Boundary Terms Research Articles

The surface counter-terms of the ϕ44 theory on the half space R+×R3

In a previous work, we established perturbative renormalizability to all orders of the massive ϕ44-theory on a half-space also called the semi-infinite massive ϕ44-theory. Five counter-terms which are functions depending on the position in the space, were needed to make the theory finite. The aim of the present paper is to establish that for a particular choice of the renormalization conditions the effective action consists of a part which is independent of the boundary conditions (Dirichlet, Neumann and Robin) plus a boundary term in the case of the Robin and Neumann boundary conditions. The key idea of our method is the decomposition of the correlators into a bulk part, which is defined as the scalar field model on the full space R4 with a quartic interaction restricted to the half-space, plus a remainder which we call “the surface part.” We analyse this surface part and establish perturbatively that the ϕ44 theory in R+×R3 is made finite by adding the bulk counter-terms and two additional counter-terms to the bare interaction in the case of Robin and Neumann boundary conditions. These surface counter-terms are position independent and are proportional to ∫Sϕ2 and ∫Sϕ∂nϕ. For Dirichlet boundary conditions, we prove that no surface counter-terms are needed and the bulk counter-terms are sufficient to renormalize the connected amputated (Dirichlet) Schwinger functions. A key technical novelty as compared to our previous work is a proof that the power counting of the surface part of the correlators is better by one scaling dimension than their bulk counterparts.

Complex Langevin: Correctness criteria, boundary terms, and spectrum

The Complex Langevin (CL) method to simulate “complex probabilities” ideally produces expectation values for the observables that converge to a limit equal to the expectation values obtained with the original complex “probability” measure. The situation may be spoiled in two ways: failure to converge and convergence to the wrong limit. It was found long ago that “wrong convergence” is caused by boundary terms; nonconvergence may arise from bad spectral properties of the various evolution operators related to the CL process. Here, we propose a class of criteria that allow one to rule out boundary terms and at the same time bad spectrum. Ruling out boundary terms in the equilibrium distribution arising from a CL simulation implies that the so-called convergence conditions are fulfilled. This in turn has been shown to guarantee that the expectation values of holomorphic observables are given by complex linear combinations of exp(−S) over various integration cycles. If the spectrum is pathological, however, the CL simulation in general does not reproduce the integral over the desired real cycle. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Arrival Time from Hamiltonian with Non-Hermitian Boundary Term

In this study, we developed a new method for finding the quantum probability density of arrival at the detector. The evolution of the quantum state restricted to the region outside of the detector is described by a restricted Hamiltonian that contains a non-Hermitian boundary term. The non-Hermitian term is shown to be proportional to the flux of the probability current operator through the boundary, which implies that the arrival probability density is equal to the flux of the probability current.

Global Regular Axially Symmetric Solutions to the Navier–Stokes Equations: Part 2

The axially symmetric solutions to the Navier–Stokes equations are considered in a bounded cylinder Ω⊂R3 with the axis of symmetry. S1 is the boundary of the cylinder parallel to the axis of symmetry, and S2 is perpendicular to it. We have two parts of S2. On S1 and S2, we impose vanishing of the normal component of velocity and the angular component of vorticity. Moreover, we assume that the angular component of velocity vanishes on S1 and the normal derivative of the angular component of velocity vanishes on S2. We prove the existence of global regular solutions. To prove this, the coordinate of velocity along the axis of symmetry must vanish on it. We have to emphasize that the technique of weighted spaces applied to the stream function plays a crucial role in the proof of global regular axially symmetric solutions. The paper is a generalization of Part 1, where the periodic boundary conditions are prescribed on S2. The transformation is not trivial because it needs to examine many additional boundary terms and derive new estimates.

Well-posedness and stability for a nonlinear Euler-Bernoulli beam equation

<abstract><p>We study the well-posedness and stability for a nonlinear Euler-Bernoulli beam equation modeling railway track deflections in the framework of input-to-state stability (ISS) theory. More specifically, in the presence of both distributed in-domain and boundary disturbances, we prove first the existence and uniqueness of a classical solution by using the technique of lifting and the semigroup method, and then establish the $ L^r $-integral input-to-state stability estimate for the solution whenever $ r\in [2, +\infty] $ by constructing a suitable Lyapunov functional with the aid of Sobolev-like inequalities, which are used to deal with the boundary terms. We provide an extensive extension of relevant work presented in the existing literature.</p></abstract>

Weighted Hardy type inequalities with Robin boundary conditions

In this paper, we establish a general weighted Hardy type inequality for the $ p- $Laplace operator with Robin boundary condition. We provide various concrete examples to illustrate our results for different weights. Furthermore, we present some Heisenberg-Pauli-Weyl type inequalities with boundary terms on balls centred at the origin with radius $ R $ in $ \mathbb{R} ^n $.

