Now if the forces just unify at lower dimensions, the strong force maybe takes on the role that

the
photon and graviton have. In our dimensions the strong force is restricted to decay within the
atom. With less dimensions, maybe that restriction is lifted and the strong force does in 2+1 what
gravity/EM do in 3+1 and the the cosmological models remain correct? There are some
indications of this already, with the strong force acting like gravity on a lower level.... so we might
be looking at a gravity-strong, electroweak unification at that level, and a complete unification of
all forces as all the dimensions unify at 1+1. Also, this would work with quantum loop cosmology
quite well, as it predicts gravity becomes a repulsive force at distances of less than 10 planck
lengths..... perhaps 2+1 dimensionality is the reason why and that is where dark energy takes
over. Note that in the subject header I said "No time"-- this is because, from an outside view, all
time exists simultaneously, so even though our universe evolved from 1+1 to 2+1 to 3+1, since all
those states exist simultaneously (because all pasts, presents and futures coexist), all three
solutions are applicable. The recent proven violation of the Heisenberg Principle on the quantum
level is proof of this (see article and earlier Origin chapters.) The point that the interior of the
universe increases in dimensions, while the outside decreases in dimensionality also indicates
this, as well as an intrinsic fractality that exists on every level.

Hopf fibration shows alternate timelines emerging from the big bounce (as single dimensional
mobius strips, upon which the basis of quantum 2D and relativity 3D is based, which explains
quantum nonlocality, chemical bonds, subatomic particles, the behavior of photons, etc.),
diverging as the universe expands and converging as it collapses..... when gravity vanishes at
2+1... universe rebounds! (See graphic on my website). Fermions and Bosons are probably also
unified at 2+1, so their separation at 3+1 is probably symbolic of a phase transition in the early
universe. The presence of anyons in 2+1 might be indicative of the fact that superconductivity
abounded at this early stage of the universe (especially if partial unification was present) and this
offers up yet another connection between string theory and cosmology. The connection between
the early universe and graphene (see chessboard space) is also indicative of this and of quantum
loop cosmology, and the fact that this geometry may still exist in quantum foam (with the holes
between the mesh indicating wormholes) shows that superconductive fractality remains and the
2D background of the universe is still there (this is also indicated by the CMBR and the duality of
light as it passes between dimensions as shown by the double slit experiments.) This is also the
reason for quantum nonlocality, as quantum only exists in 2D but intersects several different
layers, so two seemingly unconnected points actually are connected on another layer via
wormholes. The fractional electron effects being mentioned may well indicate magnetic
monopoles and freeform quarks at that level-- that is BEC (a necessary component if the strong
force is to unify with and take over for gravity at 2+1.) It would also mean there is no black hole
singularity problem (and by extension, no big bang singularity problem!) It's a big bounce!

And throughout the Origin series I have mentioned that the universe is a 1+1 mobius strip that
expands to a 2+1 surface sphere (appears planar because of the small curvature of the sphere)
and 3+1 torus ..... but these conditions still exist since all time exists simultaneously. It is possible
the gravitational wave anomaly they mentioned is what led to inflation. The 4+1 hypersphere
they mention could actually be the bulk of the omniverse, and as our universe expands into it, it
too will expand into additional extra dimensions, always staying one step ahead of us.

The energy hiding between two folds of our 3+1 space time sounds like another representation
of the luxon wall and the folds could be parallel timelines.

Hopf fibration models not only show all space, they show all time also. The areas between the
timeline strips are boundaries where the luxon wall exists, just like the one which separates the
universe from its antiverse. The existence of this wall explains the double slit experiment and the
duality of light, as it exists on the boundary not only between our universe and the antiverse, but
also between all the timelines, and is able to go back and forth between each of them (because
light does not experience our time..... it exists in the second temporal dimension, imaginary time,
which separates the timelines.) Back and forth behavior can be accomplished through micro
wormholes in the quantum foam.

The connection between dimensionality evolution, toric knots and hyperspheres, offers up yet
more connections between string theory, quantum mechanics and early Universe geometry, and
the anyon connection also indicates how the universe acted like a quantum supercomputer and
continues to do so.

Almost seem to be describing an Entropic effect- as energy decreases, degrees of

freedom/randomness increase. Perhaps only a symptom of the process, but still related. Opens
up plenty of room for speculation, though. If gravity/dark energy truly is an entropic effect, this
provides the vehicle for delivery.

I imagine that the transition from a 2+1 to 3+1 could explain our inflationary period as well as
flatness.

Because 3+1 is stable, there is no hierarchy problem..

Extra- or intra-dimensions is everything what deflects the path of light and/or violates the inverse
square law. Even CMBR noise and photons in general are manifestation of 3-dimensionality
violation - not to say about massive objects composed of low-dimensional particles. This is just a
requirement of consistency in thinking.

The mathematics behind the potential for creating a universe in a particle accelerator are
incredibly interesting. As the created Universe increased in interior dimension, the mathematics
show that it would appear to be decreasing in physical dimension from a perspective outside of
that universe.

SH, this would actually take on the structure of a multilayered fractal as viewed from the outside,
one that eventually "winked" out of existence (as seen from the "outside") as it appeared to grow
smaller.

Sounds like they fit the timing of their dimensional expansion to inflation and the next step from
3+1 to 4+1 to DE behavior?

BTW Skeptic Heretic, you and I are thinking along the same lines with regards to 2+1 --> 3+1
transition causing inflation; as you'll notice in the article they mention a period when gravity waves
cannot be produced.

if you had an object that could withstand the 10 TeV and you surrounded it at that temperature,
would the object cease to be 3 dimensional? could you travel beyond light speed because you
would no longer effect the laws of physics known to be 3 dimensional.

That's an interesting thought. Length contraction based on the laws of special relativity do cause
one dimension of an object to diminish when accelerated to close to the speed of light. If it weren't
for the mathematical singularity in these equations, you could think that at some point that one
dimension would vanish, reducing the object to just two dimensions. It would require a
modification of Einsteins formulas though, something that would only add a meaningful
component at energies approaching the TV range ...

If gravity disappears under 2 dimensions, could the electro-weak force disappear under 1?
I think the electro-weak force will disappear in the zero dimension, unless this is a trick question?
It is thought provoking.
I wonder if it actually "disappears" or just becomes unified with the other forces. Perhaps the
additional dimensions are "unified" and when they separated to create our 3+1 reality, so did the
forces.

Im thinking that in the particle collision tests being conducted at Fermi and LHC these kinds of
discrepancies will show up-- the same kind that could lead to the confirmation of the sterile
neutrino. It's intriguing that these may already have been discovered emanating from neutron
stars, and is in line with the material already published concerning superfluidity/superconductivity
at their cores being linked with possible wormhole formation there.

0D in higher universe.... we only exist on the inside surface of a point particle expanding in 3D all
equal distances from the BB we are expanding from as timelines diverge and will contract
towards as timelines converge (and dimensions and forces reunify until gravity "vanishes" in 2+1
and the universe bounces back and starts all over again).... Gravity/DE are the entropic force that
created that 3D.... outside of that we are inside a point particle that exists in dimensions other
than ours (nested inside a higher universe inside a higher universe and so on, which fractally
loops back to ours-- thanks to gravity, both in space and time.) Gravity is the only force that
exists through all dimensions, and any kind of long distance space or time travel will require
traveling through a gravitic hole (wormhole). The quantum exists in 2D, which is why gravity is
much weaker there (gravity/DE created the third dimension via entropy.) Black hole and
wormhole formation on the quantum level is a result of the strong force, not gravity (they become
unified at that level.) Gravity is actually a macro version of the strong force (as EM is a macro
version of the weak force)-- it decreases at the square of the distance now, but when the universe
becomes much larger, gravity will grow stronger and snap it back-- much like how the strong
force snaps quarks back into confinement inside subatomic particles. This may occur when the
boundaries of the universe reach the inner Cauchy horizon of the Kerr black hole our universe
resides within. This will be the start of the process of contraction of the universe, also spurred on
by dark matter and timeline convergence. Perhaps this is what the strong force actually does in
microuniverses nested inside our own (which would be their gravity.) The quantum forms the
"surface" of the 3D sphere and all points are equidistant from the BB. This also explains electron
spin; even though it is a point particle in our universe, it is actually a multidimensional universe in
its own spacetime. BEC gives us a window into the world of single dimensional quantum states
and nonlocality on the macro level, where room temp superconductivity, partial unification (and
perhaps wormhole formation) can reside. BEC represents an early phase transition of the
universe that still exists, much like the CMBR. BEC originates inside the parent black hole that
spawned our universe and is the seed from which the new universe is born (superfluid
superconductive quark gluon plasma that originates from infalling strings.) So, while wormholes
inside neutron stars produce and emit gamma radiation and sterile neutrinos, the even more
extreme gravitation of black holes causes the creation of a new baby universe/quadverse. Light
itself exists in the luxon wall, which explains why it violates 3D and acts more like a 1D
component (duality via double slit experiment.) An intriguing facet of all this is that atoms of
quantum gas in a crystal lattice actually behave like electrons, indicating that our universe itself
may exist in a lattice-like omniverse and is also used to explain superconductivity and
superfluidity at high temperatures as well as quantum nonlocality on a macro level as the
wormholes connect all the universes together just like intrauniverse wormholes have done from
the beginning (because BEC mimics the early universe fractally.) Quantum nonlocality could
represent the gravity-strong unification, while electro-weak unification is represented by
superconductivity and superfluidity. In both cases, greater freedom of movement is achieved by
bringing quantum properties into the macro world (fractally, like black holes do naturally.) Big
flows may exist between component universes, as they do within each universe fractally, as
energy is conserved through the whole system and results in expansion and contraction of the
components (depending on the dark matter to dark energy ratio.) Because these only rely on
gravity, they are freely able to travel throughout the quadverse and indeed the omniverse via
wormholes. The fact that stringy black holes (fuzzballs) solve the information paradox indicates
there are many different types of black holes, each with their own interior structure, and this
indicates inner universes with different properties (physical laws) dependent on the physical
properties of the black hole-- both interior (string structure and density) and exterior (angular
momentum and charge-- which is indicative of EM field intensity and imparts spin to the point
particle universe, which has been shown to play a vital role in the evolution of the early universe--
see article on BEC.) The relative strengths of the forces may also control the rate of time flow
(entropy) and the period between successive big bounces-- or whether or not a baby universe will
bang/bounce at all and how many times before it disengages from the parent black hole and then
eternally expands as entropy reaches the maximum and the universe slowly dissipates as it
severs all its wormhole ties to the omniverse (only to be replaced by baby universes elsewhere--
a cosmic fractal representation of life.). One day we may be able to classify them as we do stars.

This may be connected with the recent claimed discovery of sterile neutrinos, which are
hypothesized to be able to travel through time and higher spatial dimensions also. I firmly believe
that anything we create inside a particle collider has to exist in space..... somewhere :)

They're also bringing sterile neutrinos into this as part of the time traveling brigade, since they are
also only affected by gravity. Hasn't there been some proof recently discovered for their
existence in emissions from pulsars? This would mean the other end of a neutron star wormhole
was a black hole (with infalling matter possibly converted to cosmic rays and sterile neutrinos and
then ejected from the neutron stars.) This is what I've found so far

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterile_neutrino

A sterile neutrino is a hypothetical neutrino that does not interact via any of the fundamental
interactions of the Standard Model except gravity[note 1]. However it mixes with the other types
of neutrinos. It is a right-handed neutrino or a left-handed anti-neutrino.Contents [hide]
1 Properties
2 Detection
3 See also
4 Notes
5 References
6 External links

Properties

Such a particle belongs to a singlet representation with respect to the strong interaction and the
weak interaction and has zero weak hypercharge, zero weak isospin and zero electric charge.
The left-handed anti-neutrino has a B-L of 1 and an X charge of 5. Sterile neutrinos would still
interact via gravity, so if they are heavy enough, they could explain cold dark matter or warm dark
matter. In some grand unification theories, such as SO(10), they also interact via gauge
interactions which are extremely suppressed at ordinary energies because their gauge boson is
extremely massive. They do not appear at all in some other GUTs, such as the Georgi-Glashow
model (i.e. all its SU(5) charges or quantum numbers are zero).
Detection

Sterile neutrinos may mix with ordinary neutrinos via a Dirac mass[citation needed][clarification
needed]. The sterile neutrinos and ordinary neutrinos may also have Majorana masses. In certain
models[which?], both Dirac and Majorana masses are used in a seesaw mechanism, which
drives ordinary neutrino masses down and makes the sterile neutrinos much heavier than the
Standard Model interacting neutrinos. In some models[which?] the heavy neutrinos can be as
heavy as the GUT scale (~1015 GeV). In other models[which?] they could be lighter than the
weak gauge bosons W and Z as in the so-called νMSM model where their masses are
between GeV and keV. A light (with the mass ~1 eV) sterile neutrino was suggested
as a possible explanation of the results of the LSND experiment. On April 11, 2007,
researchers at the MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab announced that they had not
found any evidence supporting the existence of such a sterile neutrino.[1] More
recent results and analysis have provided some support for the existence of the
sterile neutrino.[2][3]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LSND

The Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector (LSND) was a scintillation counter at Los
Alamos National Laboratory that measured the number of neutrinos being produced
by an accelerator neutrino source. The LSND project was created to look for evidence
of neutrino oscillation, and its results conflict with the standard model expectation of
only three neutrino flavors, when considered in the context of other solar and
atmospheric neutrino oscillation experiments. Cosmological data bound the mass of
the sterile neutrino to ms < 0.26eV (0.44eV) at 95% (99.9%) confidence limit,
excluding at high significance the sterile neutrino hypothesis as an explanation of the
LSND anomaly.[1] The controversial LSND result was tested by the MiniBooNE
experiment at Fermilab, which refuted a simple 2-neutrino oscillation interpretation
of the LSND result.

The detector consisted of a tank filled with 167 tons (50,000 gallons) of mineral oil
and 14 pounds of b-PDB (2-(4-tert-butylphenyl)-5-(4-biphenyl)-1,3,4-oxadiazole)
organic scintillator material. Cherenkov light emitted by particle interactions was
detected by an array of 1220 photomultiplier tubes. The experiment collected data
from 1993 to 1998.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MiniBooNE

MiniBooNE is an experiment at Fermilab designed to observe neutrino oscillations

(BooNE is an acronym for the Booster Neutrino Experiment). A neutrino beam
consisting primarily of muon neutrinos is directed at a detector filled with 800 tons of
mineral oil and lined with 1,280 photomultiplier tubes. An excess of electron neutrino
events in the detector would support the neutrino oscillation interpretation of the
LSND result.
[edit]
History and motivation

Experimental observation of solar neutrinos and atmospheric neutrinos provided

evidence for neutrino oscillations, implying that neutrinos have masses. Data from
the LSND experiment at Los Alamos National Laboratory are controversial since they
are not compatible with the oscillation parameters measured by other neutrino
experiments in the framework of the Standard Model. Either there must be an
extension to the Standard Model, or one of the experimental results must have a
different explanation. Moreover, the KARMEN experiment in England examined a
region similar to the LSND experiment, but saw no indications of neutrino oscillations.
This experiment was less sensitive than LSND, and both could be right.

Cosmological data can provide an indirect but rather model-dependent bound to the
mass of sterile neutrinos, such as the ms < 0.26 eV (0.44 eV) at 95% (99.9%)
confidence limit given by Dodelson et al.[1] However, cosmological data can be
accommodated within models with different assumptions, such as that by Gelmini et
al.[2]

MiniBooNE was designed to unambiguously verify or refute the LSND controversial

result in a controlled environment. The first results came in late March 2007, and
showed no evidence for muon neutrino to electron neutrino oscillations in the LSND
region, refuting a simple 2-neutrino oscillation interpretation of the LSND results.[3]
More advanced analyses of their data are currently being undertaken by the
MiniBooNE collaboration; early indications are pointing towards the existence of the
sterile neutrino,[4] an effect interpreted by some physicists to be hinting of the
existence of the bulk[5] or Lorentz violation.[6] Some members of MiniBooNE have
formed a new collaboration with outside scientists and proposed a new experiment
(called MicroBooNE) designed to further investigate this.[7]

http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v105/i18/e181801

A. A. Aguilar-Arevalo et al. (MiniBooNE Collaboration)

Show All Authors/Affiliations

Received 8 July 2010; published 26 October 2010

The MiniBooNE experiment at Fermilab reports results from a search for ν̅ μ→ν̅ e
oscillations, using a data sample corresponding to 5.66×1020 protons on target. An
excess of 20.9±14.0 events is observed in the energy range 475<EνQE<1250  MeV, which,
when constrained by the observed ν̅ μ events, has a probability for consistency with
the background-only hypothesis of 0.5%. On the other hand, fitting for ν̅ μ→ν̅ e
oscillations, the best-fit point has a χ2 probability of 8.7%. The data are consistent
with ν̅ μ→ν̅ e oscillations in the 0.1 to 1.0  eV2 Δm2 range and with the evidence for
antineutrino oscillations from the Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector at Los Alamos
National Laboratory.

Large Hadron Collider could be world's first time machine

March 15th, 2011 in Physics / General Physics
These are theoretical physicists Thomas Weiler, right, and Chui Man Ho. Credit: John
Russell / Vanderbilt University
(PhysOrg.com) -- If the latest theory of Tom Weiler and Chui Man Ho is right, the
Large Hadron Collider – the world's largest atom smasher that started regular
operation last year – could be the first machine capable causing matter to travel
backwards in time.
"Our theory is a long shot," admitted Weiler, who is a physics professor at Vanderbilt
University, "but it doesn't violate any laws of physics or experimental constraints."
One of the major goals of the collider is to find the elusive Higgs boson: the particle
that physicists invoke to explain why particles like protons, neutrons and electrons
have mass. If the collider succeeds in producing the Higgs boson, some scientists
predict that it will create a second particle, called the Higgs singlet, at the same time.
According to Weiler and Ho's theory, these singlets should have the ability to jump
into an extra, fifth dimension where they can move either forward or backward in
time and reappear in the future or past.
"One of the attractive things about this approach to time travel is that it avoids all
the big paradoxes," Weiler said. "Because time travel is limited to these special
particles, it is not possible for a man to travel back in time and murder one of his
parents before he himself is born, for example. However, if scientists could control
the production of Higgs singlets, they might be able to send messages to the past or
future."
Unsticking the "brane"
The test of the researchers' theory will be whether the physicists monitoring the
collider begin seeing Higgs singlet particles and their decay products spontaneously
appearing. If they do, Weiler and Ho believe that they will have been produced by
particles that travel back in time to appear before the collisions that produced them.
Weiler and Ho's theory is based on M-theory, a "theory of everything." A small cadre
of theoretical physicists have developed M-theory to the point that it can
accommodate the properties of all the known subatomic particles and forces,
including gravity, but it requires 10 or 11 dimensions instead of our familiar four. This
has led to the suggestion that our universe may be like a four-dimensional
membrane or "brane" floating in a multi-dimensional space-time called the "bulk."
According to this view, the basic building blocks of our universe are permanently
stuck to the brane and so cannot travel in other dimensions. There are some
exceptions, however. Some argue that gravity, for example, is weaker than other
fundamental forces because it diffuses into other dimensions. Another possible
exception is the proposed Higgs singlet, which responds to gravity but not to any of
the other basic forces.
Answers in neutrinos?
Weiler began looking at time travel six years ago to explain anomalies that had been
observed in several experiments with neutrinos. Neutrinos are nicknamed ghost
particles because they react so rarely with ordinary matter: Trillions of neutrinos hit
our bodies every second, yet we don't notice them because they zip through without
affecting us.
Weiler and colleagues Heinrich Päs and Sandip Pakvasa at the University of Hawaii came up
with an explanation of the anomalies based on the existence of a hypothetical particle called the
sterile neutrino. In theory, sterile neutrinos are even less detectable than regular neutrinos
because they interact only with gravitational force. As a result, sterile neutrinos are another
particle that is not attached to the brane and so should be capable of traveling through extra
dimensions.
Weiler, Päs and Pakvasa proposed that sterile neutrinos travel faster than light by taking
shortcuts through extra dimensions. According to Einstein's general theory of relativity, there are
certain conditions where traveling faster than the speed of light is equivalent to traveling
backward in time. This led the physicists into the speculative realm of time travel.
Ideas impact science fiction
In 2007, the researchers, along with Vanderbilt graduate fellow James Dent, posted a paper titled
"Neutrino time travel" on the preprint server that generated a considerable amount of buzz.
Their ideas found their way into two science fiction novels. Final Theory by Mark Alpert, which
was described in the New York Times as a "physics-based version of The Da Vinci Code," is
based on the researchers' idea of neutrinos taking shortcuts in extra dimensions. Joe Haldeman's
novel The Accidental Time Machine is about a time-traveling MIT graduate student and includes
an author's note that describes the novel's relationship to the type of time travel described by
Dent, Päs, Pakvasa and Weiler.
Ho is a graduate fellow working with Weiler. Their theory is described in a paper posted March 7
on the arXiv.org physics preprint website.
More information: Causality-Violating Higgs Singlets at the LHC, Chiu Man Ho, Thomas J. Weiler,
arXiv:1103.1373v1 [hep-ph]. http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.1373
Provided by Vanderbilt University
"Large Hadron Collider could be world's first time machine." March 15th, 2011.
http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-large-hadron-collider-world-machine.html

http://www.msnbc.msn...cience-science/

In a "long shot" theory, physicists propose that the world's largest atom smasher could be used
as a time machine to send a special kind of matter backward in time.

The scientists outline a way to use the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), a 17-mile-long particle
accelerator buried underground near Geneva, to send a hypothetical particle called the Higgs
singlet to the past.

There are a lot of "ifs" to the conjecture, including the major question of whether or not the Higgs
singlet even exists and could be created in the machine.

"Our theory is a long shot, but it doesn't violate any laws of physics or experimental constraints,"
physicist Tom Weiler of Vanderbilt University said in a statement.

However, if the theory proves correct, the researchers say the method could be used to send
messages to the past or the future.

Weiler and Vanderbilt graduate fellow Chui Man Ho describe their idea in a paper posted March 7
on the research website arXiv.org.

Elusive Higgs
The Higgs singlet is related to another theorized but not yet detected particle called the Higgs
boson. This particle, and its related Higgs field, are thought to confer mass on all the other
particles, and its discovery could help scientists answer the question, why do some particles have
more mass than others?
Advertise | AdChoices

The search for the Higgs boson was one of the main motivations for building the LHC in the first
place. Since the atom smasher began regular operation last year, it has yet to find evidence of
the Higgs boson, but the machine is still ramping up to its peak energies.

If the collider does succeed in producing a Higgs boson, some theories predict that it will create a
Higgs singlet at the same time.

This particle may have a unique ability to jump out of the normal three dimensions of space and
one dimension of time that we inhabit, and into a hidden dimension theorized to exist by some
advanced physics models. By traveling through the hidden dimension, Higgs singlets could re-
enter our dimensions at a point forward or backward in time from when they exited.

"One of the attractive things about this approach to time travel is that it avoids all the big
paradoxes," Weiler said. "Because time travel is limited to these special particles, it is not
possible for a man to travel back in time and murder one of his parents before he himself is born,
for example. However, if scientists could control the production of Higgs singlets, they might be
able to send messages to the past or future."
M-theory
The test of the researchers' theory will be whether the LHC shows evidence of Higgs singlet
particles and their decay products spontaneously appearing. If it does, Weiler and Ho believe that
they will have been produced by particles that travel back in time to appear before the collisions
that produced them.
More science news from MSNBC Tech & Science

Clearing up Japan's nuclear questions

Science editor Alan Boyle's Weblog: How did Japan’s post-tsunami nuclear crisis happen, and
how could it end? To some extent, the experts’ answers depend on how they feel about nuclear
power.
Japan's quake part of destructive cluster?
Lost city of Atlantis believed found off Spain
A burning issue: When did humans master fire?

The theory is based on M-theory, a " theory of everything " that attempts to unite the forces of
nature and describe everything in the universe. It's based on string theory, which posits that all
particles are fundamentally made up of tiny vibrating strings.

