Excited nucleons with chirally improved fermions

We study positive and negative parity nucleons on the lattice using the chirally improved lattice Dirac operator. Our analysis is based on a set of three operators chi_i with the nucleon quantum numbers but in different representations of the chiral group and with different diquark content. We use a variational method to separate ground state and excited states and determine the mixing coefficients for the optimal nucleon operators in terms of the chi_i. We clearly identify the negative parity resonances N(1535) and N(1650) and their masses agree well with experimental data. The mass of the observed excited positive parity state is too high to be interpreted as the Roper state. Our results for the mixing coefficients indicate that chiral symmetry is important for N(1535) and N(1650) states. We confront our data for the mixing coefficients with quark models and provide insights into the physics of the nucleon system and the nature of strong decays.Comment: Tables added, small modifications in the tex

Higher-order ratios of baryon number cumulants

The relevance of higher order cumulants of net baryon number fluctuations for the analysis of freeze-out and critical conditions in heavy-ion collisions at LHC and RHIC is addressed. The sign structure of the higher order cumulants in the vicinity of the chiral crossover temperature might be a sensitive probe and may allow to elucidate their relation to the QCD phase transition. We calculate ratios of generalized quark-number susceptibilities to high orders in three flavor QCD-like models and investigate their sign structure close to the chiral crossover line.Comment: presented at the International Conference "Critical Point and Onset of Deconfinement - CPOD 2011", Wuhan, November 7-11, 2011; version to appear in Cent. Eur. J. Phy

Baryon spectroscopy with spatially improved quark sources

We study baryons on the lattice with a special focus on excited states. For that purpose we construct several interpolators which differ in their Dirac structure. These interpolators are built from Jacobi smeared quarks with different widths in order to allow for operators with improved spatial wavefunctions. We compute all cross correlations and use the variational method to determine which combinations of operators have best overlap with ground and excited states. Our approach yields promising results for the spin-1/2 baryons: nucleon, sigma, xi and lambda. For the spin-3/2 baryons, delta and omega, we obtain results which are consistent with results of other groups.Comment: LaTeX [PoS], 6 pages, 4 figures, talk presented at Lattice 2005 (Hadron spectrum and quark masses

QCD phase diagram and charge fluctuations

We discuss the phase structure and fluctuations of conserved charges in two flavor QCD. The importance of the density fluctuations to probe the existence of the critical end point is summarized. The role of these fluctuations to identify the first order phase transition in the presence of spinodal phase separation is also discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 8 figures, plenary talk given at the 19th International Conference on Ultrarelativistic Nucleus-Nucleus Collisions: Quark Matter 2006 (QM 2006), Shanghai, China, 14-20 Nov 200

Gamma-Ray Burster Counterparts: HST Blue and Ultraviolet Data

The surest solution of the Gamma Ray Burst (GRB) mystery is to find an unambiguous low-energy quiescent counterpart. However, to date no reasonable candidates have been identified in the x-ray, optical, infrared, or radio ranges. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has now allowed for the first deep ultraviolet searches for quiescent counterparts. This paper reports on multiepoch ultraviolet searches of five GRB positions with HST. We found no sources with significant ultraviolet excesses, variability, parallax, or proper motion in any of the burst error regions. In particular, we see no sources similar to that proposed as a counterpart to the GRB970228. While this negative result is disappointing, it still has good utility for its strict limits on the no-host-galaxy problem in cosmological models of GRBs. For most cosmological models (with peak luminosity 6X10^50 erg/s), the absolute B magnitude of any possible host galaxy must be fainter than -15.5 to -17.4. These smallest boxes for some of the brightest bursts provide the most critical test, and our limits are a severe problem for all published cosmological burst models.Comment: 15 pages, 2 ps figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journa

