Deuteron Photodissociation in Ultraperipheral Relativistic Heavy-Ion on Deuteron Collisions

In ultraperipheral relativistic deuteron on heavy-ion collisions, a photon emitted from the heavy nucleus may dissociate the deuterium ion. We find deuterium breakup cross sections of 1.38 barns for deuterium-gold collisions at a center of mass energy of 200 GeV per nucleon, as studied at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider, and 2.49 barns for deuterium-lead collisions at a center of mass energy of 6.2 TeV, as proposed for the Large Hadron Collider. This cross section includes an energy-independent 140 mb contribution from hadronic diffractive dissociation. At the LHC, the cross section is as large as that of hadronic interactions. The estimated error is 5%. Deuteron dissociation could be used as a luminosity monitor and a `tag' for moderate impact parameter collisions.Comment: Final version, to appear in Phys. Rev. C. Diffractive dissociation included 10 pages with 3 figure

The curious nonexistence of Gaussian 2-designs

2-designs -- ensembles of quantum pure states whose 2nd moments equal those of the uniform Haar ensemble -- are optimal solutions for several tasks in quantum information science, especially state and process tomography. We show that Gaussian states cannot form a 2-design for the continuous-variable (quantum optical) Hilbert space L2(R). This is surprising because the affine symplectic group HWSp (the natural symmetry group of Gaussian states) is irreducible on the symmetric subspace of two copies. In finite dimensional Hilbert spaces, irreducibility guarantees that HWSp-covariant ensembles (such as mutually unbiased bases in prime dimensions) are always 2-designs. This property is violated by continuous variables, for a subtle reason: the (well-defined) HWSp-invariant ensemble of Gaussian states does not have an average state because the averaging integral does not converge. In fact, no Gaussian ensemble is even close (in a precise sense) to being a 2-design. This surprising difference between discrete and continuous quantum mechanics has important implications for optical state and process tomography.Comment: 9 pages, no pretty figures (sorry!

High-precision determination of the critical exponents for the lambda-transition of 4He by improved high-temperature expansion

We determine the critical exponents for the XY universality class in three dimensions, which is expected to describe the $\lambda$-transition in ${}^4$He. They are obtained from the analysis of high-temperature series computed for a two-component $\lambda\phi^4$ model. The parameter $\lambda$ is fixed such that the leading corrections to scaling vanish. We obtain $\nu = 0.67166(55)$, $\gamma = 1.3179(11)$, $\alpha=-0.0150(17)$. These estimates improve previous theoretical determinations and agree with the more precise experimental results for liquid Helium.Comment: 8 pages, revte

Generalized contact process on random environments

Spreading from a seed is studied by Monte Carlo simulation on a square lattice with two types of sites affecting the rates of birth and death. These systems exhibit a critical transition between survival and extinction. For time- dependent background, this transition is equivalent to those found in homogeneous systems (i.e. to directed percolation). For frozen backgrounds, the appearance of Griffiths phase prevents the accurate analysis of this transition. For long times in the subcritical region, spreading remains localized in compact (rather than ramified) patches, and the average number of occupied sites increases logarithmically in the surviving trials.Comment: 6 pages, 7 figure

Connections between epsilon'/epsilon and Rare Kaon Decays in Supersymmetry

We analyze the rare kaon decays $K_L \to \pi^0 \nu \bar \nu$, $K^+ \to \pi^+ \nu \bar \nu$, $K_L \to \pi^0 e^+ e^-$ and $K_L \to \mu^+ \mu^-$ in conjunction with the CP violating ratio $\epsilon'/\epsilon$ in a general class of supersymmetric models in which $Z$- and magnetic-penguin contributions can be substantially larger than in the Standard Model. We point out that radiative effects relate the double left-right mass insertion to the single left-left one, and that the phenomenological constraints on the latter reflect into a stringent bound on the supersymmetric contribution to the $Z$ penguin. Using this bound, and those coming from recent data on $\epsilon'/\epsilon$ we find {\rm BR}(K_L \to \pi^0 \nu \bar \nu)\lsim 1.2\cdot 10^{-10}, {\rm BR}(K^+ \to \pi^+ \nu \bar \nu)\lsim 1.7\cdot 10^{-10}, {\rm BR}(K_L \to \pi^0 e^+ e^-)_{\rm dir}\lsim 2.0\cdot 10^{-11}, assuming the usual determination of the CKM parameters and neglecting the possibility of cancellations among different supersymmetric effects in $\epsilon'/\epsilon$. Larger values are possible, in principle, but rather unlikely. We stress the importance of a measurement of these three branching ratios, together with improved data and improved theory of $\epsilon'/\epsilon$, in order to shed light on the realization of various supersymmetric scenarios. We reemphasize that the most natural enhancement of $\epsilon'/\epsilon$, within supersymmetric models, comes from chromomagnetic penguins and show that in this case sizable enhancements of $BR(K_L \to \pi^0 e^+ e^-)_{\rm dir}$ can also be expected.Comment: 40 pages, 5 figure