Theoretical physicists have developed M-theory to the point that it can accommodate the
properties of all the known subatomic particles and forces, including gravity, but it requires 10 or
11 dimensions instead of our familiar four. This has led to the suggestion that our universe may
be like a four-dimensional membrane or "brane" floating in a multi-dimensional space-time called
the "bulk."

According to this view, the basic building blocks of our universe are permanently stuck to the
brane and cannot travel in other dimensions.

There are some exceptions, however. Some argue that gravity, for example, is weaker than other
fundamental forces because it diffuses into other dimensions. Another possible exception is the
proposed Higgs singlet, which responds to gravity but not to any of the other basic forces.

http://www.upi.com/Science_News/2011/03/15/Physicists-propose-collider-time-travel/UPI-
51411300243945/

NASHVILLE, March 15 (UPI) -- Two U.S. physicists say if their theory is right, the Large Hadron
Collider, the world largest atom smasher, could be the world's first time machine.

Vanderbilt University researchers Tom Weiler and Chui Man Ho say the machine could be
capable of causing matter to travel backward in time, a university release said Tuesday.

"Our theory is a long shot," Weiler said, "but it doesn't violate any laws of physics or experimental
constraints."

One of the major goals of the collider is to discover the elusive Higgs boson, the particle that
physics theories invoke to explain why particles like protons, neutrons and electrons have mass.
If the collider succeeds in producing the Higgs boson, some scientists predict it will create a
second particle, called the Higgs singlet, at the same time.

Weiler and Ho's theory says these singlets should have the ability to jump into an extra, fifth
dimension where they can move either forward or backward in time and reappear in the future or
past.

"One of the attractive things about this approach to time travel is that it avoids all the big
paradoxes," Weiler said. "Because time travel is limited to these special particles, it is not
possible for a man to travel back in time and murder one of his parents before he himself is born,
for example.

"However, if scientists could control the production of Higgs singlets, they might be able to send
messages to the past or future," he said.

The test of the researchers' theory will be whether the physicists monitoring the collider begin
seeing Higgs singlet particles and their decay products spontaneously appearing in the collider. If
they do, Weiler and Ho say they believe it will mean they have been produced by particles that
travel back in time to appear before the collisions that produced them.

http://www.spaceref.....html?pid=33021

"One of the major goals of the collider is to find the elusive Higgs boson: the particle that
physicists invoke to explain why particles like protons, neutrons and electrons have mass. If the
collider succeeds in producing the Higgs boson, some scientists predict that it will create a
second particle, called the Higgs singlet, at the same time.<br style="margin-top: 0px; margin-
right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-
bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">According to Weiler and Ho's theory, these singlets should have
the ability to jump into an extra, fifth dimension where they can move either forward or backward
in time and reappear in the future or past. "One of the attractive things about this approach to
time travel is that it avoids all the big paradoxes," Weiler said. "Because time travel is limited to
these special particles, it is not possible for a man to travel back in time and murder one of his
parents before he himself is born, for example. However, if scientists could control the production
of Higgs singlets, they might be able to send messages to the past or future." Unsticking the
"brane".".

New Subatomic Particle Could Help Explain the Mystery of Dark Matter

A flurry of evidence reveals that "sterile neutrinos" are not only real but common, and could be
the stuff of dark matter

By Michael Moyer | January 6, 2011

Pulsars, including one inside this "guitar nebula," provide evidence of sterile neutrinos. Image:
Courtesy of Shami Chatterjee and James M. Cordes Cornell University

Neutrinos are the most famously shy of particles, zipping through just about everything—your
body, Earth, detectors specifically designed to catch them—with nary a peep. But compared with
their heretofore hypothetical cousin the sterile neutrino, ordinary neutrinos are veritable
firecrackers. Sterile neutrinos don’t even interact with ordinary matter via the weak force, the
ephemeral hook that connects neutrinos to the everyday world. Recently, however, new
experiments have revealed tantalizing evidence that sterile neutrinos are not only real but
common. Some of them could even be the stuff of the mysterious dark matter astronomers have
puzzled over for decades.
Physicists aren’t quite ready to make such dramatic pronouncements, but the results "will be
extremely important—if they turn out to be correct,” says Alexander Kusenko of the University of
California, Los Angeles.

How did scientists go about looking for particles that are virtually undetectable? Kusenko and
Michael Loewenstein of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center reasoned that if sterile neutrinos
really are dark matter, they would occasionally decay into ordinary matter, producing a lighter
neutrino and an x-ray photon, and it would make sense to search for these x-rays wherever dark
matter is found. Using the Chandra x-ray telescope, they observed a nearby dwarf galaxy thought
to be rich in dark matter and found an intriguing bump of x-rays at just the right wavelength.

Another piece of evidence comes from supernovae. If sterile neutrinos really do exist, supernovae
would shoot them out in a tight stream along magnetic field lines, and the recoil from this blast
would kick the pulsars out through the cosmos. It turns out astronomers observe precisely that:
pulsars whizzing through the universe at speeds of thousands of kilometers a second.

Astronomers don’t have to rely on the skies for evidence of sterile neutrinos, though. Scientists at
Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory recently verified a 16-year-old experiment that sought the
first evidence of these particles. The Fermilab scientists fired ordinary neutrinos through Earth at
a detector half a kilometer away. They found that in flight, many of these neutrinos changed their
identities in just the way they should if sterile neutrinos do in fact exist.

The next step is to confirm the results. Loewenstein and Kusenko recently repeated their
experiment on another space-based x-ray telescope, the XMM-Newton, and Fermilab scientists
are also setting up another run. The shyest elementary particles may not be able to evade their
seekers for long.

"Time travel experiment demonstrates how to avoid the grandfather paradox (Update)." March
1st, 2011. http://www.physorg.c...er-paradox.html

Time travel experiment demonstrates how to avoid the grandfather paradox (Update)

March 1st, 2011 in Physics / General Physics

Enlarge

This graph shows that, as the accuracy of the quantum gun increases (from 0 to 180 degrees) so
that it is more likely to flip a qubit’s state, the probability of successful self-consistent teleportation
(red dots) decreases. While the theoretical probability of teleportation of qubits in opposite states
is zero, the experimental probability of qubits in opposite states (blue diamonds) is about 0.01.
Image caption: Seth Lloyd, et al.

(PhysOrg.com) -- Among the many intriguing concepts in Einstein’s relativity theories is the idea
of closed timelike curves (CTCs), which are paths in spacetime that return to their starting points.
As such, CTCs offer the possibility of traveling back in time. But, as many science fiction films
have addressed, time travel is full of potential paradoxes. Perhaps the most notable of these is
the grandfather paradox, in which a time traveler goes back in time and kills her grandfather,
preventing her own birth.
In a new study, a team of researchers has proposed a new theory of CTCs that can resolve the
grandfather paradox, and they also perform an experiment showing how such a scheme works.
The researchers, led by Seth Lloyd from MIT, along with scientists from the Scuola Normale
Superiore in Pisa, Italy; the University of Pavia in Pavia, Italy; the Tokyo Institute of Technology;
and the University of Toronto, have published their study in a recent issue of Physical Review
Letters. The concepts in the study are similar to an earlier study by some of the same authors
that was posted at arXiv.org last year.

“Einstein's theory of general relativity supports closed timelike curves,” Lloyd told PhysOrg.com.
“For decades researchers have argued over how to treat such objects quantum mechanically. We
believe that our theory is the correct theory of such objects. Moreover, our theory shows how time
travel might be accomplished even in the absence of general relativistic closed timelike curves.”

In the new theory, CTCs are required to behave like ideal quantum channels of the sort involved
in teleportation. In this theory, self-consistent CTCs (those that don’t result in paradoxes) are
postselected, and are called “P-CTCs.” As the scientists explain, this theory differs from the
widely accepted quantum theory of CTCs proposed by physicist David Deutsch, in which a time
traveler maintains self-consistency by traveling back into a different past than the one she
remembers. In the P-CTC formulation, time travelers must travel to the past they remember.

Although postselecting CTCs may seem complicated, it can actually be investigated

experimentally in laboratory simulations. By sending a “living” qubit (i.e., a bit in the state 1) a few
billionths of a second back in time to try to “kill” its former self (i.e., flip to the state 0), the
scientists show that only photons that don’t kill themselves can make the journey.

“P-CTCs work by projecting out part of the quantum state,” Lloyd said. “Another way of thinking
about closed timelike curves is the following. In normal physics (i.e., without closed timelike
curves), one specifies the state of a system in the past, and the laws of physics then tell how that
state evolves in the future. In the presence of CTCs, this prescription breaks down: the state in
the past plus the laws of physics no longer suffice to specify the state in the future. In addition,
one has to supply final conditions as well as initial conditions. In our case, these final conditions
specify the state when it enters the closed timelike curve in the future. These final conditions are
what project out part of the quantum state as described above.

“Although one would need a real general relativistic CTC actually to impose final conditions, we
can still simulate how such a CTC would work by setting up the initial condition, letting the system
evolve, and then making a measurement. One of the possible outcomes of the measurement
corresponds to the final condition that we would like to impose. Whenever that outcome occurs,
then everything that has happened in the experiment up to that point is exactly the same as if the
photon had gone backward in time and tried to kill its former self. So when we ‘post-select’ that
outcome, the experiment is equivalent to a real CTC.”

To demonstrate, the scientists stored two qubits in a single photon, one of which represents the
forward-traveling qubit, and one of which represents the backward-traveling qubit. The backward-
traveling qubit can teleport through a quantum channel (CTC) only if the CTC ends by projecting
the two entangled qubits into the same state.

After the qubits are entangled, their states are measured by two probe qubits. Next, a “quantum
gun” is fired at the forward-traveling qubit, which, depending on the gun’s angle, may or may not
rotate the qubit’s polarization. The qubits’ states are measured again to find out if the gun has
flipped the forward-traveling qubit’s polarization or not. If both qubits are in the same state (00 or
11), then the gun has not flipped the polarization and the photon “survives.” If the qubits’ states
are not equal (01 or 10), then the photon has “killed” its past self. The experiment’s results
showed that the qubits’ states were almost always equal, showing that a qubit cannot kill its
former self.
The scientists noted that their experiment cannot test whether an actual CTC obeys their new
theory, since it is currently unknown whether CTCs exist at all. In the future, they plan to perform
more tests to better understand time travel paradoxes.

“We want to perform the so-called `unproved theorem paradox' experiment, in which the time
traveler sees an elegant proof of a theorem in a book,” Lloyd said. “She goes back in time and
shows the proof to a mathematician, who includes the proof in the book that he is writing. Of
course, the book is the same book from which the time traveler took the proof in the first place.
Where did the proof come from? Our theory has a specific prediction/retrodiction for this paradox,
which we wish to test experimentally.”

More information: Seth Lloyd, et al. “Closed Timelike Curves via Postselection: Theory and
Experimental Test of Consistency.” Physical Review Letters 106, 040403 (2011).
DOI:10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.040403

And throughout the Origin series I have mentioned that the universe is a 1+1 mobius strip that
expands to a 2+1 surface sphere (appears planar because of the small curvature of the sphere)
and 3+1 torus ..... but these conditions still exist since all time exists simultaneously. It is possible
the gravitational wave anomaly they mentioned is what led to inflation. The energy hiding
between two folds of our 3+1 space time sounds like another representation of the luxon wall.
The 4+1 hypersphere they mention could actually be the bulk of the omniverse, and as our
universe expands into it, it too will expand into additional extra dimensions, always staying one
step ahead of us.

"Physicists investigate lower dimensions of the universe." March 18th, 2011.

http://www.physorg.c...s-universe.html

Physicists investigate lower dimensions of the universe

March 18th, 2011 in Physics / General Physics

(PhysOrg.com) -- Several speculative theories in physics involve extra dimensions beyond our
well-known four (which are broken down into three dimensions of space and one of time). Some
theories have suggested 5, 10, 26, or more, with the extra spatial dimensions "hiding" within our
observable three dimensions. One thing that all of these extra dimensions have in common is that
none has ever been experimentally detected; they are all mathematical predictions.

More recently, physicists have been theorizing the possibility of lower dimensionality, in which the
universe has only two or even one spatial dimension(s), along with one dimension of time. The
theories suggest that the lower dimensions occurred in the past when the universe was much
smaller and had a much higher energy level (and temperature) than today. Further, it appears
that the concept of lower dimensions may already have some experimental evidence in cosmic
ray observations.

Now in a new study, physicists Jonas Mureika from Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles,
California, and Dejan Stojkovic from SUNY at Buffalo in Buffalo, New York, have proposed a new
and independent method for experimentally detecting lower dimensions. They’ve published their
study in a recent issue of Physical Review Letters.

In 2010, a team of physicists including Stojkovic proposed a lower-dimensional framework in

which spacetime is fundamentally a (1 + 1)-dimensional universe (meaning it contains one spatial
dimension and one time dimension). In other words, the universe is a straight line that is
“wrapped up” in such a way so that it appears (3 + 1)-dimensional at today’s higher energy
scales, which is what we see.
The scientists don’t know the exact energy levels (or the exact age of the universe) when the
transitions between dimensions occurred. However, they think that the universe’s energy level
and size directly determine its number of dimensions, and that the number of dimensions evolves
over time as the energy and size change. They predict that the transition from a (1 + 1)- to a (2 +
1)-dimensional universe happened when the temperature of the universe was about 100 TeV
(teraelectronvolts) or less, and the transition from a (2 + 1)- to a (3 + 1)-dimensional universe
happened later at about 1 TeV. Today, the temperature of the universe is about 10-3 eV.

So far, there may already be one piece of experimental evidence for the existence of a lower-
dimensional structure at a higher energy scale. When observing families of cosmic ray particles in
space, scientists found that, at energies higher than 1 TeV, the main energy fluxes appear to
align in a two-dimensional plane. This means that, above a certain energy level, particles
propagate in two dimensions rather than three dimensions.

In the current study, Mureika and Stojkovic have proposed a second test for lower dimensions
that would provide independent evidence for their existence. The test is based on the assumption
that a (2 + 1)-dimensional spacetime, which is a flat plane, has no gravitational degrees of
freedom. This means that gravity waves and gravitons cannot have been produced during this
epoch. So the physicists suggest that a future gravitational wave detector looking deep into space
might find that primordial gravity waves cannot be produced beyond a certain frequency, and this
frequency would represent the transition between dimensions. Looking backwards, it would
appear that one of our spatial dimensions has “vanished.”

The scientists added that it should be possible, though perhaps more difficult, to test for the
existence of (1 + 1)-dimensional spacetime.

“It will be challenging with the current experiments,” Stojkovic told PhysOrg.com. “But it is within
the reach of both the LHC and cosmic ray experiments if the two-dimensional to one-dimensional
crossover scale is 10 TeV.”

Lower dimensions at higher energies could have several advantages for cosmologists. For
instance, models of quantum gravity in (2 + 1) and (1 + 1) dimensions could overcome some of
the problems that plague quantum gravity theories in (3 + 1) dimensions. Also, reducing the
dimensions of spacetime might solve the cosmological constant problem, which is that the
cosmological constant is fine-tuned to fit observations and does not match theoretical
calculations. A solution may lie in the existence of energy that is currently hiding between two
folds of our (3 + 1)-dimensional spacetime, which will open up into (4 + 1)-dimensional spacetime
in the future when the universe’s decreasing energy level reaches another transition point.

“A change of paradigm,” Stojkovic said about the significance of lower dimensions. “It is a new
avenue to attack long-standing problems in physics.”

More information: Jonas Mureika and Dejan Stojkovic. “Detecting Vanishing Dimensions via
Primordial Gravitational Wave Astronomy.” Physical Review Letters 106, 101101 (2011). DOI:
10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.101101

Exotic sphere discoverer wins mathematical 'Nobel'

21:49 23 March 2011 by Jacob Aron

A sphere is a sphere, right? Yes, if you mean a globe or a beach ball – what mathematicians call
a two-dimensional sphere – but not if you are talking about a sphere in seven dimensions.
Now the mathematician who discovered that spheres start to behave differently in higher
dimensional space – an insight that seeded a whole new field of mathematics – has been
awarded the $1 million dollar Abel prize by the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.

John Milnor of the Institute for Mathematical Sciences at Stony Brook University in New York,
was recognised for his "pioneering discoveries in topology, geometry and algebra".

"It feels very good," Milnor told New Scientist, though he says the award was somewhat
unexpected: "One is always surprised by a call at 6 o'clock in the morning."
Inflated cube

Topologists like Milnor study shapes whose mathematical properties aren't changed by stretching
or twisting, but they aren't concerned with the exact geometrical properties of a particular shape,
like lengths or angles. For example, you can turn a cube into a sphere by inflating it, so the two
shapes are topologically identical. But you can't turn a sphere into a doughnut without tearing a
hole, so they are topologically different.

It is also possible to apply stricter rules to these transformations by making them much
"smoother" – what mathematicians call differentiable. For shapes in three dimensions or less,
those that share a topological geometry – for example a sphere and a cube – also have the same
differentiable structure.

But mathematicians also study shapes in higher dimensions – even if they're difficult to imagine.
"You can often think of analogous things that are small enough to visualise," explains Milnor. "The
human brain is amazingly able to tackle all sorts of things."
Tangled sphere

Milnor did just that in 1956 when he discovered a seven-dimensional mathematical object that is
identical to a seven-dimensional sphere under the rules of topology, but has a different
differentiable structure. He called this shape an "exotic sphere".

This was the first time a shape had been found sharing the topological properties – but not the
differentiable structure – of its lower-dimensional counterpart. It led to the field that is now known
as "differential topology".

What does an exotic sphere look like? It's difficult to imagine but bear in mind that it's possible to
tangle up a higher-dimensional sphere in a way that isn't possible in two.

Imagine splitting an ordinary sphere into two halves along the middle, so that each half has a
copy of every point on the equator. Now rejoin the two halves so that the southern copy of a point
doesn't join its northern counterpoint. In two dimensions, there's only one way to do this: by
twisting the sphere. But in seven dimensions the points can be mixed up with respect to each
other in multiple different ways.
Smooth Poincaré

It turns out there are a total of 28 exotic spheres in seven dimensions, and they also exist in other
dimensions. Dimension 15 has as many as 16,256, while others like dimensions five and six only
have the ordinary sphere. Mathematicians don't yet know whether exotic spheres exist in four
dimensions – a problem known as the smooth Poincaré conjecture, and related to the
generalised Poincaré conjecture, which was solved in 2003.

"He's been a great inspiration to many, many mathematicians," says Timothy Gowers, a
mathematician at the University of Cambridge who gave a talk on Milnor's work following the prize
announcement.
Milnor is also well known for teaching other mathematicians about his idea. "Every time he writes
a book, it turns into a classic," adds Gowers.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn20281-exotic-sphere-discoverer-wins-mathematical-
nobel.html

Best-ever quantum measurement breaks Heisenberg limit

23 March 2011 by Mark Buchanan

PHYSICISTS have made the most accurate quantum measurement yet, breaking a theoretical
limit named for Werner Heisenberg.

The most accurate quantum measurements possible are made using an interferometer, which
exploits the wave nature of matter and light. In this method, two identical beams of particles are
sent along different paths to a detector, with one interacting with an object of interest along the
way. Recombining the beams afterwards creates an interference pattern that reflects how much
the interacting beam was disturbed - providing details about the object's properties.

Assuming that the particles interact with the object, but not with one another, the accuracy of
such measurements grows in proportion to the number of particles in the beams, N. By allowing
such particle interactions, Mario Napolitano of the Institute of Photonic Sciences in Barcelona,
Spain, and colleagues have now demonstrated a way to break this so-called Heisenberg limit.

They used a beam of photons to measure the small magnetic field produced by a gas made up of
a million ultra-cold rubidium atoms. Normally, the spin of each photon would rotate by a certain
amount, thanks to its interactions with the magnetic field of the atoms. But the frequency of the
photons was chosen so that the photons also interacted with each other when they were in the
gas, so that the presence of one photon altered the way a second behaved. These interactions
led to a measurement accuracy that grew in proportion to N3/2 - greater than Heisenberg's limit
(Nature, DOI: 10.1038/nature09778).

The technique could pave the way for more sensitive searches for gravitational waves - ripples in
space triggered by moving objects. The waves should cause the distance between two objects to
change, and the study suggests that the laser interferometers used to look for such changes
could be made more precise.
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20928054.000-bestever-quantum-measurement-breaks-
heisenberg-limit.html

This is pretty interesting and indicates there may be unification of fermions and bosons at the 2D
level, where room temp superconductivity may also exist (among other things.....)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anyon

In mathematics and physics, an anyon is a type of particle that occurs only in two-dimensional
systems. It is a generalization of the fermion and boson concept.Contents [hide]
1 From theory to reality
2 In physics
3 Topological basis
4 See also
5 References
6 Further reading
7 External links
From theory to reality

A group of theoretical physicists working at the University of Oslo, led by Jon Leinaas and Jan
Myrheim, calculated in 1977 that the traditional division between fermions and bosons would not
apply to theoretical particles existing in two dimensions.[1] Such particles would be expected to
exhibit a diverse range of previously unexpected properties. They were given the name anyons
by Frank Wilczek in 1982.[2] The associated mathematics proved to be useful to Bertrand
Halperin at Harvard University in explaining aspects of the fractional quantum Hall effect. Frank
Wilczek, Dan Arovas, and Robert Schrieffer verified this statement in 1985 with an explicit
calculation that predicted that particles existing in these systems are in fact anyons.

In 2005 a group of physicists at Stony Brook University constructed a quasiparticle interferometer,

detecting the patterns caused by interference of anyons which, somewhat controversially,
indicated that anyons are real, rather than just a mathematical construct.[3]

With developments in semiconductor technology meaning that the deposition of thin two-
dimensional layers is possible – for example in sheets of graphene – the long term potential to
use the properties of anyons in electronics is being explored.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topological_quantum_computer

A topological quantum computer is a theoretical quantum computer that employs two-dimensional

quasiparticles called anyons, whose world lines cross over one another to form braids in a three-
dimensional spacetime (i.e., one temporal plus two spatial dimensions). These braids form the
logic gates that make up the computer. The advantage of a quantum computer based on
quantum braids over using trapped quantum particles is that the former is much more stable. The
smallest perturbations can cause a quantum particle to decohere and introduce errors in the
computation, but such small perturbations do not change the topological properties of the braids.
This is like the effort required to cut a string and reattach the ends to form a different braid, as
opposed to a ball (representing an ordinary quantum particle in four-dimensional spacetime)
simply bumping into a wall. While the elements of a topological quantum computer originate in a
purely mathematical realm, recent experiments indicate these elements can be created in the real
world using semiconductors made of gallium arsenide near absolute zero and subjected to strong
magnetic fields.

http://prb.aps.org/abstract/PRB/v72/i7/e075342

F. E. Camino, Wei Zhou, and V. J. Goldman

Department of Physics, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794-3800, USA

Received 3 March 2005; published 17 August 2005

In two dimensions, the laws of physics permit the existence of anyons, particles with fractional
statistics which are neither Fermi nor Bose. That is, upon exchange of two such particles, the
quantum state of a system acquires a phase which is neither 0 nor π, but can be any value.
The elementary excitations (Laughlin quasiparticles) of a fractional quantum Hall fluid
have a fractional electric charge and are expected to obey fractional statistics. In this
paper we report experimental realization of a Laughlin quasiparticle interferometer,
where quasiparticles of the 1∕3 fluid execute a closed path around an island of the
2∕5 fluid and thus acquire statistical phase. Interference fringes are observed as
conductance oscillations as a function of magnetic flux, similar to the Aharonov-Bohm
effect. We observe the interference shift by one fringe upon introduction of five
magnetic flux quanta (5h∕e) into the island. The corresponding 2e charge period is
confirmed directly in calibrated gate experiments. These results constitute direct
observation of fractional statistics of Laughlin quasiparticles.

http://archive.sciencewatch.com/interviews/frank_wilczek1.htm

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/indepth/23894

From electronics to anyonics

Jan 4, 2006

Particles called anyons that do not fit into the usual categories of fermions and
bosons may lead to high-performance quantum computers, explains Frank Wilczek

Textbooks on quantum mechanics traditionally divide elementary particles into two

types: fermions and bosons. Fermions such as electrons have antisymmetric
wavefunctions, which means that a minus sign (i.e. a phase of π) is introduced into a
system when two fermions in that system are interchanged. Bosons such as photons,
on the other hand, have symmetric wavefunctions that do not change when two
bosons are exchanged. Fermions and bosons also have different intrinsic angular
momentum or spin: fermions have half-integer spins in quantum units, while bosons
have integer spins.

