1,041 research outputs found
Lepton Flavor Violation: Constraints from exotic muon to electron conversion
The exotic neutrinoless nuclear conversion is studied within
the conventional extensions of the standard model as well as in the minimal
supersymmetric (SUSY) models with and without R-parity conservation. The
dependence of the conversion rates on the nucleon and nuclear
structure is consistently taken into account. Using our calculated transition
matrix elements and the available experimental data on the branching ratio
for Ti and Pb as well as the expected experimental
sensitivity for Al employed as a target in the planned at Brookhaven
conversion (MECO) experiment, we extract very severe constraints
for the flavor violation parameters. We especially emphasize on the constraints
resulting for SUSY R-parity violating parameters.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figures. Based on the Invited talk given by T.S. Kosmas
at the International Conference on Non-Accelerator New Physics(NANP'99),
Dubna, Russia, 199
Overcoming losses with gain in a negative refractive index metamaterial
On the basis of a full-vectorial three-dimensional Maxwell-Bloch approach we
investigate the possibility of using gain to overcome losses in a negative
refractive index fishnet metamaterial. We show that appropriate placing of
optically pumped laser dyes (gain) into the metamaterial structure results in a
frequency band where the nonbianisotropic metamaterial becomes amplifying. In
that region both the real and the imaginary part of the effective refractive
index become simultaneously negative and the figure of merit diverges at two
distinct frequency points.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure
Cold Dark Matter in SUSY Theories. The Role of Nuclear Form Factors and the Folding with the LSP Velocity
The momentum transfer dependence of the total cross section for elastic
scattering of cold dark matter candidates, i.e. lightest supersymmetric
particle (LSP), with nuclei is examined. The presented calculations of the
event rates refer to a number of representative nuclear targets throughout the
periodic table and have been obtained in a relatively wide phenomenologically
allowed SUSY parameter space. For the coherent cross sections it is shown that,
since the momentum transfer can be quite big for large mass of the LSP and
heavy nuclei even though the energy transfer is small (), the
total cross section can in such instances be reduced by a factor of about five.
For the spin induced cross section of odd-A nuclear targets, as is the case of
studied in this work, we found that the reduction is less
pronounced, since the high multipoles tend to enhance the cross section as the
momentum transfer increases (for LSP ) and partially cancell
the momentum retardation. The effect of the Earth's revolution around the sun
on these event rates is also studied by folding with a Maxwellian LSP-velocity
distribution which is consistent with its density in the halos. We thus found
that the convoluted event rates do not appreciably change compared to those
obtained with an average velocity. The event rates increase with A and, in the
SUSY parameter space considered, they can reach values up to 140
for Pb. The modulation effect, however, was found to be small
(less than ).Comment: 23 LATEX pages, 4 Tables, 3 PostScript Figures included. Phys. Rev.
D, to be publishe
Control and Dynamic Competition of Bright and Dark Lasing States in Active Nanoplasmonic Metamaterials
Active nanoplasmonic metamaterials support bright and dark modes that compete
for gain. Using a Maxwell-Bloch approach incorporating Langevin noise we study
the lasing dynamics in an active nano-fishnet structure. We report that lasing
of the bright negative-index mode is possible if the higher-Q dark mode is
discriminated by gain, spatially or spectrally. The nonlinear competition
during the transient phase is followed by steady-state emission where bright
and dark modes can coexist. We analyze the influence of pump intensity and
polarization and explore methods for mode control.Comment: 5 pages, 4 figure
The (muon^-,muon^+) conversion in nuclei as a probe of new physics
A detailed study of the muonic analogue of neutrinoless double beta decay,
(muon^-,muon^+) conversion, has been carried out for the A=44 nuclear system.
We studied several lepton number violating (LNV) mechanisms potentially
triggering this process: exchange by light and heavy Majorana neutrinos as well
as exchange by supersymmetric particles participating in R-parity violating
interactions. The nuclear structure has been taken into account within the
renormalized Quasiparticle Random Phase Approximation method. To our knowledge,
this is the first realistic treatment of nuclear structure aspects of the
(muon^-,muon^+) conversion. We estimated the rate of this process utilizing the
existing experimental constraints on the parameters of the underlying LNV
interactions and conclude that the (muon^-,muon^+) conversion is hardly
detectable in the near future experiments.Comment: 23 pages, RevTex, 3 Postscript figure
Effect of Varying Prior Information in Axillary 2D Microwave Tomography
We numerically assess the potential of microwave tomography (MWT) for the detection and dielectric properties estimation of axillary lymph nodes (ALNs), and we study the robustness of our system using prior information with varying levels of accuracy. We adopt a 2-dimensional MWT system with 8 antennas (0.5-2.5 GHz) placed around the axillary region. The reconstruction algorithm implements the distorted Born iterative method. We show that: (i) when accurate prior knowledge of the axillary tissues (fat and muscle) is available, our system successfully detects an ALN; (ii) ±30% error in the prior estimation of fat and muscle dielectric properties does not affect image quality; (iii) ±7mm error in muscle position causes slight artifacts, while ± 14mm error in muscle position affects ALN detection. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first paper in the literature to study the impact of prior information accuracy on detecting an ALN using MWT.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio
SUSY Dark Matter in the Universe- Theoretical Direct Detection Rates
Exotic dark matter together with the vacuum energy or cosmological constant
seem to dominate in the Universe. An even higher density of such matter seems
to be gravitationally trapped in the Galaxy. Thus its direct detection is
central to particle physics and cosmology. Current supersymmetric models
provide a natural dark matter candidate which is the lightest supersymmetric
particle (LSP). Such models combined with fairly well understood physics like
the quark substructure of the nucleon and the nuclear structure (form factor
and/or spin response function), permit the evaluation of the event rate for
LSP-nucleus elastic scattering. The thus obtained event rates are, however,
very low or even undetectable. So it is imperative to exploit the modulation
effect, i.e. the dependence of the event rate on the earth's annual motion.
