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Polarization of a vacuum as well as of dispersive and dissipative dielectric media with piece-wise and smooth inhomogeneities is studied with the goal to clarify the question of renormalizability of diverging electromagnetic stress-energy tensor. First, the stress tensor is computed with the Lifshitz approach to London forces in the non-retarded limit, which after the substraction of the leading free space ultraviolet divergencies still retains the divergencies associated with the presence of sharp boundaries between piece-wise inhomogeneities. We call these contributions finite because they become renormalized after a sharp interface is replaced with a dielectric permittivity changing according to a smooth function of spatial coordinates. In addition, such a smoothed out interface exhibits new subleading ultraviolet divergencies that appear due to its internal structure. To systematically deal with the polarization of inhomogeneous media, the Hadamard expansion is applied to single out both finite and subleading contributions and to unequivocally demonstrate incomplete renormalizability of the Lifshitz theory. The above approach also allows us to reveal the nature of surface tension, which proves to be purely quantum mechanical. The deduced theory of surface tension and its calculations for real dielectric media are favorably compared to the available experimental data. While the sharp interface limit recovers the classical boundary conditions for the electric field and uncovers the origin of the apparent local divergencies of the renormalized stresses in the sharp interface formulation previously pointed out in the literature, the problem of surface tension proves to be of a distinguished limit type because the sharp interface formulation loses the information about the internal structure of an interface and hence cannot explain the origin of surface tension. Comment: 62 pages, 7 figures

Real spherical designs and real and complex projective designs have been shown by Delsarte, Goethals, and Seidel to give rise to association schemes when the strength of the design is high compared to its degree as a code. In contrast, designs on the complex unit sphere remain relatively uninvestigated, despite their importance in numerous applications. In this paper we develop the notion of a complex spherical design and show how many such designs carry the structure of an association scheme. In contrast with the real spherical designs and the real and complex projective designs, these association schemes are nonsymmetric. Comment: 45 pages, no figures

We study the prime number race for elliptic curves over the function field of a proper, smooth and geometrically connected curve over a finite field. This constitutes a function field analogue of prior work by Mazur, Sarnak and the second author. In this geometric setting we can prove unconditional results whose counterparts in the number field case are conditional on a Riemann Hypothesis and a linear independence hypothesis on the zeros of the implied L-functions. Notably we show that in certain natural families of elliptic curves, the bias generically dissipates as the conductor grows. This is achieved by proving a central limit theorem and combining it with generic linear independence results that will appear in a separate paper. Also we study in detail a particular family of elliptic curves that have been considered by Ulmer. In contrast to the generic case we show that the race exhibits very diverse outcomes, some of which are believed to be impossible in the number field setting. Such behaviors are possible in the function field case because the zeros of Hasse-Weil L-functions for those elliptic curves can be proven to be highly dependent among themselves, which is a very non generic situation.

We propose the existence of an infinite-parameter family of solutions in AdS that oscillate on any number of non-commensurate frequencies. Some of these solutions appear stable when perturbed, and we suggest that they can be used to map out the AdS "islands of stability". By numerically constructing two-frequency solutions and exploring their parameter space, we find that both collapse and non-collapse are generic scenarios near AdS. Unlike other approaches, our results are valid on any timescale and do not rely on perturbation theory.

We express the entropy of a scalar field phi directly in terms of its spacetime correlation function W(x,y) = , assuming that the higher correlators are of "Gaussian" form. The resulting formula associates an entropy S(R) to any spacetime region R; and when R is globally hyperbolic with Cauchy surface Sigma, S(R) can be interpreted as the entropy of the reduced density-matrix belonging to Sigma. One acquires in particular a new expression for the entropy of entanglement across an event-horizon. Thanks to its spacetime character, this expression makes sense in a causal set as well as in a continuum spacetime. Comment: plainTeX, 14 pages, 2 figures. To appear in proceedings of ICGC2011, held Goa, Journal of Physics Conference Series. Most current version is available at http://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/personal/rsorkin/some.papers/ (or wherever my home-page may be, such as http://www.physics.syr.edu/~sorkin/some.papers/)

