2,356 research outputs found
Toward a Minimum Branching Fraction for Dark Matter Annihilation into Electromagnetic Final States
Observational limits on the high-energy neutrino background have been used to
place general constraints on dark matter that annihilates only into standard
model particles. Dark matter particles that annihilate into neutrinos will also
inevitably branch into electromagnetic final states through higher-order tree
and loop diagrams that give rise to charged leptons, and these charged
particles can transfer their energy into photons via synchrotron radiation or
inverse Compton scattering. In the context of effective field theory, we
calculate the loop-induced branching ratio to charged leptons and show that it
is generally quite large, typically >1%, when the scale of the dark matter mass
exceeds the electroweak scale, M_W. For a branching fraction >3%, the
synchrotron radiation bounds on dark matter annihilation are currently stronger
than the corresponding neutrino bounds in the interesting mass range from 100
GeV to 1 TeV. For dark matter masses below M_W, our work provides a plausible
framework for the construction of a model for "neutrinos only" dark matter
annihilations.Comment: 18 pages, 4 figures, discussion added, matches version in Phys. Rev.
Comprehensive maximum likelihood estimation of diffusion compartment models towards reliable mapping of brain microstructure
open4siDiffusion MRI is a key in-vivo non invasive imaging capability that can probe the microstructure of the brain. However,its limited resolution requires complex voxelwise generative models of the diffusion. Diffusion Compartment (DC) models divide the voxel into smaller compartments in which diffusion is homogeneous. We present a comprehensive framework for maximum likelihood estimation (MLE) of such models that jointly features ML estimators of (i) the baseline MR signal,(ii) the noise variance,(iii) compartment proportions,and (iv) diffusion-related parameters. ML estimators are key to providing reliable mapping of brain microstructure as they are asymptotically unbiased and of minimal variance. We compare our algorithm (which efficiently exploits analytical properties of MLE) to alternative implementations and a state-of-theart strategy. Simulation results show that our approach offers the best reduction in computational burden while guaranteeing convergence of numerical estimators to the MLE. In-vivo results also reveal remarkably reliable microstructure mapping in areas as complex as the centrum semiovale. Our ML framework accommodates any DC model and is available freely for multi-tensor models as part of the ANIMA software (https://github.com/Inria-Visages/Anima-Public/wiki).Stamm, Aymeric; Commowick, Olivier; Warfield, Simon K.; Vantini, SimoneStamm, Aymeric; Commowick, Olivier; Warfield, Simon K.; Vantini, Simon
Major Surge Activity of Super-Active Region NOAA 10484
We observed two surges in H-alpha from the super-active region NOAA 10484.
The first surge was associated with an SF/C4.3 class flare. The second one was
a major surge associated with a SF/C3.9 flare. This surge was also observed
with SOHO/EIT in 195 angstrom and NoRh in 17 GHz, and showed similar evolution
in these wavelengths. The major surge had an ejective funnel-shaped spray
structure with fast expansion in linear (about 1.2 x 10^5 km) and angular
(about 65 deg) size during its maximum phase. The mass motion of the surge was
along open magnetic field lines, with average velocity about 100 km/s. The
de-twisting motion of the surge reveals relaxation of sheared and twisted
magnetic flux. The SOHO/MDI magnetograms reveal that the surges occurred at the
site of companion sunspots where positive flux emerged, converged, and canceled
against surrounding field of opposite polarity. Our observations support
magnetic reconnection models for the surges and jets.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures; To appear in "Magnetic Coupling between the
Interior and the Atmosphere of the Sun", eds. S.S. Hasan and R.J. Rutten,
Astrophysics and Space Science Series, Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg, Berlin,
200
Primordial nucleosynthesis as a probe of fundamental physics parameters
We analyze the effect of variation of fundamental couplings and mass scales
on primordial nucleosynthesis in a systematic way. The first step establishes
the response of primordial element abundances to the variation of a large
number of nuclear physics parameters, including nuclear binding energies. We
find a strong influence of the n-p mass difference (for the 4He abundance), of
the nucleon mass (for deuterium) and of A=3,4,7 binding energies (for 3He, 6Li
and 7Li). A second step relates the nuclear parameters to the parameters of the
Standard Model of particle physics. The deuterium, and, above all, 7Li
abundances depend strongly on the average light quark mass hat{m} \equiv
(m_u+m_d)/2. We calculate the behaviour of abundances when variations of
fundamental parameters obey relations arising from grand unification. We also
discuss the possibility of a substantial shift in the lithium abundance while
the deuterium and 4He abundances are only weakly affected.Comment: v2: 34 pages, 2 figures, typo in last GUT scenario corrected, added
discussion and graph of nonlinear behaviour in GUT scenarios, added short
section discussing binding of dineutron and 8Be, refs added, conclusions
unaltered. Accepted for publication, Phys. Rev.
