49 research outputs found
Axion-like particles as ultra high energy cosmic rays?
If Ultra High Energy Cosmic Rays (UHECRs) with E>4 10^{19} eV originate from
BL Lacertae at cosmological distances as suggested by recent studies, the
absence of the GZK cutoff can not be reconciled with Standard-Model particle
properties. Axions would escape the GZK cutoff, but even the coherent
conversion and back-conversion between photons and axions in large-scale
magnetic fields is not enough to produce the required flux. However, one may
construct models of other novel (pseudo)scalar neutral particles with
properties that would allow for sufficient rates of particle production in the
source and shower production in the atmosphere to explain the observations. As
an explicit example for such particles we consider SUSY models with light
sgoldstinos.Comment: 5 pages, 2 postscript figures, ref. adde
Enhanced signal of astrophysical tau neutrinos propagating through Earth
Earth absorbs \nue and \numu of energies above about 100 TeV. As is
well-known, although \nutau will also disappear through charged-current
interactions, the \nutau flux will be regenerated by prompt tau decays. We
show that this process also produces relatively large fluxes of secondary
\nube and \nubmu, greatly enhancing the detectability of the initial
\nutau. This is particularly important because at these energies \nutau is
a significant fraction of the expected astrophysical neutrino flux, and only a
tiny portion of the atmospheric neutrino flux.Comment: Four pages, two inline figure
A QCD Sum Rule Approach to the Contribution to the Radiative Decay
QCD sum rules are used to calculate the contribution of short-distance
single-quark transition , to the amplitudes of the
hyperon radiative decay, . We re-evaluate the
Wilson coefficient of the effective operator responsible for this transition.
We obtain a branching ratio which is comparable to the unitarity limit.Comment: 15 pages, Revtex, 13 figures available as a uuencoded, gz-compressed
ps fil
Long Distance Contribution to and Implications for and
We estimate the long distance (LD) contribution to the magnetic part of the
transition using the Vector Meson Dominance approximation
. We find that this contribution may be significantly
larger than the short distance (SD) contribution to and could
possibly saturate the present experimental upper bound on the decay rate, eV. For the decay , which is driven by as well, we obtain an upper bound on the branching ratio from . Barring the possibility that the Quantum Chromodynamics
coefficient be much smaller than 1, also implies the approximate relation .
This relation agrees quantitatively with a recent independent estimate of the
l.h.s. by Deshpande et al., confirming that the LD contributions to are small. We find that these amount to an increase of in
the magnitude of the transition amplitude, relative to the SD
contribution alone.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX fil
Condensed matter and AdS/CFT
I review two classes of strong coupling problems in condensed matter physics,
and describe insights gained by application of the AdS/CFT correspondence. The
first class concerns non-zero temperature dynamics and transport in the
vicinity of quantum critical points described by relativistic field theories. I
describe how relativistic structures arise in models of physical interest,
present results for their quantum critical crossover functions and
magneto-thermoelectric hydrodynamics. The second class concerns symmetry
breaking transitions of two-dimensional systems in the presence of gapless
electronic excitations at isolated points or along lines (i.e. Fermi surfaces)
in the Brillouin zone. I describe the scaling structure of a recent theory of
the Ising-nematic transition in metals, and discuss its possible connection to
theories of Fermi surfaces obtained from simple AdS duals.Comment: 39 pages, 12 figures; Lectures at the 5th Aegean summer school, "From
gravity to thermal gauge theories: the AdS/CFT correspondence", and the De
Sitter Lecture Series in Theoretical Physics 2009, University of Groninge
New hadrons as ultra-high energy cosmic rays
Ultra-high energy cosmic ray (UHECR) protons produced by uniformly
distributed astrophysical sources contradict the energy spectrum measured by
both the AGASA and HiRes experiments, assuming the small scale clustering of
UHECR observed by AGASA is caused by point-like sources. In that case, the
small number of sources leads to a sharp exponential cutoff at the energy
E<10^{20} eV in the UHECR spectrum. New hadrons with mass 1.5-3 GeV can solve
this cutoff problem. For the first time we discuss the production of such
hadrons in proton collisions with infrared/optical photons in astrophysical
sources. This production mechanism, in contrast to proton-proton collisions,