Also it is useful to consider the directional rate, i.e its dependence on the
direction of the recoiling nucleus. In this paper we study such a modulation
effect both in non directional and directional experiments. We calculate both
the differential and the total rates using both isothermal, symmetric as well
as only axially asymmetric, and non isothermal, due to caustic rings, velocity
distributions. We find that in the symmetric case the modulation amplitude is
small. The same is true for the case of caustic rings. The inclusion of
asymmetry, with a realistic enhanced velocity dispersion in the galactocentric
direction, yields an enhanced modulation effect, especially in directional
experiments.Comment: 17 LATEX pages, 1 table and 6 ps figures include
A review of the methodological features of systematic reviews in maternal medicine
Background
In maternal medicine, research evidence is scattered making it difficult to access information for clinical decision making. Systematic reviews of good methodological quality are essential to provide valid inferences and to produce usable evidence summaries to guide management. This review assesses the methodological features of existing systematic reviews in maternal medicine, comparing Cochrane and non-Cochrane reviews in maternal medicine.
Methods
Medline, Embase, Database of Reviews of Effectiveness (DARE) and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews (CDSR) were searched for relevant reviews published between 2001 and 2006. We selected those reviews in which a minimum of two databases were searched and the primary outcome was related to the maternal condition. The selected reviews were assessed for information on framing of question, literature search and methods of review.
Results
Out of 2846 citations, 68 reviews were selected. Among these, 39 (57%) were Cochrane reviews. Most of the reviews (50/68, 74%) evaluated therapeutic interventions. Overall, 54/68 (79%) addressed a focussed question. Although 64/68 (94%) reviews had a detailed search description, only 17/68 (25%) searched without language restriction. 32/68 (47%) attempted to include unpublished data and 11/68 (16%) assessed for the risk of missing studies quantitatively. The reviews had deficiencies in the assessment of validity of studies and exploration for heterogeneity. When compared to Cochrane reviews, other reviews were significantly inferior in specifying questions (OR 20.3, 95% CI 1.1–381.3, p = 0.04), framing focussed questions (OR 30.9, 95% CI 3.7- 256.2, p = 0.001), use of unpublished data (OR 5.6, 95% CI 1.9–16.4, p = 0.002), assessment for heterogeneity (OR 38.1, 95%CI 2.1, 688.2, p = 0.01) and use of meta-analyses (OR 3.7, 95% CI 1.3–10.8, p = 0.02).
Conclusion
This study identifies areas which have a strong influence on maternal morbidity and mortality but lack good quality systematic reviews. Overall quality of the existing systematic reviews was variable. Cochrane reviews were of better quality as compared to other reviews. There is a need for good quality systematic reviews to inform practice in maternal medicine
Modulation effect in the differential rate for Supersymmetric Dark Matter detection
The modulation effect in the direct detection of supersymmetric Cold Dark
Matter (CDM) particles is investigated. It is shown that, while normally the
modulation effect in the total event rate is small, , in some special
cases it becomes much larger. It also becomes more pronounced in the
differential event rate. It may thus be exploited to discriminate against
background.Comment: 17 LATEX pages, 4 Tables, 4 PostScript Figures included. Phys. Rev.
D, to be publishe
Direct detection of supersymmetric dark matter- Theoretical rates for transitions to excited states
The recent WMAP data have confirmed that exotic dark matter together with the
vacuum energy (cosmological constant) dominate in the flat Universe.
Supersymmetry provides a natural dark matter candidate, the lightest
supersymmetric particle (LSP). Thus the direct dark matter detection is central
to particle physics and cosmology. Most of the research on this issue has
hitherto focused on the detection of the recoiling nucleus. In this paper we
study transitions to the excited states, focusing on the first excited state at
50 keV of Iodine A=127. We find that the transition rate to this excited state
is about 10 percent of the transition to the ground state. So, in principle,
the extra signature of the gammai ray following its de-excitation can be
exploited experimentally.Comment: LaTex, 13 pages, 3 postscript figures, 1 table, to appear in IJMP
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