Oddballs

But in 1977 a small band of theoretical physicists spearheaded by Jon Leinaas and
Jan Myrheim at Oslo University in Norway realized that for particles living in two,
rather than three, dimensions there are many other mathematical possibilities.
Among these are particles that introduce any phase when they are interchanged, not
just 0 or π.

In the early 1980s I named the hypothetical new particles "anyons", the idea being
that anything goes - but I did not lose much sleep anticipating their discovery. Very
soon afterwards, however, Bert Halperin at Harvard University found the concept of
anyons useful in understanding certain aspects of the fractional quantum Hall effect,
which describes the modifications that take place in electronics at low temperatures
in strong magnetic fields. In 1985 Dan Arovas, Bob Schrieffer and I, all of us then at
the Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics in Santa Barbara, proved that a successful
theory of the fractional quantum Hall effect does indeed require particles that are
neither bosons nor fermions. These developments spawned a vast literature,
featuring beautiful and elaborate mathematics.
Until very recently, however, the subject of anyons had still been almost entirely
theoretical. Suddenly, over the last few months, that has changed with the
appearance of serious - though not entirely uncontroversial - claims that anyons have
been observed directly. Meanwhile, several groups have proposed a new generation
of experiments that will be more decisive in proving that anyons exist.
Fractional fluids

Strange things happen in semiconductors that are very pure, very cold and subject to
strong magnetic fields. In particular, a phase of matter called a fractional quantum
Hall effect fluid appears. In this state, electrons as we know them decompose so that
electric charge is no longer transported in discreet lumps of charge e, but in fractions
of that unit (see "Fractional quantum Hall effects")

The fact that these fractional electrons are anyons could lead to a new kind of
semiconductor technology that goes beyond electronics. An "anyonic" circuit would
operate in ways that are impossible for conventional electronic circuits, and it is
precisely this behaviour that physicists are ultimately hoping to exploit. Indeed,
conceptual designs for anyonic quantum computers are already on the drawing
board, such as those of Parsa Bonderson and co-workers at the California Institute of
Technology (arXiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0508616).

To understand how these applications arise, we first need to introduce the idea of
quantum statistics. In everyday life, we think of sameness as a limiting case of
similarity: there are subtle distinctions between "identical" twins, for example. In
quantum mechanics, however, objects can be truly identical. This profound identity is
the basis of quantum statistics, and the reason behind the distinction between
fermions and bosons.

For instance, suppose that we want to calculate the probability that two identical
particles α and β, which are originally at points A and B, will arrive at points C and D
a certain time later. According to the rules of quantum mechanics, we can get this
probability by adding the so-called amplitudes of every possible route that the
particles can take to get from the initial to the final state, and then take the square of
that sum.

If α and β are truly identical, then each of these possible routes leads to the same
final state. For example, one route will leave α at position D and β at C, while another
will leave β at C and α at D. Although the final state is the same, there is a clear
distinction between the two ways of getting there: one is a direct process and the
other is an exchange process (see Quantum statistics). We therefore need to supply
a rule for how to properly combine the amplitudes of these topologically distinct
processes. The simplest rule is to add them, and that rule defines bosons; the next
simplest rule is to subtract them, and that defines fermions.

Quantum statistics

For many years, physicists thought that these two rules were the only consistent
ones. In the case of particles moving in three (or more) dimensions, that is certainly
the case. For particles confined to two dimensions, however, things are different. The
reason is that there is no way to continuously deform the "over" process in which the
path of particle α loops over particle β (path M in figure) - to the "under" process N
without the paths of the two particles crossing one another. (Note that the rules of
the game require these paths - which represent the world-line of the particle - to
ascend through time without looping back, and that their end-points are fixed.)
Similarly, in 2D it is no longer true that doubling process M renders it trivial. Even
though a and b will not have been interchanged, the doubled loop is even more
entangled. This change opens up possibilities beyond the simple minus sign we had
for fermions, and these possibilities essentially define anyons.
Anyons in reality

Talk of particles confined to two dimensions might seem more than a little academic,
but 2D systems such as thin layers of semiconductors on insulating substrates are
ubiquitous in microelectronics. The key insight is that quantum mechanics can
suppress degrees of freedom. For instance, because atomic energy levels are
discrete, the highest levels will not be accessible if a system is studied at sufficiently
low energies and temperatures. As a result, certain kinds of motion cannot occur. If a
semiconductor happens to be layered in such a way that the motion of electrons in
the third dimension is quantized, then it can be rigorously considered as 2D.

Even to those of use who had been musing about the hypothetical possibility of
anyons, their emergence as concrete physical realities in the theory of the quantum
Hall effect in the mid-1980s came as something of a shock.

Although observable consequences of anyon behaviour are simple to sketch out, they
are difficult to achieve experimentally. The latest experimental developments in the
anyon story are all based on the same theme: a circuit consisting of a drop of
fractional quantum Hall effect fluid with an island in the middle. An electric current
can flow from one side of the drop to the other via two different paths, but if there
are anyons on the island they will affect the way we add the contributions of these
paths together. By studying the net current in the circuit, such a device is therefore
sensitive to the presence of different numbers of anyons on the island. Last year
Fernando Camino and co-workers at Stony Brook University were able to control the
overall size of such an island using an applied voltage, which enabled them to create
a "quasiparticle interferometer" (2005 Phys. Rev. B 72 075342). With it, the
researchers detected the fringes that arise when particles with different fractional
statistics interfere with one another, although the team did not attempt to introduce
or resolve individual anyons.

That vital next step will be addressed by a new generation of experiments, such as
those proposed by Sankar Das Sarma at the University of Maryland and colleagues
(2005 Phys. Rev. Lett. 94 166802), Eun-Ah Kim and co-workers at the University of
Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (2005 Phys. Rev. Lett. 95 176402) and Nick Bonesteel
and co-workers at Florida State University (2005 Phys. Rev. Lett. 95 140503). The
circuits in these experiments will contain several islands, allowing more intricate
situations in which paths go over one island and under another. We can then imagine
connecting islands together and moving anyons around, thus opening up the vast
potential of anyonics.
Entering Hilbert space

Suppose that we are presented with a configuration of anyons and asked to predict
how they will behave. In order to apply the rules of quantum mechanics, including
the sorts of path-dependent factors described earlier, we have to know not only
where the anyons are but also the likelihood that they arrived there in different ways.
More precisely, what we need is the quantum-mechanical amplitude for each
possibility. Achieving this would become a tricky proposition indeed if we had to keep
track of their entire histories to find out how the particles' world-lines got tangled up.

Alternatively, we can cast the problem in a different, more abstract space that
includes a new variable - let's call it "knottiness" - to describe the distinct classes of
tangles. In this language, we need to know the amplitude for each value of
knottiness. If we have a reasonably large number of particles, then their world-lines
can get entangled in a very large number of different ways. Thus if we can access
physical behaviour for systems of anyons that depends on their knottiness, we will
have gained entry into a vast new space. We will, in fact, be wading into the oceans
of quantum-mechanical Hilbert space.

Unfortunately, this knot-dependent information is difficult to maintain, measure and

manipulate. Physicists are now just wetting their toes: learning to swim will be
challenging indeed, and a quantum computer is a distant dream. Such a device
would operate by moving anyons around, thus creating a highly structured knottiness
that could be read-out by observing the behaviour of subsequent "probe" anyons.
The vastness of Hilbert space offers enormous potential for increased storage space
and bandwidth, and taming it is an inspiring goal for 21st-century physics. Anyonics
might just provide the means to get us there.

More about: anyons

Parsa Bonderson et al. Detecting Non-Abelian Statistics in the μ=5/2 Fractional

Quantum Hall State arxiv.org/abs/cond-mat/0508616

F. E. Camino et al. Realization of a Laughlin quasiparticle interferometer: Observation

of fractional statistics Phys. Rev. B 72 075342

Sankar Das Sarma et al. Topologically Protected Qubits from a Possible Non-Abelian
Fractional Quantum Hall State Phys. Rev. Lett. 94 166802

Eun-Ah Kim et al. Signatures of Fractional Statistics in Noise Experiments in Quantum

Hall Fluids Phys. Rev. Lett. 95 176402

N. E. Bonesteel et al. Braid Topologies for Quantum Computation Phys. Rev. Lett. 95
140503
About the author

Frank Wilczek is at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US, e-mail

wilczek@mit.edu

http://arxiv.org/abs/0707.1889

Non-Abelian Anyons and Topological Quantum Computation

Chetan Nayak, Steven H. Simon, Ady Stern, Michael Freedman, Sankar Das Sarma,
(Submitted on 12 Jul 2007 (v1), last revised 28 Mar 2008 (this version, v2))
Topological quantum computation has recently emerged as one of the most exciting
approaches to constructing a fault-tolerant quantum computer. The proposal relies
on the existence of topological states of matter whose quasiparticle excitations are
neither bosons nor fermions, but are particles known as {\it Non-Abelian anyons},
meaning that they obey {\it non-Abelian braiding statistics}. Quantum information is
stored in states with multiple quasiparticles, which have a topological degeneracy.
The unitary gate operations which are necessary for quantum computation are
carried out by braiding quasiparticles, and then measuring the multi-quasiparticle
states. The fault-tolerance of a topological quantum computer arises from the non-
local encoding of the states of the quasiparticles, which makes them immune to
errors caused by local perturbations. To date, the only such topological states
thought to have been found in nature are fractional quantum Hall states, most
prominently the \nu=5/2 state, although several other prospective candidates have
been proposed in systems as disparate as ultra-cold atoms in optical lattices and thin
film superconductors. In this review article, we describe current research in this field,
focusing on the general theoretical concepts of non-Abelian statistics as it relates to
topological quantum computation, on understanding non-Abelian quantum Hall
states, on proposed experiments to detect non-Abelian anyons, and on proposed
architectures for a topological quantum computer. We address both the
mathematical underpinnings of topological quantum computation and the physics of
the subject using the \nu=5/2 fractional quantum Hall state as the archetype of a
non-Abelian topological state enabling fault-tolerant quantum computation.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/d051420w62344j75/

Abstract
The classical configuration space of a system of identical particles is examined. Due
to the identification of points which are related by permutations of particle indices, it
is essentially different, globally, from the Cartesian product of the one-particle
spaces. This fact is explicity taken into account in a quantization of the theory. As a
consequence, no symmetry constraints on the wave functions and the observables
need to be postulated. The two possibilities, corresponding to symmetric and
antisymmetric wave functions, appear in a natural way in the formalism. But this is
only the case in which the particles move in three- or higher-dimensional space. In
one and two dimensions a continuum of possible intermediate cases connects the
boson and fermion cases. The effect of particle spin in the present formalism is
discussed.

http://www.springerlink.com/content/j107372v5v6r0445/

Abstract
We consider the quantization of identical particles. We suggest an a priori argument
for identification of the classical configuration space. In two spatial dimensions, for
two particles, this yields the (by now) familiar cone with deficit angle of , with the
vertex removed. We find two fundamental parameters which characterize the
quantum theory. The first, , is associated to the multiple connectedness of the cone,
while the other, , is associated to the question of unitarity. describes the statistics of
the particles and gives rise to anyons. specifies the boundary conditions to be
imposed on the wave functions at the vertex of the cone. We show by explicit
example that can be regarded as a vestige of short distance interactions between the
particles, leaving as the truly, obligatory, appurtenance of the quantum mechanics of
identical particles is two spatial dimensions. We also analyze the symmetries of the
quantum Hamiltonian and find a dynamical SO(2, 1) symmetry, acting on the space
of Hilbert spaces with different boundary conditions.

http://golem.ph.utexas.edu/string/archives/000708.html

Introduction:

Wess-Zumino-Witten (WZW) models are one of the most important classes of (two-
dimensional) rational conformal field theories. They describe physical systems with
(non-abelian) current symmetries, provide gauge sectors in heterotic string
compactifications and are the starting point for other constructions of conformal field
theories, e.g. the coset construction. Moreover, they have played a crucial role as a
bridge between Lie theory and conformal field theory. It is well-known that for the
Langragian description of such a model, a Wess-Zumino term is needed to get a
conformally invariant theory [Wit84]. Later, the relation of this term to Deligne
hypercohomology has been realized [Gaw88] and its nature as a surface holonomy
has been identified [Gaw88, Alv85]. More recently, the appropriate differential-
geometric object for the holonomy has been identified as a hermitian U(1) bundle
gerbe with connection and curving [CJM02]. Already the case of non-simply
connected Lie groups with non-cyclic fundamental group, such as G:=Spin(2 n)/ℤ
2
×ℤ
2
shows that gerbes and their holonomy are really indispensable,
even when one restricts one’s attention to oriented surfaces without boundary. The original
definition of the Wess- Zumino term as the integral of a three form H over a suitable three-
manifold cannot be applied to such groups; moreover, it could not explain the wellestablished fact
that to such a group two different rational conformal field theories that differ by ‘discrete torsion’
can be associated.

Bundle gerbes will be central for the problem we address in this paper. A long series of algebraic
results indicate that the WZW model can be consistently considered on unorientable surfaces.
Early results include a detailed study of the abelian case [BPS92] and of SU(2) [PSS95b,
PSS95a]. Sewing constraints for unoriented surfaces have been derived in [FPS94]. Already the
abelian case [BPS92] shows that not every rational conformal field theory that is well-defined on
oriented surfaces can be considered on unoriented surfaces. A necessary condition is that the
bulk partition function is symmetric under exchange of left and right movers. This restricts, for
example, the values of the Kalb-Ramond field in toroidal compactifications [BPS92]. Moreover, if
the theory can be extended to unoriented surfaces, there can be different extensions that yield
inequivalent correlation functions. This has been studied in detail for WZW theories based on
SU(2 ) in [PSS95b, PSS95a]; later on, this has been systematically described with simple current
techniques [HS00, HSS99]. Unifying general formulae have been proposed in [FHS+00]; the
structure has been studied at the level of NIMreps in [SS03].

Aspects of these results have been proven in [FRS04] combining topological field theory in three-
dimensions with algebra and representation theory in modular tensor categories. As a crucial
ingredient, a generalization of the notion of an algebra with involution, i.e. an algebra together
with an algebraisomorphism to the opposed algebra, has been identified in [FRS04]; the
isomorphism is not an involution any longer, but squares to the twist on the algebra. An algebra
with such an isomorphism has been called Jandl algebra. A similar structure, in a geometric
setting, will be the subject of the present article.

The success of the algebraic theory leads, in the Lagrangian description, to the quest for
corresponding geometric structures on the target space. From previous work [BCW01, HSS02,
Bru02] it is clear that a map k:M→M on the target space with the additional property that *
k
H=−H will be one ingredient. Examples like the Lie group
SO(3 ), for which two different extensions for the same map k to unoriented surfaces are known,
already show that this structure does not suffice. We are thus looking for an additional structure
on a hermitian bundle gerbe which allows to define a Wess-Zumino term, i.e. which allows to
define holonomy for unoriented surfaces. For a general bundle gerbe, such a structure need not
exist; if it exists, it will not be unique. In the present article, we make a proposal for such a
structure. It exists whenever there are sufficiently well-behaved stable isomorphisms between the
pullback gerbe *
k
G and the dual gerbe *
G
. If one thinks about a gerbe as a sheaf of groupoids, the
formal similarity to the Jandl structures in [FRS04] becomes apparent, if one realizes that the dual
gerbe plays the role of the opposed algebra. For this reason, we term the relevant structure a
Jandl structure on the gerbe. We show that the Jandl structures on a gerbe on the target space
M, if they exist at all, form a torsor over the group of flat equivariant hermitian line bundles on M.
As explained in section 4.3, this group always contains an element k
L
−1
of order two. We show that two Jandl structures that
are related by the action of k
L
−1
provide amplitudes that just differ by a sign that
depends only on the topology of the worldsheet. Such Jandl structures are considered to be
essentially equivalent. We finally show that a Jandl structure allows to extend the definition of the
usual gerbe holonomy from oriented surfaces to unoriented surfaces. We derive formulae for
these holonomies in local data that generalize the formulae of [GR02, Alv85] for oriented
surfaces.

[…]

The notion of a Jandl structure naturally explains algebraic results for specific classes of rational
conformal field theories. It is well-known that both the Lie group SU(2 ) and its quotient SO(3 )
admit two Jandl structures that are essentially different (i.e. that do not just differ by a sign
depending on the topology of the surface). In the case of SU(2 ), this is explained by the fact that
two different involutions are relevant: g↦−1
g
and g↦z−1
g
, where z is the non-trivial element in the center of SU(2 ). Indeed,
since SU(2 ) is simply-connected, we have a single flat line bundle and hence for each involution
only two Jandl structures which are essentially the same.

The two involutions of SU(2 ) descend to the same involution of the quotient SO(3 ). The latter
manifold, however, has fundamental group Z2 and thus twice as many equivariant flat line
bundles as SU(2 ). The different Jandl structures of SO(3 ) are therefore not explained by
different involutions on the target space but rather by the fact that one involution admits two
essentially different Jandl structures. Needless to say, there remain many open questions. A
discussion of surfaces with boundaries is beyond the scope of this article. The results of [FRS04]
suggest, however, that a Jandl structure leads to an involution on gerbe modules. Most
importantly, it remains to be shown that, in the Wess-Zumino-Witten path integral for a surface Σ,
the holonomy we introduced yields amplitudes that take their values in the space of
conformal blocks associated to the complex double of Σ, which ensures that the
relevant chiral Ward identities are obeyed. To this end, it will be important to have a
suitable reformulation of Jandl structures at our disposal. Indeed, the holonomy we
propose in this article also arises as the surface holonomy of a 2-vector bundle with a
certain 2-group; these issues will be the subject of a separate publication.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braid_word#Generators_and_relations

In mathematics, the braid group on n strands, denoted by Bn, is a group which has
an intuitive geometrical representation, and in a sense generalizes the symmetric
group Sn. Here, n is a natural number; if n > 1, then Bn is an infinite group. Braid
groups find applications in knot theory, since any knot may be represented as the
closure of certain braids.Contents [hide]
1 Intuitive description
2 Generators and relations
3 Properties
4 Relation with symmetric group and the pure braid group
5 Actions of braid groups
6 Relation between B3 and the modular group
7 Representations
8 Relationship to the mapping class group and classification of braids
9 Connection to knot theory and computational aspects
10 Infinitely generated braid groups
11 Formal treatment
12 History
13 Notes
14 References
15 Further reading
16 External links

[edit]
Intuitive description

This introduction takes n to be 4; the generalization to other values of n will be

straightforward. Consider two sets of four items lying on a table, with the items in
each set being arranged in a vertical line, and such that one set sits next to the
other. (In the illustrations below, these are the black dots.) Using four strands, each
item of the first set is connected with an item of the second set so that a one-to-one
correspondence results. Such a connection is called a braid. Often some strands will
have to pass over or under others, and this is crucial: the following two connections
are different braids: is different from

On the other hand, two such connections which can be made to look the same by
"pulling the strands" are considered the same braid: is the same as

All strands are required to move from left to right; knots like the following are not
considered braids: is not a braid

Any two braids can be composed by drawing the first next to the second, identifying
the four items in the middle, and connecting corresponding strands: composed with
yields
Another example: composed with yields

The composition of the braids σ and τ is written as στ.

The set of all braids on four strands is denoted by B4. The above composition of
braids is indeed a group operation. The neutral element is the braid consisting of four
parallel horizontal strands, and the inverse of a braid consists of that braid which
"undoes" whatever the first braid did. (The first two example braids above are
inverses of each other.)
[edit]
Generators and relations

Consider the following three braids:

σ1 σ2 σ3

Every braid in B4 can be written as a composition of a number of these braids and

their inverses. In other words, these three braids generate the group B4. To see this,
an arbitrary braid is scanned from left to right; whenever a crossing of strands i and i
+ 1 (counting from the top at the point of the crossing) is encountered, σi or σi−1 is
written down, depending on whether strand i moves under or over strand i + 1. Upon
reaching the right hand end, the braid has been written as a product of the σ's and
their inverses.

It is clear that (i):σ1σ3 = σ3σ1, while the following two relations are not quite as
obvious: (iia):σ1σ2σ1 = σ2σ1σ2, (iib):σ2σ3σ2 = σ3σ2σ3 (these can be appreciated
best by drawing the braid on a piece of paper). It can be shown that all other
relations among the braids σ1, σ2 and σ3 already follow from these relations and the
group axioms.

Generalising this example to n strands, the group Bn can be abstractly defined via
the following presentation:

where in the first group of relations 1 ≤ i ≤ n−2 and in the second group of relations,
|i − j| ≥ 2. This presentation leads to generalisations of braid groups called Artin
groups. The cubic relations, known as the braid relations, play an important role in
the theory of Yang–Baxter equation.
[edit]
Properties
The braid group B1 is trivial, B2 is an infinite cyclic group Z, and B3 is isomorphic to
the knot group of the trefoil knot – in particular, it is an infinite non-abelian group.
The n-strand braid group Bn embeds as a subgroup into the (n+1)-strand braid group
Bn+1 by adding an extra strand that does not cross any of the first n strands. The
increasing union of the braid groups with all n ≥ 1 is the infinite braid group B∞.
All non-identity elements of Bn have infinite order: Bn is torsion-free. More generally,
Patrick Dehornoy constructed a left-invariant linear order on Bn.
For n ≥ 3, Bn contains a subgroup isomorphic to the free group on two generators.
There is a homomorphism Bn → Z that maps every σi to 1. So for instance, the braid
σ2σ3σ1−1σ2σ3 is mapped to 1 + 1 − 1 + 1 + 1 = 3.
[edit]
Relation with symmetric group and the pure braid group
By forgetting how the strands twist and cross, every braid on n strands determines a
permutation on n elements. This assignment is onto, compatible with composition,
and therefore becomes a surjective group homomorphism Bn → Sn from the braid
group into the symmetric group. The image of the braid σi ∈ Bn is the transposition si
= (i, i+1) ∈ Sn. These transpositions generate the symmetric group, satisfy the braid
group relations, and have order 2. This transforms the Artin presentation of the braid
group into the Coxeter presentation of the symmetric group:

The kernel of the homomorphism Bn → Sn is the subgroup of Bn called the pure braid
group on n strands and denoted Pn. In a pure braid, the beginning and the end of
each strand are in the like positions. Pure braid groups fit into a short exact sequence

This sequence splits and therefore pure braid groups are realized as iterated semi-
direct products of free groups.
[edit]
Actions of braid groups

In analogy with the action of the symmetric group by permutations, in various

mathematical settings there exists a natural action the braid group on n-tuples of
objects or on the n-folded tensor product that involves some "twists". Consider an
arbitrary group G and let X be the set of all n-tuples of elements of G whose product
is the identity element of G. Then Bn acts on X in the following fashion:

Thus the elements xi and xi+1 exchange places and, in addition, xi is twisted by the
inner automorphism corresponding to xi+1 — this ensures that the product of the
components of x remains the identity element. It may be checked that the braid
group relations are satisfied and this formula indeed defines a group action of Bn on
X. As another example, a braided monoidal category is a monoidal category with a
braid group action. Such structures play an important role in modern mathematical
physics and lead to quantum knot invariants.
[edit]
Relation between B3 and the modular group

B3 is the universal central extension of the modular group.

The braid group B3 is the universal central extension of the modular group PSL(2,Z),
with these sitting as lattices inside the (topological) universal covering group

Further, the modular group has trivial center, and thus the modular group is
isomorphic to the quotient group of B3 modulo its center; equivalently, to the group
of inner automorphisms of B3.

A construction is given below.

Define a = σ1σ2σ1 and b = σ1σ2. From the braid relations it follows that a2 = b3.
Denoting this latter product as c = a2 = b3, one may verify from the braid relations
that

implying that c is in the center of B3. The subgroup of B3 generated by c is therefore

a normal subgroup. Since it is normal, one may take the quotient group; this quotient
group is isomorphic to the modular group:

This isomorphism can be given an explicit form. The cosets [σ1] of σ1 and [σ2] of σ2
map to

where L and R are the standard left and right moves on the Stern-Brocot tree; it is
well known that these moves generate the modular group.

