Calculation of 1/m^3 terms in the total semileptonic width of D mesons.

We calculate the 1/$m^3_c$ corrections in the inclusive semileptonic widths of $D$ mesons. We show that these are due to the novel penguin type operators that appear at this level in the transition operator. Taking into account the nonperturbative corrections leads to the predicted value of the semileptonic width significantly lower than the experimental value. The $1/m^3_c$ worsen the situation or at the very least, within uncertainty, give small contribution. We indicate possible ways out. It seems most probable that violations of duality are noticeable in the energy range characteristic to the inclusive decays in the charm family. Theoretically these deviations are related to divergence of the high-order terms in the power expansion in the inverse heavy quark mass.Comment: Final version accepted for publication in Physical Review D (19 pages, 5 figures appended as two PS files at the end of the LATEX file

Phenomenological Analysis of D Meson Lifetimes

The QCD-based operator-product-expansion technique is systematically applied to the study of charmed meson lifetimes. We stress that it is crucial to take into account the momentum of the spectator light quark of charmed mesons, otherwise the destructive Pauli-interference effect in $D^+$ decays will lead to a negative decay width for the $D^+$. We have applied the QCD sum rule approach to estimate the hadronic matrix elements of color-singlet and color-octet 4-quark operators relevant to nonleptonic inclusive $D$ decays. The lifetime of $D_s^+$ is found to be longer than that of $D^0$ because the latter receives a constructive $W$-exchange contribution, whereas the hadronic annihilation and leptonic contributions to the former are compensated by the Pauli interference. We obtain the lifetime ratio $\tau(D_s^+)/\tau(D^0)$ $\approx 1.08\pm 0.04$, which is larger than some earlier theoretical estimates, but still smaller than the recent measurements by CLEO and E791.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure

Resolving the Formation of Protogalaxies. III. Feedback from the First Stars

The first stars form in dark matter halos of masses ~10^6 M_sun as suggested by an increasing number of numerical simulations. Radiation feedback from these stars expels most of the gas from their shallow potential well of their surrounding dark matter halos. We use cosmological adaptive mesh refinement simulations that include self-consistent Population III star formation and feedback to examine the properties of assembling early dwarf galaxies. Accurate radiative transport is modeled with adaptive ray tracing. We include supernova explosions and follow the metal enrichment of the intergalactic medium. The calculations focus on the formation of several dwarf galaxies and their progenitors. In these halos, baryon fractions in 10^8 solar mass halos decrease by a factor of 2 with stellar feedback and by a factor of 3 with supernova explosions. We find that radiation feedback and supernova explosions increase gaseous spin parameters up to a factor of 4 and vary with time. Stellar feedback, supernova explosions, and H_2 cooling create a complex, multi-phase interstellar medium whose densities and temperatures can span up to 6 orders of magnitude at a given radius. The pair-instability supernovae of Population III stars alone enrich the halos with virial temperatures of 10^4 K to approximately 10^{-3} of solar metallicity. We find that 40% of the heavy elements resides in the intergalactic medium (IGM) at the end of our calculations. The highest metallicity gas exists in supernova remnants and very dilute regions of the IGM.Comment: 15 pages, 16 figures, accepted to ApJ. Many changes, including estimates of metal line cooling. High resolution images and movies available at http://www.slac.stanford.edu/~jwise/research/PGalaxies3