requires the acceleration of protons only to energies E<10^{21} eV. The diffuse
gamma-ray and neutrino fluxes in this model obey all existing experimental
limits. We predict large UHE neutrino fluxes well above the sensitivity of the
next generation of high-energy neutrino experiments. As an example we study
hadrons containing a light bottom squark. These models can be tested by
accelerator experiments, UHECR observatories and neutrino telescopes.Comment: 17 pages, revtex style; v2: shortened, as to appear in PR
Extensive Air Showers from Ultra High Energy Gluinos
We study the proposal that the cosmic ray primaries above the
Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) cutoff are gluino-containing hadrons (-hadrons). We describe the interaction of -hadrons with nucleons in
the framework of the Gribov-Regge approach using a modified version of the
hadronic interaction model QGSJET for the generations of Extensive Air Showers
(EAS). There are two mass windows marginally allowed for gluinos: m_{\tilde
g}\lsim 3 GeV and 25\lsim m_{\tilde g}\lsim 35 GeV. Gluino-containing
hadrons corresponding to the second window produce EAS very different from the
observed ones. Light -hadrons corresponding to the first gluino
window produce EAS similar to those initiated by protons, and only future
detectors can marginally distinguish them. We propose a beam-dump accelerator
experiment to search for -hadrons in this mass window. We emphasize
the importance of this experiment: it can discover (or exclude) the light
gluino and its role as a cosmic ray primary at ultra high energies.Comment: 27 pages latex, 13 eps figure
Measurement Of The Σ̄- Lifetime And Direct Comparison With The Σ+ Lifetime
We have measured the lifetime of the Σ̄- using the Fermilab Proton Center 375 GeV/c charged hyperon beam. We obtained (80.43±0.80±0.14) ps. We also measured the lifetime of the Σ+, obtaining (80.38 ±0.40±0.14) ps, in agreement with the Particle Data Group value. A direct comparison between the two lifetimes from the ratio of the decay curves gives a fractional lifetime difference of Δτ/τ=(-0.06±1.12)%, consistent with equal lifetimes for baryon and antibaryon as required by CPT invariance. ©1999 The American Physical Society.61314Foucher, M., (1992) Phys. Rev. Lett., 68, p. 3004Timm, S., (1995) Phys. Rev. D, 51, p. 4638Dubbs, T., (1994) Phys. Rev. Lett., 72, p. 808Caso, C., (1998) Eur. Phys. J. C, 3, p. 690(1993) GEANT 3.21 CERN Program Library W5103, , CERNKuropatkin, N., private communicationLangland, J.L., (1995) Hyperon and Antihyperon Production in P-Cu Interactions, , Ph.D. thesis, University of IowaMorelos, A., (1993) Phys. Rev. Lett., 71, p. 341
Heavy quarkonium: progress, puzzles, and opportunities
A golden age for heavy quarkonium physics dawned a decade ago, initiated by
the confluence of exciting advances in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and an
explosion of related experimental activity. The early years of this period were
chronicled in the Quarkonium Working Group (QWG) CERN Yellow Report (YR) in
2004, which presented a comprehensive review of the status of the field at that
time and provided specific recommendations for further progress. However, the
broad spectrum of subsequent breakthroughs, surprises, and continuing puzzles
could only be partially anticipated. Since the release of the YR, the BESII
program concluded only to give birth to BESIII; the -factories and CLEO-c
flourished; quarkonium production and polarization measurements at HERA and the
Tevatron matured; and heavy-ion collisions at RHIC have opened a window on the
deconfinement regime. All these experiments leave legacies of quality,
precision, and unsolved mysteries for quarkonium physics, and therefore beg for
continuing investigations. The plethora of newly-found quarkonium-like states
unleashed a flood of theoretical investigations into new forms of matter such
as quark-gluon hybrids, mesonic molecules, and tetraquarks. Measurements of the
spectroscopy, decays, production, and in-medium behavior of c\bar{c}, b\bar{b},
and b\bar{c} bound states have been shown to validate some theoretical
approaches to QCD and highlight lack of quantitative success for others. The
intriguing details of quarkonium suppression in heavy-ion collisions that have
emerged from RHIC have elevated the importance of separating hot- and
cold-nuclear-matter effects in quark-gluon plasma studies. This review
systematically addresses all these matters and concludes by prioritizing
directions for ongoing and future efforts.Comment: 182 pages, 112 figures. Editors: N. Brambilla, S. Eidelman, B. K.
Heltsley, R. Vogt. Section Coordinators: G. T. Bodwin, E. Eichten, A. D.
Frawley, A. B. Meyer, R. E. Mitchell, V. Papadimitriou, P. Petreczky, A. A.
Petrov, P. Robbe, A. Vair