Alternately, one common presentation for the modular group is

where

Mapping a to v and b to p yields a surjective group homomorphism from B3 to

PSL(2,Z).

The center of B3 is equal to , a consequence of the facts that c is in the center, the
modular group has trivial center, and the above surjective homomorphism has kernel
.
[edit]
Representations

Elements of the braid group Bn can be represented more concretely by matrices. One
classical such representation is Burau representation, where the matrix entries are
single variable Laurent polynomials. It had been a long-standing question whether
Burau representation was faithful, but the answer turned out to be negative for n ≥
5. More generally, it was a major open problem whether braid groups were linear. In
1990, Ruth Lawrence described a family of more general "Lawrence representations"
depending on several parameters. Around 2001 Stephen Bigelow and Daan Krammer
independently proved that all braid groups are linear. Their work used the Lawrence–
Krammer representation of dimension n(n−1)/2 depending on the variables q and t.
By suitably specializing these variables, the braid group Bn may be realized as a
subgroup of the general linear group over the complex numbers.
[edit]
Relationship to the mapping class group and classification of braids

The braid group Bn can be shown to be isomorphic to the mapping class group of a
punctured disk with n punctures. This is most easily visualized by imagining each
puncture as being connected by a string to the boundary of the disk; each mapping
homeomorphism that permutes two of the punctures can then be seen to be a
homotopy of the strings, that is, a braiding of these strings.

Via this mapping class group interpretation of braids, each braid may be classified as
periodic, reducible or pseudo-Anosov.
[edit]
Connection to knot theory and computational aspects

If a braid is given and one connects the first left-hand item to the first right-hand item
using a new string, the second left-hand item to the second right-hand item etc.
(without creating any braids in the new strings), one obtains a link, and sometimes a
knot. Alexander's theorem in braid theory states that the converse is true as well:
every knot and every link arises in this fashion from at least one braid; such a braid
can be obtained by cutting the link. Since braids can be concretely given as words in
the generators σi, this is often the preferred method of entering knots into computer
programs.

The word problem for the braid relations is efficiently solvable and there exists a
normal form for elements of Bn in terms of the generators σ1,...,σn−1. (In essence,
computing the normal form of a braid is the algebraic analogue of "pulling the
strands" as illustrated in our second set of images above.) The free GAP computer
algebra system can carry out computations in Bn if the elements are given in terms
of these generators. There is also a package called CHEVIE for GAP3 with special
support for braid groups. The word problem is also efficiently solved via the
Lawrence-Krammer representation.

Since there are nevertheless several hard computational problems about braid
groups, applications in cryptography have been suggested.
[edit]
Infinitely generated braid groups

There are many ways to generalize this notion to an infinite number of strands. The
simplest way is take the direct limit of braid groups, where the attaching maps send
the n − 1 generators of Bn to the first n − 1 generators of Bn + 1 (i.e., by attaching a
trivial strand). Fabel has shown that there are two topologies that can be imposed on
the resulting group each of whose completion yields a different group. One is a very
tame group and is isomorphic to the mapping class group of the infinitely punctured
disk — a discrete set of punctures limiting to the boundary of the disk.

The second group can be thought of the same as with finite braid groups. Place a
strand at each of the points (0,1 / n) and the set of all braids — where a braid is
defined to be a collection of paths from the points (0,1 / n,0) to the points (0,1 / n,1)
so that the function yields a permutation on endpoints — is isomorphic to this wilder
group. An interesting fact is that the pure braid group in this group is isomorphic to
both the inverse limit of finite pure braid groups Pn and to the fundamental group of
the Hilbert cube minus the set .
[edit]
Formal treatment

To put the above informal discussion of braid groups on firm ground, one needs to
use the homotopy concept of algebraic topology, defining braid groups as
fundamental groups of a configuration space. This is outlined in the article on braid
theory.

Alternatively, one can eschew topology altogether and define the braid group purely
algebraically via the braid relations, keeping the pictures in mind only to guide the
intuition.
[edit]
History

Braid groups were introduced explicitly by Emil Artin in 1925, although (as Wilhelm
Magnus pointed out in 1974[1]) they were already implicit in Adolf Hurwitz's work on
monodromy (1891). In fact, as Magnus says, Hurwitz gave the interpretation of a
braid group as the fundamental group of a configuration space (cf. braid theory), an
interpretation that was lost from view until it was rediscovered by Ralph Fox and Lee
Neuwirth in 1962.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burau_representation

In mathematics the Burau representation is a representation of the braid groups,

named after and originally studied by the German mathematician Werner Burau[1]
during the 1930s. The Burau representation has two common and near-equivalent
formulations, the reduced and unreduced Burau representations.Contents [hide]
1 Definition
2 Relation to the Alexander polynomial
3 Faithfulness
4 Geometry
5 References

[edit]
Definition

Consider the braid group Bn to be the mapping class group of a disc with n marked
points Pn. The homology group H1Pn is free abelian of rank n. Moreover, the invariant
subspace of H1Pn (under the action of Bn) is primitive and infinite cyclic. Let be the
projection onto this invariant subspace. Then there is a covering space corresponding
to this projection map. Much like in the construction of the Alexander polynomial,
consider as a module over the group-ring of covering transformations (a Laurent
polynomial ring). As such a -module, is free of rank n − 1. By the basic theory of
covering spaces, Bn acts on , and this representation is called the reduced Burau
representation.

The unreduced Burau representation has a similar definition, namely one replaces Pn
with its (real, oriented) blow-up at the marked points. Then instead of considering
one considers the relative homology where is the part of the boundary of Pn
corresponding to the blow-up operation together with one point on the disc's
boundary. denotes the lift of to . As a -module this is free of rank n.

By the homology long exact sequence of a pair, the Burau representations fit into a
short exact sequence , where Vr and Vu are reduced and unreduced Burau Bn-
modules respectively and is the complement to the diagonal subspace (ie: , and Bn
acts on by the permutation representation.
[edit]
Relation to the Alexander polynomial

If a knot K is the closure of a braid f, then the Alexander polynomial is given by ΔK(t)
= det(I − f * ) where f * is the reduced Burau representation of the braid f.
[edit]
Faithfulness

The first nonfaithful Burau representations are found without the use of computer,
using a notion of winding number or contour integration. [2] A more conceptual
understanding [3] interprets the linking or winding as coming from Poincare duality in
first homology relative to the basepoint of a covering space, and uses the
intersection form (traditionally called Squier's Form as Craig Squier was the first to
explore its properties).[4] Stephen Bigelow combined computer techniques and the
Long-Paton theorem to show that the Burau representation is not faithful for n ≥ 5
[5]. [6][7]
The Burau representation for n = 2, 3 has been known to be faithful for some time.
The faithfulness of the Burau representation when n = 4 is an open problem.
[edit]
Geometry

Squier showed that the Burau representation preserves a sesquilinear form.[4]

Moreover, when the variable t is chosen to be a transcendental unit complex number
near 1 it is a positive-definite Hermitian pairing, thus the Burau representation can be
thought of as a map into the Unitary group.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unitary_group

In mathematics, the unitary group of degree n, denoted U(n), is the group of n×n
unitary matrices, with the group operation that of matrix multiplication. The unitary group is a
subgroup of the general linear group GL(n, C). Hyperorthogonal group is an archaic name for the
unitary group, especially over finite fields.

In the simple case n = 1, the group U(1) corresponds to the circle group, consisting of all complex
numbers with absolute value 1 under multiplication. All the unitary groups contain copies of this
group.

The unitary group U(n) is a real Lie group of dimension n2. The Lie algebra of U(n) consists of
complex n×n skew-Hermitian matrices, with the Lie bracket given by the commutator.

The general unitary group (also called the group of unitary similitudes) consists of all matrices A
such that A * A is a nonzero multiple of the identity matrix, and is just the product of the unitary
group with the group of all positive multiples of the identity matrix.Contents [hide]
1 Properties
2 Topology
3 Related groups
3.1 2-out-of-3 property
3.2 Special unitary and projective unitary groups
4 G-structure: almost Hermitian
5 Generalizations
5.1 Indefinite forms
5.2 Finite fields
5.3 Degree-2 separable algebras
5.4 Algebraic groups
6 Polynomial invariants
7 Classifying space
8 See also
9 Notes
10 References

[edit]
Properties

Since the determinant of a unitary matrix is a complex number with norm 1, the determinant gives
a group homomorphism

The kernel of this homomorphism is the set of unitary matrices with unit determinant. This
subgroup is called the special unitary group, denoted SU(n). We then have a short exact
sequence of Lie groups:

This short exact sequence splits so that U(n) may be written as a semidirect product of SU(n) by
U(1). Here the U(1) subgroup of U(n) consists of matrices of the form diag(eiθ, 1, 1, ..., 1).

The unitary group U(n) is nonabelian for n > 1. The center of U(n) is the set of scalar
matrices λI with λ ∈ U(1). This follows from Schur's lemma. The center is then
isomorphic to U(1). Since the center of U(n) is a 1-dimensional abelian normal
subgroup of U(n), the unitary group is not semisimple.
[edit]
Topology

The unitary group U(n) is endowed with the relative topology as a subset of Mn(C),
the set of all n×n complex matrices, which is itself homeomorphic to a 2n2-dimensional
Euclidean space.

As a topological space, U(n) is both compact and connected. The compactness of U(n) follows
from the Heine-Borel theorem and the fact that it is a closed and bounded subset of Mn(C). To
show that U(n) is connected, recall that any unitary matrix A can be diagonalized by another
unitary matrix S. Any diagonal unitary matrix must have complex numbers of absolute value 1 on
the main diagonal. We can therefore write

A path in U(n) from the identity to A is then given by

The unitary group is not simply connected; the fundamental group of U(n) is infinite cyclic for all n:

The first unitary group U(1) is topologically a circle, which is well known to have a fundamental
group isomorphic to Z, and the inclusion map is an isomorphism on π1. (It has quotient the
Stiefel manifold.)

The determinant map induces an isomorphism of fundamental groups, with the

splitting inducing the inverse.
[edit]
Related groups
[edit]
2-out-of-3 property

The unitary group is the 3-fold intersection of the orthogonal, symplectic, and
complex groups:

Thus a unitary structure can be seen as an orthogonal structure, a complex structure,

and a symplectic structure, which are required to be compatible (meaning that one
uses the same J in the complex structure and the symplectic form, and that this J is
orthogonal; writing all the groups as matrix groups fixes a J (which is orthogonal) and
ensures compatibility).

In fact, it is the intersection of any two of these three; thus a compatible orthogonal
and complex structure induce a symplectic structure, and so forth. [1] [2]
At the level of equations, this can be seen as follows:
Symplectic: ATJA = J
Complex: A − 1JA = J
Orthogonal: AT = A − 1.

Any two of these equations implies the third.

At the level of forms, this can be seen by decomposing a Hermitian form into its real
and imaginary parts: the real part is symmetric (orthogonal), and the imaginary part
is skew-symmetric (symplectic)—and these are related by the complex structure
(which is the compatibility). On an almost Kähler manifold, one can write this
decomposition as h = g + iω, where h is the Hermitian form, g is the Riemannian metric,
i is the almost complex structure, and ω is the almost symplectic structure.

From the point of view of Lie groups, this can partly be explained as follows: O(2n) is
the maximal compact subgroup of , and U(n) is the maximal compact subgroup of
both and Sp(2n). Thus the intersection of or is the maximal compact subgroup of
both of these, so U(n). From this perspective, what is unexpected is the intersection .
[edit]
Special unitary and projective unitary groups

Main article: Projective unitary group

Just as the orthogonal group has the special orthogonal group SO(n) as subgroup and
the projective orthogonal group PO(n) as quotient, and the projective special
orthogonal group PSO(n) as subquotient, the unitary group has associated to it the
special unitary group SU(n), the projective unitary group PU(n), and the projective
special unitary group PSU(n). These are related as by the commutative diagram at
right; notably, both projective groups are equal: .

The above is for the classical unitary group (over the complex numbers) – for unitary
groups over finite fields, one similarly obtains special unitary and projective unitary
groups, but in general .
[edit]
G-structure: almost Hermitian

In the language of G-structures, a manifold with a U(n)-structure is an almost

Hermitian manifold.
[edit]
Generalizations

From the point of view of Lie theory, the classical unitary group is a real form of the
Steinberg group , which is an algebraic group that arises from the combination of the
diagram automorphism of the general linear group (reversing the Dynkin diagram An,
which corresponds to transpose inverse) and the field automorphism of the extension
(namely complex conjugation). Both these automorphisms are automorphisms of the
algebraic group, have order 2, and commute, and the unitary group is the fixed
points of the product automorphism, as an algebraic group. The classical unitary
group is a real form of this group, corresponding to the standard Hermitian form Ψ,
which is positive definite.

This can be generalized in a number of ways:

generalizing to other Hermitian forms yields indefinite unitary groups ;
the field extension can be replaced by any degree 2 separable algebra, most notably
a degree 2 extension of a finite field;
generalizing to other diagrams yields other groups of Lie type, namely the other
Steinberg groups (in addition to ) and Suzuki-Ree groups

considering a generalized unitary group as an algebraic group, one can take its
points over various algebras.
[edit]
Indefinite forms

Analogous to the indefinite orthogonal groups, one can define an indefinite unitary
group, by considering the transforms that preserve a given Hermitian form, not
necessarily positive definite (but generally taken to be non-degenerate). Here one is
working with a vector space over the complex numbers.

Given a Hermitian form Ψ on a complex vector space V, the unitary group U(Ψ) is the
group of transforms that preserve the form: the transform M such that Ψ(Mv,Mw) =
Ψ(v,w) for all . In terms of matrices, representing the form by a matrix denoted Φ,
this says that M * ΦM = Φ.

Just as for symmetric forms over the reals, Hermitian forms are determined by
signature, and are all unitarily congruent to a diagonal form with p entries of 1 on the
diagonal and q entries of − 1. The non-degenerate assumption is equivalent to p + q
= n. In a standard basis, this is represented as a quadratic form as:

and as a symmetric form as:

The resulting group is denoted U(p,q).

[edit]
Finite fields

Over the finite field with q = pr elements, , there is a unique degree 2 extension field,
, with order 2 automorphism (the rth power of the Frobenius automorphism). This
allows one to define a Hermitian form on an vector space V, as an -bilinear map such
that and Ψ(w,cv) = cΨ(w,v) for . Further, all non-degenerate Hermitian forms on a
vector space over a finite field are unitarily congruent to the standard one,
represented by the identity matrix, that is, any Hermitian form is unitarily equivalent
to

where wi,vi represent the coordinates of in some particular -basis of the n-

dimensional space V (Grove 2002, Thm. 10.3).

Thus one can define a (unique) unitary group of dimension n for the extension ,
denoted either as U(n,q) or depending on the author. The subgroup of the unitary
group consisting of matrices of determinant 1 is called the special unitary group and
denoted SU(n,q) or SU(n,q2). For convenience, this article will use the U(n,q2)
convention. The center of U(n,q2) has order q + 1 and consists of the scalar matrices
which are unitary, that is those matrices cIV with cq + 1 = 1. The center of the
special unitary group has order gcd(n,q + 1) and consists of those unitary scalars
which also have order dividing n. The quotient of the unitary group by its center is
called the projective unitary group, PU(n,q2), and the quotient of the special unitary
group by its center is the projective special unitary group PSU(n,q2). In most cases
( and ), SU(n,q2) is a perfect group and PSU(n,q2) is a finite simple group, (Grove
2002, Thm. 11.22 and 11.26).
[edit]
Degree-2 separable algebras

More generally, given a field k and a degree-2 separable k-algebra K (which may be a
field extension but need not be), one can define unitary groups with respect to this
extension.

First, there is a unique k-automorphism of K which is an involution and fixes exactly k

( if and only if )[3]. This generalizes complex conjugation and the conjugation of
degree 2 finite field extensions, and allows one to define Hermitian forms and unitary
groups as above.
[edit]
Algebraic groups

The equations defining a unitary group are polynomial equations over k (but not over
K): for the standard form Φ = I the equations are given in matrices as A * A = I,
where is the conjugate transpose. Given a different form, they are A * ΦA = Φ. The
unitary group is thus an algebraic group, whose points over a k-algebra R are given
by:

For the field extension and the standard (positive definite) Hermitian form, these
yield an algebraic group with real and complex points given by:

[edit]
Polynomial invariants

The unitary groups are the automorphisms of two polynomials in real non-
commutative variables:
C1 = (u2 + v2) + (w2 + x2) + (y2 + z2) + ...
C2 = (uv − vu) + (wx − xw) + (yz − zy) + ...

These are easily seen to be the real and imginary parts of the complex form . The two
invariants separately are invariants of O(2n) and Sp(2n,R). Combined they make the
invariants of U(n) which is a subgroup of both these groups. The variables must be
non-commutative in these invariants otherwise the second polynomial is identically
zero.
[edit]
Classifying space

The classifying space for U(n) is described in the article classifying space for U(n).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projective_unitary_group

In mathematics, the projective unitary group PU(n) is the quotient of the unitary
group U(n) by the right multiplication of its center, U(1), embedded as scalars.
Abstractly, it is the isometry group of complex projective space, just as the projective
orthogonal group is the isometry group of real projective space.

In terms of matrices, elements of U(n) are complex nn unitary matrices, and

elements of the center are diagonal matrices equal to eiθ multiplied by the identity
matrix. Thus elements of PU(n) correspond to equivalence classes of unitary matrices
under multiplication by a constant phase θ.

Abstractly, given a Hermitian space V, the group PU(V) is the image of the unitary
group U(V) in the automorphism group of the projective space .Contents [hide]
1 Projective special unitary group
2 Examples
3 Finite fields
4 The topology of PU(H)
4.1 PU(H) is a classifying space for circle bundles
4.2 The homotopy and (co)homology of PU(H)
5 Representations
5.1 The adjoint representation
5.2 Projective representations
6 Applications
6.1 Twisted K-theory
6.2 Pure Yang–Mills gauge theory
7 References
8 See also

[edit]
Projective special unitary group

The projective special unitary group PSU(n) is equal to the projective unitary group,
in contrast to the orthogonal case.

The connections between the U(n), SU(n), their centers, and the projective unitary
groups is shown at right.

The center of the special unitary group is the scalar matrices of the nth roots of unity:

The natural map

is an isomorphism, by the third isomorphism theorem, thus

PU(n) = PSU(n) = SU(n)/(Z/n).

and the special unitary group SU(n) is an n-fold cover of the projective unitary group.
[edit]
Examples

At n = 1, U(1) is abelian and so is equal to its center. Therefore PU(1) = U(1)/U(1) is a

trivial group.

At n = 2, , all being representable by unit norm quaternions, and , via:

[edit]
Finite fields
See also: Unitary group#Finite fields

One can also define unitary groups over finite fields: given a field of order q, there is
a non-degenerate Hermitian structure on vector spaces over , unique up to unitary
congruence, and correspondingly a matrix group denoted U(n,q) or , and likewise
special and projective unitary groups. For convenience, this article with use the
U(n,q2) convention.

Recall that the group of units of a finite group are cyclic, so the group of units of , and
thus the group of invertible scalar matrices in GL(n,q2), is the cyclic group of order q2
− 1. The center of U(n,q2) has order q + 1 and consists of the scalar matrices which
are unitary, that is those matrices cIV with cq + 1 = 1. The center of the special
unitary group has order gcd(n,q + 1) and consists of those unitary scalars which also
have order dividing n.

The quotient of the unitary group by its center is the projective unitary group,
PU(n,q2), and the quotient of the special unitary group by its center is the projective
special unitary group PSU(n,q2). In most cases ( and ), SU(n,q2) is a perfect group
and PSU(n,q2) is a finite simple group, (Grove 2002, Thm. 11.22 and 11.26).
[edit]
The topology of PU(H)
[edit]
PU(H) is a classifying space for circle bundles

The same construction may be applied to matrices acting on an infinite-dimensional

Hilbert space .

Let U(H) denote the space of unitary operators on an infinite-dimensional Hilbert

space. When f: X → U(H) is a continuous mapping of a compact space X into the
unitary group, one can use a finite dimensional approximation of its image and a
simple K-theoretic tric

to show that it is actually homotopic to the trivial map onto a single point. This
means that U(H) is weakly contractible, and an additional argument shows that it is
actually contractible. Note that this is a purely infinite dimensional phenomenon, in
contrast to the finite-dimensional cousins U(n) and their limit U() under the inclusion
maps which are not contractible admitting homotopically nontrivial continuous
mappings onto U(1) given by the determinant of matrices.

The center of the infinite-dimensional unitary group U() is, as in the finite dimensional
case, U(1), which again acts on the unitary group via multiplication by a phase. As
the unitary group does not contain the zero matrix, this action is free. Thus U() is a
contractible space with a U(1) action, which identifies it as EU(1) and the space of
U(1) orbits as BU(1), the classifying space for U(1).
[edit]
The homotopy and (co)homology of PU(H)

PU() is defined precisely to be the space of orbits of the U(1) action on U(), thus PU()
is a realization of the classifying space BU(1). In particular, using the isomorphism
πn(X) = πn + 1(BX)

between the homotopy groups of a space X and the homotopy groups of its
classifying space BX, combined with the homotopy type of the circle U(1)

we find the homotopy groups of PU()

thus identifying PU() as a representative of the Eilenberg–MacLane space K(Z,2).

As a consequence, PU() must be of the same homotopy type as the infinite-
dimensional complex projective space, which also represents K(Z,2). This means in
particular that they have isomorphic homology and cohomology groups
H2n(PU())=H2n(PU())=Z

and
H2n+1(PU())=H2n+1(PU())=0.
[edit]
Representations
[edit]
The adjoint representation

PU(n) in general has no n-dimensional representations, just as SO(3) has no two-

dimensional representations.

PU(n) has an adjoint action on SU(n), thus it has an (n2-1)-dimensional

representation. When n=2 this corresponds to the three dimensional representation
of SO(3). The adjoint action is defined by thinking of an element of PU(n) as an
equivalence class of elements of U(n) that differ by phases. One can then take the
adjoint action with respect to any of these U(n) representatives, and the phases
commute with everything and so cancel. Thus the action is independent of the choice
of representative and so it is well-defined.
[edit]
Projective representations

In many applications PU(n) does not act in any linear representation, but instead in a
projective representation, which is a representation up to a phase which is
independent of the vector on which one acts. These are useful in quantum
mechanics, as physical states are only defined up to phase. For example, massive
fermionic states transform under a projective representation but not under a
representation of the little group PU(2)=SO(3).

The projective representations of a group are classified by its second integral

cohomology, which in this case is
H2(PU(n)) = Z/n or H2(PU()) = Z.

The cohomology groups in the finite case can be derived from the long exact
sequence for bundles and the above fact that SU(n) is a Z/n bundle over PU(n). The
cohomology in the infinite case was argued above from the isomorphism with the
cohomology of the infinite complex projective space.

Thus PU(n) enjoys n projective representations, of which the first is the fundamental
representation of its SU(n) cover, while PU() has a countably infinite number. As
usual, the projective representations of a group are ordinary representations of a
central extension of the group. In this case the central extended group corresponding
to the first projective representation of each projective unitary group is just the
original unitary group that we quotiented by U(1) in the definition of PU.
[edit]
Applications
[edit]
Twisted K-theory

The adjoint action of the infinite projective unitary group is useful in geometric
definitions of twisted K-theory. Here the adjoint action of the infinite-dimensional PU()
on either the Fredholm operators or the infinite unitary group is used.

