The Large Observatory For x-ray Timing

The Large Observatory For x-ray Timing (LOFT) was studied within ESA M3 Cosmic Vision framework and participated in the final down-selection for a launch slot in 2022-2024. Thanks to the unprecedented combination of effective area and spectral resolution of its main instrument, LOFT will study the behaviour of matter under extreme conditions, such as the strong gravitational field in the innermost regions of accretion flows close to black holes and neutron stars, and the supra-nuclear densities in the interior of neutron stars. The science payload is based on a Large Area Detector (LAD, 10 m 2 effective area, 2-30 keV, 240 eV spectral resolution, 1 deg collimated field of view) and a WideField Monitor (WFM, 2-50 keV, 4 steradian field of view, 1 arcmin source location accuracy, 300 eV spectral resolution). The WFM is equipped with an on-board system for bright events (e.g. GRB) localization. The trigger time and position of these events are broadcast to the ground within 30 s from discovery. In this paper we present the status of the mission at the end of its Phase A study

Predicting positive parity Bs mesons from lattice QCD

We determine the spectrum of Bs 1P states using lattice QCD. For the Bs1(5830) and Bs2⁎(5840) mesons, the results are in good agreement with the experimental values. Two further mesons are expected in the quantum channels JP=0+ and 1+ near the BK and B⁎K thresholds. A combination of quark–antiquark and B(⁎) meson–Kaon interpolating fields are used to determine the mass of two QCD bound states below the B(⁎)K threshold, with the assumption that mixing with Bs(⁎)η and isospin-violating decays to Bs(⁎)π are negligible. We predict a JP=0+ bound state Bs0 with mass mBs0=5.711(13)(19) GeV . With further assumptions motivated theoretically by the heavy quark limit, a bound state with mBs1=5.750(17)(19) GeV is predicted in the JP=1+ channel. The results from our first principles calculation are compared to previous model-based estimates

Towards general patterns of features in multi-field inflation

We investigate the consequences of general curved trajectories in multi-field inflation. After setting up a completely general formalism using the mass basis, which naturally accommodates the notion of light and heavy modes, we study in detail the simple case of two successive turns in two-field system. We find the power spectrum of the curvature perturbation receives corrections that exhibit oscillatory features sinusoidal in the logarithm of the comoving wavenumber without slow-roll suppression. We show that this is because of the resonance of the heavy modes inside and outside the mass horizon

On jet substructure methods for signal jets

We carry out simple analytical calculations and Monte Carlo studies to better understand the impact of QCD radiation on some well-known jet substructure methods for jets arising from the decay of boosted Higgs bosons. Understanding differences between taggers for these signal jets assumes particular significance in situations where they perform similarly on QCD background jets. As an explicit example of this we compare the Y-splitter method to the more recently proposed Y-pruning technique. We demonstrate how the insight we gain can be used to significantly improve the performance of Y-splitter by combining it with trimming and show that this combination outperforms the other taggers studied here, at high p T . We also make analytical estimates for optimal parameter values, for a range of methods and compare to results from Monte Carlo studies

Generalized metric formulation of double field theory on group manifolds

We rewrite the recently derived cubic action of Double Field Theory on group manifolds [1] in terms of a generalized metric and extrapolate it to all orders in the fields. For the resulting action, we derive the field equations and state them in terms of a generalized curvature scalar and a generalized Ricci tensor. Compared to the generalized metric formulation of DFT derived from tori, all these quantities receive additional contributions related to the non-trivial background. It is shown that the action is invariant under its generalized diffeomorphisms and 2D-diffeomorphisms. Imposing additional constraints relating the background and fluctuations around it, the precise relation between the proposed generalized metric formulation of DFT WZW and of original DFT from tori is clarified. Furthermore, we show how to relate DFT WZW of the WZW background with the flux formulation of original DFT

Active-sterile neutrino oscillations in the early Universe with full collision terms

Sterile neutrinos are thermalised in the early Universe via oscillations with the active neutrinos for certain mixing parameters. The most detailed calculation of this thermalisation process involves the solution of the momentum-dependent quantum kinetic equations, which track the evolution of the neutrino phase space distributions. Until now the collision terms in the quantum kinetic equations have always been approximated using equilibrium distributions, but this approximation has never been checked numerically. In this work we revisit the sterile neutrino thermalisation calculation using the full collision term, and compare the results with various existing approximations in the literature. We find a better agreement than would naively be expected, but also identify some issues with these approximations that have not been appreciated previously. These include an unphysical production of neutrinos via scattering and the importance of redistributing momentum through scattering, as well as details of Pauli blocking. Finally, we devise a new approximation scheme, which improves upon some of the shortcomings of previous schemes

Entanglement entropy and differential entropy for massive flavors

In this paper we compute the holographic entanglement entropy for massive flavors in the D3-D7 system, for arbitrary mass and various entangling region geometries. We show that the universal terms in the entanglement entropy exactly match those computed in the dual theory using conformal perturbation theory. We derive holographically the universal terms in the entanglement entropy for a CFT perturbed by a relevant operator, up to second order in the coupling; our results are valid for any entangling region geometry. We present a new method for computing the entanglement entropy of any top-down brane probe system using Kaluza-Klein holography and illustrate our results with massive flavors at finite density. Finally we discuss the differential entropy for brane probe systems, emphasising that the differential entropy captures only the effective lower-dimensional Einstein metric rather than the ten-dimensional geometry

Smeared antibranes polarise in AdS

In the recent literature it has been questioned whether the local backreaction of antibranes in flux throats can induce a perturbative brane-flux decay. Most evidence for this can be gathered for D6 branes and D p branes smeared over 6 − p compact directions, in line with the absence of finite temperature solutions for these cases. The solutions in the literature have flat worldvolume geometries and non-compact transversal spaces. In this paper we consider what happens when the worldvolume is AdS and the transversal space is compact. We show that in these circumstances brane polarisation smoothens out the flux singularity, which is an indication that brane-flux decay is prevented. This is consistent with the fact that the cosmological constant would be less negative after brane-flux decay. Our results extend recent results on AdS 7 solutions from D6 branes to AdS p +1 solutions from D p branes. We show that supersymmetry of the AdS solutions depend on p non-trivially

Josephson junction of non-Abelian superconductors and non-Abelian Josephson vortices

A Josephson junction is made of two superconductors sandwiching an insulator, and a Josephson vortex is a magnetic vortex (flux tube) absorbed into the Josephson junction, whose dynamics can be described by the sine-Gordon equation. In a field theory framework, a flexible Josephson junction was proposed, in which the Josephson junction is represented by a domain wall separating two condensations and a Josephson vortex is a sine-Gordon soliton in the domain wall effective theory. In this paper, we propose a Josephson junction of non-Abelian color superconductors and show that a non-Abelian vortex (color magnetic flux tube) absorbed into it is a non-Abelian Josephson vortex represented as a non-Abelian sine-Gordon soliton in the domain wall effective theory, that is the U(N) principal chiral model