149 research outputs found
Phenomenology of the nMSSM from colliders to cosmology
Low energy supersymmetric models provide a solution to the hierarchy problem
and also have the necessary ingredients to solve two of the most outstanding
issues in cosmology: the origin of dark matter and baryonic matter. One of the
most attractive features of this framework is that the relevant physical
processes are related to interactions at the weak scale and therefore may be
tested in collider experiments in the near future. This is true for the Minimal
Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) as well as for its extension with the
addition of one singlet chiral superfield, the so-called nMSSM. It has been
recently shown that within the nMSSM an elegant solution to both the problem of
baryogenesis and dark matter may be found, that relies mostly on the mixing of
the singlet sector with the Higgs sector of the theory. In this work we review
the nMSSM model constraints from cosmology and present the associated collider
phenomenology at the LHC and the ILC. We show that the ILC will efficiently
probe the neutralino, chargino and Higgs sectors, allowing to confront
cosmological observations with computations based on collider measurements. We
also investigate the prospects for a direct detection of dark matter and the
constraints imposed by the current bounds of the electron electric dipole
moment in this model.Comment: 44 pp, 10 figures; Fig.9 replaced; discussion on CP violation
extended and references added; few minor additions in text about details of
the cut
Atmospheric Heating and Wind Acceleration: Results for Cool Evolved Stars based on Proposed Processes
A chromosphere is a universal attribute of stars of spectral type later than
~F5. Evolved (K and M) giants and supergiants (including the zeta Aurigae
binaries) show extended and highly turbulent chromospheres, which develop into
slow massive winds. The associated continuous mass loss has a significant
impact on stellar evolution, and thence on the chemical evolution of galaxies.
Yet despite the fundamental importance of those winds in astrophysics, the
question of their origin(s) remains unsolved. What sources heat a chromosphere?
What is the role of the chromosphere in the formation of stellar winds? This
chapter provides a review of the observational requirements and theoretical
approaches for modeling chromospheric heating and the acceleration of winds in
single cool, evolved stars and in eclipsing binary stars, including physical
models that have recently been proposed. It describes the successes that have
been achieved so far by invoking acoustic and MHD waves to provide a physical
description of plasma heating and wind acceleration, and discusses the
challenges that still remain.Comment: 46 pages, 9 figures, 1 table; modified and unedited manuscript;
accepted version to appear in: Giants of Eclipse, eds. E. Griffin and T. Ake
(Berlin: Springer
Modeling the Subsurface Structure of Sunspots
While sunspots are easily observed at the solar surface, determining their
subsurface structure is not trivial. There are two main hypotheses for the
subsurface structure of sunspots: the monolithic model and the cluster model.
Local helioseismology is the only means by which we can investigate
subphotospheric structure. However, as current linear inversion techniques do
not yet allow helioseismology to probe the internal structure with sufficient
confidence to distinguish between the monolith and cluster models, the
development of physically realistic sunspot models are a priority for
helioseismologists. This is because they are not only important indicators of
the variety of physical effects that may influence helioseismic inferences in
active regions, but they also enable detailed assessments of the validity of
helioseismic interpretations through numerical forward modeling. In this paper,
we provide a critical review of the existing sunspot models and an overview of
numerical methods employed to model wave propagation through model sunspots. We
then carry out an helioseismic analysis of the sunspot in Active Region 9787
and address the serious inconsistencies uncovered by
\citeauthor{gizonetal2009}~(\citeyear{gizonetal2009,gizonetal2009a}). We find
that this sunspot is most probably associated with a shallow, positive
wave-speed perturbation (unlike the traditional two-layer model) and that
travel-time measurements are consistent with a horizontal outflow in the
surrounding moat.Comment: 73 pages, 19 figures, accepted by Solar Physic
Test of Lorentz and CPT violation with Short Baseline Neutrino Oscillation Excesses
The sidereal time dependence of MiniBooNE electron neutrino and anti-electron
neutrino appearance data are analyzed to search for evidence of Lorentz and CPT
violation. An unbinned Kolmogorov-Smirnov test shows both the electron neutrino
and anti-electron neutrino appearance data are compatible with the null
sidereal variation hypothesis to more than 5%. Using an unbinned likelihood fit
with a Lorentz-violating oscillation model derived from the Standard Model
Extension (SME) to describe any excess events over background, we find that the
electron neutrino appearance data prefer a sidereal time-independent solution,
and the anti-electron neutrino appearance data slightly prefer a sidereal
time-dependent solution. Limits of order 10E-20 GeV are placed on combinations
of SME coefficients. These limits give the best limits on certain SME
coefficients for muon neutrino to electron neutrino and anti-muon neutrino to
anti-electron neutrino oscillations. The fit values and limits of combinations
of SME coefficients are provided.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, and 2 tables, submitted to Physics Letters
Velocity-space sensitivity of the time-of-flight neutron spectrometer at JET
The velocity-space sensitivities of fast-ion diagnostics are often described by so-called weight functions. Recently, we formulated weight functions showing the velocity-space sensitivity of the often dominant beam-target part of neutron energy spectra. These weight functions for neutron emission spectrometry (NES) are independent of the particular NES diagnostic. Here we apply these NES weight functions to the time-of-flight spectrometer TOFOR at JET. By taking the instrumental response function of TOFOR into account, we calculate time-of-flight NES weight functions that enable us to directly determine the velocity-space sensitivity of a given part of a measured time-of-flight spectrum from TOFOR
Relationship of edge localized mode burst times with divertor flux loop signal phase in JET
A phase relationship is identified between sequential edge localized modes (ELMs) occurrence times in a set of H-mode tokamak plasmas to the voltage measured in full flux azimuthal loops in the divertor region. We focus on plasmas in the Joint European Torus where a steady H-mode is sustained over several seconds, during which ELMs are observed in the Be II emission at the divertor. The ELMs analysed arise from intrinsic ELMing, in that there is no deliberate intent to control the ELMing process by external means. We use ELM timings derived from the Be II signal to perform direct time domain analysis of the full flux loop VLD2 and VLD3 signals, which provide a high cadence global measurement proportional to the voltage induced by changes in poloidal magnetic flux. Specifically, we examine how the time interval between pairs of successive ELMs is linked to the time-evolving phase of the full flux loop signals. Each ELM produces a clear early pulse in the full flux loop signals, whose peak time is used to condition our analysis. The arrival time of the following ELM, relative to this pulse, is found to fall into one of two categories: (i) prompt ELMs, which are directly paced by the initial response seen in the flux loop signals; and (ii) all other ELMs, which occur after the initial response of the full flux loop signals has decayed in amplitude. The times at which ELMs in category (ii) occur, relative to the first ELM of the pair, are clustered at times when the instantaneous phase of the full flux loop signal is close to its value at the time of the first ELM
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