The effect of spontaneous collapses on neutrino oscillations

We compute the effect of collapse models on neutrino oscillations. The effect of the collapse is to modify the evolution of the `spatial' part of the wave function, which indirectly amounts to a change on the flavor components. In many respects, this phenomenon is similar to neutrino propagation through matter. For the analysis we use the mass proportional CSL model, and perform the calculation to second order perturbation theory. As we will show, the CSL prediction is very small - mainly due to the very small mass of neutrinos - and practically undetectable.Comment: 24 pages, RevTeX. Updated versio

Iso-singlet Down Quark Mixing And CP Violation Experiments

We confront the new physics models with extra iso-singlet down quarks in the new CP violation experimental era with $\sin{(2\beta)}$ and $\epsilon'/\epsilon$ measurements, $K^+ \to \pi^+ \nu \bar{\nu}$ events, and $x_s$ limits. The closeness of the new experimental results to the standard model theory requires us to include full SM amplitudes in the analysis. In models allowing mixing to a new isosinglet down quark, as in E$_6$, flavor changing neutral currents are induced that allow a $Z^0$ mediated contribution to $B-\bar B$ mixing and which bring in new phases. In $(\rho,\eta)$, $(x_s,\sin{(\gamma)})$, and $(x_s, \sin{(2\phi_s)})$ plots we still find much larger regions in the four down quark model than in the SM, reaching down to $\eta \approx 0$, $0 \leq \sin{(\gamma)} \leq 1$, $-.75 \leq \sin{(2\alpha)} \leq 0.15$, and $\sin{(2\phi_s)}$ down to zero, all at 1$\sigma$. We elucidate the nature of the cancellation in an order $\lambda^5$ four down quark mixing matrix element which satisfies the experiments and reduces the number of independent angles and phases. We also evaluate tests of unitarity for the $3\times3$ CKM submatrix.Comment: 14 pages, 16 figures, REVTeX

Hamiltonian mappings and circle packing phase spaces: numerical investigations

In a previous paper we introduced examples of Hamiltonian mappings with phase space structures resembling circle packings. We now concentrate on one particular mapping and present numerical evidence which supports the conjecture that the set of circular resonance islands is dense in phase space.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figure

Phenomenological Determination of the Beauty Meson Decay Parameter fBf_B and the CP-Violating Angle δ\delta

We fit the ${\cal CKM}$-matrix to all recent data with the following free parameters: three mixing angles, the CP-violating angle $\delta$ in the Maiani parametrisation, the top quark mass $m_t$, and the product f_B{\cal B}_{\B}^{1/2}, where $f_B$ is the $B$-meson decay parameter and {\cal B}_{\B} is the bag parameter. Our fits span a contiguous region in the (f_B{\cal B}_{\B}^{1/2},\ \cos\delta)--plane, limited by 0.117\lsim f_B{\cal B}_{\B}^{1/2}/{\rm GeV}\lsim 0.231 and --0.95 \lsim $\cos\delta$ \lsim 0.70. The parameters f_B{\cal B}_{\B}^{1/2} and $\cos\delta$ are strongly positively correlated.Comment: 9 pages + 1 figure available upon request, HU-TFT-94-3

Waiting for Clear Signals of New Physics in B and K Decays

We classify the extensions of the Standard Model (SM) according to the structure of local operators in the weak effective Hamiltonian and the presence or absence of new flavour and CP-violating interactions beyond those represented by the CKM matrix. In particular we review characteristic properties of models with minimal flavour violation (MFV), models with significant contributions from Higgs penguins and models with enhanced Z^0 penguins carrying a large new CP-violating phase. Within the latter models, the anomalous behaviour of certain B\to\pi K observables implies large departures from the SM predictions for rare and CP-violating K and B decays. Most spectacular is the enhancement of Br(K_L->pi^0 nu nubar) by one order of magnitude and a strong violation of the MFV relation (\sin2\beta)_{\pi\nu\bar\nu}=(\sin2\beta)_{\psi K_S}. On the other hand our prediction for (\sin2\beta)_{\phi K_S}\approx 0.9 differs from the Belle result by the sign but is consistent with the BaBar value. We give a personal shopping list for the coming years.Comment: Main latex-file, 4 figures, 22 page