249 research outputs found
Anomalous Axion Interactions and Topological Currents in Dense Matter
Recently an effective Lagrangian for the interactions of photons,
Nambu-Goldstone bosons and superfluid phonons in dense quark matter has been
derived using anomaly matching arguments. In this paper we illuminate the
nature of certain anomalous terms in this Lagrangian by an explicit microscopic
calculation. We also generalize the corresponding construction to introduce the
axion field. We derive an anomalous axion effective Lagrangian describing the
interactions of axions with photons and superfluid phonons in the dense matter
background. This effective Lagrangian, among other things, implies that an
axion current will be induced in the presence of magnetic field. We speculate
that this current may be responsible for the explanation of neutron star kicks.Comment: 10 page
Baryon Asymmetry, Dark Matter and Quantum Chromodynamics
We propose a novel scenario to explain the observed cosmological asymmetry
between matter and antimatter, based on nonperturbative QCD physics. This
scenario relies on a mechanism of separation of quarks and antiquarks in two
coexisting phases at the end of the cosmological QCD phase transition: ordinary
hadrons (and antihadrons), along with massive lumps (and antilumps) of novel
color superconducting phase. The latter would serve as the cosmological cold
dark matter. In certain conditions the separation of charge is C and CP
asymmetric and can leave a net excess of hadrons over antihadrons in the
conventional phase, even if the visible universe is globally baryon symmetric
. In this case an equal, but negative, overall baryon charge must be
hidden in the lumps of novel phase. Due to the small volume occupied by these
dense lumps/antilumps of color superconducting phase and the specific features
of their interaction with "normal" matter in hadronic phase, this scenario does
not contradict the current phenomenological constrains on presence of
antimatter in the visible universe. Moreover, in this scenario the observed
cosmological ratio within an order of magnitude
finds a natural explanation, as both contributions to originated from
the same physics during the QCD phase transition. The baryon to entropy ratio
would also be a natural outcome, fixed by the
temperature T_f \simlt T_{QCD} at which the separation of phases is
completed.Comment: New paragraph added in subsection II.D; version to appear in Physical
Review
The Electrosphere of Macroscopic "Quark Nuclei": A Source for Diffuse MeV Emissions from Dark Matter
Using a Thomas-Fermi model, we calculate the structure of the electrosphere
of the quark antimatter nuggets postulated to comprise much of the dark matter.
This provides a single self-consistent density profile from ultrarelativistic
densities to the nonrelativistic Boltzmann regime that use to present
microscopically justified calculations of several properties of the nuggets,
including their net charge, and the ratio of MeV to 511 keV emissions from
electron annihilation. We find that the calculated parameters agree with
previous phenomenological estimates based on the observational supposition that
the nuggets are a source of several unexplained diffuse emissions from the
Galaxy. As no phenomenological parameters are required to describe these
observations, the calculation provides another nontrivial verification of the
dark-matter proposal. The structure of the electrosphere is quite general and
will also be valid at the surface of strange-quark stars, should they exist.Comment: 20 Pages, REVTeX4.
WMAP Haze: Directly Observing Dark Matter?
In this paper we show that dark matter in the form of dense matter/antimatter
nuggets could provide a natural and unified explanation for several distinct
bands of diffuse radiation from the core of the Galaxy spanning over 12 orders
of magnitude in frequency. We fix all of the phenomenological properties of
this model by matching to x-ray observations in the keV band, and then
calculate the unambiguously predicted thermal emission in the microwave band,
at frequencies smaller by 10 orders of magnitude. Remarkably, the intensity and
spectrum of the emitted thermal radiation are consistent with--and could
entirely explain--the so-called "WMAP haze": a diffuse microwave excess
observed from the core of our Galaxy by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy
Probe (WMAP). This provides another strong constraint of our proposal, and a
remarkable nontrivial validation. If correct, our proposal identifies the
nature of the dark matter, explains baryogenesis, and provides a means to
directly probe the matter distribution in our Galaxy by analyzing several
different types of diffuse emissions.Comment: 16 pages, REVTeX4. Updated to correspond with published version:
includes additional appendices discussing finite-size effect
Photon propagation in a cold axion background with and without magnetic field
A cold relic axion condensate resulting from vacuum misalignment in the early
universe oscillates with a frequency m, where m is the axion mass. We determine
the properties of photons propagating in a simplified version of such a
background where the sinusoidal variation is replaced by a square wave profile.