QCD with two light dynamical chirally improved quarks: Mesons

We present results for the spectrum of light and strange mesons on configurations with two flavors of mass-degenerate Chirally Improved sea quarks. The calculations are performed on seven ensembles of lattice size 16^3x32 at three different gauge couplings and with pion masses ranging from 250 to 600 MeV. To reliably extract excited states, we use the variational method with an interpolator basis containing both gaussian and derivative quark sources. Both conventional and exotic channels up to spin 2 are considered. Strange quarks are treated within the partially quenched approximation. For kaons we investigate the mixing of interpolating fields corresponding to definite C-parity in the SU(3) limit. This enlarged basis allows for an improved determination of the low-lying kaon spectrum. In addition to masses we also extract the ratio of the pseudoscalar decay constants of the kaon and pion and obtain F_K/F_\pi=1.215(41). The results presented here include some ensembles from previous publications and the corresponding results supersede the previously published values.Comment: 18 pages, 16 figures, table referencing correcte

Visualizing elements of Sha[3] in genus 2 jacobians

Mazur proved that any element xi of order three in the Shafarevich-Tate group of an elliptic curve E over a number field k can be made visible in an abelian surface A in the sense that xi lies in the kernel of the natural homomorphism between the cohomology groups H^1(k,E) -> H^1(k,A). However, the abelian surface in Mazur's construction is almost never a jacobian of a genus 2 curve. In this paper we show that any element of order three in the Shafarevich-Tate group of an elliptic curve over a number field can be visualized in the jacobians of a genus 2 curve. Moreover, we describe how to get explicit models of the genus 2 curves involved.Comment: 12 page

Effective Model Approach to the Dense State of QCD Matter

The first-principle approach to the dense state of QCD matter, i.e. the lattice-QCD simulation at finite baryon density, is not under theoretical control for the moment. The effective model study based on QCD symmetries is a practical alternative. However the model parameters that are fixed by hadronic properties in the vacuum may have unknown dependence on the baryon chemical potential. We propose a new prescription to constrain the effective model parameters by the matching condition with the thermal Statistical Model. In the transitional region where thermal quantities blow up in the Statistical Model, deconfined quarks and gluons should smoothly take over the relevant degrees of freedom from hadrons and resonances. We use the Polyakov-loop coupled Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model as an effective description in the quark side and show how the matching condition is satisfied by a simple ansatz on the Polyakov loop potential. Our results favor a phase diagram with the chiral phase transition located at slightly higher temperature than deconfinement which stays close to the chemical freeze-out points.Comment: 8 pages, 4 figures; Talk at International Workshop on High Density Nuclear Matter, Cape Town, South Africa, April 6-9, 201

Calibration of GRB Luminosity Relations with Cosmography

For the use of Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) to probe cosmology in a cosmology-independent way, a new method has been proposed to obtain luminosity distances of GRBs by interpolating directly from the Hubble diagram of SNe Ia, and then calibrating GRB relations at high redshift. In this paper, following the basic assumption in the interpolation method that objects at the same redshift should have the same luminosity distance, we propose another approach to calibrate GRB luminosity relations with cosmographic fitting directly from SN Ia data. In cosmography, there is a well-known fitting formula which can reflect the Hubble relation between luminosity distance and redshift with cosmographic parameters which can be fitted from observation data. Using the Cosmographic fitting results from the Union set of SNe Ia, we calibrate five GRB relations using GRB sample at $z\leq1.4$ and deduce distance moduli of GRBs at $1.4< z \leq 6.6$ by generalizing above calibrated relations at high redshift. Finally, we constrain the dark energy parameterization models of the Chevallier-Polarski-Linder (CPL) model, the Jassal-Bagla-Padmanabhan (JBP) model and the Alam model with GRB data at high redshift, as well as with the Cosmic Microwave Background radiation (CMB) and the baryonic acoustic oscillation (BAO) observations, and we find the $\Lambda$CDM model is consistent with the current data in 1-$\sigma$ confidence region.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, 2 tables; accepted for publication in IJMP