5,698 research outputs found
MSSM inflaton: SUSY dark matter and LHC
In this talk we will discuss how inflation can be embedded within a minimal
extension of the Standard Model where the inflaton carries the Standard Model
charges. There is no need of an ad-hoc scalar field to be introduced in order
to explain the temperature anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background
radiation, all the ingredients are present within a minimal supersymmetric
Standard Model. For the first time inflaton properties can be directly linked
to the particle phenomenology, dark matter, and the baryons of the Standard
Model.Comment: 6 Pages, UCLA DM 200
A Decade of Dark Energy: 1998 - 2008
The years 1998 to 2008 were very exciting years for cosmology. It was a
pleasure to accept this invitation to describe my contributions to the
development of our knowledge and understanding of the universe over the course
of the past decade. Here, I begin by describing some of my work on radio
galaxies as a modified standard yardstick and go on to describe
model-independent studies of the accelerating universe and the properties of
the dark energy. During the course of these studies, I came upon interesting
ways to study the spin and other properties of supermassive black holes, some
of which are briefly mentioned.Comment: Proceedings of the 2008 UCLA Conference "Dark Matter and Dark Energy
in the Universe," submitted to AIP Conference Proceedings, 6 page
A Neutrino-Factory Muon Storage Ring to Provide Beams for Multiple Detectors Around the World
We briefly discuss the physics motivation for a neutrino factory with varying
baseline distances of about 1000 to 9000 km. We describe the amount of non
planarity of the storage ring required to service three or four detectors at
once. A novel bowtie storage ring is described that could in part provide these
beams; a preliminary lattice design is given. We give the space angles between
the various detector locations and possible sites for neutrino factories.
Finally we describe detectors at the Gran Sasso Laboratory and at a new
laboratory near Carlsbad, NM to observe the neutrino interactions with wrong
sign leptons.Comment: 8 pages. Presented at the 5th Int. Conf. sponsored by UCLA on the
Physics Potential and Develoment of mu^+mu^- Colliders (San Francisco,
December 15-17, 1999) and to be published in the Proceedings by AI
On the origin of bimodal duration distribution of Gamma Ray Bursts
The modified version of a bullet model for gamma ray bursts is studied. The
central engine of the source produces multiple sub-jets that are contained
within a cone. The emission of photons in the source frame of a sub-jet either
takes part in an infinitesimally thin shell, or during its expansion for a
finite time. The analysis of the observed profiles of GRBs taken by BATSE leads
us to the conclusion that the latter possibility is much more favored. We also
study the statistical distribution of GRBs, in the context of their bimodality
of durations, taking into account the detector's capability of observing the
signal above a certain flux limit. The model with shells emitting for a finite
time is able to reproduce only one class of bursts, short or long, depending on
the adopted physical parameters. Therefore we suggest that the GRB bimodality
is intrinsically connected with two separate classes of sources.Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures; accepted by MNRAS. Small changes to match the
corre cted proof
Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking in General Relativity. Vector Order Parameter
Gravitational properties of a hedge-hog type topological defect in two extra
dimensions are considered in General Relativity employing a vector as the order
parameter. All previous considerations were done using the order parameter in
the form of a multiplet in a target space of scalar fields. The difference of
these two approaches is analyzed and demonstrated in detail. Regular solutions
of the Einstein equations are studied analytically and numerically. It is shown
that the existence of a negative cosmological constant is sufficient for the
spontaneous symmetry breaking of the initially plain bulk. Regular
configurations have a growing gravitational potential and are able to trap the
matter on the brane. If the energy of spontaneous symmetry breaking is high,
the gravitational potential has several points of minimum. Identical in the
uniform bulk spin-less particles, being trapped within separate minima, acquire
different masses and appear to the observer on brane as different particles
with integer spins.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figure
Looking ahead: long-term prospects for Africa's agricultural development and food security
