750 research outputs found
Opportunistic infections are the major cause of mortality after nonmyeloablative unrelated bone marrow transplantation with alemtuzumab, fludarabine and melphalan
Spontaneous symmetry breaking in gauge theories via Bose-Einstein condensation
We propose a mechanism naturally leading to the spontaneous symmetry breaking
in a gauge theory. The Higgs field is assumed to have global and gauged
internal symmetries. We associate a non zero chemical potential to one of the
globally conserved charges commuting with all of the gauge transformations.
This induces a negative mass squared for the Higgs field triggering the
spontaneous symmetry breaking of the global and local symmetries. The mechanism
is general and we test the idea for the electroweak theory in which the Higgs
sector is extended to possess an extra global Abelian symmetry. To this
symmetry we associate a non zero chemical potential. The Bose-Einstein
condensation of the Higgs leads, at tree level, to modified dispersion
relations for the Higgs field while the dispersion relations of the gauge
bosons and fermions remain undisturbed. The latter are modified through higher
order corrections. We have computed some corrections to the vacuum
polarizations of the gauge bosons and fermions. To quantify the corrections to
the gauge boson vacuum polarizations with respect to the Standard Model we
considered the effects on the T parameter. We finally derive the one loop
modified fermion dispersion relations.Comment: RevTeX 4, 13 pages. Added references and corrected typo
Ghost Condensation and a Consistent Infrared Modification of Gravity
We propose a theoretically consistent modification of gravity in the
infrared, which is compatible with all current experimental observations. This
is an analog of Higgs mechanism in general relativity, and can be thought of as
arising from ghost condensation--a background where a scalar field \phi has a
constant velocity, = M^2. The ghost condensate is a new kind of
fluid that can fill the universe, which has the same equation of state, \rho =
-p, as a cosmological constant, and can hence drive de Sitter expansion of the
universe. However, unlike a cosmological constant, it is a physical fluid with
a physical scalar excitation, which can be described by a systematic effective
field theory at low energies. The excitation has an unusual low-energy
dispersion relation \omega^2 \sim k^4 / M^2. If coupled to matter directly, it
gives rise to small Lorentz-violating effects and a new long-range 1/r^2 spin
dependent force. In the ghost condensate, the energy that gravitates is not the
same as the particle physics energy, leading to the possibility of both sources
that can gravitate and antigravitate. The Newtonian potential is modified with
an oscillatory behavior starting at the distance scale M_{Pl}/M^2 and the time
scale M_{Pl}^2/M^3. This theory opens up a number of new avenues for attacking
cosmological problems, including inflation, dark matter and dark energy.Comment: 42 pages, LaTeX 2
Plasma scale length effects on protons generated in ultra-intense laser–plasmas
The energy spectra of protons generated by ultra-intense (1020 W cm−2) laser interactions with a preformed plasma of scale length measured by shadowgraphy are presented. The effects of the preformed plasma on the proton beam temperature and the number of protons are evaluated. Two-dimensional EPOCH particle-in-cell code simulations of the proton spectra are found to be in agreement with measurements over a range of experimental parameter
On the variation of the gauge couplings during inflation
It is shown that the evolution of the (Abelian) gauge coupling during an
inflationary phase of de Sitter type drives the growth of the two-point
function of the magnetic inhomogeneities. After examining the constraints on
the variation of the gauge coupling arising in a standard model of inflationary
and post-inflationary evolution, magnetohydrodynamical equations are
generalized to the case of time evolving gauge coupling. It is argued that
large scale magnetic fields can be copiously generated. Other possible
implications of the model are outlined.Comment: 5 pages in RevTex style, one figur
Solid-state NMR characterisation of the thermal transformation of a Hungarian white illite
1H, 27Al, 29Si and 39K solid-state NMR are reported from a Hungarian illite 2:1 clay for samples heated up 1600 °C. This single-phase sample has a small amount of aluminium substitution in the silica layer and very low iron-content (0.4 wt%). Thermal analysis shows several events that can be related to features in the NMR spectra, and hence changes in the atomic scale structure. As dehydroxylation occurs there is increasing AlO4 and AlO5-contents. The silica and gibbsite layers become increasingly separated as the dehydroxylation progresses. Between 900 and 1000 °C the silica layer forms a potassium aluminosilicate glass. The gibbsite-layer forms spinel/γ-Al2O3 and some aluminium-rich mullite. Then on heating to 1600 °C changes in the 29Si and 27Al MAS NMR spectra are consistent with the aluminosilicate glass increasing its aluminium-content, the amount of mullite increasing probably with its silicon-content also increasing, and some α-Al2O3 forming
Gravitational Coupling and Dynamical Reduction of The Cosmological Constant
We introduce a dynamical model to reduce a large cosmological constant to a
sufficiently small value. The basic ingredient in this model is a distinction
which has been made between the two unit systems used in cosmology and particle
physics. We have used a conformal invariant gravitational model to define a
particular conformal frame in terms of large scale properties of the universe.