On determining and breaking the gauge class in inverse problems for reaction-diffusion equations

Abstract We investigate an inverse boundary value problem of determination of a nonlinear law for reaction-diffusion processes, which are modeled by general form semilinear parabolic equations. We do not assume that any solutions to these equations are known a priori, in which case the problem has a well-known gauge symmetry. We determine, under additional assumptions, the semilinear term up to this symmetry in a time-dependent anisotropic case modeled on Riemannian manifolds, and for partial data measurements on ${\mathbb R}^n$ . Moreover, we present cases where it is possible to exploit the nonlinear interaction to break the gauge symmetry. This leads to full determination results of the nonlinear term. As an application, we show that it is possible to give a full resolution to classes of inverse source problems of determining a source term and nonlinear terms simultaneously. This is in strict contrast to inverse source problems for corresponding linear equations, which always have the gauge symmetry. We also consider a Carleman estimate with boundary terms based on intrinsic properties of parabolic equations.

A note on the Hamiltonian structure of transgression forms

By incorporating two gauge connections, transgression forms provide a generalization of Chern-Simons actions that are genuinely gauge-invariant on bounded manifolds. In this work, we show that, when defined on a manifold with a boundary, the Hamiltonian formulation of a transgression field theory can be consistently carried out without the need to implement regularizing boundary terms at the level of first-class constraints. By considering boundary variations of the relevant functionals in the Poisson brackets, the surface integral in the very definition of a transgression action can be translated into boundary contributions in the generators of gauge transformations and diffeomorphisms. This prescription systematically leads to the corresponding surface charges of the theory, reducing to the general expression for conserved charges in (higher-dimensional) Chern-Simons theories when one of the gauge connections in the transgression form is set to zero.

Path integral factorization and the gravitational effective action

We discuss the factorization and continuity properties of fields in the Euclidean gravitational path integral with higher dimension operators constructed from powers of the Riemann tensor. We construct the boundary terms corresponding to the microcanonical ensemble and show that the saddle point approximation to the path integral with a quasilocal energy constraint generally yields a saddle point with discontinuous temperature. This extends a previous result for the Euclidean Schwarzschild–de Sitter geometry in Einstein gravity and shows that it is robust against at least some types of quantum corrections from heavy fields. As an application, we compute the entropy of SdS in D = 4 using the BTZ method. Our result matches the entropy calculated using Wald’s formula.

An energy approach to asymptotic, higher-order, linear homogenization

A higher-order homogenization method for linear elastic structures is proposed. While most existing approaches to homogenization start from the equations of equilibrium, the proposed one works at the energy level. We start from an energy functional depending on microscopic degrees of freedom on the one hand and on macroscopic variables on the other hand; the homogenized energy functional is derived by relaxing the microscopic degrees of freedom and applying a formal two-scale expansion. This method delivers the the energy functional of the homogenized model directly, including boundary terms that have not been discussed in previous work. Our method is formulated in a generic setting which makes it applicable to a variety of geometries in dimension 1, 2 or 3, and without any particular assumption on material symmetry. An implementation using a symbolic calculation language is proposed and it is distributed as an open-source library. Simple illustrations to elastic trusses having pre-stress or graded elastic properties are presented. The approach is presented in the context of discrete elastic structures and the connection with previous work on the higher-order homogenization of period continua is discussed.

Supersymmetric localization of (higher-spin) JT gravity: a bulk perspective

We study two-dimensional Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity on the disk topology by using a BF gauge theory in the presence of a boundary term. The system can be equivalently written in a supersymmetric way by introducing auxiliary gauginos and scalars with suitable boundary conditions on the hemisphere. We compute the exact partition function thanks to supersymmetric localization and we recover the result obtained from the Schwarzian theory by accurately identifying the physical scales. The calculation is then easily extended to the higher-spin generalization of Jackiw-Teitelboim gravity, finding perfect agreement with previous results. We argue that our procedure can also be applied to boundary-anchored Wilson lines correlators.