"Sub-Saharan Africa is the only developing region in the world where food insecurity has worsened instead of improved in recent decades. In this discussion paper, Mark W. Rosegrant, Sarah A. Cline, Weibo Li, Timothy B. Sulser, and Rowena A. Valmonte-Santos show that this discouraging trend need not be a blueprint for the future. The research contained in this discussion paper was conducted in preparation for the IFPRI 2020 Africa conference “Assuring Food and Nutrition Security in Africa by 2020: Prioritizing Actions, Strengthening Actors, and Facilitating Partnerships,” held in Kampala, Uganda, April 1–3, 2004. The authors examine the implications of several different policy scenarios based on IFPRI's International Model for Policy Analysis of Agricultural Commodities and Trade (IMPACT). This model, developed at IFPRI in the early 1990s, has been continually updated to incorporate more food sectors and geographic regions. In this paper, the authors use IMPACT to assess the consequences of a wide range of policy and investment choices for Africa, including a business as usual scenario (continuation of current policy and investment trends through 2025), a pessimistic scenario (declining trends in key investments and in agricultural productivity), and a vision scenario (improving trends in investments and hence in agricultural productivity and human capital), as well as scenarios for more effective use of rainfall in agriculture, reduced marketing margins, and three different scenarios for trade liberalization. The wide variation in results reveals how much these choices will matter. For example, the number of malnourished children under five years old in Sub-Saharan Africa in 2025 is projected to be 38.3 million under business as usual, 55.1 million under the pessimistic scenario, and 9.4 million under the vision scenario. It is our hope that this research will clarify the steps needed to help stimulate the actions contributing to approaching the vision scenario. " From Foreword by Joachim von BraunImpact model, Food insecurity, Forecasting, Agricultural productivity, Human capital, Malnutrition in children,
Protecting the Primordial Baryon Asymmetry From Erasure by Sphalerons
If the baryon asymmetry of the universe was created at the GUT scale,
sphalerons together with exotic sources of -violation could have erased
it, unless the latter satisfy stringent bounds. We elaborate on how the small
Yukawa coupling of the electron drastically weakens previous estimates of these
bounds.Comment: 41 pp., 4 latex figures included and 3 uuencoded or postscript
figures available by request, UMN-TH-1213-9
Observational constraints on the nature of very short gamma-ray bursts
We discuss a very peculiar subgroup of gamma-ray bursts among the BATSE
sources. These bursts are very short (0.1 s), hard, and came
predominantly from a restricted direction of the sky (close to the Galactic
anti-center). We analyze their arrival times and possible correlations, as well
as the profiles of individual bursts. We find no peculiarities in the arrival
times of Very Short Bursts (VSBs) despite their highly non-uniform spatial
distribution. There is no dependence in the burst shapes on location. Bursts
coming both from the burst-enhancement Galactic Anticenter region and from all
other directions show considerable dispersion in their rise and fall times.
Significant fraction of VSBs have multiple peaks despite their extremely short
duration. Burst time properties are most likely to be consistent with two
origin mechanisms: either with binary NS-NS mergers with low total masses
passing through a phase of hypermassive neutron star, or with evaporation of
the primordial black holes in the scenario of no photosphere formation.Comment: 25 pages, 14 figures; accepted to New Astronom
Facing alternative futures: prospects for and paths to food security in Africa
"Food security in Africa has substantially worsened since 1970. Although the proportion of malnourished individuals in Sub-Saharan Africa has remained in the range of 33–35 percent since around 1970, the absolute number of malnourished people in Africa has increased substantially with population growth, from around 88 million in 1970 to an estimate of over 200 million in 1999–2001. Yet this discouraging trend need not be a blueprint for the future. New research from IFPRI shows that the policy and investment choices of African policymakers and the international development community can make an enormous difference for Africa's future agricultural production and food security. By modeling the results of a number of different policy scenarios in Africa through the year 2025, we show that the number of malnourished children, one important indicator of food security, could rise as high as 41.9 million or fall as low as 9.4 million. These scenarios, therefore, shed light on the effectiveness of various policies and investments in assuring a food-secure future for Africa.' from TextFood insecurity, Forecasting, Agricultural productivity, Human capital, Malnutrition in children, Impact model,
Bounding the dimensions of rational cohomology groups
Let be an algebraically closed field of characteristic , and let
be a simple simply-connected algebraic group over that is defined and
split over the prime field . In this paper we investigate
situations where the dimension of a rational cohomology group for can be
bounded by a constant times the dimension of the coefficient module. We then
demonstrate how our results can be applied to obtain effective bounds on the
first cohomology of the symmetric group. We also show how, for finite Chevalley
groups, our methods permit significant improvements over previous estimates for
the dimensions of second cohomology groups.Comment: 13 page
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