In geometrical constructions of twisted K-theory with twist H, the PU() is the fiber of a
bundle, and different twists H correspond to different fibrations. As seen below,
topologically PU() represents the Eilenberg–Maclane space K(Z,2), therefore the
classifying space of PU() bundles is the Eilenberg–Maclane space K(Z,3). K(Z,3) is also
the classifying space for the third integral cohomology group, therefore PU() bundles
are classified by the third integral cohomology. As a result, the possible twists H of a
twisted K-theory are precisely the elements of the third integral cohomology.
[edit]
Pure Yang–Mills gauge theory

In the pure Yang–Mills SU(n) gauge theory, which is a gauge theory with only gluons
and no fundamental matter, all fields transform in the adjoint of the gauge group
SU(n). The Z/n center of SU(n) commutes, being in the center, with SU(n)-valued
fields and so the adjoint action of the center is trivial. Therefore the gauge symmetry
is the quotient of SU(n) by Z/n, which is PU(n) and it acts on fields using the adjoint
action described above.

In this context, the distinction between SU(n) and PU(n) has an important physical
consequence. SU(n) is simply connected, but the fundamental group of PU(n) is Z/n,
the cyclic group of order n. Therefore a PU(n) gauge theory with adjoint scalars will
have nontrivial codimension 2 vortices in which the expectation values of the scalars
wind around PU(n)'s nontrivial cycle as one encircles the vortex. These vortices,
therefore, also have charges in Z/n, which implies that they attract each other and
when n come into contact they annihilate. An example of such a vortex is the
Douglas–Shenker string in SU(n) Seiberg–Witten gauge theories.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twisted_K-theory

In mathematics, twisted K-theory (also called "K-theory with local coefficients") is a

variation on K-theory, a mathematical theory from the 1950s that spans algebraic
topology, abstract algebra and operator theory.

More specifically, twisted K-theory with twist H is a particular variant of K-theory, in

which the twist is given by an integral 3-dimensional cohomology class. It is special
among the various twists that K-theory admits for two reasons. First, it admits a
geometric formulation. This was provided in two steps ; the first one was done in
1970 (Publ. Math. de l'IHES) by Peter Donovan and Max Karoubi [1]; the second one
in 1988 by Jonathan Rosenberg in Continuous-Trace Algebras from the Bundle
Theoretic Point of View.

In physics, it has been conjectured to classify D-branes, Ramond-Ramond field

strengths and in some cases even spinors in type II string theory. For more
information on twisted K-theory in string theory, see K-theory (physics).

In the broader context of K-theory, in each subject it has numerous isomorphic

formulations and, in many cases, isomorphisms relating definitions in various
subjects have been proven. It also has numerous deformations, for example, in
abstract algebra K-theory may be twisted by any integral cohomology class.Contents
[hide]
1 The definition
2 What is it?
3 How to calculate it
3.1 Example: the three-sphere
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

[edit]
The definition

To motivate Rosenberg's geometric formulation of twisted K-theory, start from the

Atiyah-Jänich theorem, stating that
,

the Fredholm operators on Hilbert space , is a classifying space for ordinary, untwisted K-theory.
This means that the K-theory of the space M consists of the homotopy classes of maps

from M to .

A slightly more complicated way of saying the same thing is as follows. Consider the trivial bundle
of over M, that is, the Cartesian product of M and . Then the K-theory of M consists of the
homotopy classes of sections of this bundle.

We can make this yet more complicated by introducing a trivial

bundle P over M, where is the group of projective unitary operators on the Hilbert space . Then
the group of maps

from P to which are equivariant under an action of is equivalent to the original groups of maps

This more complicated construction of ordinary K-theory is naturally generalized to the twisted
case. To see this, note that bundles on M are classified by elements H of the third integral
cohomology group of M. This is a consequence of the fact that topologically is a representative
Eilenberg-MacLane space
.

The generalization is then straightforward. Rosenberg has defined

KH(M),

the twisted K-theory of M with twist given by the 3-class H, to be the space of homotopy classes
of sections of the trivial bundle over M that are covariant with respect to a bundle PH fibered over
M with 3-class H, that is

Equivalently, it is the space of homotopy classes of sections of the bundles associated to a

bundle with class H.
[edit]
What is it?

When H is the trivial class, twisted K-theory is just untwisted K-theory, which is a ring. However
when H is nontrivial this theory is no longer a ring. It has an addition, but it is no longer closed
under multiplication.

However, the direct sum of the twisted K-theories of M with all possible twists is a ring. In
particular, the product of an element of K-theory with twist H with an element of K-theory with
twist H' is an element of K-theory twisted by H+H'. This element can be constructed directly from
the above definition by using adjoints of Fredholm operators and construct a specific 2 x 2 matrix
out of them (see the reference 1, where a more natural and general Z/2-graded version is also
presented). In particular twisted K-theory is a module over classical K-theory.
[edit]
How to calculate it

Physicist typically want to calculate twisted K-theory using the Atiyah-Hirzebruch spectral
sequence.[1] The idea is that one begins with all of the even or all of the odd integral
cohomology, depending on whether one wishes to calculate the twisted K0 or the twisted K1, and
then one takes the cohomology with respect to a series of differential operators. The first
operator, d3, for example, is the sum of the three-class H, which in string theory corresponds to
the Neveu-Schwarz 3-form, and the third Steenrod square. [2] No elementary form for the next
operator, d5, has been found, although several conjectured forms exist. Higher operators do not
contribute to the K-theory of a 10-manifold, which is the dimension of interest in critical
superstring theory. Over the rationals Michael Atiyah and Graeme Segal have shown that all of
the differentials reduce to Massey products of H.[3]

After taking the cohomology with respect to the full series of differentials one obtains twisted K-
theory as a set, but to obtain the full group structure one in general needs to solve an extension
problem.
[edit]
Example: the three-sphere

The three-sphere, S3, has trivial cohomology except for H0(S3) and H3(S3) which are both
isomorphic to the integers. Thus the even and odd cohomologies are both isomorphic to the
integers. Because the three-sphere is of dimension three, which is less than five, the third
Steenrod square is trivial on its cohomology and so the first nontrivial differential is just d3 = H.
The later differentials increase the degree of a cohomology class by more than three and so are
again trivial; thus the twisted K-theory is just the cohomology of the operator d3 which acts on a
class by cupping it with the 3-class H.

Imagine that H is the trivial class, zero. Then d3 is also trivial. Thus its entire domain is its kernel,
and nothing is in its image. Thus K0H=0(S3) is the kernel of d3 in the even cohomology, which is
the full even cohomology, which consists of the integers. Similarly K1H=0(S3) consists of the odd
cohomology quotiented by the image of d3, in other words quotiented by the trivial group. This
leaves the original odd cohomology, which is again the integers. In conclusion, K0 and K1 of the
three-sphere with trivial twist are both isomorphic to the integers. As expected, this agrees with
the untwisted K-theory.

Now consider the case in which H is nontrivial. H is defined to be an element of the third integral
cohomology, which is isomorphic to the integers. Thus H corresponds to a number, which we will
call n. d3 now takes an element m of H0 and yields the element nm of H3. As n is not equal to
zero by assumption, the only element of the kernel of d3 is the zero element, and so
K0H=n(S3)=0. The image of d3 consists of all elements of the integers that are multiples of n.
Therefore the odd cohomology, Z, quotiented by the image of d3, nZ, is the cyclic group of order
n, Zn. In conclusion
K1H=n(S3) = Zn.

In string theory this result reproduces the classification of D-branes on the 3-sphere with n units
of H-flux, which corresponds to the set of symmetric boundary conditions in the supersymmetric
SU(2) WZW model at level n &minus 2.
There is an extension of this calculation to the group manifold of SU(3).[4] In this case the
Steenrod square term in d3, the operator d5, and the extension problem are nontrivial.
[edit]
See also
K-theory (physics)
Wess-Zumino-Witten model
bundle gerbe

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wess-Zumino-Witten_model

In theoretical physics and mathematics, the Wess–Zumino–Witten (WZW) model, also called the
Wess–Zumino–Novikov–Witten model, is a simple model of conformal field theory whose
solutions are realized by affine Kac–Moody algebras. It is named after Julius Wess, Bruno
Zumino, Sergei Novikov and Edward Witten.Contents [hide]
1 Action
1.1 Pullback
1.2 Topological obstructions
1.3 Generalizations
2 Current algebra
3 References

[edit]
Action

Let G denote a compact simply-connected Lie group and g its simple Lie algebra. Suppose that γ
is a G-valued field on the complex plane. More precisely, we want γ to be defined on
the Riemann sphere S2, which is the complex plane compactified by adding a point
at infinity.

The WZW model is then a nonlinear sigma model defined by γ with the action given
by

Here, is the partial derivative and the usual summation convention over indices is
used, with a Euclidean metric. Here, is the Killing form on g, and thus the first term is
the standard kinetic term of quantum field theory.

The term SWZ is called the Wess–Zumino term and can be written as

where [,] is the commutator, εijk is the completely anti-symmetric tensor, and the
integration coordinates yi for i=1,2,3 range over the unit ball B3. In this integral, the
field γ has been extended so that it is defined on the interior of the unit ball. This
extension can always be done because the homotopy group π2(G) always vanishes
for any compact, simply-connected Lie group, and we originally defined γ on the 2-
sphere .
[edit]
Pullback

Note that if ea are the basis vectors for the Lie algebra, then are the structure
constants of the Lie algebra. Note also that the structure constants are completely
anti-symmetric, and thus they define a 3-form on the group manifold of G. Thus, the
integrand above is just the pullback of the harmonic 3-form to the ball B3. Denoting
the harmonic 3-form by c and the pullback by γ * , one then has

This form leads directly to a topological analysis of the WZ term. Geometrically, this
term describes the torsion of the respective manifold. The presence of this torsion
compels teleparallelism of the manifold and trivialization of the torsionful curvature
tensor; and hence arrest of the renormalization flow, an infrared fixed point of the
renormalization group, a phenomenon termed geometrostasis.
[edit]
Topological obstructions

The extension of the field to the interior of the ball is not unique; the need that the
physics be independent of the extension imposes a quanitization condition on the
coupling constant k. Consider two different extensions of γ to the interior of the ball.
They are maps from flat 3-space into the Lie group G. Consider now glueing these
two balls together at their boundary S2. The result of the gluing is a topological 3-
sphere; each ball B3 is a hemisphere of S3. The two different extensions of γ on each
ball now becomes a map . However, the homotopy group for any compact, connected
simple Lie group G. Thus we have
SWZ(γ) = SWZ(γ') + n

where γ and γ' denote the two different extensions onto the ball, and n, an integer, is
the winding number of the glued-together map. The physics that this model leads to
will stay the same if

Thus, topological considerations leads one to conclude that coupling constant k must
be an integer when G is a connected, compact, simple Lie group. For a semisimple or
disconnected compact Lie group the level consists of an integer for each connected,
simple component.

This topological obstruction can also be seen in the representation theory of the
affine Lie algebra symmetries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braid_theory

In topology, a branch of mathematics, braid theory is an abstract geometric theory studying the
everyday braid concept, and some generalizations. The idea is that braids can be organized into
groups, in which the group operation is 'do the first braid on a set of strings, and then follow it with
a second on the twisted strings'. Such groups may be described by explicit presentations, as was
shown by Emil Artin. For an elementary treatment along these lines, see the article on braid
groups. Braid groups may also be given a deeper mathematical interpretation: as the
fundamental group of certain configuration spaces.Contents [hide]
1 Braids as fundamental groups
2 Closed braids
3 Applications
4 See also
5 References

[edit]
Braids as fundamental groups

To explain how to reduce a braid group in the sense of Artin to a fundamental group, we consider
a connected manifold X of dimension at least 2. The symmetric product of n copies of X means
the quotient of Xn, the n-fold Cartesian product of X with itself, by the permutation action of the
symmetric group on n letters operating on the indices of coordinates. That is, an ordered n-tuple
is in the same orbit as any other that is a re-ordered version of it.

A path in the n-fold symmetric product is the abstract way of discussing n points of X, considered
as an unordered n-tuple, independently tracing out n strings. Since we must require that the
strings never pass through each other, it is necessary that we pass to the subspace Y of the
symmetric product, of orbits of n-tuples of distinct points. That is, we remove all the subspaces of
Xn defined by conditions xi = xj. This is invariant under the symmetric group, and Y is the quotient
by the symmetric group of the non-excluded n-tuples. Under the dimension condition Y will be
connected.

With this definition, then, we can call the braid group of X with n strings the fundamental group of
Y (for any choice of base point – this is well-defined up to isomorphism). The case where X is the
Euclidean plane is the original one of Artin. In some cases it can be shown that the higher
homotopy groups of Y are trivial.
[edit]
Closed braids

When X is the plane, the braid can be closed, i.e., corresponding ends can be connected in pairs,
to form a link, i.e., a possibly intertwined union of possibly knotted loops in three dimensions. The
number of components of the link can be anything from 1 to n, depending on the permutation of
strands determined by the link. A theorem of J. W. Alexander demonstrates that every link can be
obtained in this way as the "closure" of a braid. Compare with string links.

Different braids can give rise to the same link, just as different crossing diagrams can give rise to
the same knot. Markov's theorem describes two moves on braid diagrams that yield equivalence
in the corresponding closed braids. A single-move version of Markov's theorem, due to Sofia
Lambropoulou and Colin Rourke, was published in 1997.

Vaughan Jones originally defined his polynomial as a braid invariant and then showed that it
depended only on the class of the closed braid.
[edit]
Applications

Braid theory has recently been applied to fluid mechanics, specifically to the field of chaotic
mixing in fluid flows. The braiding of (2+1) dimensional space-time trajectories formed by motion
of physical rods [1], periodic orbits (called ghost rods in [2] ) and almost-invariant sets[3] has
been used to estimate the topological entropy of several engineered and naturally occuring fluid
systems, via the use of Nielsen–Thurston classification.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/String_links#string_link

In mathematics, a link is a collection of knots which do not intersect, but which may be linked (or
knotted) together. A knot can be described as a link with one component. Links and knots are
studied in a branch of mathematics called knot theory. Implicit in this definition is that there is a
trivial reference link, usually called the unlink, but the word is also sometimes used in context
where there is no notion of a trivial link.
A Hopf link spanned by an annulus.

For example, a co-dimension two link in 3-dimensional space is a subspace of 3-dimensional

Euclidean space (or often the 3-sphere) whose connected components are homeomorphic to
circles.

The simplest nontrivial example of a link with more than one component is called the Hopf link,
which consists of two circles (or unknots) linked together once. The circles in the Borromean rings
are collectively linked despite the fact that no two of them are directly linked. The Borromean
rings thus form a Brunnian link and in fact constitute the simplest such link.

Trefoil knot linked with a circle.

The Hopf link in cobordant to the unlink.Contents [hide]

1 Generalizations
1.1 General manifolds
1.2 Tangles, string links, and braids
2 See also
3 Notes

[edit]
Generalizations

The notion of a link can be generalized in a number of ways.

[edit]
General manifolds

Frequently the word link is used to describe any submanifold of the sphere Sn diffeomorphic to a
disjoint union of a finite number of spheres, Sj.

In full generality, the word link is essentially the same as the word knot – the context is that one
has a submanifold M of a manifold N (considered to be trivially embedded) and a non-trivial
embedding of M in N, non-trivial in the sense that the 2nd embedding is not isotopic to the 1st. If
M is disconnected, the embedding is called a link (or said to be linked). If M is connected, it is
called a knot.
[edit]
Tangles, string links, and braids
See also: Tangle (mathematics)

While (1-dimensional) links are defined as embeddings of circles, it is often interesting and
especially technically useful to consider embedded intervals (strands), as in braid theory.

Most generally, one can consider a tangle[1][2] – a tangle is an embedding of a (smooth)

compact 1-manifold with boundary into the plane times the interval I = [0,1], such that the
boundary is embedded in (). The type of a tangle is the manifold X, together with a fixed
embedding of

Concretely, a connected compact 1-manifold with boundary is an interval I = [0,1] or a circle S1

(compactness rules out the open interval (0,1) and the half-open interval [0,1), neither of which
yields non-trivial embeddings since the open end means that they can be shrunk to a point), so a
possibly disconnected compact 1-manifold is a collection of n intervals I = [0,1] and m circles S1.
The condition that the boundary of X lies in says that intervals either connect two lines or connect
two points on one of the lines, but imposes no conditions on the circles. One may view tangles as
having a vertical direction (I), lying between and possibly connecting two lines ( and ), and then
being able to move in a two-dimensional horizontal direction () between these lines; one can
project these to form a tangle diagram, analogous to a knot diagram.

Tangles include links (if X consists of circles only), braids, and others besides – for example, a
strand connecting the two lines together with a circle linked around it.

In this context, a braid is defined as a tangle which is always going down – whose derivative
always has a non-zero component in the vertical (I) direction. In particular, it must consist solely
of intervals, and not double back on itself; however, no specification is made on where on the line
the ends lie.

A string link is a tangle consisting of only intervals, with the ends of each strand required to lie at
(0, 0), (0, 1), (1, 0), (1, 1), (2, 0), (2, 1), ... – i.e., connecting the integers, and ending in the same
order that they began (one may use any other fixed set of points); if this has ℓ components, we
call it an "ℓ-component string link". A string link need not be a braid – it may double back on itself,
such as a two-component string link that features an overhand knot. A braid that is also a string
link is called a pure braid, and corresponds with the usual such notion.

The key technical value of tangles and string links is that they have algebraic structure. Isotopy
classes of tangles form a tensor category, where for the category structure, one can compose two
tangles if the bottom end of one equals the top end of the other (so the boundaries can be
stitched together), by stacking them – they do not literally form a category (pointwise) because
there is no identity, since even a trivial tangle takes up vertical space, but up to isotopy they do.
The tensor structure is given by juxtaposition of tangles – putting one tangle to the right of the
other.

For a fixed ℓ, isotopy classes of ℓ-component string links form a monoid (one can compose all ℓ-
component string links, and there is an identity), but not a group, as isotopy classes of string links
need not have inverses. However, concordance classes (and thus also homotopy classes) of
string links do have inverses, where inverse is given by flipping the string link upside down, and
thus form a group.

Every link can be cut apart to form a string link, though this is not unique, and invariants of links
can sometimes be understood as invariants of string links – this is the case for Milnor's invariants,
for instance. Compare with closed braids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopf_link

In mathematical knot theory, the Hopf link, named after Heinz Hopf, is the simplest nontrivial link
with more than one component. It consists of two circles linked together exactly once. For a
concrete model, take the unit circle in the xy-plane centered at the origin and another unit circle in
the yz-plane centered at (0,1,0).

Depending on the relative orientations of the two components the linking number of the Hopf link
is ±1.

The Hopf link is a (2,2)-torus link with the braid word

In the Hopf bundle

The fibers over any two distinct points in S2 form a Hopf link in the 3-sphere S3.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torus_link

In knot theory, a torus knot is a special kind of knot which lies on the surface of an unknotted
torus in R3. Similarly, a torus link is a link which lies on the surface of a torus in the same way.
Each torus knot is specified by a pair of coprime integers p and q. The (p,q)-torus knot winds p
times around a circle inside the torus, which goes all the way around the torus, and q times
around a line through the hole in the torus, which passes once through the hole, (usually drawn
as an axis of symmetry). If p and q are not relatively prime, then we have a torus link with more
than one component.

The (p,q)-torus knot can be given by the parametrization

x = r cos(pφ)
y = r sin(pφ)
z = sin(qφ)

where r = cos(qφ) + 2 and 0 < φ < 2π. This lies on the surface of the torus given by
(r − 2)2 + z2 = 1 (in cylindrical coordinates).

Other parametrizations are also possible, because knots are defined up to continuous
deformation. The illustrations for the (2,3)- and (3,8)-torus knots can be obtained by
taking r = cos(qφ) + 4, and in the case of the (2,3)-torus knot by furthermore
subtracting respectively 3cos((p − q)φ) and 3sin((p − q)φ) from the above
parametrizations of x and y. The latter generalizes smoothly to any coprime p,q
satisfying p < q < 2p.

the (2,3)-torus knot, also known as the trefoil knot

A torus knot is trivial if and only if either p or q is equal to 1. The simplest nontrivial
example is the (2,3)-torus knot, also known as the trefoil knot.
[edit]
Properties

Diagram of a (3,8)-torus knot.

Each torus knot is prime and chiral. Any (p,q)-torus knot can be made from a closed
braid with p strands. The appropriate braid word is

The crossing number of a torus knot is given by

c = min((p−1)q, (q−1)p).

The genus of a torus knot is

The Alexander polynomial of a torus knot is

The Jones polynomial of a (right-handed) torus knot is given by

The complement of a torus knot in the 3-sphere is a Seifert-fibered manifold, fibred
over the disc with two singular fibres.

Let Y be the p-fold dunce cap with a disk removed from the interior, Z be the q-fold
dunce cap with a disk removed its interior, and X be the quotient space obtained by
identifying Y and Z along their boundary circle. The knot complement of the (p, q)-
torus knot deformation retracts to the space X. Therefore, the knot group of a torus
knot has the presentation

Torus knots are the only knots whose knot groups have non-trivial center (which is
infinite cyclic, generated by the element xp = yq in the presentation above).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopf_bundle

In the mathematical field of topology, the Hopf fibration (also known as the Hopf
bundle or Hopf map) describes a 3-sphere (a hypersphere in four-dimensional space)
in terms of circles and an ordinary sphere. Discovered by Heinz Hopf in 1931, it is an
influential early example of a fiber bundle. Technically, Hopf found a many-to-one
continuous function (or "map") from the 3-sphere onto the 2-sphere such that each
distinct point of the 2-sphere comes from a distinct circle of the 3-sphere (Hopf
1931). Thus the 3-sphere is composed of fibers, where each fiber is a circle — one for
each point of the 2-sphere.

This fiber bundle structure is denoted

where S3 (the 3-sphere) is the total space, S2 (the ordinary 2-sphere) the base
space, S1 (a circle) the fiber space, and p: S3→S2 (Hopf's map) the bundle projection.
The Hopf fibration, like any fiber bundle, has the important property that it is locally a
product space. However it is not a trivial fiber bundle, i.e., S3 is not (globally) a
product of S2 and S1. This has many implications: for example the existence of this
bundle shows that the higher homotopy groups of spheres are not trivial in general. It
also provides a basic example of a principal bundle, by identifying the fiber with the
circle group.

Stereographic projection of the Hopf fibration induces a remarkable structure on R3,

in which space is filled with nested tori made of linking Villarceau circles. Here each
fiber projects to a circle in space (one of which is a "circle through infinity" — a line).
Each torus is the stereographic projection of the inverse image of a circle of latitude
of the 2-sphere. (Topologically, a torus is the product of two circles.) One of these tori
is illustrated by the image of linking keyrings on the right.

There are numerous generalizations of the Hopf fibration. The unit sphere in Cn+1
fibers naturally over CPn with circles as fibers, and there are also real, quaternionic,
and octonionic versions of these fibrations. In particular, the Hopf fibration belongs to
a family of four fiber bundles in which the total space, base space, and fiber space
are all spheres:
In fact these are the only such fibrations between spheres.

The Hopf fibration is important in twistor theory.Contents [hide]

1 Definition and construction
1.1 Direct construction
1.1.1 Geometric interpretation using the complex projective line
1.1.2 Fiber bundle structure
1.2 Geometric interpretation using rotations
1.2.1 Explicit formulae
2 Generalizations
2.1 Real Hopf fibrations
2.2 Complex Hopf fibrations
2.3 Quaternionic Hopf fibrations
2.4 Octonionic Hopf fibrations
2.5 Fibrations between spheres
3 Geometry and applications
4 Discrete examples
5 References
6 External links

Definition and construction

For any natural number n, an n-dimensional sphere, or n-sphere, can be defined as

the set of points in an (n+1)-dimensional space which are a fixed distance from a
central point. For concreteness, the central point can be taken to be the origin, and
the distance of the points on the sphere from this origin can be assumed to be a unit
length. With this convention, the n-sphere, Sn, consists of the points (x1, x2, …,
xn+1) in Rn+1 with x12 + x22 + ⋯+ xn+12 = 1. For example, the 3-sphere consists
of the points (x1, x2, x3, x4) in R4 with x12 + x22 + x32 + x42 = 1.

The Hopf fibration p: S3 → S2 of the 3-sphere over the 2-sphere can be defined in
several ways.
Direct construction

Identify R4 with C2 and R3 with C×R (where C denotes the complex numbers) by writing:
(x1, x2, x3, x4) as (z0 = x1 + ix2, z1 = x3 + ix4); and
(x1, x2, x3) as (z = x1 + ix2, x = x3).