Strong unique continuation property for fourth order Baouendi-Grushin type subelliptic operators with strongly singular potential

In this paper, we prove the strong unique continuation property for the following fourth order degenerate elliptic equationΔX2u=Vu, where ΔX=Δx+|x|2αΔy (0<α≤1), with x∈Rm,y∈Rn, denotes the Baouendi-Grushin type subelliptic operators, and the potential V satisfies the strongly singular growth assumption |V|≤c0ρ4, whereρ=(|x|2(α+1)+(α+1)2|y|2)12(α+1) is the gauge norm. The main argument is to introduce an Almgren's type frequency function for the solutions, and show its monotonicity to obtain a doubling estimate based on setting up some refined Hardy-Rellich type inequalities on the gauge balls with boundary terms.

Holography and correlation functions of huge operators: spacetime bananas

We initiate the study of holographic correlators for operators whose dimension scales with the central charge of the CFT. Differently from light correlators or probes, the insertion of any such maximally heavy operator changes the AdS metric, so that the correlator itself is dual to a backreacted geometry with marked points at the Poincaré boundary. We illustrate this new physics for two-point functions. Whereas the bulk description of light or probe operators involves Witten diagrams or extremal surfaces in an AdS background, the maximally heavy two-point functions are described by nontrivial new geometries which we refer to as “spacetime bananas”. As a universal example, we discuss the two-point function of maximally heavy scalar operators described by the Schwarzschild black hole in the bulk and we show that its onshell action reproduces the expected CFT result. This computation is nonstandard, and adding boundary terms to the action on the stretched horizon is crucial. Then, we verify the conformal Ward Identity from the holographic stress tensor and discuss important aspects of the Fefferman-Graham patch. Finally we study a Heavy-Heavy-Light-Light correlator by using geodesics propagating in the banana background. Our main motivation here is to set up the formalism to explore possible universal results for three- and higher-point functions of maximally heavy operators.

Teleparallel bigravity

We write down the teleparallel equivalent to Hassan–Rosen bigravity, which is written using a torsionful but curvature-free connection. The theories only differ by a boundary term. The equivalence was proven, both by using perturbation theory and Hamiltonian analysis. It is further shown how one can construct novel bigravity theories within the teleparallel framework. Some of those are analyzed through perturbation theory, and it is found that all of the considered novel bigravity theories suffer from pathologies. In particular, it is found that a construction with two copies of new general relativity leads to ghostly degrees of freedom which are not present in the single tetrad teleparallel corresponding theory. We demonstrate how the teleparallel framework allows to easily create theories with derivative interaction. However, it is shown through perturbation theory that the simplest model is not viable. Furthermore, we demonstrate some steps in the Hamiltonian analysis of teleparallel bigravity with two copies of new general relativity and some toy models. The results rule out some of the novel teleparallel bigravity theories, but also demonstrate techniques in perturbation theory and Hamiltonian analysis which could be further used for more profound theories in the future.

Computational aeroelastic analysis of wings based on the structural discontinuous Galerkin and aerodynamic vortex lattice methods

An original computational framework for the aeroelastic analysis of wings featuring general transverse section is developed. The framework is based on the coupling between a novel discontinuous Galerkin structural model and an aerodynamic vortex lattice method, which is implemented in both the planar and non-planar version. The structural model, which constitutes the novelty of the present work, allows generalized kinematics and is thus able to capture higher-order structural deformation modes. With respect to other more used structural representations, the discontinuous Galerkin approach is based on the use of discontinuous basis functions and suitably-defined boundary terms to enforce the inter-element continuity and boundary conditions. Such features naturally enable high-order accuracy, ease of parallelization and, specifically for this work, straightforward coupling with the vortex lattice method. The framework is validated through benchmark tests, providing favourable matching with reference literature data.

Cosmological reconstruction and Λ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\Lambda $$\\end{document}CDM universe in f(Q,C)\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$f(Q,\\,C)$$\\end{document} gravity

Symmetric Teleparallel Gravity allows for the reformulation of gravity in the form of nonmetricity by vanishing the contorsion term in the generic affine connection. Our focus is on investigating a recently proposed extension of this theory in which the Lagrangian has the form f(Q, C) by incorporating the boundary term C. In this work, we first use a reconstruction approach in f(Q, C) gravity that might admit the Λ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\Lambda $$\\end{document}CDM expansion history. Furthermore, we perform a novel approach for cosmological reconstruction of f(Q, C) gravity in terms of e-folding, and it shows how any FLRW cosmology can arise from a specific f(Q, C) gravity. A variety of instances are provided using this approach in which f(Q, C) gravity is reconstructed to yield the well-known cosmic evolution: Λ\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$\\Lambda $$\\end{document}CDM era, acceleration/deceleration era which is equivalent to the presence of phantom and non-phantom matter, late-time acceleration with the crossing of phantom-divide line and transient phantom era.