Context. SuperclusterA in the extragalactic HII region NGC2363 is remarkable for the hypersonic gas seen as faint extended broad emission lines with a full width zero intensity of 7000km/s. Aims. We explore the possibility that the observed broad profiles are the result of the interaction of a high velocity cluster wind with dense photoionized clumps. Methods. The geometry considered is that of near static photoionized condensations at the surface of which turbulent mixing layers arise as a result of the interaction with the hot wind. The approximative treatment of turbulence is carried out using the mixing length approach of Canto & Raga. The code mappings Ic is used to derive the mean quantities describing the flow and to compute the line emissivities within the turbulent layers. The velocity projection in three dimensions of the line sources is carried out analytically. Results. A fast entraining wind of up to ~4300km/s appears to be required to reproduce the faint wings of the broad H-alpha and [O III] profiles. A slower wind of 3500km/s, however, can still reproduce the bulk of the broad component and does provide a better fit than an ad hoc Gaussian profile. Conclusions. Radial acceleration in 3D (away from supercluster A) of the emission gas provides a reasonable first order fit to the broad line component. No broad component is predicted for the [N II] and [S II] lines, as observed. The wind velocity required is uncomfortably high and alternative processes that would provide comparable constant acceleration of the emission gas up to 4000km/s might have to be considered. Comment: 12 pages, 9 figures, accepted in A&A on 6th of March 2009, figure captions have been shortened, typos corrected

This thesis focuses on various aspects of non-Gaussian distributions and processes sharing scaling properties where the exponent 2/3 appears. The two probabilistic objects that we will introduce are: 1) Tracy-Widom distribution: This is the large dimensional limit of the top eigenvalue of random matrices in beta-ensembles. In a joint work with Balint Virag, we studied the asymptotic behavior of its right tail for all positive beta, using tools coming from diffusion analysis, such as the Girsanov formula. 2) The “true self repelling motion” (TSRM): This is a self-interacting process which was introduced by Balint Toth and Wendelin Werner. We have been interested in properties related to trajectories of this motion (large deviations, law of the iterated logarithm) and explicit distribution computations (joint work with Balint Toth). During this study, we have also dealt with questions related to game theory.; Cette thèse porte sur divers aspects de lois et de processus non-gaussiens qui partagent des propriétés de changement d'échelle où intervient l'exposant 2/3. Les deux principaux objets probabilistes que nous allons présenter sont : 1) La loi de Tracy-Widom : C'est la loi limite de la plus grande valeur propre de matrices aléatoires appartenant aux beta-ensembles lorsque leur dimension tend vers l'infini. Dans un travail en commun avec Balint Virag, nous avons établi le comportement asymptotique de la queue droite de cette loi pour tout beta strictement positif, en utilisant des outils d'analyse de diffusions du type Girsanov. 2) Le ''vrai'' processus auto-répulsif (''true self repelling motion'') TSRM : C'est un processus auto-interagissant qui a été introduit par Balint Toth et Wendelin Werner. Nous nous sommes intéressés à des propriétés de cet objet liées à ses trajectoires (grandes déviations, lois du logarithme itéré) et à des calculs explicites de lois marginales (travail en collaboration avec Balint Toth). Cette étude nous a aussi amenés à aborder des questions liées à la théorie des jeux.

We describe first integrals of geostrophic equations, which are similar to the enstrophy invariants of the Euler equation for an ideal incompressible fluid. We explain the geometry behind this similarity, give several equivalent definitions of the Poisson structure on the space of smooth densities on a symplectic manifold, and show how it can be obtained via the Hamiltonian reduction from a symplectic structure on the diffeomorphism group. Comment: 6 pages, to appear in Physica D

Let $G$ be a reductive algebraic group defined over $\bQ$, with anisotropic centre. Given a rational action of $G$ on a finite-dimensional vector space $V$, we analyze the truncated integral of the theta series corresponding to a Schwartz-Bruhat function on $V(\bA)$. The Poisson summation formula then yields an identity of distributions on $V(\bA)$. The truncation used is due to Arthur. Comment: 38 pages. More explanation given in difficult steps. Use made of a result of Brion-Vergne

We prove that every lattice with more than one element has a proper congruence-preserving extension.