Large Dual Transformations and the Petrov-Diakonov Representation of the Wilson Loop

In this work, based on the Petrov-Diakonov representation of the Wilson loop average W in the SU(2) Yang-Mills theory, together with the Cho-Fadeev-Niemi decomposition, we present a natural framework to discuss possible ideas underlying confinement and ensembles of defects in the continuum. In this language we show how for different ensembles the surface appearing in the Wess-Zumino term in W can be either decoupled or turned into a variable, to be summed together with gauge fields, defects and dual fields. This is discussed in terms of the regularity properties imposed by the ensembles on the dual fields, thus precluding or enabling the possibility of performing the large dual transformations that would be necessary to decouple the initial surface.Comment: 35 pages, LaTeX, corrected version, accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Lepton distribution as a probe of new physics in production and decay of the t quark and its polarization

We investigate the possibilities of studying new physics in various processes of t-quark production using kinematical distributions of the secondary lepton coming from decay of t quarks. We show that the angular distributions of the secondary lepton are insensitive to the anomalous tbW vertex and hence are pure probes of new physics in a generic process of t-quark production. The energy distribution of the lepton is distinctly affected by anomalous tbW couplings and can be used to analyze them independent of the production process of t quarks. The effects of t polarization on the distributions of the decay lepton are demonstrated for top-pair production process at a gamma-gamma collider mediated by a heavy Higgs boson.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figures, uses axodraw.sty (included), references added. v3 to appear in Journal of High Energy Physics. Incorporates minor changes in the discussion on radiative corrections which do not affect the results. Typo in reference correcte

Deadly \u27Toxins\u27: A National Empirical Study of Racial Bias and Future Dangerousness Determinations

Since the beginning of the modern Death Penalty Era, one of the most important—and fraught—areas of capital punishment has been the so-called “future dangerousness” determination, a threshold inquiry that literally rests the defendant’s life or death on jurors’ predictions of the future. An overwhelming majority of capital executions have occurred in jurisdictions that embrace the perceived legitimacy of the future dangerousness inquiry, despite its obvious flaws and potential connection to the age-old racial disparities that continue to plague capital punishment. This Article presents, and empirically tests, the hypothesis that jurors’ future dangerousness assessments cannot be separated from their racial and ethnic biases held against Black and Latino defendants. It does so by examining two pathways whereby future dangerousness judgments may function in inappropriately racialized ways: First, it studies the domain of implicit bias and investigates, using Implicit Association Tests (IATs) we designed, whether jurors implicitly and automatically associate future danger with Black and Latino men, and conversely, associate future safety with White men. Second, it considers the domain of explicit bias and measures whether jurors’ self-reported racial animus may function as a driving force in future dangerousness judgments. The results of the studies show that, indeed, both implicit and explicit biases are inexorably linked with future dangerous determinations. After presenting the studies in detail, the Article situates the findings within death penalty jurisprudence and concludes that future dangerousness can no longer pass constitutional muster as a mandatory or permissible factor in capital cases

Judging Implicit Bias: A National Empirical Study of Judicial Stereotypes

American judges, and especially lifetime-appointed federal judges, are often revered as the pinnacle of objectivity, possessing a deep commitment to fairness, and driven to seek justice as they interpret federal laws and the U.S. Constitution. As these judges struggle with some of the great challenges of the modern legal world, empirical scholars must seek to fully understand the role of implicit bias in judicial decision-making. Research from the field of implicit social cognition has long documented negative implicit biases towards a wide range of group members, some of whom may well be harmed in various ways across the legal system. Unfortunately, legal scholarship, and particularly empirical legal scholarship, has lagged behind in terms of investigating how implicit biases, beyond Black and White, may lead to unfair outcomes in a range of legal areas, including those relevant to judges’ potentially landmark legal decisions. This Article proposes, and then empirically tests, the proposition that even today negative implicit biases may manifest in federal and state judges against even so-called privileged minorities, such as Asian- Americans and Jews. We present the results of an original empirical study we conducted on 239 sitting federal and state judges (including 100 federal district judges representing all Circuits) and consider the ways in which these judicial implicit biases may manifest. The study found that the judges harbored strong to moderate negative implicit stereotypes against Asian-Americans and Jews, while holding favorable implicit stereotypes towards Whites and Christians. These negative stereotypes associate Asians and Jews with immoral traits, such as “greedy,” “dishonest,” and “controlling,” and associate Whites and Christians with moral traits, such as “trustworthy,” “honest,” and “giving.” The study further found that federal district court judges sentenced Jewish defendants to marginally longer prison terms than identical Christian defendants and that implicit bias was likely the cause of the disparity. This Article suggests, and the empirical study supports the claim, that automatic biases and cognitions indeed influence a much broader range of judicial decisions than has previously been considered

