Brief review on semileptonic B decays

We concisely review semileptonic B decays, focussing on recent progress on both theoretical and experimental sides.Comment: 18 pages, 2 figures; version to be published in Mod. Phys. Lett.

Edge-Based Compartmental Modeling for Infectious Disease Spread Part III: Disease and Population Structure

We consider the edge-based compartmental models for infectious disease spread introduced in Part I. These models allow us to consider standard SIR diseases spreading in random populations. In this paper we show how to handle deviations of the disease or population from the simplistic assumptions of Part I. We allow the population to have structure due to effects such as demographic detail or multiple types of risk behavior the disease to have more complicated natural history. We introduce these modifications in the static network context, though it is straightforward to incorporate them into dynamic networks. We also consider serosorting, which requires using the dynamic network models. The basic methods we use to derive these generalizations are widely applicable, and so it is straightforward to introduce many other generalizations not considered here

Heavy-to-Light Form Factors in the Final Hadron Large Energy Limit of QCD

We argue that the Large Energy Effective Theory (LEET), originally proposed by Dugan and Grinstein, is applicable to exclusive semileptonic, radiative and rare heavy-to-light transitions in the region where the energy release E is large compared to the strong interaction scale and to the mass of the final hadron, i.e. for q^2 not close to the zero-recoil point. We derive the Effective Lagrangian from the QCD one, and show that in the limit of heavy mass M for the initial hadron and large energy E for the final one, the heavy and light quark fields behave as two-component spinors. Neglecting QCD short-distance corrections, this implies that there are only three form factors describing all the pseudoscalar to pseudoscalar or vector weak current matrix elements. We argue that the dependence of these form factors with respect to M and E should be factorizable, the M-dependence (sqrt(M)) being derived from the usual heavy quark expansion while the E-dependence is controlled by the behaviour of the light-cone distribution amplitude near the end-point u=1. The usual expectation of the (1-u) behaviour leads to a 1/E^2 scaling law, that is a dipole form in q^2. We also show explicitly that in the appropriate limit, the Light-Cone Sum Rule method satisfies our general relations as well as the scaling laws in M and E of the form factors, and obtain very compact and simple expressions for the latter. Finally we note that this formalism gives theoretical support to the quark model-inspired methods existing in the literature.Comment: Latex2e, 25 pages, no figure. Slight changes in the title and the phrasing. Misprint in Eq. (25) corrected. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Evaluation of vaccination strategies for SIR epidemics on random networks incorporating household structure

This paper is concerned with the analysis of vaccination strategies in a stochastic SIR (susceptible → infected → removed) model for the spread of an epidemic amongst a population of individuals with a random network of social contacts that is also partitioned into households. Under various vaccine action models, we consider both household-based vaccination schemes, in which the way in which individuals are chosen for vaccination depends on the size of the households in which they reside, and acquaintance vaccination, which targets individuals of high degree in the social network. For both types of vaccination scheme, assuming a large population with few initial infectives, we derive a threshold parameter which determines whether or not a large outbreak can occur and also the probability and fraction of the population infected by such an outbreak. The performance of these schemes is studied numerically, focusing on the influence of the household size distribution and the degree distribution of the social network. We find that acquaintance vaccination can significantly outperform the best household-based scheme if the degree distribution of the social network is heavy-tailed. For household-based schemes, when the vaccine coverage is insufficient to prevent a major outbreak and the vaccine is imperfect, we find situations in which both the probability and size of a major outbreak under the scheme which minimises the threshold parameter are \emph{larger} than in the scheme which maximises the threshold parameter

Phenomenological Bounds on B to Light Semileptonic Form Factors

The form factors for the weak currents between B and light mesons are studied by relating them to the corresponding D form factors at q^2_{max} according to HQET, by evaluating them at q^2=0 by QCD sum rules, and by assuming a polar q^2 dependence. The results found are consistent with the information obtained from exclusive non-leptonic two-body decays and, with the only exception of A_1, with lattice calculations.Comment: 8 LaTeX pages + 2 figures. Will appear in Mod. Phys. Lett.

