Differential cross sections for high energy elastic hadron-hadron scattering in nonperturbative QCD

Total and differential cross sections for high energy and small momentum transfer elastic hadron-hadron scattering are studied in QCD using a functional integral approach. The hadronic amplitudes are governed by vacuum expectation values of lightlike Wegner-Wilson loops, for which a matrix cumulant expansion is derived. The cumulants are evaluated within the framework of the Minkowskian version of the model of the stochastic vacuum. Using the second cumulant, we calculate elastic differential cross sections for hadron-hadron scattering. The agreement with experimental data is good.Comment: 30 pages, 14 figure

The Ongoing Impact of Modular Localization on Particle Theory

Modular localization is the concise conceptual formulation of causal localization in the setting of local quantum physics. Unlike QM it does not refer to individual operators but rather to ensembles of observables which share the same localization region, as a result it explains the probabilistic aspects of QFT in terms of the impure KMS nature arising from the local restriction of the pure vacuum. Whereas it played no important role in the perturbation theory of low spin particles, it becomes indispensible for interactions which involve higher spin $s\geq1$ fields, where is leads to the replacement of the operator (BRST) gauge theory setting in Krein space by a new formulation in terms of stringlocal fields in Hilbert space. The main purpose of this paper is to present new results which lead to a rethinking of important issues of the Standard Model concerning massive gauge theories and the Higgs mechanism. We place these new findings into the broader context of ongoing conceptual changes within QFT which already led to new nonperturbative constructions of models of integrable QFTs. It is also pointed out that modular localization does not support ideas coming from string theory, as extra dimensions and Kaluza-Klein dimensional reductions outside quasiclassical approximations. Apart from hologarphic projections on null-surfaces, holograhic relations between QFT in different spacetime dimensions violate the causal completeness property, this includes in particular the Maldacena conjecture. Last not least, modular localization sheds light onto unsolved problems from QFT's distant past since it reveals that the Einstein-Jordan conundrum is really an early harbinger of the Unruh effect.Comment: a small text overlap with unpublished arXiv:1201.632

Path Similarity Analysis: a Method for Quantifying Macromolecular Pathways

Diverse classes of proteins function through large-scale conformational changes; sophisticated enhanced sampling methods have been proposed to generate these macromolecular transition paths. As such paths are curves in a high-dimensional space, they have been difficult to compare quantitatively, a prerequisite to, for instance, assess the quality of different sampling algorithms. The Path Similarity Analysis (PSA) approach alleviates these difficulties by utilizing the full information in 3N-dimensional trajectories in configuration space. PSA employs the Hausdorff or Fr\'echet path metrics---adopted from computational geometry---enabling us to quantify path (dis)similarity, while the new concept of a Hausdorff-pair map permits the extraction of atomic-scale determinants responsible for path differences. Combined with clustering techniques, PSA facilitates the comparison of many paths, including collections of transition ensembles. We use the closed-to-open transition of the enzyme adenylate kinase (AdK)---a commonly used testbed for the assessment enhanced sampling algorithms---to examine multiple microsecond equilibrium molecular dynamics (MD) transitions of AdK in its substrate-free form alongside transition ensembles from the MD-based dynamic importance sampling (DIMS-MD) and targeted MD (TMD) methods, and a geometrical targeting algorithm (FRODA). A Hausdorff pairs analysis of these ensembles revealed, for instance, that differences in DIMS-MD and FRODA paths were mediated by a set of conserved salt bridges whose charge-charge interactions are fully modeled in DIMS-MD but not in FRODA. We also demonstrate how existing trajectory analysis methods relying on pre-defined collective variables, such as native contacts or geometric quantities, can be used synergistically with PSA, as well as the application of PSA to more complex systems such as membrane transporter proteins.Comment: 9 figures, 3 tables in the main manuscript; supplementary information includes 7 texts (S1 Text - S7 Text) and 11 figures (S1 Fig - S11 Fig) (also available from journal site

Novel Aspects of QCD in Leptoproduction

I review several topics in electroproduction which test fundamental aspects of QCD. These include the role of final-state interactions in producing diffractive leptoproduction processes, the shadowing of nuclear structure functions, and target-spin asymmetries. The antishadowing of nuclear structure functions is shown to be quark-flavor specific, suggesting that some part of the anomalous NuTeV result for $\sin^2\theta_W$ could be due to the non-universality of nuclear antishadowing for charged and neutral currents. I also discuss the physics of the heavy-quark sea, hidden color in nuclear wavefunctions, and evidence for color transparency for nuclear processes. The AdS/CFT correspondence connecting superstring theory to superconformal gauge theory has important implications for hadron phenomenology in the conformal limit, including an all-orders demonstration of counting rules for hard exclusive processes, as well as determining essential aspects of hadronic light-front wavefunctions.Comment: Presented at the conference, Electron-Nucleus Scattering VIII, Marciana Marina, Isola d'Elba, June 21-25, 200