We prove that previous results that indicated that charged particles moving
fast in such a background radiate, originally derived assuming that all momenta
involved were much larger than m, hold for long wavelengths too. We also
analyze in detail how the introduction of a magnetic field changes the
properties of photon propagation in such a medium. We briefly comment on
possible astrophysical implications of these results.Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures, revised version includes an extended discussion
on physical implication
Contact Term, its Holographic Description in QCD and Dark Energy
In this work we study the well known contact term, which is the key element
in resolving the so-called problem in QCD. We study this term using
the dual Holographic Description. We argue that in the dual picture the contact
term is saturated by the D2 branes which can be interpreted as the tunnelling
events in Minkowski space-time. We quote a number of direct lattice results
supporting this identification. We also argue that the contact term receives a
Casimir -like correction \sim (\Lqcd R)^{-1} rather than naively expected
\exp(-\Lqcd R) when the Minkowski space-time is replaced by
a large but finite manifold with a size . Such a behaviour is consistent
with other QFT-based computations when power like corrections are due to
nontrivial properties of topological sectors of the theory. In holographic
description such a behaviour is due to massless Ramond-Ramond (RR) field living
in the bulk of multidimensional space when power like corrections is a natural
outcome of massless RR field. In many respects the phenomenon is similar to the
Aharonov -Casher effect when the "modular electric field" can penetrate into a
superconductor where the electric field is exponentially screened. The role of
"modular operator" from Aharonov -Casher effect is played by large gauge
transformation operator in 4d QCD, resulting the transparency of the
system to topologically nontrivial pure gauge configurations. We discuss some
profound consequences of our findings. In particular, we speculate that a slow
variation of the contact term in expanding universe might be the main source of
the observed Dark Energy.Comment: Final version to appear in Phys. Rev. D. Comments added on
interpretation of the "topological Casimir effect" from 5d viewpoint where it
can be thought as conventional Casimir effec
On Topological Susceptibility, Vacuum Energy and Theta Dependence in Gluodynamics
We suggest that the topological susceptibility in gluodynamics can be found
in terms of the gluon condensate using renormalizability and heavy fermion
representation of the anomaly. Analogous relations can be also obtained for
other zero momentum correlation functions involving the topological density
operator. Using these relations, we find the theta dependence of the
condensates , and of the partition function for small theta
and an arbitrary number of colors.Comment: Details of the derivation are clarified, changes in discussions, new
references are adde
Dark Matter Axions Revisited
We study for what specific values of the theoretical parameters the axion can
form the totality of cold dark matter. We examine the allowed axion parameter
region in the light of recent data collected by the WMAP5 mission plus baryon
acoustic oscillations and supernovae, and assume an inflationary scenario and
standard cosmology. If the Peccei-Quinn symmetry is restored after inflation,
we recover the usual relation between axion mass and density, so that an axion
mass makes the axion 100% of the cold dark matter. If
the Peccei-Quinn symmetry is broken during inflation, the axion can instead be
100% of the cold dark matter for provided a specific value
of the initial misalignment angle is chosen in correspondence to a
given value of its mass . Large values of the Peccei-Quinn symmetry
breaking scale correspond to small, perhaps uncomfortably small, values of the
initial misalignment angle .Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure
Strangelet dwarfs
If the surface tension of quark matter is low enough, quark matter is not
self bound. At sufficiently low pressure and temperature, it will take the form
of a crystal of positively charged strangelets in a neutralizing background of
electrons. In this case there will exist, in addition to the usual family of
strange stars, a family of low-mass large-radius objects analogous to white
dwarfs, which we call "strangelet dwarfs". Using a generic parametrization of
the equation of state of quark matter, we calculate the mass-radius
relationship of these objects.Comment: 10 pages, LaTeX, added discussion of CFL phase and strangelet
pollution, version to appear in journal. arXiv admin note: text overlap with
arXiv:0808.067
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