Equilibrium and nonequilibrium properties associated with the chiral phase transition at finite density in the Gross-Neveu model
We study the dynamics of the chiral phase transition at finite density in the Gross-Neveu (GN) model in the leading order in the large-N approximation. The phase structure of the GN model in this approximation has the property that there is a tricritical point at a fixed temperature and chemical potential separating regions where the chiral transition is first order from that where it is second order. We consider evolutions starting in local thermal and chemical equilibrium in the massless unbroken phase for conditions pertaining to traversing a first or second order phase transition. We assume boost invariant kinematics and determine the evolution of the order parameter \ensuremath{\sigma}, the energy density and pressure as well as the effective temperature, chemical potential and interpolating number densities as a function of the proper time \ensuremath{\tau}. We find that before the phase transition, the system behaves as if it were an ideal fluid in local thermal equilibrium with equation of state $p=\ensuremath{\epsilon}.$ After the phase transition, the system quickly reaches its true broken symmetry vacuum value for the fermion mass and for the energy density. The single particle distribution functions for fermions and antifermions go far out of equilibrium as soon as the plasma traverses the chiral phase transition. We have also determined the spatial dependence of the ``pion'' Green's function $〈\overline{\ensuremath{\psi}}(x){\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{5}\ensuremath{\psi}(x)\overline{\ensuremath{\psi}}(0){\ensuremath{\gamma}}_{5}\ensuremath{\psi}(0)〉$ as a function of the proper time.

title: Gravitational Collapse of Dark Energy Field Configurations
abstract: It is now a well established fact based on several observations that we live in a Universe dominated by dark energy. The most natural candidates for dark energy are fields in curved space-time. We develop the formalism to study the gravitational collapse of fields given any general potential. We apply this formalism to models of dark energy motivated by particle physics considerations. We solve the resulting evolution equations which determine the time evolution of field configurations as well as the dynamics of spacetime.

title: Non-Abelian soft boson phase transitions and large-scale structure.
abstract: A new class of models with Pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone bosons (PNGB`s) is constructed using a non-Abelian symmetry in the right handed Majorana neutrino sector of see-saw neutrino mass models. The phase structure of these models is examined both at zero and non-zero temperatures, with particular emphasis on their phase transition characteristics. We find that the vacuum manifold of these models exhibits a rich structure in terms of possible topological defects, and we argue that these models may have applications to late time phase transition theories of structure formation.

title: A note on thermal activation
abstract: Thermal activation is mediated by field configurations that correspond to saddle points of the energy functional. The rate of probability flow along the unstable functional directions, i.e. the activation rate, is usually obtained from the imaginary part of a suitable analytic continuation of the equilibrium free energy. In this note we provide a real-time, non-equilibrium interpretation of this imaginary part which is analogous to the real-time interpretation of the imaginary part of the one-loop effective potential in theories with symmetry breaking. We argue that in situations in which the system is strongly out of equilibrium the rate will be time dependent, and illustrate this with an example.

title: Quasar production: Topological defect formation due to a phase transition linked with massive neutrinos.
abstract: Recent observations of the space distribution of quasars indicate a very notable peak in space density at a redshift of 2 to 3. It is pointed out in this article that this may be the result of a phase transition which has a critical temperature of roughly a few meV (in the cosmological units [ital h]=[ital c]=[ital k]=1). It is further pointed out that such a phase transition is natural in the context of massive neutrinos. In fact, the neutrino masses required for quasar production and those required to solve the solar neutrino problem by the Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein mechanism are consistent with each other.

title: Dissipation via particle production in scalar field theories.
abstract: We study the nonequilibrium evolution of the expectation value of a scalar field in the broken and unbroken symmetry cases. We find that the particles produced by parametric amplification give rise to dissipative behavior for this mode. However, a {Gamma} {center_dot}{phi} type of term {ital cannot} account for the dissipational dynamics. We are able to show clearly that perturbation theory breaks down at late times, so that dissipation in field theories can only be understood nonperturbatively. When Goldstone bosons are present we find infrared divergences that require a nonperturbative resummation to describe the long-time dynamics. We use the Hartree factorization and the large {ital N} approximation to the O({ital N}) linear {sigma} model to numerically as well as analytically understand the long-time behavior of the zero mode as well as that of the produced particles. The O({ital N}) model case is extremely interesting since, in the spontaneously broken case, the radial mode dissipates all of its energy into production of long-wavelength Goldstone modes. The minima of the effective action (determined by the final value of the expectation value of the scalar field) depend on the initial conditions.

title: Anisotropic Bianchi Type-I String Cosmological Models in Normal Gauge for Lyra’s Manifold with Constant Deceleration Parameter
abstract: The present study deals with a spatially homogeneous and anisotropic Bianchi type-I (B-I) cosmological models representing massive strings in normal gauge for Lyra’s manifold by applying the variation law for generalized Hubble’s parameter that yields a constant value of deceleration parameter. The variation law for Hubble’s parameter generates two types of solutions for the average scale factor, one is of power-law type and other is of the exponential-law type. Using these two forms, Einstein’s modified field equations are solved separately that correspond to expanding singular and non-singular models of the universe respectively. The energy-momentum tensor for such string as formulated by Letelier,  2414 (1983) is used to construct massive string cosmological models for which we assume that the expansion (θ) in the model is proportional to the component $\sigma^{1}_{~1}$ of the shear tensor $\sigma^{j}_{~i}$. This condition leads to A=(BC)m, where A, B and C are the metric coefficients and m is proportionality constant. Our models are in accelerating phase which is consistent to the recent observations. It has been found that the displacement vector β behaves like cosmological term Λ in the normal gauge treatment and the solutions are consistent with recent observations of SNe Ia. It has been found that massive strings dominate in the both decelerating and accelerating universes. The strings dominate in the early universe and eventually disappear from the universe for sufficiently large times. This is in consistent with the current observations. Some physical and geometric behaviour of these models are also discussed.

title: Comments on holographic entanglement entropy and RG flows
abstract: A bstractUsing holographic entanglement entropy for strip geometry, we construct a candidate for a c-function in arbitrary dimensions. For holographic theories dual to Einstein gravity, this c-function is shown to decrease monotonically along RG flows. A sufficient condition required for this monotonic flow is that the stress tensor of the matter fields driving the holographic RG flow must satisfy the null energy condition over the holographic surface used to calculate the entanglement entropy. In the case where the bulk theory is described by Gauss-Bonnet gravity, the latter condition alone is not sufficient to establish the monotonic flow of the c-function. We also observe that for certain holographic RG flows, the entanglement entropy undergoes a ‘phase transition’ as the size of the system grows and as a result, evolution of the c-function may exhibit a discontinuous drop.

title: Holographic Quantum Critical Transport without Self-Duality
abstract: We describe general features of frequency-dependent charge transport near strongly interacting quantum critical points in 2+1 dimensions. The simplest description using the AdS/CFT correspondence leads to a self-dual Einstein-Maxwell theory on AdS{sub 4}, which fixes the conductivity at a frequency-independent self-dual value. We describe the general structure of higher-derivative corrections to the Einstein-Maxwell theory, and compute their implications for the frequency dependence of the quantum critical conductivity. We show that physical consistency conditions on the higher-derivative terms allow only a limited frequency dependence in the conductivity. The frequency dependence is amenable to a physical interpretation using transport of either particlelike or vortexlike excitations.