Vortex Effects in Merging Black Holes and Saturons.

Vorticity has recently been suggested to be a property of highly spinning black holes. The connection between vorticity and limiting spin represents a universal feature shared by objects of maximal microstate entropy, so-called saturons. Using Q-ball-like saturons as a laboratory for black holes, we study the collision of two such objects and find that vorticity can have a large impact on the emitted radiation as well as on the charge and angular momentum of the final configuration.

The role of gravity in naturalness versus consistency: strong- and dark energy.

There is an ongoing debate on how seriously one should take the naturalness puzzles as the guidelines to new physics. In this debate gravity is often put aside, as an insignificant spectator force. However, this attitude misses the entire essence of the story.

Time- and Space-Varying Neutrino Mass Matrix from Soft Topological Defects.

We study the formation and evolution of topological defects that arise in the postrecombination phase transition predicted by the gravitational neutrino mass model in Dvali and Funcke [Phys. Rev. D 93, 113002 (2016)PRVDAQ2470-001010.

Vortices in Black Holes.

We argue that black holes admit vortex structure. This is based both on a graviton-condensate description of a black hole as well as on a correspondence between black holes and generic objects with maximal entropy compatible with unitarity, so-called saturons. We show that due to vorticity, a Q-ball-type saturon of a calculable renormalizable theory obeys the same extremality bound on the spin as the black hole.

Bounds on quantum information storage and retrieval.

We present certain universal bounds on the capacity of quantum information storage and on the time scale of its retrieval for a generic quantum field theoretic system. The capacity, quantified by the microstate entropy, is bounded from above by the surface area of the object measured in units of a Goldstone decay constant. The Goldstone bosons are universally present due to the spontaneous breaking of Poincare and internal symmetries by the information-storing object.

ASSESSMENT OF NUTRITIONAL STATUS AND MALNUTRITION RISK IN HEALTHY ELDERLY GEORGIANS.

The aim of the research was: evaluation of nutritional status and malnutrition risks of Georgian healthy elderly, to use modern assessment methods according to our research goal, development and adaptation of adequate approach considering specificity of Georgian population. Our research is the first study of nutritional status in Georgian elderly. Study group ≥ 60 y (n=75): men (n=14), women (n=61); Subgroup <75 y (n=64): men (n=9), women (n=55); Subgroup 75+ y (n=11): men (n=5), women (n=6).

DIRECT MEASURED AND ALTERNATIVE ANTHROPOMETRIC INDICES IN GEORGIAN HEALTHY ELDERLY POPULATION: RELIABILITY/VALIDITY OF ASSESMENT TOOLS.

The aim of the research was standard and alternative measurement of anthropometric indices in Georgian healthy elderly population for determining the reliability/validity of the widely used and recognized assessment tools. Our research is the first study of the anthropometry as the part of of nutritional status assessment in Georgian elderly. For anthropometric assessment we first time used 1.

DEVELOPMENT AND ADAPTATION OF DIETARY ASSESSMENT TOOLS FOR ELDERLY IN GEORGIA.

The maintenance of health, functional independence and quality of life in elderly requires adequate understanding of nutrition needs of older people. The aim of our study was to search and analyze dietary assessment tools existing in modern medical literature intended to evaluate the nutritional status, in order to compile and develop adapted adequate questionnaires for elderly people of Georgian population. Our research is the first study of the elderly nutrition in Georgia.

Finding critical states of enhanced memory capacity in attractive cold bosons.

We discuss a class of quantum theories which exhibit a sharply increased memory storage capacity due to emergent gapless degrees of freedom. Their realization, both theoretical and experimental, is of great interest. On the one hand, such systems are motivated from a quantum information point of view.

Dielectric Haloscopes: A New Way to Detect Axion Dark Matter.

We propose a new strategy to search for dark matter axions in the mass range of 40-400 μeV by introducing dielectric haloscopes, which consist of dielectric disks placed in a magnetic field. The changing dielectric media cause discontinuities in the axion-induced electric field, leading to the generation of propagating electromagnetic waves to satisfy the continuity requirements at the interfaces. Large-area disks with adjustable distances boost the microwave signal (10-100 GHz) to an observable level and allow one to scan over a broad axion mass range.