It is then argued that the contributions of mass scales in particle physics to
the vacuum energy density should be considered in a different conformal frame.
In this manner, a decaying mechanism is presented in which the conformal factor
appears as a dynamical field and plays a key role to relax a large effective
cosmological constant. Moreover, we argue that this model also provides a
possible explanation for the coincidence problem.Comment: To appear in GR
Precision Pion-Proton Elastic Differential Cross Sections at Energies Spanning the Delta Resonance
A precision measurement of absolute pi+p and pi-p elastic differential cross
sections at incident pion laboratory kinetic energies from T_pi= 141.15 to
267.3 MeV is described. Data were obtained detecting the scattered pion and
recoil proton in coincidence at 12 laboratory pion angles from 55 to 155
degrees for pi+p, and six angles from 60 to 155 degrees for pi-p. Single arm
measurements were also obtained for pi+p energies up to 218.1 MeV, with the
scattered pi+ detected at six angles from 20 to 70 degrees. A flat-walled,
super-cooled liquid hydrogen target as well as solid CH2 targets were used. The
data are characterized by small uncertainties, ~1-2% statistical and ~1-1.5%
normalization. The reliability of the cross section results was ensured by
carrying out the measurements under a variety of experimental conditions to
identify and quantify the sources of instrumental uncertainty. Our lowest and
highest energy data are consistent with overlapping results from TRIUMF and
LAMPF. In general, the Virginia Polytechnic Institute SM95 partial wave
analysis solution describes our data well, but the older Karlsruhe-Helsinki PWA
solution KH80 does not.Comment: 39 pages, 22 figures (some with quality reduced to satisfy ArXiv
requirements. Contact M.M. Pavan for originals). Submitted to Physical Review
Overview of the SME: Implications and Phenomenology of Lorentz Violation
The Standard Model Extension (SME) provides the most general
observer-independent field theoretical framework for investigations of Lorentz
violation. The SME lagrangian by definition contains all Lorentz-violating
interaction terms that can be written as observer scalars and that involve
particle fields in the Standard Model and gravitational fields in a generalized
theory of gravity. This includes all possible terms that could arise from a
process of spontaneous Lorentz violation in the context of a more fundamental
theory, as well as terms that explicitly break Lorentz symmetry. An overview of
the SME is presented, including its motivations and construction. Some of the
theoretical issues arising in the case of spontaneous Lorentz violation are
discussed, including the question of what happens to the Nambu-Goldstone modes
when Lorentz symmetry is spontaneously violated and whether a Higgs mechanism
can occur. A minimal version of the SME in flat Minkowski spacetime that
maintains gauge invariance and power-counting renormalizability is used to
search for leading-order signals of Lorentz violation. Recent Lorentz tests in
QED systems are examined, including experiments with photons, particle and
atomic experiments, proposed experiments in space and experiments with a
spin-polarized torsion pendulum.Comment: 40 pages, Talk presented at Special Relativity: Will it Survive the
Next 100 Years? Potsdam, Germany, February, 200
Quasi-particle re-summation and integral gap equation in thermal field theory
A new approach to quantum field theory at finite temperature and density in
arbitrary space-time dimension D is developed. We focus mainly on relativistic
theories, but the approach applies to non-relativistic ones as well.
In this quasi-particle re-summation, the free energy takes the free-field
form but with the one-particle energy replaced by \vep
(\vec{k}), the latter satisfying a temperature-dependent integral equation
with kernel related to a zero temperature form-factor of the trace of
stress-energy tensor. For 2D integrable theories the approach reduces to the
thermodynamic Bethe ansatz. For relativistic theories, a thermal c-function
is defined for any based on the coefficient of the black
body radiation formula. Thermodynamical constraints on it's flow are presented,
showing that it can violate a ``c-theorem'' even in 2D. At a fixed point
is a function of thermal gap parameters which generalizes Roger's
dilogarithm to higher dimensions. This points to a strategy for classifying
rational theories based on ``polylogarithmic ladders'' in mathematics, and many
examples are worked out. An argument suggests that the 3D Ising model has
. (In 3D a free fermion has .) Other
applications are discussed, including the free energy of anyons in 2D and 3D,
phase transitions with a chemical potential, and the equation of state for
cosmological dark energy.Comment: Version 4: Published versio
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