Thus S3 is identified with the subset of all (z0, z1) in C2 such that |z0|2 + |z1|2 = 1, and S2 is
identified with the subset of all (z, x) in C×R such that |z|2 + x2 = 1. (Here, for a complex number
z = x + iy, |z|2 = z z∗ = x2 + y2, where the star denotes the complex conjugate.) Then the Hopf
fibration p is defined by
p(z0, z1) = (2z0z1∗, |z0|2 − |z1|2).

The first component is a complex number, whereas the second component is real. Any point on
the 3-sphere must have the property that |z0|2 + |z1|2 = 1. If that is so, then p(z0, z1) lies on the
unit 2-sphere in C×R, as may be shown by squaring the complex and real components of p

Furthermore, if two points on the 3-sphere map to the same point on the 2-sphere, i.e., if p(z0, z1)
= p(w0, w1), then (w0, w1) must equal (λ z0, λ z1) for some complex number λ with |λ|2 =
1. The converse is also true; any two points on the 3-sphere that differ by a common
complex factor λ map to the same point on the 2-sphere. These conclusions follow,
because the complex factor λ cancels with its complex conjugate λ∗ in both parts of
p: in the complex 2z0z1∗ component and in the real component |z0|2 − |z1|2.

Since the set of complex numbers λ with |λ|2 = 1 form the unit circle in the complex
plane, it follows that for each point m in S2, the inverse image p−1(m) is a circle, i.e.,
p−1m ≅ S1. Thus the 3-sphere is realized as a disjoint union of these circular fibers.
Geometric interpretation using the complex projective line

A geometric interpretation of the fibration may be obtained using the complex

projective line, CP1, which is defined to be the set of all complex one dimensional
subspaces of C2. Equivalently, CP1 is the quotient of C2\{0} by the equivalence
relation which identifies (z0, z1) with (λ z0, λ z1) for any nonzero complex number λ.
On any complex line in C2 there is a circle of unit norm, and so the restriction of the
quotient map to the points of unit norm is a fibration of S3 over CP1.

CP1 is diffeomorphic to a 2-sphere: indeed it can be identified with the Riemann

sphere C∞ = C ∪ {∞}, which is the one point compactification of C (obtained by
adding a point at infinity). The formula given for p above defines an explicit
diffeomorphism between the complex projective line and the ordinary 2-sphere in 3-
dimensional space. Alternatively, the point (z0, z1) can be mapped to the ratio z1/z0
in the Riemann sphere C∞.
Fiber bundle structure

The Hopf fibration defines a fiber bundle, with bundle projection p. This means that it
has a "local product structure", in the sense that every point of the 2-sphere has
some neighborhood U whose inverse image in the 3-sphere can be identified with the
product of U and a circle: p−1(U) ≅ U×S1. Such a fibration is said to be locally trivial.

For the Hopf fibration, it is enough to remove a single point m from S2 and the corresponding
circle p-1(m) from S3; thus one can take U = S2\{m}, and any point in S2 has a neighborhood of
this form.
Geometric interpretation using rotations

Another geometric interpretation of the Hopf fibration can be obtained by considering rotations of
the 2-sphere in ordinary 3-dimensional space. The rotation group SO(3) has a double cover, the
spin group Spin(3), diffeomorphic to the 3-sphere. The spin group acts transitively on S2 by
rotations. The stabilizer of a point is isomorphic to the circle group. It follows easily that the 3-
sphere is a principal circle bundle over the 2-sphere, and this is the Hopf fibration.

To make this more explicit, there are two approaches: the group Spin(3) can either be identified
with the group Sp(1) of unit quaternions, or with the special unitary group SU(2).

In the first approach, a vector (x1, x2, x3, x4) in R4 is interpreted as a quaternion q ∈ H by writing

The 3-sphere is then identified with the quaternions of unit norm, i.e., those q ∈ H for which |q|2 =
1, where |q|2 = q q∗, which is equal to x12 + x22 + x32 + x42 for q as above.

On the other hand, a vector (y1, y2, y3) in R3 can be interpreted as an imaginary quaternion

Then, as is well-known since Cayley (1845), the mapping

is a rotation in R3: indeed it is clearly an isometry, since |q p q∗|2 = q p q∗ q p∗ q∗ = q p p∗

q∗ = |p|2, and it is not hard to check that it preserves orientation.

In fact, this identifies the group of unit quaternions with the group of rotations of R3, modulo the
fact that the unit quaternions q and −q determine the same rotation. As noted above, the rotations
act transitively on S2, and the set of unit quaternions q which fix a given unit imaginary quaternion
p have the form q = u + v p, where u and v are real numbers with u2 + v2 = 1. This is a circle
subgroup. For concreteness, one can take p = k, and then the Hopf fibration can be defined as
the map sending a unit quaternion q to q k q∗.

This approach is related to the direct construction by identifying a quaternion q = x1 + i x2 + j x3 +

k x4 with the 2×2 matrix:

This identifies the group of unit quaternions with SU(2), and the imaginary quaternions with the
skew-hermitian 2×2 matrices (isomorphic to C×R).
Explicit formulae

The rotation induced by a unit quaternion q = w + i x + j y + k z is given explicitly by the

orthogonal matrix

Here we find an explicit real formula for the bundle projection. For, the fixed unit vector along the
z axis, (0,0,1), rotates to another unit vector,

which is a continuous function of (w,x,y,z). That is, the image of q is where it aims the z axis. The
fiber for a given point on S2 consists of all those unit quaternions that aim there.

To write an explicit formula for the fiber over a point (a,b,c) in S2, we may proceed as follows.
Multiplication of unit quaternions produces composition of rotations, and

is a rotation by 2θ around the z axis. As θ varies, this sweeps out a great circle of S3,
our prototypical fiber. So long as the base point, (a,b,c), is not the antipode, (0,0,−1),
the quaternion

will aim there. Thus the fiber of (a,b,c) is given by quaternions of the form q(a,b,c)qθ,
which are the S3 points

Since multiplication by q(a,b,c) acts as a rotation of quaternion space, the fiber is not
merely a topological circle, it is a geometric circle. The final fiber, for (0,0,−1), can be
given by using q(0,0,−1) = i, producing

which completes the bundle.

Thus, a simple way of visualizing the Hopf fibration is as follows. Any point on the 3-
sphere is equivalent to a quaternion, which in turn is equivalent to a particular
rotation of a Cartesian coordinate frame in three dimensions. The set of all possible
quaternions produces the set of all possible rotations, which moves the tip of one unit
vector of such a coordinate frame (say, the z vector) to all possible points on a unit 2-
sphere. However, fixing the tip of the z vector does not specify the rotation fully; a
further rotation is possible about the z-axis. Thus, the 3-sphere is mapped onto the 2-
sphere, plus a single rotation.
Generalizations

The Hopf construction, viewed as a fiber bundle p: S3 → CP1, admits several

generalizations, which are also often known as Hopf fibrations. First, one can replace
the projective line by an n-dimensional projective space. Second, one can replace the
complex numbers by any (real) division algebra, including (for n = 1) the octonions.
Real Hopf fibrations

A real version of the Hopf fibration is obtained by regarding S1 as a subset of R2 in

the usual way and factoring out by unit real multiplication to obtain and a fiber
bundle S1 → RP1 over the real projective line with fiber S0 = {1, -1}. Just as CP1 is
diffeomorphic to a sphere, RP1 is diffeomorphic to a circle.

More generally, the n-sphere Sn fibers over real projective space RPn with fiber S0.
Complex Hopf fibrations

The Hopf construction gives circle bundles p : S2n+1 → CPn over complex projective
space. This is actually the restriction of the tautological line bundle over CPn to the
unit sphere in Cn+1.
Quaternionic Hopf fibrations

Similarly, one can regard S4n−1 as lying in Hn (quaternionic n-space) and factor out
by unit quaternion (= S3) multiplication to get HPn. In particular, since S4 = HP1,
there is a bundle S7 → S4 with fiber S3.
Octonionic Hopf fibrations

A similar construction with the octonions yields a bundle S15 → S8 with fiber S7. One
can regard S8 as the octonionic projective line OP1.

Although one can also define an octonionic projective plane, OP2, S31 does not fiber
over it.
Fibrations between spheres

Sometimes the term "Hopf fibration" is restricted to the fibrations between spheres
obtained above, which are
S1 → S1 with fiber S0
S3 → S2 with fiber S1
S7 → S4 with fiber S3
S15 → S8 with fiber S7

As a consequence of Adams' theorem, these are the only fiber bundles with spheres
as total space, base space, and fiber.
Geometry and applications

The fibers of the Hopf fibration stereographically project to a family of Villarceau

circles in R3.

The Hopf fibration has many implications, some purely attractive, others deeper. For
example, stereographic projection of S3 to R3 induces a remarkable structure in R3,
which in turn illuminates the topology of the bundle (Lyons 2003). Stereographic
projection preserves circles and maps the Hopf fibers to geometrically perfect circles
in R3 which fill space. Here there is one exception: the Hopf circle containing the
projection point maps to a straight line in R3 — a "circle through infinity".

The fibers over a circle of latitude on S2 form a torus in S3 (topologically, a torus is

the product of two circles) and these project to nested toruses in R3 which also fill
space. The individual fibers map to linking Villarceau circles on these tori, with the
exception of the circle through the projection point and the one through its opposite
point: the former maps to a straight line, the latter to a unit circle perpendicular to,
and centered on, this line, which may be viewed as a degenerate torus whose radius
has shrunken to zero. Every other fiber image encircles the line as well, and so, by
symmetry, each circle is linked through every circle, both in R3 and in S3. Two such
linking circles form a Hopf link in R3

Hopf proved that the Hopf map has Hopf invariant 1, and therefore is not null-
homotopic. In fact it generates the homotopy group π3(S2) and has infinite order.

In quantum mechanics, the Riemann sphere is known as the Bloch sphere, and the
Hopf fibration describes the topological structure of a quantum mechanical two-level
system or qubit. Similarly, the topology of a pair of entangled two-level systems is
given by the Hopf fibration
.

(Mosseri & Dandoloff 2001).

Discrete examples

The regular 4-polytopes: 8-cell (Tesseract), 24-cell, and 120-cell, can each be
partitioned into disjoint great circle rings of cells forming discrete Hopf fibrations of
these polytopes. The Tesseract partitions into two interlocking rings of four cubes
each. The 24-cell partitions into four rings of six octahedrons each. The 120-cell
partitions into twelve rings of ten dodecahedrons each.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Villarceau_circles

In geometry, Villarceau circles (pronounced /viːlɑrˈsoʊ/) are a pair of circles produced

by cutting a torus diagonally through the center at the correct angle. Given an
arbitrary point on a torus, four circles can be drawn through it. One is in the plane
(containing the point) parallel to the equatorial plane of the torus. Another is
perpendicular to it. The other two are Villarceau circles. They are named after the
French astronomer and mathematician Yvon Villarceau (1813–1883).Contents [hide]
1 Example
2 Existence and equations
3 Filling space
4 See also
5 References
6 External links

Example

For example, let the torus be given implicitly as the set of points on circles of radius
three around points on a circle of radius five in the xy plane

Slicing with the z = 0 plane produces two concentric circles, x2 + y2 = 22 and x2 +

y2 = 82. Slicing with the x = 0 plane produces two side-by-side circles, (y − 5)2 + z2
= 32 and (y + 5)2 + z2 = 32.
Two example Villarceau circles can be produced by slicing with the plane 3x = 4z.
One is centered at (0, +3, 0) and the other at (0, −3, 0); both have radius five. They
can be written in parametric form as

and

The slicing plane is chosen to be tangent to the torus while passing through its
center. Here it is tangent at (16⁄5, 0, 12⁄5) and at (−16⁄5, 0, −12⁄5). The angle of
slicing is uniquely determined by the dimensions of the chosen torus, and rotating
any one such plane around the vertical gives all of them for that torus.
Existence and equations

A proof of the circles’ existence can be constructed from the fact that the slicing
plane is tangent to the torus at two points. One characterization of a torus is that it is
a surface of revolution. Without loss of generality, choose a coordinate system so
that the axis of revolution is the z axis. Begin with a circle of radius r in the xz plane,
centered at (R, 0, 0).

Sweeping replaces x by (x2 + y2)1/2, and clearing the square root produces a quartic
equation.

The cross-section of the swept surface in the xz plane now includes a second circle.

This pair of circles has two common internal tangent lines, with slope at the origin
found from the right triangle with hypotenuse R and opposite side r (which has its
right angle at the point of tangency). Thus z/x equals ±r / (R2 − r2)1/2, and choosing the
plus sign produces the equation of a plane bitangent to the torus.

By symmetry, rotations of this plane around the z axis give all the bitangent planes through the
center. (There are also horizontal planes tangent to the top and bottom of the torus, each of
which gives a “double circle”, but not Villarceau circles.)

We can calculate the intersection of the plane(s) with the torus analytically, and thus show that
the result is a symmetric pair of circles, one of which is a circle of radius R centered at

A treatment along these lines can be found in Coxeter (1969).

A more abstract — and more flexible — approach was described by Hirsch (2002), using
algebraic geometry in a projective setting. In the homogeneous quartic equation for the torus,

setting w to zero gives the intersection with the “plane at infinity”, and reduces the equation to

This intersection is a double point, in fact a double point counted twice. Furthermore, it is included
in every bitangent plane. The two points of tangency are also double points. Thus the intersection
curve, which theory says must be a quartic, contains four double points. But we also know that a
quartic with more than three double points must factor (it cannot be irreducible), and by symmetry
the factors must be two congruent conics. Hirsch extends this argument to any surface of
revolution generated by a conic, and shows that intersection with a bitangent plane must produce
two conics of the same type as the generator when the intersection curve is real.
Filling space

The torus plays a central role in the Hopf fibration of the 3-sphere, S3, over the ordinary sphere,
S2, which has circles, S1, as fibers. When the 3-sphere is mapped to Euclidean 3-space by
stereographic projection, the inverse image of a circle of latitude on S2 under the fiber map is a
torus, and the fibers themselves are Villarceau circles. Banchoff (1990) has explored such a torus
with computer graphics imagery. One of the unusual facts about the circles is that each links
through all the others, not just in its own torus but in the collection filling all of space; Berger
(1987) has a discussion and drawing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toric_section

A toric section is an intersection of a plane with a torus, just as a conic section is the intersection
of a plane with a cone.Contents [hide]
1 Mathematical formulae
2 Spiric sections
3 Villarceau circles
4 General toric sections

Mathematical formulae

In general, toric sections are fourth-order (quartic) plane curves of the form

Spiric sections

A special case of a toric section is the spiric section, in which the intersecting plane is parallel to
the rotational symmetry axis of the torus. They were discovered by the ancient Greek geometer
Perseus in roughly 150 BC. Well-known examples include the hippopede and the Cassini oval
and their relatives, such as the lemniscate of Bernoulli.
Villarceau circles

Another special case is the Villarceau circles, in which the intersection is a circle despite the lack
of any of the obvious sorts of symmetry that would entail a circular cross-section.
General toric sections

More complicated figures such as an annulus can be created when the intersecting plane is
perpendicular or oblique to the rotational symmetry axis.

Quantum probe beats Heisenberg limit

Mar 24, 2011 1 comment

Werner Heisenberg: King of uncertainty

A group of physicists in Spain has shown how to make a quantum measurement that overcomes
a limit related to Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle. The researchers confirmed a
theoretical prediction of how to beat the Heisenberg limit by using interacting photons to measure
atomic spin, and they say that their approach could lead to more sensitive searches for the
ripples in space–time known as gravitational waves and perhaps also to improved brain imaging.

The standard limit on the precision with which a quantum measurement can be carried out is due
to the statistical error associated with counting discrete particles rather than continuous
quantities. So, for example, when measuring the phase difference between the waves sent down
two arms of an interferometer, the error in this quantity will scale with the square root of the total
number of photons measured, N. Since the signal scales with N, the signal-to-noise ratio also
scales in the same way. Or, put another way, the sensitivity of the measurement, which is the
minimum signal that can be measured with a given level of noise, will scale with 1/N1/2.

It is possible to improve on this scaling, however, by entangling the photons, because this
correlates what would otherwise be independent sources of noise from the individual particles.
Such entanglement allows measurements to approach the so-called Heisenberg limit, which
means that sensitivity scales with 1/N. Until recently it was thought that this scaling represented
an absolute limit on the sensitivity of quantum measurements.
Caught in a trap

However, in 2007 a group led by Carlton Caves at the University of New Mexico in the US
predicted that the Heisenberg limit could be beaten by introducing nonlinear interactions between
the measuring particles. That prediction has now been shown to be true, thanks to an experiment
carried out by Morgan Mitchell and colleagues at the Institute of Photonic Sciences at Barcelona.
Mitchell's group fired laser pulses into a sample of ultracold rubidium atoms held in an optical trap
and measured how the atoms' spin angular momentum caused the polarization axis of the
photons to rotate.

In a linear measurement, each photon would interact separately with the atoms, resulting in a
relatively weak signal. But what the researchers did was to carry out nonlinear measurements,
ramping up the intensity of the laser pulses enough so that each photon, as well as registering
the magnetic state of an atom also altered the electronic structure of that atom. This in turn left its
mark on the polarization of the next photon, so amplifying the signal. "We have a signal that is not
dependent just on the thing we are aiming at, but also on what we send in," explains team
member Mario Napolitano.

According to Napolitano, it wasn't clear that a signal could in practice be amplified in this way
because it was reckoned that the nonlinearity would increase the noise as well as the signal. But
his team was able to tailor the nonlinearity accordingly, by concentrating the interaction between
atoms and photons to a very tiny region of space and by very precisely tuning the frequency of
the laser so that it was very well matched to the atoms’ electronic structure. Then by measuring
the rotation in the photons' polarization using an interferometer, measuring the noise and
measuring the number of photons, then repeating this process for different photon numbers, the
researchers were able to show that the sensitivity scales with photon number better than the
scaling of the Heisenberg limit. In fact, they achieved a sensitivity that scaled with 1/N3/2.
Clocks and brains could benefit

Napolitano is keen to point out that this result does not imply that the Heisenberg uncertainty
principle is wrong, but rather it shows that we do not properly understand how to scale that
principle up to multiple-particle systems. He also believes that the work could ultimately have
significant practical applications, such as improving atomic clocks, given that such devices rely on
interferometers. What's more, several research groups are investigating the possibility of
measuring electrical changes in the brain by using light to probe the magnetic properties of atoms
placed close to the brain, and the lastest work could enhance this technique.

Jonathan Dowling, a theoretical physicist at Louisiana State University in the US, says that the
latest work could also help in the search for gravitational waves. Researchers hope to register
gravitational waves' distortion of space time by measuring the difference in path length
experienced by laser beams travelling in the two orthogonal pipes of an interferometer. Dowling
says that if the American LIGO detector could operate with a sensitivity that scales as 1/N3/2
rather than as 1/N1/2 then either its sensitivity could be greatly increased or its laser power
enormously reduced, which would avoid potential heating and deformation of the facilities' optics.
"This opens up a whole new ball game in nonlinear interferometry," he adds.

However, Barry Sanders, a quantum physicist at the University of Calgary in Canada, urges
caution. "The experiment demonstrates that the Heisenberg limit can be beaten in the real world,"
he says. "But practical applications are not likely in the near future because of the technical
challenges that need to be overcome, especially noise. We are still exploring the basic physics of
using quantum resources for precise measurements."

The research is published in Nature.

About the author

Edwin Cartlidge is a science writer based in Rome

http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/45535

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16089726

Role of chaos in one-dimensional heat conductivity.

Mao JW, Li YQ, Ji YY.

Zhejiang Institute of Modern Physics, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310027, People's Republic
of China.
Abstract

We investigate the heat conduction in a quasi-one-dimensional gas model with various degrees
of chaos. Our calculations indicate that the heat conductivity kappa is independent of system size
when the chaos of the channel is strong enough. The different diffusion behaviors for the cases of
chaotic and nonchaotic channels are also studied. The numerical results of divergent exponent
alpha of heat conduction and diffusion exponent beta are consistent with the formula alpha = 2 -
2/beta. We explore the temperature profiles numerically and analytically, which show that the
temperature jump is primarily attributed to superdiffusion for both nonchaotic and chaotic cases,
and for the latter case of superdiffusion the finite size affects the value of beta remarkably.

PMID: 16089726 [PubMed]

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http://chaos.aip.org/resource/1/chaoeh/v15/i1/p015117_s1?isAuthorized=no

Normal and anomalous heat transport in one-dimensional classical lattices

Tomaž Prosen1 and David K. Campbell2

1Physics Department, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana, Jadranska 19,
1111 Ljubljana, Slovenia map
2Departments of Physics and Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of Engineering,
Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215 map

(Received 20 January 2005; accepted 20 January 2005; published online 28 March 2005)
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Abstract
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We present analytic and numerical results on several models of one-dimensional (1D) classical
lattices with the goal of determining the origins of anomalous heat transport and the conditions for
normal transport in these systems. Some of the recent results in the literature are reviewed and
several original “toy” models are added that provide key elements to determine which dynamical
properties are necessary and which are sufficient for certain types of heat transport. We
demonstrate with numerical examples that chaos in the sense of positivity of Lyapunov exponents
is neither necessary nor sufficient to guarantee normal transport in 1D lattices. Quite surprisingly,
we find that in the absence of momentum conservation, even ergodicity of an isolated system is
not necessary for the normal transport. Specifically, we demonstrate clearly the validity of the
Fourier law in a pseudo-integrable particle chain.

http://arxiv.org/abs/hep-ph/0209292

Chaos Enforced Instanton Tunnelling in One-Dimensional Model with Periodic Potential

V.I. Kuvshinov, A.V. Kuzmin, R.G. Shulyakovsky
(Submitted on 25 Sep 2002)
The influence of chaos on properties of dilute instanton gas in quantum mechanics is studied. We
demonstrate on the example of one-dimensional periodic potential that small perturbation leading
to chaos squeezes instanton gas and increases the rate of instanton tunnelling.

http://pre.aps.org/abstract/PRE/v80/i3/e031136

We demonstrate the possibility to build a thermoelectric engine using a one-dimensional gas of

molecules with unequal masses and hard-point interaction. Most importantly, we show that the
efficiency of this engine is determined by a parameter YT which is different from the well known
figure of merit ZT. Even though the efficiency of this particular model is low, our results shed light
on the problem and open the possibility to build efficient thermoelectric engines.

http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004cond.mat.12147M

Role of chaos in one-dimensional heat conductivity

Mao, Jun-Wen; Li, You-Quan; Ji, Yong-Yun
Physical Review E, vol. 71, Issue 6, id. 061202
We investigate the heat conduction in a quasi-one-dimensional gas model with various degrees
of chaos. Our calculations indicate that the heat conductivity κ is independent of system size
when the chaos of the channel is strong enough. The different diffusion behaviors for
the cases of chaotic and nonchaotic channels are also studied. The numerical results
of divergent exponent α of heat conduction and diffusion exponent β are consistent
with the formula α=2-2/β . We explore the temperature profiles numerically and
analytically, which show that the temperature jump is primarily attributed to
superdiffusion for both nonchaotic and chaotic cases, and for the latter case of
superdiffusion the finite size affects the value of β remarkably.
Keywords: Heat conduction, Nonlinear dynamics and chaos, Nonequilibrium and
irreversible thermodynamics, Nonelectronic thermal conduction and heat-pulse
propagation in solids; thermal waves
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevE.71.061202

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6TJ4-4537PWF-
3&_user=10&_coverDate=07%2F31%2F2002&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=gateway&
_origin=gateway&_sort=d&_docanchor=&view=c&_searchStrId=1691434770&_rerun
Origin=google&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=c
393a2bafaae97e788e9924a6c2205e9&searchtype=a

One-dimensional hard-core Bose gas

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$ 41.95

Miki Wadati, a, , and Go Katoa

aDepartment of Physics, Graduate School of Science, University of Tokyo, Hongo 7-3-

1, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan
Accepted 4 July 2001. Available online 6 February 2002.
Abstract

By use of the thermal Bethe ansatz (TBA), one-dimensional hard-core Bose gas at
finite temperature is studied. High temperature and low temperature expansions are
explicitly calculated. The classical limit gives a new derivation of the Tonks equation
while the low temperature expansion confirms that the system has the central charge
c=1 in the context of the conformal field theory.