Cosmic Strings in Low Mass Higgs Cosmology
A class of grand unified theories with symmetry breaking scale of order
have a Higgs particle with mass in the scale. The cosmology
of such theories is very different from usual. We study the cosmic strings
obtained in such theories. These strings are much fatter than usual and their
mass per unit length is reduced, resulting in a significant reduction in their
cosmological effects. We also study the temperature evolution of such models.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figure
Meter-scale spark X-ray spectrumstatistics
X-ray emission by sparks implies bremsstrahlung from a population of
energetic electrons, but the details of this process remain a mystery. We
present detailed statistical analysis of X-ray spectra detected by multiple
detectors during sparks produced by 1 MV negative high-voltage pulses with 1
s risetime. With over 900 shots, we statistically analyze the signals,
assuming that the distribution of spark X-ray fluence behaves as a power law
and that the energy spectrum of X-rays detectable after traversing 2 m of
air and a thin aluminum shield is exponential. We then determine the parameters
of those distributions by fitting cumulative distribution functions to the
observations. The fit results match the observations very well if the mean of
the exponential X-ray energy distribution is 86 7 keV and the spark X-ray
fluence power law distribution has index -1.29 0.04 and spans at least 3
orders of magnitude in fluence
Pair distribution function and structure factor of spherical particles
The availability of neutron spallation-source instruments that provide total
scattering powder diffraction has led to an increased application of real-space
structure analysis using the pair distribution function. Currently, the
analytical treatment of finite size effects within pair distribution refinement
procedures is limited. To that end, an envelope function is derived which
transforms the pair distribution function of an infinite solid into that of a
spherical particle with the same crystal structure. Distributions of particle
sizes are then considered, and the associated envelope function is used to
predict the particle size distribution of an experimental sample of gold
nanoparticles from its pair distribution function alone. Finally, complementing
the wealth of existing diffraction analysis, the peak broadening for the
structure factor of spherical particles, expressed as a convolution derived
from the envelope functions, is calculated exactly for all particle size
distributions considered, and peak maxima, offsets, and asymmetries are
discussed.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure
Metastable GeV-scale particles as a solution to the cosmological lithium problem
The persistent discrepancy between observations of 7Li with putative
primordial origin and its abundance prediction in Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
(BBN) has become a challenge for the standard cosmological and astrophysical
picture. We point out that the decay of GeV-scale metastable particles X may
significantly reduce the BBN value down to a level at which it is reconciled
with observations. The most efficient reduction occurs when the decay happens
to charged pions and kaons, followed by their charge exchange reactions with
protons. Similarly, if X decays to muons, secondary electron antineutrinos
produce a similar effect. We consider the viability of these mechanisms in
different classes of new GeV-scale sectors, and find that several minimal
extensions of the Standard Model with metastable vector and/or scalar particles
are capable of solving the cosmological lithium problem. Such light states can
be a key to the explanation of recent cosmic ray anomalies and can be searched
for in a variety of high-intensity medium-energy experiments.Comment: 50 pages, 13 figures; references added, typo correcte
Cosmic String Formation from Correlated Fields
We simulate the formation of cosmic strings at the zeros of a complex
Gaussian field with a power spectrum , specifically
addressing the issue of the fraction of length in infinite strings. We make two
improvements over previous simulations: we include a non-zero random background
field in our box to simulate the effect of long-wavelength modes, and we
examine the effects of smoothing the field on small scales. The inclusion of
the background field significantly reduces the fraction of length in infinite
strings for . Our results are consistent with the possibility that
infinite strings disappear at some in the range ,
although we cannot rule out , in which case infinite strings would
disappear only at the point where the mean string density goes to zero. We
present an analytic argument which suggests the latter case. Smoothing on small
scales eliminates closed loops on the order of the lattice cell size and leads
to a ``lattice-free" estimate of the infinite string fraction. As expected,
this fraction depends on the type of window function used for smoothing.Comment: 24 pages, latex, 10 figures, submitted to Phys Rev
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