4,515 research outputs found
Effects of curvature and interactions on the dynamics of the deconfinement phase transition
We study the dynamics of first-order cofinement-deconfinement phase
transition through nucleation of hadronic bubbles in an expanding quark gluon
plasma in the context of heavy ion collisions for interacting quark and hadron
gas and by incorporating the effects of curvature energy. We find that the
interactions reduce the delay in the phase transition whereas the curvature
energy has a mixed behavior. In contrast to the case of early Universe phase
transition, here lower values of surface tension increase the supercooling and
slow down the hadronization process. Higher values of bag pressure tend to
speed up the transition. Another interesting feature is the start of the
hadronization process as soon as the QGP is created.Comment: LaTeX, 17 pages including 14 postscript figure
A New Redshift Interpretation
A nonhomogeneous universe with vacuum energy, but without spacetime
expansion, is utilized together with gravitational and Doppler redshifts as the
basis for proposing a new interpretation of the Hubble relation and the 2.7K
Cosmic Blackbody Radiation.Comment: 9 pages LaTeX, no figure
Non-stationary de Sitter cosmological models
In this note it is proposed a class of non-stationary de Sitter, rotating and
non-rotating, solutions of Einstein's field equations with a cosmological term
of variable function.Comment: 11 pages, Latex. International Journal of Modern Physics D (accepted
for publication
The Enigma of the Dark Matter
One of the great scientific enigmas still unsolved, the existence of dark
matter, is reviewed. Simple gravitational arguments imply that most of the mass
in the Universe, at least 90%, is some (unknown) non-luminous matter. Some
particle candidates for dark matter are discussed with particular emphasis on
the neutralino, a particle predicted by the supersymmetric extension of the
Standard Model of particle physics. Experiments searching for these relic
particles, carried out by many groups around the world, are also discussed.
These experiments are becoming more sensitive every year and in fact one of the
collaborations claims that the first direct evidence for dark matter has
already been observed.Comment: Invited review article for the journal Contemporary Physics. The
level is suitable for researchers which are non-specialists in the subject,
and also for students. Latex, 20 pages, 5 figure
Large Scale Inhomogeneities from the QCD Phase Transition
We examine the first-order cosmological QCD phase transition for a large
class of parameter values, previously considered unlikely. We find that the
hadron bubbles can nucleate at very large distance scales, they can grow as
detonations as well as deflagrations, and that the phase transition may be
completed without reheating to the critical temperature. For a subset of the
parameter values studied, the inhomogeneities generated at the QCD phase
transition might have a noticeable effect on nucleosynthesis.Comment: 15 LaTeX pages + 6 PostScript figures appended at the end of the
file, HU-TFT-94-1
Monopole Vector Spherical Harmonics
Eigenfunctions of total angular momentum for a charged vector field
interacting with a magnetic monopole are constructed and their properties
studied. In general, these eigenfunctions can be obtained by applying vector
operators to the monopole spherical harmonics in a manner similar to that often
used for the construction of the ordinary vector spherical harmonics. This
construction fails for the harmonics with the minimum allowed angular momentum.
These latter form a set of vector fields with vanishing covariant curl and
covariant divergence, whose number can be determined by an index theorem.Comment: 21 pages, CU-TP-60
Non-Equilibrium Evolution of Scalar Fields in FRW Cosmologies I
We derive the effective equations for the out of equilibrium time evolution
of the order parameter and the fluctuations of a scalar field theory in
spatially flat FRW cosmologies.The calculation is performed both to one-loop
and in a non-perturbative, self-consistent Hartree approximation.The method
consists of evolving an initial functional thermal density matrix in time and
is suitable for studying phase transitions out of equilibrium. The
renormalization aspects are studied in detail and we find that the counterterms
depend on the initial state. We investigate the high temperature expansion and
show that it breaks down at long times. We also obtain the time evolution of
the initial Boltzmann distribution functions, and argue that to one-loop order
or in the Hartree approximation, the time evolved state is a ``squeezed''
state. We illustrate the departure from thermal equilibrium by numerically
studying the case of a free massive scalar field in de Sitter and radiation
dominated cosmologies. It is found that a suitably defined non-equilibrium
entropy per mode increases linearly with comoving time in a de Sitter
cosmology, whereas it is {\it not} a monotonically increasing function in the
radiation dominated case.Comment: 29 pages, revtex 3.0, 11 figures available upon request, PITT-93-6;
LPTHE-93-52; CMU-HEP-93-2
Inflation without Slow Roll
We draw attention to the possibility that inflation (i.e. accelerated
expansion) might continue after the end of slow roll, during a period of fast
oscillations of the inflaton field \phi . This phenomenon takes place when a
mild non-convexity inequality is satisfied by the potential V(\phi). The
presence of such a period of \phi-oscillation-driven inflation can
substantially modify reheating scenarios.
In some models the effect of these fast oscillations might be imprinted on
the primordial perturbation spectrum at cosmological scales.Comment: 9 pages, Revtex, psfig, 1 figure, minor modifications, references
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