Ref HAL: hal-03047633_v1
Ref Arxiv: 2011.07049
Ref INSPIRE: 1830179
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.103.046009
Ref. & Cit.: NASA ADS
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Résumé:

We identify a parametrically light dilaton by studying the perturbations of metastable vacua along a branch of regular supergravity backgrounds that are dual to four-dimensional confining field theories. The branch includes also stable and unstable solutions. The former encompass, as a special case, the geometry proposed by Witten as a holographic model of confinement. The latter approach a supersymmetric solution, by enhancing a condensate in the dual field theory. A phase transition separates the space of stable backgrounds from the metastable ones. In proximity of the phase transition, one of the lightest scalar states inherits some of the properties of the dilaton, despite not being particularly light.

Ref HAL: hal-03022749_v1
Ref Arxiv: 2011.03003
Ref INSPIRE: 1828484
DOI: 10.1007/JHEP03(2021)182
Ref. & Cit.: NASA ADS
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We study strongly-coupled, approximately scale-invariant gauge theories, which develop a mass gap in the infrared. We argue that a large number of fermion flavours is most suitable to provide an ultraviolet completion for the composite Higgs scenario. The holographic approach allows to describe the qualitative features of the non-perturbative dynamics in the Veneziano limit. We introduce new bottom-up holographic models, which incorporate the backreaction of flavour on the geometry, and show that this can correlate the mass gap to the scale of flavour-symmetry breaking. We compute the mass spectrum for the various composite bosonic states, and study its dependence on the scaling dimension of the symmetry-breaking operators, as well as on the number of flavours. The different regions with a light dilaton are critically surveyed. We carefully assess the domain of validity of the holographic approach, and compare it with lattice simulations and the Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model.

Ref HAL: hal-03022688_v1
Ref Arxiv: 2011.01517
Ref INSPIRE: 1827879
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.103.063509
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We consider Horndeski modified gravity models obeying stability, velocity of gravitational waves cT equals c and quasistatic approximation on subhorizon scales. We assume further a Lambda cold dark matter background expansion and a monotonic evolution on the cosmic background of the α functions as αi=αi0as where i=M, B, a is the scale factor and αi0 (αM0,αB0), s are arbitrary parameters. We show that the growth and lensing reduced (dimensionless) gravitational couplings μ≡Ggrowth/G, Σ≡Glensing/G exhibit the following generic properties today: Σ0<1 for all viable parameters, μ0<1 (weak gravity today) is favored for small s while μ0>1 is favored for large s. We establish also the relation μ≥Σ at all times. Taking into account the fσ8 and EG data we constrain the parameter s to satisfy s≲2. Hence these data select essentially the weak gravity regime today (μ0<1) when s<2, while μ0>1 subsists only marginally for s≈2. At least the interval 0.5≲s≲2 would be ruled out in the absence of screening. We consider further the growth index γ(z) and identify the (αM0,αB0,s) parameter region that corresponds to specific signs of the differences γ0-γ0ΛCDM, and γ1-γ1ΛCDM, where γ0≡γ|z=0 and γ1≡dγdz|z=0. In this way important information is gained on the past evolution of μ. We obtain in particular the signature γ0>γ0ΛCDM for s<2 in the selected weak gravity region.

Ref HAL: hal-03014825_v2
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevB.103.045308
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The Mott transition from a dipolar excitonic liquid to an electron-hole plasma is demonstrated in a wide GaN/(Al,Ga)N quantum well at $T=7$K by means of spatially-resolved magneto-photoluminescence spectroscopy. Increasing optical excitation density we drive the system from the excitonic state, characterized by a diamagnetic behavior and thus a quadratic energy dependence on the magnetic field, to the unbound electron-hole state, characterized by a linear shift of the emission energy with the magnetic field. The complexity of the system requires to take into account both the density-dependence of the exciton binding energy and the exciton-exciton interaction and correlation energy that are of the same order of magnitude. We estimate the carrier density at Mott transition as $n_\mathrm{Mott}\approx 2\times 10^{11}$cm$^{-2}$ and address the role played by excitonic correlations in this process. Our results strongly rely on the spatial resolution of the photoluminescence and the assessment of the carrier transport. We show, that in contrast to GaAs/(Al,Ga)As systems, where transport of dipolar magnetoexcitons is strongly quenched by the magnetic field due to exciton mass enhancement, in GaN/(Al,Ga)N the band parameters are such that the transport is preserved up to $9$T.

Ref HAL: hal-02989969_v1
Ref Arxiv: 2009.14533
DOI: 10.1140/epje/s10189-021-00019-8
Ref. & Cit.: NASA ADS
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Translation is one of the main steps in the synthesis of proteins. It consists of ribosomes that translate sequences of nucleotides encoded on mRNA into polypeptide sequences of amino acids. Ribosomes bound to mRNA move unidirectionally, while unbound ribosomes diffuse in the cytoplasm. It has been hypothesized that finite diffusion of ribosomes plays an important role in ribosome recycling and that mRNA circularization enhances the efficiency of translation. In order to estimate the effect of cytoplasmic diffusion on the rate of translation, we consider a Totally Asymmetric Simple Exclusion Process (TASEP) coupled to a finite diffusive reservoir, which we call the Ribosome Transport model with Diffusion (RTD). In this model, we derive an analytical expression for the rate of protein synthesis as a function of the diffusion constant of ribosomes, which is corroborated with results from continuous-time Monte Carlo simulations. Using a wide range of biological relevant parameters, we conclude that diffusion in biological cells is fast enough so that it does not play a role in controlling the rate of translation initiation.

Ref HAL: hal-02981258_v1
Ref Arxiv: 2010.04100
Ref INSPIRE: 1821939
DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.103.106018
Ref. & Cit.: NASA ADS
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The spectrum of bound states of special strongly coupled confining field theories might include a parametrically light dilaton, associated with the formation of enhanced condensates that break (approximate) scale invariance spontaneously. It has been suggested in the literature that such a state may arise in connection with the theory being close to the unitarity bound in holographic models. We extend these ideas to cases where the background geometry is non-AdS, and the gravity description of the dual confining field theory has a top-down origin in supergravity. We exemplify this programme by studying the circle compactification of Romans six-dimensional half-maximal supergravity. We uncover a rich space of solutions, many of which were previously unknown in the literature. We compute the bosonic spectrum of excitations, and identify a tachyonic instability in a region of parameter space for a class of regular background solutions. A tachyon only exists along an energetically disfavoured (unphysical) branch of solutions of the gravity theory; we find evidence of a first-order phase transition that separates this region of parameter space from the physical one. Along the physical branch of regular solutions, one of the lightest scalar particles is approximately a dilaton, and it is associated with a condensate in the underlying theory. Yet, because of the location of the phase transition, its mass is not parametrically small, and it is, coincidentally, the next-to-lightest scalar bound state, rather than the lightest one.

Ref HAL: hal-02930775_v1
Ref Arxiv: 2009.01172
DOI: 10.1007/JHEP01(2021)147
Ref. & Cit.: NASA ADS
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Extending recent results in ${\cal N}=2$ string compactifications, we propose that the holomorphic anomaly equation satisfied by the modular completions of the generating functions of refined BPS indices has a universal structure independent of the number ${\cal N}$ of supersymmetries. We show that this equation allows to recover all known results about modularity (under $SL(2,\mathbb{Z})$ duality group) of BPS states in ${\cal N}=4$ string theory. In particular, we reproduce the holomorphic anomaly characterizing the mock modular behavior of quarter-BPS dyons and generalize it to the case of non-trivial torsion invariant.