Nucleon Polarisabilities from Compton Scattering off the One- and Few-Nucleon System

These proceedings sketch how combining recent theoretical advances with data from the new generation of high-precision Compton scattering experiments on both the proton and few-nucleon systems offers fresh, detailed insight into the Physics of the nucleon polarisabilities. A multipole-analysis is presented to simplify their interpretation. Predictions from Chiral Effective Field Theory with special emphasis on the spin-polarisabilities can serve as guideline for doubly-polarised experiments below 300 MeV. The strong energy-dependence of the scalar magnetic dipole-polarisability $\beta_{M1}$ turns out to be crucial to understand the proton and deuteron data. Finally, a high-accuracy determination of the proton and neutron polarisabilities shows that they are identical within error-bars. For details and a better list of references, consult the given references.Comment: 10 pages LaTeX2e with 7 figures in 8 .eps files, using graphicx. Invited seminar given at the 26th Course of the International School of Nuclear Physics: Lepton Scattering and the Structure of Hadrons and Nuclei, Erice (Italy), 16th - 24th September 2004. To be published in Prog. Nucl. Part. Phys. 54, No. 2 as part of the proceeding

Analyzing the Effects of Neutron Polarizabilities in Elastic Compton Scattering off 3{}^3He

Motivated by the fact that a polarized ${}^3$He nucleus behaves as an `effective' neutron target, we examine manifestations of neutron electromagnetic polarizabilities in elastic Compton scattering from the Helium-3 nucleus. We calculate both unpolarized and double-polarization observables using chiral perturbation theory to next-to-leading order (${\mathcal O}(e^2 Q)$) at energies, $\omega \leq m_{\pi}$, where $m_{\pi}$ is the pion mass. Our results show that the unpolarized differential cross section can be used to measure neutron electric and magnetic polarizabilities, while two double-polarization observables are sensitive to different linear combinations of the four neutron spin polarizabilities. [Note added in 2018] The qualitative conclusions and analytic formulae presented in this paper are correct, but several of the numerical results are wrong: see the erratum posted as arXiv:1804.01206 for further details. A full suite of corrected numerical results for cross sections and asymmetries can be found in Margaryan et al., arXiv:1804.00956. They can also be obtained as an interactive Mathematica notebook by emailing [email protected]: 40 pages, 16 figure

Crossroads in New media, Identity & Law

__Abstract__ This volume brings together a number of timely contributions at the nexus of new media, politics and law. The central intuition that ties these essays together is that information and communication technology, cultural identity, and legal and political institutions are spheres that co-evolve and interpenetrate in myriad ways. Discussing these shifting relationships, the contributions all probe the question of what shape diversity will take as a result of the changes in the way we communicate and spread information: that is, are we heading to the disintegration and fragmentation of national and cultural identity, or is society moving towards more consolidation, standardization and centralization at a transnational level? In an age of digitization and globalization, this book addresses the question of whether this calls for a new civility fit for the 21st century

A bias in cosmic shear from galaxy selection: results from ray-tracing simulations

We identify and study a previously unknown systematic effect on cosmic shear measurements, caused by the selection of galaxies used for shape measurement, in particular the rejection of close (blended) galaxy pairs. We use ray-tracing simulations based on the Millennium Simulation and a semi-analytical model of galaxy formation to create realistic galaxy catalogues. From these, we quantify the bias in the shear correlation functions by comparing measurements made from galaxy catalogues with and without removal of close pairs. A likelihood analysis is used to quantify the resulting shift in estimates of cosmological parameters. The filtering of objects with close neighbours (a) changes the redshift distribution of the galaxies used for correlation function measurements, and (b) correlates the number density of sources in the background with the density field in the foreground. This leads to a scale-dependent bias of the correlation function of several percent, translating into biases of cosmological parameters of similar amplitude. This makes this new systematic effect potentially harmful for upcoming and planned cosmic shear surveys. As a remedy, we propose and test a weighting scheme that can significantly reduce the bias.Comment: 9 pages, 9 figures, version accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic

Gravitomagnetic Field of a Rotating Superconductor and of a Rotating Superfluid

The quantization of the extended canonical momentum in quantum materials including the effects of gravitational drag is applied successively to the case of a multiply connected rotating superconductor and superfluid. Experiments carried out on rotating superconductors, based on the quantization of the magnetic flux in rotating superconductors, lead to a disagreement with the theoretical predictions derived from the quantization of a canonical momentum without any gravitomagnetic term. To what extent can these discrepancies be attributed to the additional gravitomagnetic term of the extended canonical momentum? This is an open and important question. For the case of multiply connected rotating neutral superfluids, gravitational drag effects derived from rotating superconductor data appear to be hidden in the noise of present experiments according to a first rough analysis