Predictions on B→πlˉνlB \to \pi \bar{l} \nu_l, D→πlˉνlD \to \pi \bar{l} \nu_l and D→KlˉνlD\to K \bar{l} \nu_l from QCD Light-Cone Sum Rules

The $f^+$ form factors of the $B\to \pi$, $D\to \pi$ and $D\to K$ transitions are calculated from QCD light-cone sum rules (LCSR) and used to predict the widths and differential distributions of the exclusive semileptonic decays $B\to \pi \bar{l}\nu_l$, $D \to\pi \bar{l}\nu_l$ and $D \to K \bar{l}\nu_l$, where $l=e,\mu$. The current theoretical uncertainties are estimated. The LCSR results are found to agree with the results of lattice QCD calculations and with experimental data on exclusive semileptonic D decays. Comparison of the LCSR prediction on $B\to \pi \bar{l} \nu_l$ with the CLEO measurement yields a value of |V_{ub}| in agreement with other determinations.Comment: 24 pages, 12 figures, Latex, epsfig, some additional remarks on the two-pole parameterization, prediction on the $B\to K$ form factor added, version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Two-loop three-gluon vertex in zero-momentum limit

The two-loop three-gluon vertex is calculated in an arbitrary covariant gauge, in the limit when one of the external momenta vanishes. The differential Ward-Slavnov-Taylor (WST) identity related to this limit is discussed, and the relevant results for the ghost-gluon vertex and two-point functions are obtained. Together with the differential WST identity, they provide another independent way for calculating the three-gluon vertex. The renormalization of the results obtained is also presented.Comment: 22 pages, LaTeX, including 4 figures, uses eps

Measurement of Spin Correlation Parameters ANN_{NN}, ASS_{SS}, and A_SL{SL} at 2.1 GeV in Proton-Proton Elastic Scattering

At the Cooler Synchrotron COSY/J\"ulich spin correlation parameters in elastic proton-proton (pp) scattering have been measured with a 2.11 GeV polarized proton beam and a polarized hydrogen atomic beam target. We report results for A$_{NN}$, A$_{SS}$, and A_${SL}$ for c.m. scattering angles between 30$^o$ and 90$^o$. Our data on A$_{SS}$ -- the first measurement of this observable above 800 MeV -- clearly disagrees with predictions of available of pp scattering phase shift solutions while A$_{NN}$ and A_${SL}$ are reproduced reasonably well. We show that in the direct reconstruction of the scattering amplitudes from the body of available pp elastic scattering data at 2.1 GeV the number of possible solutions is considerably reduced.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

On-shell two-loop three-gluon vertex

The two-loop three-gluon vertex is calculated in an arbitrary covariant gauge, in the limit when two of the gluons are on the mass shell. The corresponding two-loop results for the ghost-gluon vertex are also obtained. It is shown that the results are consistent with the Ward-Slavnov-Taylor identities.Comment: 34 pages, LaTeX, including 5 figures, uses eps

Random Sequential Addition of Hard Spheres in High Euclidean Dimensions

Employing numerical and theoretical methods, we investigate the structural characteristics of random sequential addition (RSA) of congruent spheres in $d$-dimensional Euclidean space $\mathbb{R}^d$ in the infinite-time or saturation limit for the first six space dimensions ($1 \le d \le 6$). Specifically, we determine the saturation density, pair correlation function, cumulative coordination number and the structure factor in each =of these dimensions. We find that for $2 \le d \le 6$, the saturation density $\phi_s$ scales with dimension as $\phi_s= c_1/2^d+c_2 d/2^d$, where $c_1=0.202048$ and $c_2=0.973872$. We also show analytically that the same density scaling persists in the high-dimensional limit, albeit with different coefficients. A byproduct of this high-dimensional analysis is a relatively sharp lower bound on the saturation density for any $d$ given by $\phi_s \ge (d+2)(1-S_0)/2^{d+1}$, where $S_0\in [0,1]$ is the structure factor at $k=0$ (i.e., infinite-wavelength number variance) in the high-dimensional limit. Consistent with the recent "decorrelation principle," we find that pair correlations markedly diminish as the space dimension increases up to six. Our work has implications for the possible existence of disordered classical ground states for some continuous potentials in sufficiently high dimensions.Comment: 38 pages, 9 figures, 4 table