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B7T7D-4KF807K-
1F&_user=10&_origUdi=B6TJ4-4537PWF-
3&_fmt=high&_coverDate=07%2F18%2F2006&_rdoc=1&_orig=article&_origin=articl
e&_zone=related_ref&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&
md5=8329b94623c015f6df2825e82581773d

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B7T7D-4KF807K-
K&_user=10&_origUdi=B7T7D-4KF807K-
1F&_fmt=high&_coverDate=07%2F18%2F2006&_rdoc=1&_orig=article&_origin=arti
cle&_zone=related_ref&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10
&md5=08a2c39010bc7dcf5728945ab976178c

http://chaos.aip.org/resource/1/chaoeh/v15/i1/p015117_s1?isAuthorized=no

Normal and anomalous heat transport in one-dimensional classical lattices

Tomaž Prosen1 and David K. Campbell2

1Physics Department, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, University of Ljubljana,

Jadranska 19, 1111 Ljubljana, Slovenia map
2Departments of Physics and Electrical and Computer Engineering, College of
Engineering, Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts 02215 map

(Received 20 January 2005; accepted 20 January 2005; published online 28 March

2005)
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Abstract
References (48)
Citing Articles (6)
Article Objects (17)
Related Content
We present analytic and numerical results on several models of one-dimensional (1D)
classical lattices with the goal of determining the origins of anomalous heat transport
and the conditions for normal transport in these systems. Some of the recent results
in the literature are reviewed and several original “toy” models are added that
provide key elements to determine which dynamical properties are necessary and
which are sufficient for certain types of heat transport. We demonstrate with
numerical examples that chaos in the sense of positivity of Lyapunov exponents is
neither necessary nor sufficient to guarantee normal transport in 1D lattices. Quite
surprisingly, we find that in the absence of momentum conservation, even ergodicity
of an isolated system is not necessary for the normal transport. Specifically, we
demonstrate clearly the validity of the Fourier law in a pseudo-integrable particle
chain.

http://prl.aps.org/abstract/PRL/v64/i19/p2215_1

‘Quantum’’ chaos in billiards studied by microwave absorption

Abstract
References
Citing Articles (183)
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Download: PDF (700 kB) Buy this article Export: BibTeX or EndNote (RIS)

H.-J. Stöckmann and J. Stein

Fachbereich Physik, Universität Marburg, D-3550 Marburg, West Germany

Received 2 February 1990; published in the issue dated 7 May 1990

The eigenfrequencies of resonance cavities shaped as stadium or Sinai billiards are

determined by microwave absorption. In the applied frequency range 0–18.74 GHz
the used cavities can be considered as two dimensional. For this case quantum-
mechanical and electromagnetic boundary conditions are equivalent, and the
resonance spectrum of the cavity is, if properly normalized, identical with the
quantum-mechanical eigenvalue spectrum. Spectra, containing up to a thousand
eigenfrequencies, are obtained within minutes. Statistical properties of the spectra as
well as their correlation with classical periodic orbits are discussed.

http://www.physorg.com/news79009171.html

“The thing about our universe,” says David Lyth, a professor at Lancaster University
in the United Kingdom, “is that it is not completely uniform. This has been a bit of a
puzzle to cosmologists.” He explains that there are several theories out there
describing the formation of the universe, the simplest consisting of a uniform gas.

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“But,” Lyth explains to PhysOrg.com, “that doesn’t really explain how we have a non-
uniform universe. So what we require is that this early gas have some parts that are
denser than others.”

Lyth collaborated with Antonio Riotto from CERN in Geneva and INFN in Italy to
produce a theory about how the end of brane inflation results in curvature
perturbation. Their idea is explained in a Letter published on September 18 in
Physical Review Letters, titled, “Generating the Curvature Perturbation at the End of
Inflation in String Theory.”

Lyth and Riotto explain in their Letter that inflation refers to the process by which the
universe began expanding. In this model, the primordial gas at the beginning of the
universe had denser spots, which explains the non-uniform positioning of the
galaxies, planets and other objects. This is known as curvature perturbation. As the
density and gravity waves fluctuations are created by quantum fluctuations, the
whole experiences superluminal expansion, or “inflation.”

“Our paper describes how perturbation might have originated as a brane and an anti-
brane that collided together,” says Lyth. A brane, he explains, is to do with the fact
that there are more than three dimensions. Branes are spatially extended objects
appearing in String Theory, where a 1-brane is a string and there are higher-order
branes. “Our world is a three-dimensional brane, embedded in a higher dimension,”
says Lyth. “There may be other three-dimensional worlds embedded in extra
dimensions, and one of these might be anti-matter, an anti-brane.”

According to Lyth and Riotto’s theory, the curvature perturbation that accounts for
the denser areas of the primordial gas arose as a result of a brane and an anit-brane
colliding. “This would at some stage annihilate. It would be fairly dramatic, and what
was left over would become our universe,” explains Lyth.

Lyth admits that his and Riotto’s Letter deals with the simplest realization of the
theory. “In the most naïve realization,” he explains, “curvature perturbation should be the
same on all the scales, no matter how big or small.” Observation, however, is on the verge of
ruling out this realization. “If observation rules us out,” says Lyth, “we’ll come up with a different
way of implementing the idea.”

He points out that in the study of the early universe it is difficult to pinpoint one theory; the range
of observations is limited compared to the range of theories regarding the formation of our
universe. “This reminds us that in science there is a value judgment. If there are enough
observations that support a theory, then it becomes accepted. It’s survival of the fittest. A theory
can be ruled out by a single observation and it has to survive several. But that’s how science is
working.

http://www.physorg.com/news193051053.html

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At extremely low temperatures atoms can aggregate into so-called Bose Einstein condensates
forming coherent laser-like matter waves. Due to interactions between the atoms fundamental
quantum dynamics emerge and give rise to periodic collapses and revivals of the matter wave
field.

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A group of scientists led by Professor Immanuel Bloch (Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in
Garching, Germany) has now succeeded to take a glance 'behind the scenes' of atomic
interactions revealing the complex structure of these quantum dynamics. By generating
thousands of miniature BECs ordered in an optical lattice the researchers were able to observe a
large number of collapse and revival cycles over long periods of time. The experimental results
imply that the atoms do not only interact pairwise - as typically assumed - but also perform exotic
collisions involving three, four or more atoms at the same time. On the one hand, these results
have fundamental importance for the understanding of quantum many-body systems. On the
other hand, they pave the way for the generation of new exotic states of matter, based on such
multi-body interactions.

The experiment starts by cooling a dilute cloud of hundreds of thousands of atoms to

temperatures close to absolute zero, approximately -273 degrees Celsius. At these temperatures
the atoms form a so-called Bose-Einstein condensate (BEC), a quantum phase in which all
particles occupy the same quantum state. Now an optical lattice is superimposed on the BEC:
This is a kind of artificial crystal made of light with periodically arranged bright and dark areas,
generated by the superposition of standing laser light waves from different directions. This lattice
can be viewed as an 'egg carton' on which the atoms are distributed. Whereas in a real egg
carton each site is either occupied by a single egg or no egg, the number of atoms sitting at each
lattice site is determined by the laws of quantum mechanics: Depending on the lattice height (i.e.
the intensity of the laser beam) the single lattice sites can be occupied by zero, one, two, three
and more atoms at the same time.

The use of those "atom number superposition states" is the key to the novel measurement
principle developed by the researchers. The dynamics of an atom number state can be compared
to the dynamics of a swinging pendulum. As pendulums of different lengths are characterized by
different oscillation frequencies, the same applies to the states of different atom numbers.
"However, these frequencies are modified by inter-atomic collisions. If only pairwise interactions
between atoms were present, the pendulums representing the individual atom number states
would swing synchronously and their oscillation frequencies would be exact multiples of the
pendulum frequency for two interacting atoms", Sebastian Will, graduate student at the
experiment, explains.

Using a tricky experimental set-up the physicists were able to track the evolution of the different
superimposed oscillations over time. Periodically interference patterns became visible and
disappeared, again and again. From their intensity and periodicity the physicists found
unambiguous evidence that the frequencies are actually not simple multiples of the two-body
case. "This really caught us by surprise. We became aware that a more complex mechanism
must be at work", Sebastian Will recalls. "Due to their ultralow temperature the atoms occupy the
energetically lowest possible quantum state at each lattice site. Nevertheless, Heisenberg's
uncertainty principle allows them to make - so to speak - a virtual detour via energetically higher
lying quantum states during their collision. Practically, this mechanism gives rise to exotic
collisions, which involve three, four or more atoms at the same time."

The results reported in the journal Nature provide an improved understanding of interactions
between microscopic particles. This may not only be of fundamental scientific interest, but find a
direct application in the context of ultracold atoms in optical lattices. Owing to exceptional
experimental controllability, ultracold atoms in optical lattices can form a "quantum simulator" to
model condensed matter systems. Such a quantum simulator is expected to help understand the
physics behind superconductivity or quantum magnetism. Furthermore, as each lattice site
represents a miniature laboratory for the generation of exotic quantum states, experimental set-
ups using optical lattices may turn out to be the most sensitive probes for observing atomic
collisions.

More information: Sebastian Will, Thorsten Best, Ulrich Schneider, Lucia Hackermüller, Dirk-
Sören Lühmann, Immanuel Bloch, "Time-resolved observation of coherent multi-body interactions
in quantum phase revivals" Nature, DOI:10.1038/nature09036 , May 13, 2010

Provided by Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (news : web)

http://www.physorg.com/news176569616.html

(PhysOrg.com) -- Physicists at Harvard University have created a quantum gas microscope that
can be used to observe single atoms at temperatures so low the particles follow the rules of
quantum mechanics, behaving in bizarre ways.

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The work, published this week in the journal Nature, represents the first time scientists have
detected single atoms in a crystalline structure made solely of light, called a Bose Hubbard optical
lattice. It's part of scientists' efforts to use ultracold quantum gases to understand and develop
novel quantum materials.

"Ultracold atoms in optical lattices can be used as a model to help understand the physics behind
superconductivity or quantum magnetism, for example," says senior author Markus Greiner, an
assistant professor of physics at Harvard and an affiliate of the Harvard-MIT Center for Ultracold
Atoms. "We expect that our technique, which bridges the gap between earlier microscopic and
macroscopic approaches to the study of quantum systems, will help in quantum simulations of
condensed matter systems, and also find applications in quantum information processing."

The quantum gas microscope developed by Greiner and his colleagues is a high-resolution
device capable of viewing single atoms -- in this case, atoms of rubidium -- occupying individual,
closely spaced lattice sites. The rubidium atoms are cooled to just 5 billionths of a degree above
absolute zero (-273 degrees Celsius).

"At such low temperatures, atoms follow the rules of quantum mechanics, causing them to
behave in very unexpected ways," explains first author Waseem S. Bakr, a graduate student in
Harvard's Department of Physics. "Quantum mechanics allows atoms to quickly tunnel around
within the lattice, move around with no resistance, and even be 'delocalized' over the entire
lattice. With our microscope we can individually observe tens of thousands of atoms working
together to perform these amazing feats."

In their paper, Bakr, Greiner, and colleagues present images of single rubidium atoms confined to
an optical lattice created through projections of a laser-generated holographic pattern. The
neighboring rubidium atoms are just 640 nanometers apart, allowing them to quickly tunnel their
way through the lattice.

Confining a quantum gas -- such as a Bose-Einstein condensate -- in such an optically generated

lattice creates a system that can be used to model complex phenomena in condensed-matter
physics, such as superfluidity. Until now, only the bulk properties of such systems could be
studied, but the new microscope's ability to detect arrays of thousands of single atoms gives
scientists what amounts to a new workshop for tinkering with the fundamental properties of
matter, making it possible to study these simulated systems in much more detail, and possibly
also forming the basis of a single-site readout system for quantum computation.

"There are many unsolved questions regarding quantum materials, such as high-temperature
superconductors that lose all electrical resistance if they are cooled to moderate temperatures,"
Greiner says. "We hope this ultracold atom model system can provide answers to some of these
important questions, paving the way for creating novel quantum materials with as-yet unknown
properties."

Source: Harvard University (news : web)

http://www.physorg.com/news143738245.html

Scientists at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany, have, for the first time,
succeeded in rendering the spatial distribution of individual atoms in a Bose-Einstein condensate
visible.

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Bose-Einstein condensates are small, ultracold gas clouds which, due to their low temperatures,
can no longer be described in terms of traditional physics but must be described using the laws of
quantum mechanics. The first Bose-Einstein condensates were generated in 1995 by Eric A.
Cornell, Carl E. Wieman and Wolfgang Ketterle, who received the Nobel Prize in Physics for their
work only six years later. Since then, these unique gas clouds, the coldest objects humans ever
created, have become a global research object.

Physicists working with Dr Herwig Ott in the study group for quantum, atomic and neutron physics
(QUANTUM) at Mainz University have now developed a new tech-nology that can be used to plot
the individual atoms in a Bose-Einstein condensate. In addition, the spatial resolution achieved
during plotting far exceeds any previous methods used. The research results of the Emmy
Noether Independent Junior Research Group, sponsored by the German Research Foundation
(DFG), were published in the professional journal Nature Physics under the title of "High-
resolution scanning electron microscopy of an ultracold quantum gas".

This breakthrough was possible due to the use of a high-resolution scanning elec-tron
microscope that makes use of a very fine electron beam to scan the ultracold atomic cloud, thus
rendering even the smallest structures visible. "The transfer of this technology to ultracold gases
was a technical risk," reports Dr Herwig Ott, head of the Emmy Noether Junior Research Group,
"as two different techniques had to be combined."

Moreover, atoms and molecules move completely freely and ran-domly in gases unlike they do in
solids. Another advantage of this highly advanced microscopy process is the better spatial
resolution compared with optical processes where the resolution capacity is limited by the
wavelength of the light used. "With a resolution of 150 nm, we are able to view these quantum
objects with an accuracy that is 10 times higher than has been possible to date," explains Ott.

As electron microscopy made previously unknown parts of our world visible to the viewer, so the
technology developed in Mainz has opened up unique possibilities for investigating the
microscopic structure of quantum gases. The physicists in Mainz have already reached their first
major milestone: They managed to make the structure of a so-called optical lattice visible. Optical
lattices are interference patterns comprised of laser beams, which are shone onto the atomic
cloud and force their periodic structure onto it. This results in the creation of crystal-like
formations.

The interesting aspect is that the movement of the atoms in an optical lattice within a quantum
gas is similar to the behavior of electrons in solid bodies. Quantum gases are thus able to
simulate the physical properties of solid bodies and can therefore also contribute to answering
outstanding questions in solid-state physics.

Link: http://www.nature. … hys1102.html

Source: Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz

http://www.physorg.com/news128092629.html

“Over the years, work on Bose-Einstein condensates, known as BEC, have led to more and more
interesting phenomena,” Artur Widera tells PhysOrg.com. “This is because they behave
according to quantum mechanics, and are fairly large objects. The goal is to use them to explore
opportunities in the quantum regime.”

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Widera, a scientist at the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, believes that he
and his colleagues have found a technique that can help understand the spin dynamics of one-
dimensional quantum systems.

Widera worked with Stefan Trotzky, Patrick Cheinet, Simon Fölling, Fabrice Gerbier and
Immanuel Bloch at Johannes Gutenberg, as well as with Vladimir Gritsev, Mikhail D. Lukin and
Eugene Demler at Harvard University. The group’s efforts can be seen in Physical Review
Letters: “Quantum Spin Dynamics of Mode-Squeezed Luttinger Liquids in Two-Component
Atomic Gases.”

Because Bose-Einstein condensates are so large (they are comprised of hundreds of thousands
of atoms), while still adhering to the rules of quantum physics, many experimentalists use them to
test the properties of quantum mechanics. It is thought that such study can advance technology
for use in more precise atomic clocks and sensors.

Widera, though, points out some of the difficulties encountered by scientists who use BEC to
study quantum mechanics. “In experiments, we see that quantum properties somehow decay. We
call this decoherence,” he explains. “They do so for two main reasons. The first is technical. It
usually means that we have done something wrong. The second reason is due to the interactions
between atoms that go on at that level and make our signals look like decoherence. At the same
time these interactions can lead to probably the most intriguing phenomena in quantum physics,
namely quantum correlations.”

The problem, Widera continues, is that “using the decoherence signals, so far we did not have
the tools to distinguish between a technical problem and these interactions that might signal
something interesting.”

In order to solve this problem, Widera and his colleagues introduced a new way to try and
distinguish between the different reasons for decoherence in quantum systems. The team took a
BEC in its three-dimensional state and then squeezed it down into a one-dimensional trap in
order to encourage more interactions.

“In solid state physics, we find that there are interesting phenomena in the lower dimensions that
are not possible in three dimensions,” Widera explains. “Experimentally, we used, not a single
system, but an array of one-dimensional systems.”

Widera says that they were able to distinguish between the decoherence caused by interactions
in the BEC and by more technical issues. “Additionally, we even saw that quantum fluctuations
play a big role, and that they dominate the behavior. This is a fundamental property of one-
dimensional quantum systems, which in our experiment could be understood thanks to our
colleagues from Harvard.”

The next step, though, is to actually try and create and control the interesting interactions and
correlations in the BEC. “Now, we’ve been able to see and understand what effects are going on,”
Widera points out.

“But no one’s been able to control these interactions. This would be the key to reliably create
these novel quantum states.” Widera admits that they tried to do so in the experiment, but the
attempt was unsuccessful. “There was too much novel physics going on which we had to
understand first.”

“Right now this work deals with fundamental quantum physics,” Widera says. “Think how it will be
when we know how to control these issues.”

http://www.physorg.com/news119711240.html

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Scientists discover new method of observing interactions in nanoscale systems

January 16, 2008
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Scientists have used new optical technologies to observe interactions in nanoscale systems that
Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle usually would prohibit, according to a study published Jan. 17
in the journal Nature.

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Researchers conducted experiments with high-powered lasers and quantum dots —artificial
atoms that could be the building blocks of nanoscale devices for quantum communication and
computing — to learn more about physics at the nanoscale.

One common phenomenon in physics is the Fano effect, which occurs when a discrete quantum
state – an atom or a molecule – interacts with a continuum state of the vacuum or the host
material surrounding it. The Fano effect changes the way an atom or molecule absorbs light or
radiation, said Sasha Govorov, an Ohio University theoretical physicist who is co-author on the
paper.

In experiments on nanoscale systems, Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle sometimes blocks

scientists from observing the Fano effect, Govorov explained. The interaction of the nanoscale
system and its continuum state surroundings can’t be detected.
But in a new high-resolution laser spectroscopy experiment led by M. Kroner and K. Karrai of the
Center of NanoScience at the Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich, Germany, scientists
utilized a new method. They measured photons scattered from a single quantum dot while
increasing the laser intensity to saturate the dot’s optical absorption. This allowed them to
observe very weak interactions, signaled by the appearance of the Fano effect, for the first time.

A theory for the new nonlinear method was developed by Govorov. “Our theory suggests that the
nonlinear Fano effect and the method associated with it can be potentially applied to a variety of
physical systems to reveal weak interactions,” he said.

Scientists also can revisit older experiments on atoms by using modern tools such as highly
coherent light sources that are strong enough to reveal such nonlinear Fano-effects, Karrai said.
“We can explore new frontiers in quantum optics,” he noted.

Source: Ohio University

http://www.physorg.com/news180207149.html

A newly predicted “immortal” soliton (left) as compared to a conventional “dark” soliton (right).
The horizontal axis depicts the width of the soliton wavefronts (bounded by yellow in the left panel
and purple on the right panel, with different colors representing different wave heights). The
vertical axis corresponds to the speed of the soliton as a fraction of the velocity of sound. The
immortal soliton on the left maintains its shape right up to the sound barrier. Credit: I. Satija et al.,
JQI

(PhysOrg.com) -- Solitary waves that run a long distance without losing their shape or dying out
are a special class of waves called solitons. These everlasting waves are exotic enough, but
theoreticians at the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) , a collaboration of the National Institute of
Standards and Technology and the University of Maryland, and their colleagues in India and the
George Mason University, now believe that there may be a new kind of soliton that’s even more
special. Expected to be found in certain types of ultracold gases, the new soliton would not be
just a low-temperature atomic curiosity, it also may provide profound insights into other physical
systems, including the early universe.

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Solitons can occur everywhere. In the 1830s, Scottish scientist John Scott Russell first identified
them while riding along a narrow canal, where he saw a water wave maintaining its shape over
long distances, instead of dying away.

his “singular and beautiful” phenomenon, as Russell termed it, has since been observed, created
and exploited in many systems, including light waves in optical-fiber telecommunications, the
vibrational waves that sweep through atomic crystals, and even “atom waves” in Bose-Einstein
condensates (BECs), an ultracold state of matter. Atoms in BECs can join together to form single
large waves that travel through the gas. The atom waves in BECs can even split up, interfere with
one another, and cancel each other out.

In BECs with weakly interacting atoms, this has resulted in observations of “dark solitons,” long-
lasting waves that represent absences of atoms propagating through the gas, and “bright”
solitons (those carrying actual matter).

By taking a new theoretical approach, the JQI work predicts a third, even more exotic “immortal”
soliton—never before seen in any other physical system. This new soliton can occur in BECs
made of “hard-core bosons”—atoms that repel each other strongly and thus interact intensely —
organized in an egg-crate-like arrangement known as an “optical lattice.” In 1990, one of the
coauthors of the present work, Radha Balakrishnan of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences in
India, wrote down the mathematical description of these new solitons, but considered her work
merely to approximate the behavior of a BEC made of strongly interacting gas atoms.

With the subsequent observations of BECs, the JQI researchers recently realized both that
Balakrishnan’s equations provide an almost exact description of a BEC with strongly interacting
atoms, and that this previously unknown type of soliton actually can exist. While all previously
known solitons die down as their wave velocity approaches the speed of sound, this new soliton
would survive, maintaining its wave height (amplitude) even at sonic speeds.

If the “immortal” soliton could be created to order, it could provide a new avenue for investigating
the behavior of strongly interacting quantum systems, whose members include high-temperature
superconductors and magnets. As atoms cooling into a BEC represent a phase transition (like
water turning to ice), the new soliton could also serve as an important tool for better
understanding phase transitions, even those that took place in the early universe as it expanded
and cooled.

More information: R. Balakrishnan, I.I. Satija and C.W. Clark, “Particle-hole asymmetry and
brightening of solitons in a strongly repulsive Bose-Einstein condensate,” Physical Review
Letters, vol. 103, p. 230403; published online Dec. 4, 2009.

http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-stripes-key-role-superconductivity.html

(PhysOrg.com) -- Fluctuating magnetic stripes could be the cause of the mysterious hourglass-
shaped magnetic spectrum found in high temperature superconductors, according to new
research.

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Scientists at Oxford University and the Institut Laue-Langevin have used neutrons to probe the
magnetic ‘glue’ thought to produce high temperature superconductivity and have identified stripes
of magnetic moments and charge as the cause of a strange hourglass-shaped magnetic
spectrum. Their findings, reported in Nature, are a step forward in the search for a model of high
temperature superconductivity.

Current research into the origins of high temperature superconductivity found in a large class of
copper oxide compounds centres on the motion of atomic magnetic moments. Fluctuations of
these moments are believed to create an attractive force (a sort of magnetic ‘glue’) which binds
electrons in pairs and allows them to move around unimpeded giving rise to superconductivity.

Recent debate has focused on the cause of an unusual hourglass shape found in the spectrum of
these magnetic fluctuations. The origin of this pattern, which is found in many if not all high
temperature superconductors, is thought to relate to an alternating pattern of spin and charge
stripes found within the atomic layers but so far it has been hard to prove a link between the two
phenomena.