Explicit Delta(1232) Degrees of Freedom in Compton Scattering off the Deuteron

We examine elastic Compton scattering off the deuteron for photon energies between 50 MeV and 100 MeV in the framework of chiral effective field theories to next-to-leading order. We compare one theoretical scheme with only pions and nucleons as explicit degrees of freedom to another in which the Delta(1232) resonance is treated as an explicit degree of freedom. Whereas pion degrees of freedom suffice to describe the experimental data measured at about 70 MeV, the explicit Delta(1232) gives important contributions that help to reproduce the angular dependence at higher energies. The static isoscalar dipole polarizabilities alpha_E^s and beta_M^s are fitted to the available data, giving results for the neutron polarizabilities alpha_E^n=(14.2+-2.0(stat)+-1.9(syst))*10^(-4)fm^3, beta_M^n=(1.8+-2.2(stat)+-0.3(syst))*10^(-4)fm^3. These values are in good agreement with previous experimental analyses. Comparing them to the well-known proton values we conclude that there is currently no evidence for significant differences between the proton and neutron electromagnetic dipole polarizabilities.Comment: 24 pages, 11 figure

Higher order forward spin polarizability

As a guideline for future experiments to extract the four (leading) spin polarizabilities of the nucleon, we have constructed the forward amplitude for polarized Compton scattering by dispersion integrals. These integrals have been saturated by recently measured helicity-dependent photoabsorption cross sections as well as predictions for pion photoproduction multipoles from several phenomenological descriptions and chiral perturbation theory. The comparison of these results corroborates the strategy to extract the spin polarizabilities by fitting them to polarized Compton data and fixing all higher order spin effects by dispersion relations based on pion photoproduction multipoles.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures, 3 Tables; version to appear in Phys. Lett.

Structure of the nucleon and spin-polarizabilities

Spin-polarizabilities are predicted by calculating the cross-section difference $\sigma_{3/2}-\sigma_{1/2}$ from available data for the resonance couplings $A_{3/2}$ and $A_{1/2}$ and CGLN amplitudes. The forward spin-polarizabilities are predicted to be $\gamma^{(p)}_0=-0.58\pm 0.20$ and $\gamma^{(n)}_0=+0.38\pm 0.22$ in units of $10^{-4}$fm$^4$ where the different signs are found to be due to the isospin dependencies of the $E_{0+}$ and the $(M,E)^{(1/2)}_{1+}$ amplitudes. The backward spin-polarizabilities are predicted to be $\gamma^{(p)}_\pi=-36.6$ and $\gamma^{(n)}_\pi=+58.3$, to be compared with the experimental values $\gamma^{(p)}=-36.4\pm 1.5$ and $\gamma^{(n)}_\pi=+58.6\pm 4.0$. Electric $\gamma_E$ and magnetic $\gamma_M$ spin-polarizabilities are introduced and discussed in terms of the $E1$ and $M1/E2$ components of the photo-absorption cross section of the nucleon.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures, 6 table

Group-finding with photometric redshifts: The Photo-z Probability Peaks algorithm

We present a galaxy group-finding algorithm, the Photo-z Probability Peaks (P3) algorithm, optimized for locating small galaxy groups using photometric redshift data by searching for peaks in the signal-to-noise of the local overdensity of galaxies in a three-dimensional grid. This method is an improvement over similar two-dimensional matched-filter methods in reducing background contamination through the use of redshift information, allowing it to accurately detect groups at lower richness. We present the results of tests of our algorithm on galaxy catalogues from the Millennium Simulation. Using a minimum S/N of 3 for detected groups, a group aperture size of 0.25 Mpc/h, and assuming photometric redshift accuracy of sigma_z = 0.05 it attains a purity of 84% and detects ~295 groups/deg.^2 with an average group richness of 8.6 members. Assuming photometric redshift accuracy of sigma_z = 0.02, it attains a purity of 97% and detects ~143 groups/deg.^2 with an average group richness of 12.5 members. We also test our algorithm on data available for the COSMOS field and the presently-available fields from the CFHTLS-Wide survey, presenting preliminary results of this analysis.Comment: Accepted for publication by MNRAS, 16 pages, 11 color figure

Wide-bandwidth mode-hop-free tuning of extended-cavity GaN diode lasers

We present a new approach for extended-cavity diode-laser tuning to achieve wide mode-hop-free tuning ranges. By using a multiple piezoactuated grating mount, the cavity length and grating angle in the laser can be adjusted independently, allowing mode-hop-free tuning without the need for a mechanically optimized pivot-point mount. Furthermore, synchronized diode injection-current tuning allows diode lasers without antireflection coatings to be employed. In combination these two techniques make the construction of a cheap, efficient, and easily optimized extended-cavity diode laser possible. A theoretical analysis is presented for optimal control of piezoactuator displacements and injection current to achieve the widest possible mode-hop-free tuning ranges, and a comparison is made with measurements. The scheme is demonstrated for blue and violet GaN lasers operating at similar to 450 nm and similar to 410 nm, for which continuous tuning ranges exceeding 90 GHz have been achieved. Examples of applications of these lasers are also given