of the Pearson correlation for measuring the similarity between authors’ cocitation profiles is not very satisfactory. We then discuss what kind of similarity measures may be used as an alternative to the Pearson correlation. We consider three similarity measures in particular. One is the well-known cosine. The other two similarity measures have not been used before in the bibliometric literature. Finally, we show by means of an example that our findings have a high practical relevance.information science;Pearson correlation;cosine;similarity measure;author cocitation analysis
Dispelling the Myths Behind First-author Citation Counts
Get PDFWe conducted a full-scale evaluative citation analysis study of scholars in the XML research field to explore just how different from each other author rankings resulting from different citation counting methods actually are, and to demonstrate the capability of emerging data and tools on the Web in supporting more realistic citation counting methods. Our results contest some common arguments for the continued
use of first-author citation counts in the evaluation of scholars, such as high correlations between author rankings by first-author citation counts and other citation
counting methods, and high costs of using more realistic citation counting methods that are not well-supported by the ISI databases. It is argued that increasingly available digital full text research papers make it possible for citation analysis studies to go beyond what the ISI databases have directly supported and to employ more
sophisticated methods
koamabayili/VECTRON-author-checklist: VECTRON author checklist
No full textWe have done our best to complete the author checklist relating to the use of animals in the hut study. Note that the objective for the hut study was to evaluate the IRS treatment applications for residual efficacy against Anopheles mosquitoes, including the local An. coluzzii mosquito population. Cows were only used to attract mosquitoes into the huts and no tests were carried out directly on the cows. The author checklist is intended for use with studies where experiments are carried out on animals, which is why we have had such difficulty in completing this for the hut study, as many of the questions do not relate to how the cows were used
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