Black holes as critical point of quantum phase transition.

We reformulate the quantum black hole portrait in the language of modern condensed matter physics. We show that black holes can be understood as a graviton Bose-Einstein condensate at the critical point of a quantum phase transition, identical to what has been observed in systems of cold atoms. The Bogoliubov modes that become degenerate and nearly gapless at this point are the holographic quantum degrees of freedom responsible for the black hole entropy and the information storage.

Non-Pauli-Fierz massive gravitons.

We study general Lorentz invariant theories of massive gravitons. We show that, contrary to the standard lore, there exist consistent theories where the graviton mass term violates Pauli-Fierz structure. For theories where the graviton is a resonance, this does not imply the existence of a scalar ghost if the deviation from a Pauli-Fierz structure becomes sufficiently small at high energies.

Gravity cutoff in theories with large discrete symmetries.

We set an upper bound on the gravitational cutoff in theories with exact quantum numbers of large N periodicity, such as Z(N) discrete symmetries. The bound stems from black hole physics. It is similar to the bound appearing in theories with N particle species, though a priori, a large discrete symmetry does not imply a large number of species.

Strong CP problem with 10(32) standard model copies.

We show that a recently proposed solution to the hierarchy problem simultaneously solves the strong CP problem, without requiring an axion or any further new physics. Consistency of black hole physics implies a nontrivial relation between the number of particle species and particle masses, so that with approximately 10(32) copies of the standard model, the TeV scale is naturally explained. At the same time, as shown here, this setup predicts a typical expected value of the strong-CP parameter in QCD of theta approximately 10(-9).

Cascading gravity: extending the Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati model to higher dimension.

We present a generalization of the Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati scenario to higher codimensions which, unlike previous attempts, is free of ghost instabilities. The 4D propagator is made regular by embedding our visible 3-brane within a 4-brane, each with their own induced gravity terms, in a flat 6D bulk. The model is ghost-free if the tension on the 3-brane is larger than a certain critical value, while the induced metric remains flat.

Photon-mass bound destroyed by vortices.

The Particle Data Group gives an upper bound on the photon mass m < 2 x 10(-16) eV from a laboratory experiment and lists, but does not adopt, an astronomical bound m < 3 x 10(-27) eV, both of which are based on the plausible assumption of large galactic vector potential. We argue that the interpretations of these experiments should be changed, which alters significantly the bounds on m. If m arises from a Higgs effect, both limits are invalid because the Proca vector potential of the galactic magnetic field may be neutralized by vortices giving a large-scale magnetic field that is effectively Maxwellian.

Topological mass generation in four dimensions.

We show that in a large class of physically interesting systems the mass-generation phenomenon can be understood in terms of topological structures, without requiring a detailed knowledge of the underlying dynamics. This is first demonstrated by showing that Schwinger's mechanism for mass generation relies on topological structures of a two-dimensional gauge theory. In the same manner, corresponding four-dimensional topological entities give rise to topological mass generation in four dimensions.

Infrared Lorentz violation and slowly instantaneous electricity.

We study a modification of electromagnetism which violates Lorentz invariance at large distances. In this theory, electromagnetic waves are massive, but the static force between charged particles is Coulomb, not Yukawa. At very short distances the theory looks just like QED.

Changing alpha with time: implications for fifth-force-type experiments and quintessence.

If the recent observations suggesting a time variation of the fine structure constant are correct, they imply the existence of an ultralight scalar particle. This particle inevitably couples to nucleons through the alpha dependence of their masses and thus mediates an isotope-dependent long-range force. The strength of the coupling is within a couple of orders of magnitude of the existing experimental bounds for such forces.

Infinitely large new dimensions.

We construct intersecting brane configurations in anit-de Sitter (AdS) space which localize gravity to the intersection region, generalizing the trapping of gravity to any number n of infinite extra dimensions. Since the 4D Planck scale M(Pl) is determined by the fundamental Planck scale M(*) and the AdS radius L via the familiar relation M(2)(Pl) approximately M(2+n)(*)L(n), we get two kinds of theories with TeV scale quantum gravity and submillimeter deviations from Newton's law. With M(*) approximately TeV and L approximately submillimeter, we recover the phenomenology of theories with large extra dimensions.