Effect of higher orbital angular momenta in the baryon spectrum

We have performed a Faddeev calculation of the baryon spectrum for the chiral constituent quark model including higher orbital angular momentum states. We have found that the effect of these states is important, although a description of the baryon spectrum of the same quality as the one given by including only the lowest-order configurations can be obtained. We have studied the effect of the pseudoscalar quark-quark interaction on the relative position of the positive- and negative-parity excitations of the nucleon as well as the effect of varying the strength of the color-magnetic interaction.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures. To be published in Phys. Rev. C (November 2001

Pulsation Period Changes as a Tool to Identify Pre-Zero Age Horizontal Branch Stars

One of the most dramatic events in the life of a low-mass star is the He flash, which takes place at the tip of the red giant branch (RGB) and is followed by a series of secondary flashes before the star settles into the zero-age horizontal branch (ZAHB). Yet, no stars have been positively identified in this key evolutionary phase, mainly for two reasons: first, this pre-ZAHB phase is very short compared to other major evolutionary phases in the life of a star; and second, these pre-ZAHB stars are expected to overlap the loci occupied by asymptotic giant branch (AGB), HB and RGB stars observed in the color-magnitude diagram (CMD). We investigate the possibility of detecting these stars through stellar pulsations, since some of them are expected to rapidly cross the Cepheid/RR Lyrae instability strip in their route from the RGB tip to the ZAHB, thus becoming pulsating stars along the way. As a consequence of their very high evolutionary speed, some of these stars may present anomalously large period change rates. We constructed an extensive grid of stellar models and produced pre-ZAHB Monte Carlo simulations appropriate for the case of the Galactic globular cluster M3 (NGC 5272), where a number of RR Lyrae stars with high period change rates are found. Our results suggest that some -- but certainly not all -- of the RR Lyrae stars in M3 with large period change rates are in fact pre-ZAHB pulsators.Comment: Conference Proceedings HELAS Workshop on 'Synergies between solar and stellar modelling', Rome, June 2009, Astrophys. Space Sci., in the pres

Long- and medium-range components of the nuclear force in quark-model based calculations

Quark-model descriptions of the nucleon-nucleon interaction contain two main ingredients, a quark-exchange mechanism for the short-range repulsion and meson-exchanges for the medium- and long-range parts of the interaction. We point out the special role played by higher partial waves, and in particular the 1F3, as a very sensitive probe for the meson-exchange part employed in these interaction models. In particular, we show that the presently available models fail to provide a reasonable description of higher partial waves and indicate the reasons for this shortcoming.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figure

Charmed and Bottom Baryons: a Variational Approach based on Heavy Quark Symmetry

The use of Heavy Quark Symmetry to study bottom and charmed baryons leads to important simplifications of the non-relativistic three body problem, which turns out to be easily solved by a simple variational ansatz. Our simple scheme reproduces previous results (baryon masses, charge and mass radii, $...$) obtained by solving the Faddeev equations with simple non-relativistic quark--quark potentials, adjusted to the light and heavy--light meson spectra. Wave functions, parameterized in a simple manner, are also given and thus they can be easily used to compute further observables. Our method has been also used to find the predictions for strangeness-less baryons of the SU(2) chirally inspired quark-quark interactions. We find that the one pion exchange term of the chirally inspired interactions leads to relative changes of the $\Lambda_b$ and $\Lambda_c$ binding energies as large as 90%.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures. Revised version to be published in Nucl. Phys.

Constraints on Helium Enhancement in the Globular Cluster M3 (NGC 5272): The Horizontal Branch Test

It has recently been suggested that the presence of multiple populations showing various amounts of helium enhancement is a common feature among globular star clusters. In this scenario, such a helium enhancement would be particularly apparent in the enhanced luminosity of thc blue horizontal branch (HB) stars compared to the red HB stars. In this Letter, wc test this scenario in the case of the Galactic globular cluster M3 (NGC 5272), using high-precision Stromgren photometry and spectroscopic gravities for blue HB stars. We find that any helium enhancement among the cluster's blue HB stars must be significantly less than I%, thus ruling out the much higher helium enhancements that have been proposed in the literature

Single-Particle Spin-Orbit Strengths of the Nucleon and Hyperons by SU6 Quark-Model

The quark-model hyperon-nucleon interaction suggests an important antisymmetric spin-orbit component. It is generated from a color analogue of the Fermi-Breit interaction dominating in the one-gluon exchange process between quarks. We discuss the strength S_B of the single-particle spin-orbit potential, following the Scheerbaum's prescription. Using the SU6 quark-model baryon-baryon interaction which was recently developed by the Kyoto-Niigata group, we calculate NN, Lambda N and Sigma N G-matrices in symmetric nuclear matter and apply them to estimate the strength S_B. The ratio of S_B to the nucleon strength S_N =~ -40 MeV*fm^5 is (S_Lambda)/(S_N) =~ 1/5 and (S_Sigma)/(S_N) =~ 1/2 in the Born approximation. The G-matrix calculation of the model FSS modifies S_Lambda to (S_Lambda)/(S_N) =~ 1/12. For S_N and S_Sigma, the effect of the short-range correlation is comparatively weak against meson-exchange potentials with a short-range repulsive core. The significant reduction of the Lambda single-particle potential arises from the combined effect of the antisymmetric LS force, the flavor-symmetry breaking originating from the strange to up-down quark-mass difference, as well as the effect of the short-range correlation. The density dependence of S_B is also examined.Comment: 26 page