The Effects of Starburst Activity on Low Surface Brightness Disk Galaxies

Although numerous simulations have been done to understand the effects of intense bursts of star formation on high surface brightness galaxies, few attempts have been made to understand how localized starbursts would affect both the color and surface brightness of low surface brightness (LSB) galaxies. To remedy this, we have run 53 simulations involving bursts of star formation activity on LSB galaxies, varying both the underlying galaxy properties and the parameters describing the starbursts. We discovered that although changing the total color of a galaxy was fairly straightforward, it was virtually impossible to alter a galaxy's central surface brightness and thereby remove it from the LSB galaxy classification without placing a high (and fairly artificial) threshold for the underlying gas density. The primary effect of large amounts of induced star formation was to produce a centralized core (bulge) component which is generally not observed in LSB galaxies. The noisy morphological appearance of LSB galaxies as well as their noisy surface brightness profiles can be reproduced by considering small bursts of star formation that are localized within the disk. The trigger mechanism for such bursts is likely distant/weak tidal encounters. The stability of disk central surface brightness to these periods of star formation argues that the large space density of LSB galaxies at z = 0 should hold to substantially higher redshifts.Comment: 38 pages, 5 figures, 4 tables, tarred and compressed Also available on http://guernsey.uoregon.edu/~kare

The Pole Mass of The Heavy Quark. Perturbation Theory and Beyond

The key quantity of the heavy quark theory is the quark mass $m_Q$. Since quarks are unobservable one can suggest different definitions of $m_Q$. One of the most popular choices is the pole quark mass routinely used in perturbative calculations and in some analyses based on heavy quark expansions. We show that no precise definition of the pole mass can be given in the full theory once non-perturbative effects are included. Any definition of this quantity suffers from an intrinsic uncertainty of order \Lam /m_Q. This fact is succinctly described by the existence of an infrared renormalon generating a factorial divergence in the high-order coefficients of the $\alpha_s$ series; the corresponding singularity in the Borel plane is situated at $2\pi /b$. A peculiar feature is that this renormalon is not associated with the matrix element of a local operator. The difference \La \equiv M_{H_Q}-m_Q^{pole} can still be defined in Heavy Quark Effective Theory, but only at the price of introducing an explicit dependence on a normalization point $\mu$: \La (\mu ). Fortunately the pole mass $m_Q(0)$ {\em per se} does not appear in calculable observable quantities.Comment: 22 pages, Latex, 6 figures (available upon request), TPI-MINN-94/4-T, CERN-TH.7171/94, UND-HEP-94-BI

Testing the Hypothesis of Modified Dynamics with Low Surface Brightness Galaxies and Other Evidence

The rotation curves of low surface brightness galaxies provide a unique data set with which to test alternative theories of gravitation over a large dynamic range in size, mass, surface density, and acceleration. Many clearly fail, including any in which the mass discrepancy appears at a particular length-scale. One hypothesis, MOND [Milgrom 1983, ApJ, 270, 371], is consistent with the data. Indeed, it accurately predicts the observed behavior. We find no evidence on any scale which clearly contradicts MOND, and a good deal which supports it.Comment: Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal. 35 pages AAStex + 9 figures. This result surprised the bejeepers out of us, to

Comparing Galaxies and Lyman Alpha Absorbers at Low Redshift

A scenario is explored in which Lyman alpha absorbers at low redshift arise from lines of sight through extended galaxy disks, including those of dwarf and low surface brightness galaxies. A population of galaxies is simulated based upon observed distributions of galaxy properties, and the gas disks are modeled using pressure and gravity confinement. Some parameter values are ruled out by comparing simulation results with the observed galaxy luminosity function, and constraints may be made on the absorbing cross sections of galaxies. Simulation results indicate that it is difficult to match absorbers with particular galaxies observationally since absorption typically occurs at high impact parameters (>200 kpc) from luminous galaxies. Low impact parameter absorption is dominated by low luminosity dwarfs. A large fraction of absorption lines is found to originate from low surface brightness galaxies, so that the absorbing galaxy is likely to be misidentified. Low redshift Lyman alpha absorber counts can easily be explained by moderately extended galaxy disks when low surface brightness galaxies are included, and it is easily possible to find a scenario which is consistent with observed the galaxy luminosity function, with low redshift Lyman limit absorber counts, and with standard nucleosynthesis predictions of the baryon density, Omega_Baryon.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures, accepted to the Astrophysical Journa

