Sudden singularities in semiclassical gravity

It has been claimed in a recent paper \cite{bbfhd12} that sudden singularities will survive in semiclassical gravity. This issue is here carefully reviewed, pointing out that such conclusion, even if valid under some specific conditions, does not stand in other cases. An explicit example is studied in detail to support our statement, stemming from these other situations, that quantum effects may in fact drastically modify the behavior of sudden singularities.Comment: Accepted for publication in PR

Meson resonances, large N_c and chiral symmetry

We investigate the implications of large N_c and chiral symmetry for the mass spectra of meson resonances. Unlike for most other mesons, the mass matrix of the light scalars deviates strongly from its large-N_c limit. We discuss the possible assignments for the lightest scalar nonet that survives in the large-N_c limit.Comment: 14 page

The Wide-Field X and Gamma-Ray Telescope ECLAIRs aboard the Gamma-Ray Burst Multi-Wavelength Space Mission SVOM

The X and Gamma-ray telescope ECLAIRs is foreseen to be launched on a low Earth orbit (h=630 km, i=30 degrees) aboard the SVOM satellite (Space-based multi-band astronomical Variable Objects Monitor), a French-Chinese mission with Italian contribution. Observations are expected to start in 2013. It has been designed to detect and localize Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) or persistent sources of the sky, thanks to its wide field of view (about 2 sr) and its remarkable sensitivity in the 4-250 keV energy range, with enhanced imaging sensitivity in the 4-70 keV energy band. These characteristics are well suited to detect highly redshifted GRBs, and consequently to provide fast and accurate triggers to other onboard or ground-based instruments able to follow-up the detected events in a very short time from the optical wavelength bands up to the few MeV Gamma-Ray domain.Comment: Proccedings of the "2008 Nanjing GRB Conference", June 23-27 2008, Nanjing, Chin

The Inverse Amplitude Method in ππ\pi\pi Scattering in Chiral Perturbation Theory to Two Loops

The inverse amplitude method is used to unitarize the two loop $\pi\pi$ scattering amplitudes of SU(2) Chiral Perturbation Theory in the $I=0,J=0$, $I=1,J=1$ and $I=2,J=0$ channels. An error analysis in terms of the low energy one-loop parameters $\bar l_{1,2,3,4,}$ and existing experimental data is undertaken. A comparison to standard resonance saturation values for the two loop coefficients $\bar b_{1,2,3,4,5,6}$ is also carried out. Crossing violations are quantified and the convergence of the expansion is discussed.Comment: (Latex, epsfig) 30 pages, 13 figures, 8 table

Extreme salinity as a challenge to grow potatoes under Mars-like soil conditions: targeting promising genotypes.

One of the future challenges to produce food in a Mars environment will be the optimization of resources through the potential use of the Martian substratum for growing crops as a part of bioregenerative food systems. In vitro plantlets from 65 potato genotypes were rooted in peat-pellets substratum and transplanted in pots filled with Mars-like soil from La Joya desert in Southern Peru. The Mars-like soil was characterized by extreme salinity (an electric conductivity of 19.3 and 52.6 dS m−1 under 1 : 1 and saturation extract of the soil solution, respectively) and plants grown in it were under sub-optimum physiological status indicated by average maximum stomatal conductance <50 mmol H2O m−2 s−1 even after irrigation. 40% of the genotypes survived and yielded (0.3–5.2 g tuber plant−1) where CIP.397099.4, CIP.396311.1 and CIP.390478.9 were targeted as promising materials with 9.3, 8.9 and 5.8% of fresh tuber yield in relation to the control conditions. A combination of appropriate genotypes and soil management will be crucial to withstand extreme salinity, a problem also important in agriculture on Earth that requires more detailed follow-up studies

Effective chiral lagrangian in the chiral limit from the instanton vacuum

We study the effective chiral Lagrangian in the chiral limit from the instanton vacuum. Starting from the nonlocal effective chiral action, we derive the effective chiral Lagrangian, using the derivative expansion to order $O(p^4)$ in the chiral limit. The low energy constants, $L_1$, $L_2$, and $L_3$ are determined and compared with various models and the corresponding empirical data. The results are in a good agreement with the data. We also discuss about the upper limit of the sigma meson, based on the present results.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys.Rev.

Splitting Strong and Electromagnetic Interactions in K(L4) Decays

We recently considered $K_{\ell 4}$ decays in the framework of chiral perturbation theory based on the effective Lagrangian including mesons, photons, and leptons. There, we published analytic one-loop-level expressions for form factors $f$ and $g$ corresponding to the mixed process, $K^0\to\pi^0\pi^-\ell^+\nu_{\ell}$. We propose here a possible splitting between strong and electromagnetic parts allowing analytic (and numerical) evaluation of Isospin breaking corrections. The latter are sensitive to the infrared divergence subtraction scheme and are sizeable near the $\pi\pi$ production threshold. Our results should be used for the extraction of the $P$-wave iso-vector $\pi\pi$ phase shift from the outgoing data of the currently running KTeV experiment at FNAL.Comment: 47 pages, LaTeX, 6 postscript figure