Abnormal dilepton yield from parity breaking in dense nuclear matter

At finite density parity can be spontaneously broken in strong interactions with far reaching implications. In particular, a time-dependent pseudoscalar background would modify QED by adding a Chern-Simons term to the lagrangian. As a striking consequence we propose a novel explanation for the dilepton excess observed in heavy ion collisions at low invariant masses. The presence of local parity breaking due to a time-dependent pseudoscalar condensate substantially modifies the dispersion relation of photons and vector mesons propagating in such a medium, changing the $\rho$ spectral function and resulting in a potentially large excess of dileptons with respect to the predictions based in a `cocktail' of known processes.Comment: 3 pages, 2 figures. Contributed to the International Conference on Quark Confinement and the Hadron Spectrum IX, Madrid, August 2010, to appear in the proceeding

Gravity effects on thick brane formation from scalar field dynamics

The formation of a thick brane in five-dimen\-sional space-time is investigated when warp geometries of $AdS_5$ type are induced by scalar matter dynamics and triggered by a thin-brane defect. The scalar matter is taken to consist of two fields with $O(2)$ symmetric self interaction and with manifest $O(2)$ symmetry breaking by terms quadratic in fields. One of them serves as a thick brane formation mode around a kink background and another one is of a Higgs-field type which may develop a classical background as well. Scalar matter interacts with gravity in the minimal form and gravity effects on (quasi)localized scalar fluctuations are calculated with usage of gauge invariant variables suitable for perturbation expansion. The calculations are performed in the vicinity of the critical point of spontaneous breaking of the combined parity symmetry where a non-trivial v.e.v. of the Higgs-type scalar field is generated. The nonperturbative discontinuous gravitational effects in the mass spectrum of light localized scalar states are studied in the presence of a thin-brane defect. The thin brane with negative tension happens to be the most curious case when the singular barriers form a potential well with two infinitely tall walls and the discrete spectrum of localized states arises completely isolated from the bulk.Comment: 15 pages, minor corrections, two-column EPJ-C styl

Hidden Symmetry from Supersymmetry in One-Dimensional Quantum Mechanics

When several inequivalent supercharges form a closed superalgebra in Quantum Mechanics it entails the appearance of hidden symmetries of a Super-Hamiltonian. We examine this problem in one-dimensional QM for the case of periodic potentials and potentials with finite number of bound states. After the survey of the results existing in the subject the algebraic and analytic properties of hidden-symmetry differential operators are rigorously elaborated in the Theorems and illuminated by several examples

An effective QCD Lagrangian in the presence of an axial chemical potential

We consider the low energy realization of QCD in terms of mesons when an axial chemical potential is present; a situation that may be relevant in heavy ion collisions. We shall demonstrate that the presence of an axial charge has profound consequences on meson physics. The most notorious effect is the appearance of an explicit source of parity breaking. The eigenstates of strong interactions do not have a definite parity and interactions that would otherwise be forbidden compete with the familiar ones. In this work we focus on scalars and pseudoscalars that are described by a generalized linear sigma model. We comment briefly on the screening role of axial vectors in formation of effective axial charge and on the possible experimental relevance of our results, whose consequences may have been already seen at RHIC.Comment: 13 pages, 9 figure