Reference frames and black hole thermodynamics

In the context of the absolute parallelism formulation of General Relativity, and because of the fact that the scalar curvature can be written in purely torsional terms, it was known for a long time that a surface term based solely on the torsion tensor appears in the action. It was subsequently suggested that this term might play the role of the Gibbons-Hawking-York boundary term which, in turn, is associated to the free energy in the path integral approach, and then, to the black hole entropy by standard thermodynamic arguments. We show that the identification of the two boundary terms is rather incomplete, and that it strongly depends on the choice of the tetrad (frame) field used to reproduce a given metric. By considering variations of the tetrad field not necessarily subjected to Dirichlet-like conditions on the boundary surface, we find a class of frames adapted to the Schwarzschild spacetime in which the Gibbons-Hawking-York/torsion link is actually established, and conducing to the right black hole entropy without the need of any background subtraction. Remarkably, these frames are also responsible for the correct value of the gravitational energy as computed from the teleparallel energy-momentum pseudo-current.

Nonlinear boundary conditions for initial boundary value problems with applications in computational fluid dynamics

We derive new boundary conditions and implementation procedures for nonlinear initial boundary value problems (IBVPs) with non-zero boundary data that lead to bounded solutions. The new boundary procedure is applied to nonlinear IBVPs in skew-symmetric form, including dissipative terms. The complete procedure has two main ingredients. Firstly, the energy rate in terms of a surface integral with boundary terms is derived. Secondly, we bound the surface integral by deriving new nonlinear boundary procedures for boundary conditions with non-zero data. The new nonlinear boundary procedure generalises the well known characteristic boundary procedure for linear problems to the nonlinear setting.To introduce the procedure, a skew-symmetric scalar IBVP encompassing the linear advection equation and Burgers equation is analysed. Once the continuous analysis is done, we show that energy stable nonlinear discrete approximations follow by using summation-by-parts operators combined with weak boundary conditions. The scalar analysis is subsequently repeated for general nonlinear systems of equations. Finally, the new boundary procedure is applied to four important IBVPs in computational fluid dynamics: the incompressible Euler and Navier-Stokes, the shallow water and the compressible Euler equations.

No logarithmic corrections to entropy in shift-symmetric Gauss-Bonnet gravity

Employing the covariant phase space formalism, we discuss black hole thermodynamics in four-dimensional scalar-tensor Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity. We argue that logarithmic corrections to Wald entropy previously reported in this theory do not appear, due to the symmetry of the theory under constant shifts of the scalar field. Instead, we obtain the standard Bekenstein entropy of general relativity. Then, to satisfy the first law of black hole mechanics, the Hawking temperature must be modified. It has been proposed that such temperature modifications occur generically in scalar-tensor theories, due to different propagation speeds of gravitons and photons. We show that the temperature modifications also emerge in the Euclidean canonical ensemble approach to black hole thermodynamics. Notably, the boundary terms of the type we consider here can be considered in any scalar-tensor gravitational theories. Hence, we illustrate that adding a suitable boundary term to action may drastically affect black hole thermodynamics, changing both the entropy and the temperature.

Symmetric teleparallel cosmology with boundary corrections

We investigate the geometrodynamical effects of introducing the boundary term in symmetric teleparallel gravity. Specifically, we consider a homogeneous and isotropic universe in fQ,B, where Q is the non-metricity scalar, and B is the boundary term that relates the non-metricity and Ricci scalars. For the connection in the coincidence gauge, we find that the field equations are of fourth-order, and the fluid components introduced by the boundary are attributed to a scalar field. In the coincidence gauge, the cosmological field equations are equivalent to those of teleparallelism with a boundary term. Nevertheless, for the connection defined in the non-coincidence gauge, the geometrodynamical fluid consists of three scalar fields. We focus on the special case of fQ,B=Q+FB theory, and we determine a new analytic cosmological solution that can explain the late-time acceleration of the universe and provide a geometric mechanism for the unification of dark energy with dark matter.