QED Corrections to the Scattering of Solar Neutrinos and Electrons

We discuss recent calculations of the O(alpha) QED corrections to the recoil electron energy spectrum in neutrino electron scattering, and to the spectrum of the combined energy of the recoil electron and a possible accompanying photon emitted in the scattering process. We then examine the role of these corrections in the interpretation of precise measurements from solar neutrino electron scattering experiments.Comment: (16 Pages, 4 Figures) Presented at the Symposium in Honor of Professor Alberto Sirlin's 70th Birthday: ``50 Years of Precision Electroweak Physics'', New York University, October 27-28, 200

Four-Fermi Effective Operators in Top-Quark Production and Decay

Effects of four-Fermi-type new interactions are studied in top-quark pair production and their subsequent decays at future e^+e^- colliders. Secondary-lepton-energy distributions are calculated for arbitrary longitudinal beam polarizations. An optimal-observables procedure is applied for the determination of new parameters.Comment: Polarized e^- plus unpolarized e^+ collisions were include

Abelian Dominance in Chiral Symmetry Breaking

Calculations of the chiral condensate $\langle \bar{\psi} \psi \rangle$ on the lattice using staggered fermions and the Lanczos algorithm are presented. Three gauge fields are considered: the quenched non-Abelian field, the Abelian field projected in the maximal Abelian gauge, and the monopole field further decomposed from the Abelian field. The results show that the Abelian monopoles largely reproduce the chiral condensate values of the full non-Abelian theory, both in SU(2) and in SU(3).Comment: 4 pages in Latex with 4 embedded Postscript figures, uses espcrc2.sty, psfig.sty. All are uuencoded, gzipped in a self-extracting file. Contribution to Lattice'95, Melbourne, Australi

An analytic study of the off-diagonal mass generation for Yang-Mills theories in the maximal Abelian gauge

We investigate a dynamical mass generation mechanism for the off-diagonal gluons and ghosts in SU(N) Yang-Mills theories, quantized in the maximal Abelian gauge. Such a mass can be seen as evidence for the Abelian dominance in that gauge. It originates from the condensation of a mixed gluon-ghost operator of mass dimension two, which lowers the vacuum energy. We construct an effective potential for this operator by a combined use of the local composite operators technique with the algebraic renormalization and we discuss the gauge parameter independence of the results. We also show that it is possible to connect the vacuum energy, due to the mass dimension two condensate discussed here, with the non-trivial vacuum energy originating from the condensate , which has attracted much attention in the Landau gauge.Comment: 24 pages, 2 .eps figures. v2: version accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.

Gribov Copies in the Maximally Abelian Gauge and Confinement

We fix $SU(2)$ lattice gauge fields to the Maximally Abelian gauge in both three and four dimensions. We extract the corresponding $U(1)$ fields and monopole current densities and calculate separately the confining string tensions arising from these $U(1)$ fields and monopole `condensates'. We generate multiple Gribov copies and study how the $U(1)$ fields and monopole distributions vary between these different copies. As expected, we find substantial variations in the number of monopoles, their locations and in the values of the $U(1)$ field strengths. The string tensions extracted from `extreme' Gribov copies also differ but this difference appears to be no more than about 20\%. We also directly compare the fields of different Gribov copies. We find that on the distance scales relevant to confinement the $U(1)$ and monopole fluxes that disorder Wilson loops are highly correlated between these different Gribov copies. All this suggests that while there is indeed a Gribov copy problem the resulting ambiguity is, in this gauge and for the study of confinement, of limited importance.Comment: 31 pages LaTeX plus 5 PostScript figures. Uses epsf.sty. Self-unpacking, uuencoded tar-compressed fil

Refined Analysis of the Electroweak Precision Data

We refine our recent analysis of the electroweak precision data at the \PZO\ pole by including the hadronic decay modes of the \PZO. Within the framework of an effective Lagrangian we parametrize $SU(2)$ violation by the additional process-specific parameters \De y_\nu, \De\yh, and \De\yb (for the \PZO\nu\bar\nu, \PZO\Pq\bar\Pq, and \PZO\Pb\bar\Pb vertices) together with the previously introduced parameters \De x, \De y, and \eps. We find that a six-parameter analysis of the experimental data is indeed feasible, and it is carried out in addition to a four-parameter fit for \De x, \De y, \eps, and \De\yb only. We reemphasize that the experimental data have become sensitive to the (combined) magnitude of the vertex corrections at the \PWp\Pl\bar\nu (\PWm\nu\bar\Pl) and \PZO\Pl\bar\Pl vertices, \De y, which is insensitive to the notion of the Higgs mechanism but dependent on the non-Abelian, trilinear vector-boson coupling. Full explicit analytical results for the standard one-loop predictions for the above-mentioned parameters are given, and the leading two-loop top-quark effects are included. The analytic formluae for the analysis of the experimental data in terms of the parameters \De x, \De y etc.\ are presented in order to encourage experimentalists to persue such an analysis by themselves with future data.Comment: 28 pages latex, 9 figures in uuencoded form, trivial misprint correcte