The researchers instead turned their attention to an insulating cobalt oxide with a similar
magnetic stripe pattern. Using neutron scattering at the ILL the scientists measured the atomic-
scale fluctuations in its magnetism and uncovered the same hourglass pattern in the data. Their
results provide strong evidence that magnetic stripes are the cause of the hourglass spectrum
and play an important role in high temperature superconductivity.
‘Our cobalt oxide compound is a magnetic look-alike for the high temperature superconductors,’
said Professor Andrew Boothroyd of Oxford University’s Department of Physics, who led the work
at Oxford. ‘Its lack of mobile electrons prevents it from becoming superconductive, allowing us to
use neutron scattering to look in detail at nano-scale fluctuations in the magnetic motion without
the complicating effects of superconductivity. The experiment allows us to isolate the source of
the much-debated hour-glass spectrum.’

A report of the research, ‘An hour-glass magnetic spectrum in an insulating, hole-doped

antiferromagnet’, is published in this week’s Nature.

More information: Nature, Volume 471, Pages: 341–344, 17 March 2011. http://www.nature. …
re09902.html

Provided by Oxford University (news : web)

Doubly special relativity

March 21st, 2011 in Physics / General Physics

Enlarge

The Large Hadron Collider - destined to deliver fabulous science data, but it remains uncertain if
these will include an evidence basis for quantum gravity theories. Credit: CERN

General relativity, Einstein’s theory of gravity, gives us a useful basis for mathematically modeling
the large scale universe – while quantum theory gives us a useful basis for modeling sub-atomic
particle physics and the likely small-scale, high-energy-density physics of the early universe –
nanoseconds after the Big Bang – which general relativity just models as a singularity and has
nothing else to say on the matter.

Quantum gravity theories may have more to say. By extending general relativity into a quantized
structure for space-time, maybe we can bridge the gap between small and large scale physics.
For example, there’s doubly special relativity.

With conventional special relativity, two different inertial frames of reference may measure the
speed of the same object differently. So, if you are on a train and throw a tennis ball forward, you
might measure it moving at 10 kilometers an hour. But someone else standing on the train station
platform watching your train pass by at 60 kilometers an hour, measures the speed of the ball at
60 + 10 – i.e. 70 kilometers an hour. Give or take a few nanometers per second, you are both
correct.

Enlarge

The Planck spacecraft - an observatory exploring the universe and named after the founder of
quantum theory. Coincidence? Credit: ESA
However, as Einstein pointed out, do the same experiment where you shine a torch beam, rather
than throw a ball, forward on the train – both you on the train and the person on the platform
measure the torch beam’s speed as the speed of light – without that additional 60 kilometers an
hour – and you are both correct.

It works out that for the person on the platform, the components of speed (distance and time) are
changed on the train so that distances are contracted and time dilated (i.e. slower clocks). And by
the math of Lorenz transformations, these effects become more obvious the faster than train
goes. It also turns out that the mass of objects on the train increase as well – although, before
anyone asks, the train can’t turn into a black hole even at 99.9999(etc) per cent of the speed of
light.

Now, doubly special relativity, proposes that not only is the speed of light always the same
regardless of your frame of reference, but Planck units of mass and energy are also always the
same. This means that relativistic effects (like mass appearing to increase on the train) do not
occur at the Planck (i.e. very small) scale – although at larger scales, doubly special relativity
should deliver results indistinguishable from conventional special relativity.

Doubly special relativity might also be generalized towards a theory of quantum gravity – which,
when extended up from the Planck scale, should deliver results indistinguishable from general
relativity.

It turns out that at the Planck scale e = m, even though at macro scales e=mc2. And at the Planck
scale, a Planck mass is 2.17645 × 10-8 kg – supposedly the mass of a flea’s egg – and has a
Schwarzschild radius of a Planck length – meaning that if you compressed this mass into such a
tiny volume, it would become a very small black hole containing one Planck unit of energy.

To put it another way, at the Planck scale, gravity becomes a significant force in quantum
physics. Although really, all we are saying that is that there is one Planck unit of gravitational
force between two Planck masses when separated by a Planck length – and by the way, a Planck
length is the distance that light moves within one unit of Planck time!

And since one Planck unit of energy (1.22×1019 GeV) is considered the maximal energy of
particles – it’s tempting to consider that this represents conditions expected in the Planck epoch,
being the very first stage of the Big Bang.

It all sounds terribly exciting, but this line of thinking has been criticized as being just a trick to
make the math work better, by removing important information about the physical systems under
consideration. You also risk undermining fundamental principles of conventional relativity since,
as the paper below outlines, a Planck length can be considered an invariable constant
independent of an observer’s frame of reference while the speed of light does become variable at
very high energy densities.

Nonetheless, since even the Large Hadron Collider is not expected to deliver direct evidence
about what may or may not happen at the Planck scale – for now, making the math work better
does seem to be the best way forward.

More information: Zhang et al. Photon Gas Thermodynamics in Doubly Special Relativity.

Source: Universe Today

"Doubly special relativity." March 21st, 2011. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-doubly-

special-relativity.html

Have Scientists Finally Found the Elusive Magnetic Monopole?

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-09/have-scientists-finally-found-elusive-monopole
By Susannah F. Locke

A long-hypothesized particle, stuff of tantalizing detection attempts and thrilling sci-fi novels, may
have finally been sighted.
A magnet has a north and a south pole. If you cut that magnet in two, you get two magnets, each
with its own north and south poles. No matter how far you subdivide a magnetic material, this is
what happens. Both north end and south end. Theory and indirect measurements support the
existence of matter with just one pole: a monopole. Scientists have searched in all kinds of
materials -- in particle colliders, in moon dust, in cosmic radiation -- to no avail.
But now, a pair of papers in Science and another pair available on arXiv.org demonstrate
convincing evidence of a substance that has monopoles: spin ice crystals (such as Dy2Ti2O7, in
case you want to get your hands on some). The crystals seem to have tiny north points and
separate tiny south points -- less than a nanometer apart, but still separate.
[Via Nature News]

http://www.symmetrym...at-new-physics/

Interesting effect at the Tevatron hints at new physics

March 18, 2011 | 9:00 am

Fermilab's Wilson Hall in the shape of a t, the symbol for the top quark.

Fermilab's Wilson Hall in the shape of a t, the symbol for the top quark.

Scientists at the Large Hadron Collider may be on the verge of discovering a new particle,
according to mounting evidence from experiments at Fermilab’s Tevatron.

Judging by its behavior, it’s not the Higgs.

Scientists are finding signs of new physics through the study of a particle Fermilab physicists
discovered at the Tevatron, the top quark.

When top quarks and their anti-particles, anti-top quarks, are created in particle collisions at the
Tevatron, detectors note the direction in which they fly. Theory predicts that the particles will favor
one direction slightly over the other, traveling that way about 5 percent of the time more.

However, in studies by the DZero collaboration and the CDF collaboration, the particles seemed
to be picky 15 percent of the time. Top quarks went forward and anti-top quarks went backward.
This month, the CDF collaboration announced results with an even larger asymmetry.

They also recently released a study in which top quarks and their partners showed this
unexpected behavior almost half of the time in collisions above a certain energy.

“It’s really challenging for us to construct a convincing theory to explain this,” said theorist
Susanne Westhoff, who presented on the subject at the Rencontres de Moriond conference on
Wednesday. “All of the proposed explanations involve a new particle.”

Scientists think the cause of the unexpected asymmetry could be the interference of an
undiscovered particle, one just heavy enough to go undetected by the Tevatron. If that’s true,
experiments at the recently restarted Large Hadron Collider may be just weeks from collecting
enough data to find it.

The Higgs particle would not have this kind of effect, said physicist Fabrizio Margaroli, CDF top
quark group leader, who presented the experimental results at the conference.

In particle colliders, energy converts to mass to create heavy particles that haven’t been around
in nature since moments after the big bang. The more energy a collider has, the more massive
particles it can create. Scientists search for particles with certain masses by studying collisions
with the corresponding energy.

If a new particle is affecting top and anti-top quark production, scientists should see greater
effects in collisions closer to the energy at which the new particle is created. CDF physicists saw
just that. In collisions above 450 GeV, top and anti-top quarks favored one direction over the
other 48 percent of the time.

The Tevatron experiments did not have quite enough confidence in the measurements
considering collisions at any energy to call what they saw evidence of a deviation from the
expected. However, the study of collisions above 450 GeV is statistically significant enough to
make the cut.

“At this point, things become really interesting,” Margaroli said. “People have a reason to be
curious.”

The CDF and DZero experiments expect to announce updated results by this summer. If their
findings are similar, the combined evidence from the two experiments could tell scientists with
99.9999 percent certainty that what they’re seeing is no fluke; new physics are most likely afoot.

http://www.physorg.c...03-icy-big.html

(PhysOrg.com) -- Scientists of the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI)
in Innsbruck, Austria, have reached a milestone in the exploration of quantum gas mixtures. In an
international first, the research group led by Rudolf Grimm and Florian Schreck has succeeded in
producing controlled strong interactions between two fermionic elements - lithium-6 and
potassium-40. This model system not only promises to provide new insights into solid-state
physics but also shows intriguing analogies to the primordial substance right after the Big Bang.

According to theory, the whole universe consisted of quark-gluon plasma in the first split seconds
after the Big Bang. On the earth this cosmic primordial "soup" can be observed in big particle
accelerators when, for example, the nuclei of lead atoms are accelerated to nearly the speed of
light and smashed into each other, which results in particle showers that are investigated with
detectors. Now the group of quantum physicists led by Prof. Rudolf Grimm and PhD Florian
Schreck from the Institute for Quantum Optics and Quantum Information (IQOQI) of the Austrian
Academy of Sciences together with Italian and Australian researchers has for the first time
achieved strong controlled interactions between clouds of lithium-6 and potassium-40 atoms.
Hence, they have established a model system that behaves in a similar way as the quark-gluon
plasma, whose energy scale has a twenty times higher order of magnitude.

The research group led by Rudolf Grimm reports on a first experimental step into the strongly
interacting regime of an ultracold Fermi-Fermi mixture. Graphics: Ritsch

Hydrodynamic expansion

In 2008 already, the Innsbruck physicists found Feshbach resonances in an ultracold gas mixture
consisting of lithium and potassium atoms, which they have used to modify quantum mechanical
interactions between particles in a controlled way by applying a magnetic field. In the meantime,
they have overcome all technical challenges and are now the first to also produce strong
interactions between those particles. “The magnetic fields have to be adjusted precisely to one in
100000 and controlled accurately to achieve this result,“ explains Florian Schreck.

In the experiment the physicists prepare the ultracold gases of lithium-6 (Li) and potassium-40 (K)
atoms in an optical trap and overlap them, with the smaller cloud of heavier K atoms residing in
the centre of the Li cloud. After turning off the trap, the researchers observe the expansion of the
quantum gases at different magnetic fields. “When the particles show a strong interaction, the gas
clouds behave hydrodynamically,“ says Schreck. “An elliptical nucleus is formed in the centre of
the particle cloud, where the potassium and lithium atoms interact. Moreover, the expansion
velocity of the particles, which are different initially, become equal.“ According to theory, both
phenomena suggest hydrodynamic behavior of the quantum gas mixture. “This behavior is the
most striking phenomenon observed in quantum gases, when particles strongly interact,“ says
Rudolf Grimm. “Therefore, this experiment opens up new research areas in the field of many-
body physics.“

New possibilities for exciting experiments

High energy physicists have made these two observations as well when producing quark-gluon
plasmas in particle accelerators. The Innsbruck quantum gas experiment can be regarded as a
model system to investigate cosmic phenomena that occurred immediately after the Big Bang. “In
addition and above all, we can also use this system to address many questions of solid-state
physics,“ says Rudolf Grimm, who is going to further explore the quantum gas mixture with his
research group. “The big goal is to produce quantum condensates, such as Bose-Einstein
condensates consisting of molecules made up of lithium and potassium atoms. This will
tremendously increase our capabilities to realize novel states of matter.“

The physicists have published their findings in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters.

More information: Hydrodynamic Expansion of a Strongly Interacting Fermi-Fermi Mixture. A.

Trenkwalder, C. Kohstall, M. Zaccanti, D. Naik, A. I. Sidorov, F. Schreck, R. Grimm. Physical
Review Letters 106, 115304 (2011), DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevLett.106.115304

Provided by Austrian Academy of Sciences

http://www.physorg.c...chessboard.html

Space is usually considered infinitely divisible — given any two positions, there is always a
position halfway between. But in a recent study aimed at developing ultra-fast transistors using
graphene, researchers from the UCLA Department of Physics and Astronomy and the California
NanoSystems Institute show that dividing space into discrete locations, like a chessboard, may
explain how point-like electrons, which have no finite radius, manage to carry their intrinsic
angular momentum, or "spin."

While studying graphene's electronic properties, professor Chris Regan and graduate student
Matthew Mecklenburg found that a particle can acquire spin by living in a space with two types of
positions — dark tiles and light tiles. The particle seems to spin if the tiles are so close together
that their separation cannot be detected.

"An electron's spin might arise because space at very small distances is not smooth, but rather
segmented, like a chessboard," Regan said.

Their findings are published in the March 18 edition of the journal Physical Review Letters.

In quantum mechanics, "spin up" and "spin down" refer to the two types of states that can be
assigned to an electron. That the electron's spin can have only two values — not one, three or an
infinite number — helps explain the stability of matter, the nature of the chemical bond and many
other fundamental phenomena.

However, it is not clear how the electron manages the rotational motion implied by its spin. If the
electron had a radius, the implied surface would have to be moving faster than the speed of light,
violating the theory of relativity. And experiments show that the electron does not have a radius; it
is thought to be a pure point particle with no surface or substructure that could possibly spin.

Enlarge

Electrons are thought to spin, even though they are pure point particles with no surface that can
possibly rotate. Recent work on graphene shows that the electron’s spin might arise because
space at very small distances is not smooth, but rather segmented like a chessboard. The
standard cartoon of an electron shows a spinning sphere with positive or negative angular
momentum, as illustrated in blue or gold above. However, such cartoons are fundamentally
misleading: compelling experimental evidence indicates that electrons are ideal point particles,
with no finite radius or internal structure that could possibly “spin”. A quantum mechanical model
of electron transport in graphene, a single layer of graphite (shown as a black honeycomb),
presents a possible resolution to this puzzle. An electron in graphene hops from carbon atom to
carbon atom as if moving on a chessboard with triangular tiles. At low energies the individual tiles
are unresolved, but the electron acquires an “internal” spin quantum number which reflects
whether it is on the blue or the gold tiles. Thus the electron’s spin could arise not from rotational
motion of its substructure, but rather from the discrete, chessboard-like structure of space.
(Image: Chris Regan/CNSI)
In 1928, British physicist Paul Dirac showed that the spin of the electron is intimately related to
the structure of space-time. His elegant argument combined quantum mechanics with special
relativity, Einstein's theory of space-time (famously represented by the equation E=mc2).

Dirac's equation, far from merely accommodating spin, actually demands it. But while showing
that relativistic quantum mechanics requires spin, the equation does not give a mechanical
picture explaining how a point particle manages to carry angular momentum, nor why this spin is
two-valued.

Unveiling a concept that is at once novel and deceptively simple, Regan and Mecklenburg found
that electrons' two-valued spin can arise from having two types of tiles — light and dark — in a
chessboard-like space. And they developed this quantum mechanical model while working on the
surprisingly practical problem of how to make better transistors out of a new material called
graphene.

Graphene, a single sheet of graphite, is an atomically-thin layer of carbon atoms arranged in a

honeycomb structure. First isolated in 2004 by Andre Geim and Kostya Novoselov, graphene has
a wealth of extraordinary electronic properties, such as high electron mobility and current
capacity. In fact, these properties hold such promise for revolutionary advances that Geim and
Novoselov were awarded the 2010 Nobel Prize a mere six years after their achievement.

Regan and Mecklenburg are part of a UCLA effort to develop extremely fast transistors using this
new material.

"We wanted to calculate the amplification of a graphene transistor," Mecklenburg said. "Our
collaboration was building them and needed to know how well they were going to work."

This calculation involved understanding how light interacts with the electrons in graphene.

The electrons in graphene move by hopping from carbon atom to carbon atom, as if hopping on a
chessboard. The graphene chessboard tiles are triangular, with the dark tiles pointing "up" and
light ones pointing "down." When an electron in graphene absorbs a photon, it hops from light
tiles to dark ones. Mecklenburg and Regan showed that this transition is equivalent to flipping a
spin from "up" to "down."
In other words, confining the electrons in graphene to specific, discrete positions in space gives
them spin. This spin, which derives from the special geometry of graphene's honeycomb lattice, is
in addition to and distinct from the usual spin carried by the electron. In graphene the additional
spin reflects the unresolved chessboard-like structure to the space that the electron occupies.

"My adviser [Regan] spent his Ph.D. studying the structure of the electron," Mecklenburg said.
"So he was very excited to see that spin can emerge from a lattice. It makes you wonder if the
usual electron spin could be generated in the same way."

"It's not yet clear if this work will be more useful in particle or condensed matter physics," Regan
said, "but it would be odd if graphene's honeycomb structure was the only lattice capable of
generating spin."

More information: http://link.aps.or … t.106.116803

Provided by University of California - Los Angeles

http://7thspace.com/headlines/377262/the_self_organizing_fractal_theory_as_a_universal_discov
ery_method_the_phenomenon_of_life.html

The self-organizing fractal theory as a universal discovery method: the phenomenon of life

A universal discovery method potentially applicable to all disciplines studying organizational

phenomena has been developed. This method takes advantage of a new form of global
symmetry, namely, scale-invariance of self-organizational dynamics of energy/matter at all levels
of organizational hierarchy, from elementary particles through cells and organisms to the
Universe as a whole.

The method is based on an alternative conceptualization of physical reality postulating that the
energy/matter comprising the Universe is far from equilibrium, that it exists as a flow, and that it
develops via self-organization in accordance with the empirical laws of nonequilibrium
thermodynamics. It is postulated that the energy/matter flowing through and comprising the
Universe evolves as a multiscale, self-similar structure-process, i.e ., as a self-organizing fractal.

This means that certain organizational structures and processes are scale-invariant and are
reproduced at all levels of the organizational hierarchy. Being a form of symmetry, scale-
invariance naturally lends itself to a new discovery method that allows for the deduction of
missing information by comparing scale-invariant organizational patterns across different levels of
the organizational hierarchy.An application of the new discovery method to life sciences reveals
that moving electrons represent a keystone physical force (flux) that powers, animates, informs,
and binds all living structures-processes into a planetary-wide, multiscale system of electron
flow/circulation, and that all living organisms and their larger-scale organizations emerge to
function as electron transport networks that are supported by and, at the same time, support the
flow of electrons down the Earth's redox gradient maintained along the core-mantle-crust-ocean-
atmosphere axis of the planet.

The presented findings lead to a radically new perspective on the nature and origin of life,
suggesting that living matter is an organizational state/phase of nonliving matter and a natural
consequence of the evolution and self-organization of nonliving matter.The presented paradigm
opens doors for explosive advances in many disciplines by uniting them within a single
conceptual framework and providing a discovery method that allows for the systematic generation
of knowledge through comparison and complementation of empirical data across different
sciences and disciplines.

Author: Alexei Kurakin

Credits/Source: Theoretical Biology and Medical Modelling 2011, 8:4

INFORMATION PARADOX SOLVED? IF SO, BLACK HOLES ARE “FUZZBALLS”

COLUMBUS, Ohio – Stephen Hawking and Kip Thorne may owe John Preskill a set of
encyclopedias.

In 1997, the three cosmologists made a famous bet as to whether information that enters a black
hole ceases to exist -- that is, whether the interior of a black hole is changed at all by the
characteristics of particles that enter it.
Samir Mathur

Hawking’s research suggested that the particles have no effect whatsoever. But his theory
violated the laws of quantum mechanics and created a contradiction known as the “information
paradox.”

Now physicists at Ohio State University have proposed a solution using string theory, a theory
which holds that all particles in the universe are made of tiny vibrating strings.

Samir Mathur and his colleagues have derived an extensive set of equations that strongly
suggest that the information continues to exist -- bound up in a giant tangle of strings that fills a
black hole from its core to its surface.

The finding suggests that black holes are not smooth, featureless entities as scientists have long
thought.“I think that most people gave up on the idea that information was destroyed once the
idea of string theory rose to prominence in 1995. It’s just that nobody has been able to prove that
the information survives before now.”

Instead, they are stringy “fuzzballs.”

Mathur, professor of physics at Ohio State, suspects that Hawking and Thorne won’t be
particularly surprised by the outcome of the study, which appears in the March 1 issue of the
journal Nuclear Physics B.

In their wager, Hawking, professor of mathematics at the University of Cambridge, and Thorne,
professor of theoretical physics at Caltech, bet that information that enters a black hole is
destroyed, while Preskill -- also a professor of theoretical physics at Caltech -- took the opposite
view. The stakes were a set of encyclopedias.

“I think that most people gave up on the idea that information was destroyed once the idea of
string theory rose to prominence in 1995,” Mathur said. “It’s just that nobody has been able to
prove that the information survives before now.”

In the classical model of how black holes form, a supermassive object, such as a giant star,
collapses to form a very small point of infinite gravity, called a singularity. A special region in
space surrounds the singularity, and any object that crosses the region’s border, known as the
event horizon, is pulled into the black hole, never to return.
In theory, not even light can escape from a black hole.

The diameter of the event horizon depends on the mass of the object that formed it. For instance,
if the sun collapsed into a singularity, its event horizon would measure approximately 3 kilometers
(1.9 miles) across. If Earth followed suit, its event horizon would only measure 1 centimeter (0.4
inches).

As to what lies in the region between a singularity and its event horizon, physicists have always
drawn a blank, literally. No matter what type of material formed the singularity, the area inside the
event horizon was supposed to be devoid of any structure or measurable characteristics.

And therein lies the problem.

“The problem with the classical theory is that you could use any combination of particles to make
the black hole -- protons, electrons, stars, planets, whatever -- and it would make no difference.
There must be billions of ways to make a black hole, yet with the classical model the final state of
the system is always the same,” Mathur said.

That kind of uniformity violates the quantum mechanical law of reversibility, he explained.
Physicists must be able to trace the end product of any process, including the process that makes
a black hole, back to the conditions that created it.

If all black holes are the same, then no black hole can be traced back to its unique beginning, and
any information about the particles that created it is lost forever at the moment the hole forms.

“Nobody really believes that now, but nobody could ever find anything wrong with the classical
argument, either,” Mathur said. “We can now propose what went wrong.”

In 2000, string theorists named the information paradox number eight on their top-ten list of
physics problems to be solved during the next millennium. That list included questions such as
“what is the lifetime of a proton?” and “how can quantum gravity help explain the origin of the
universe?”

Mathur began working on the information paradox when he was an assistant professor at the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and he attacked the problem full time after joining the
Ohio State faculty in 2000.

With postdoctoral researcher Oleg Lunin, Mathur computed the structure of objects that lie in-
between simple string states and large classical black holes. Instead of being tiny objects, they
turned out to be large. Recently, he and two doctoral students -- Ashish Saxena and Yogesh
Srivastava -- found that the same picture of a “fuzzball” continued to hold true for objects more
closely resembling a classic black hole. Those new results appear in Nuclear Physics B.

According to string theory, all the fundamental particles of the universe -- protons, neutrons, and
electrons -- are made of different combinations of strings. But as tiny as strings are, Mathur
believes they can form large black holes through a phenomenon called fractional tension.

Strings are stretchable, he said, but each carries a certain amount of tension, as does a guitar
string. With fractional tension, the tension decreases as the string gets longer.

Just as a long guitar string is easier to pluck than a short guitar string, a long strand of quantum
mechanical strings joined together is easier to stretch than a single string, Mathur said.

So when a great many strings join together, as they would in order to form the many particles
necessary for a very massive object like a black hole, the combined ball of string is very stretchy,
and expands to a wide diameter.

When the Ohio State physicists derived their formula for the diameter of a fuzzy black hole made
of strings, they found that it matched the diameter of the black hole event horizon suggested by
the classical model.

Since Mathur’s conjecture suggests that strings continue to exist inside the black hole, and the
nature of the strings depends on the particles that made up the original source material, then
each black hole is as unique as are the stars, planets, or galaxy that formed it. The strings from
any subsequent material that enters the black hole would remain traceable as well.

That means a black hole can be traced back to its original conditions, and information survives.

This research was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy.

http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/fuzzball.htm