Opening up the Quantum Three-Box Problem with Undetectable Measurements

One of the most striking features of quantum mechanics is the profound effect exerted by measurements alone. Sophisticated quantum control is now available in several experimental systems, exposing discrepancies between quantum and classical mechanics whenever measurement induces disturbance of the interrogated system. In practice, such discrepancies may frequently be explained as the back-action required by quantum mechanics adding quantum noise to a classical signal. Here we implement the 'three-box' quantum game of Aharonov and Vaidman in which quantum measurements add no detectable noise to a classical signal, by utilising state-of-the-art control and measurement of the nitrogen vacancy centre in diamond. Quantum and classical mechanics then make contradictory predictions for the same experimental procedure, however classical observers cannot invoke measurement-induced disturbance to explain this discrepancy. We quantify the residual disturbance of our measurements and obtain data that rule out any classical model by > 7.8 standard deviations, allowing us for the first time to exclude the property of macroscopic state-definiteness from our system. Our experiment is then equivalent to a Kochen-Spekker test of quantum non-contextuality that successfully addresses the measurement detectability loophole

A GBT Survey of the HALOGAS Galaxies and Their Environments I: Revealing the full extent of HI around NGC891, NGC925, NGC4414 & NGC4565

We present initial results from a deep neutral hydrogen (HI) survey of the HALOGAS galaxy sample, which includes the spiral galaxies NGC891, NGC925, NGC4414, and NGC4565, performed with the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope (GBT). The resulting observations cover at least four deg$^2$ around these galaxies with an average 5$\sigma$ detection limit of 1.2$\times$10$^{18}$ cm$^{-2}$ over a velocity range of 20 km s$^{-1}$ and angular scale of 9.1$'$. In addition to detecting the same total flux as the GBT data, the spatial distribution of the GBT and original Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) data match well at equal spatial resolutions. The HI mass fraction below HI column densities of 10$^{19}$ cm$^{-2}$ is, on average, 2\%. We discuss the possible origins of low column density HI of nearby spiral galaxies. The absence of a considerable amount of newly detected HI by the GBT indicates these galaxies do not have significant extended diffuse HI structures, and suggests future surveys planned with the SKA and its precursors must go \textit{at least} as deep as 10$^{17}$ cm$^{-2}$ in column density to significantly increase the probability of detecting HI associated with the cosmic web and/or cold mode accretion.Comment: Accepted for publication in The Astrophysical Journal; 28 pages, 15 figure

Increase with energy of parton transverse momenta in the fragmentation region in DIS and related phenomena

The dipole and the DGLAP approximations are combined with the $k_t$ factorization theorem to demonstrate the fundamental property of pQCD: smaller is the size of the colorless quark-gluon configurations in the fragmentation region, more rapid is the increase of its interaction with the target as a function of energy. First, we show that the transverse momenta of the quark(antiquark) within the $q\bar{q}$ pair, produced in the fragmentation region by the strongly virtual photon, increase with the decrease of x for fixed $Q^2$. As practical consequence of these effects we show that the cross sections of DIS and DVCS. We predict that the ratio of DVCS to DIS amplitudes should very slowly approach one from above at very large collision energies. Second, we study a closely related phenomenon of the increase of the transverse momenta with the energy of the characteristic transverse momenta of the gluon/quark configurations responsible for the transition to the black disk regime. We discuss the impact of this phenomenona on the slowing of the dependence on the initial energy of the coherence length. We demonstrate that a rapid projectile has the biconcave shape, which is different from the expectations of the preQCD parton model where a fast hadron has a pancake shape. We show that the increase of the transverse momenta leads to a new expression for the total cross section of a DIS scattering at very large energies, relevant to LHeC and LHC. We discuss the impact of the discovered phenomena on the hard processes in pp collisions, and on the dominance ofdifferent phases of chiral and conformal symmetries in the central and peripheral pp, pA, and AA collisions.Comment: 37 pages, 6 figures, uses file pdfsync.sty some typos and misspellings are eliminate