1,968 research outputs found
The Possibility of a Non-Lagrangian Theory of Gravity
General Relativity resembles a very elegant crystal glass: If we touch its
principles, that is, its Lagrangian, there is a risk of breaking everything.
Or, if we will, it is like a short blanket: Curing some problems creates new
problems. This paper is devoted to bring to light the reasons why we pursue the
possibility of a non-Lagrangian theory of gravity under the hypothesis of an
extension of the original general relativity with an ansatz inspired in the
fundamental principles of classical and quantum physics.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure. Version accepted in Universe MDP
Nonparametric reconstruction of the Om diagnostic to test LCDM
Cosmic acceleration is usually related with the unknown dark energy, which
equation of state, w(z), is constrained and numerically confronted with
independent astrophysical data. In order to make a diagnostic of w(z), the
introduction of a null test of dark energy can be done using a diagnostic
function of redshift, Om. In this work we present a nonparametric
reconstruction of this diagnostic using the so-called Loess-Simex factory to
test the concordance model with the advantage that this approach offers an
alternative way to relax the use of priors and find a possible 'w' that
reliably describe the data with no previous knowledge of a cosmological model.
Our results demonstrate that the method applied to the dynamical Om diagnostic
finds a preference for a dark energy model with equation of state w =-2/3,
which correspond to a static domain wall network.Comment: 10 pages, 5 figures, 2 table
On detecting CP violation in a single neutrino oscillation channel at very long baselines
We propose a way of detecting CP violation in a single neutrino oscillation
channel at very long baselines (on the order of several thousands of
kilometers), given precise knowledge of the smallest mass-squared difference.
It is shown that CP violation can be characterized by a shift in of the
peak oscillation in the -- appearance channel, both in vacuum
and in matter. In fact, matter effects enhance the shift at a fixed energy. We
consider the case in which sub-GeV neutrinos are measured with varying baseline
and also the case of a fixed baseline. For the varied baseline, accurate
knowledge of the absolute neutrino flux would not be necessary; however,
neutrinos must be distinguishable from antineutrinos. For the fixed baseline,
it is shown that CP violation can be distinguished if the mixing angle
were known.Comment: 8 pages, 9 figures; minor typos correcte
DBI Galileon inflation in the light of Planck 2015
In this work we consider a DBI Galileon (DBIG) inflationary model and
constrain its parameter space with the Planck 2015 and BICEP2/Keck array and
Planck (BKP) joint analysis data by means of a potential independent analysis.
We focus our attention on inflationary solutions characterized by a constant or
varying sound speed as well as warp factor. We impose bounds on stringy aspects
of the model, such as the warp factor and the induced gravity
parameter . We study the parameter space of the model
and find that the tensor-to-scalar ratio can be as low as
and inflation happens to be at GUT scale. In addition,
we obtain the tilt of the tensor power spectrum and test the standard
inflationary consistency relation against the latest
bounds from the combined results of BKP+Laser Interferometer
Gravitational-Waves Observatory (LIGO), and find that DBIG inflation predicts a
red spectral index for the tensor power spectrum.Comment: Version accepted in JCAP. 25 pages, 10 figures, new refs adde
Calculating error bars for neutrino mixing parameters
One goal of contemporary particle physics is to determine the mixing angles
and mass-squared differences that constitute the phenomenological constants
that describe neutrino oscillations. Of great interest are not only the best
fit values of these constants but also their errors. Some of the neutrino
oscillation data is statistically poor and cannot be treated by normal
(Gaussian) statistics. To extract confidence intervals when the statistics are
not normal, one should not utilize the value for chisquare versus confidence
level taken from normal statistics. Instead, we propose that one should use the
normalized likelihood function as a probability distribution; the relationship
between the correct chisquare and a given confidence level can be computed by
integrating over the likelihood function. This allows for a definition of
confidence level independent of the functional form of the !2 function; it is
particularly useful for cases in which the minimum of the !2 function is near a
boundary. We present two pedagogic examples and find that the proposed method
yields confidence intervals that can differ significantly from those obtained
by using the value of chisquare from normal statistics. For example, we find
that for the first data release of the T2K experiment the probability that
chisquare is not zero, as defined by the maximum confidence level at which the
value of zero is not allowed, is 92%. Using the value of chisquare at zero and
assigning a confidence level from normal statistics, a common practice, gives
the over estimation of 99.5%.Comment: 9 pages, 6 figure
Measuring the mass of a sterile neutrino with a very short baseline reactor experiment
An analysis of the world's neutrino oscillation data, including sterile
neutrinos, (M. Sorel, C. M. Conrad, and M. H. Shaevitz, Phys. Rev. D 70,
073004) found a peak in the allowed region at a mass-squared difference eV. We trace its origin to harmonic oscillations in the
electron survival probability as a function of L/E, the ratio of
baseline to neutrino energy, as measured in the near detector of the Bugey
experiment. We find a second occurrence for eV. We
point out that the phenomenon of harmonic oscillations of as a
function of L/E, as seen in the Bugey experiment, can be used to measure the
mass-squared difference associated with a sterile neutrino in the range from a
fraction of an eV to several eV (compatible with that indicated by the
LSND experiment), as well as measure the amount of electron-sterile neutrino
mixing. We observe that the experiment is independent, to lowest order, of the
size of the reactor and suggest the possibility of a small reactor with a
detector sitting at a very short baseline.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure
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