8,790 research outputs found
A New Expansion for Nucleon-Nucleon Interactions
We introduce a new and well defined power counting for the effective field
theory describing nucleon-nucleon interactions. Because of the large NN
scattering lengths it differs from other applications of chiral perturbation
theory and is facilitated by introducing an unusual subtraction scheme and
renormalization group analysis. Calculation to subleading order in the
expansion can be done analytically, and we present the results for both the 1S0
and 3S1-3D1 channels.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figures, latex. Corrected typo, small change to tex
Reduced Fine-Tuning in Supersymmetry with R-parity violation
Both electroweak precision measurements and simple supersymmetric extensions
of the standard model prefer a mass of the Higgs boson less than the
experimental lower limit of 114 GeV. We show that supersymmetric models with R
parity violation and baryon number violation have a significant range of
parameter space in which the Higgs dominantly decays to six jets. These decays
are much more weakly constrained by current LEP analyses and would allow for a
Higgs mass near that of the . In general, lighter scalar quark and other
superpartner masses are allowed and the fine-tuning typically required to
generate the measured scale of electroweak symmetry breaking is ameliorated.
The Higgs would potentially be discovered at hadron colliders via the
appearance of new displaced vertices. The lightest neutralino could be
discovered by a scan of vertex-less events LEP I data.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures. Significant detail added to the arguments
regarding LEP limits - made more quantitative. Better figures used, plotting
more physical quantities. Typos corrected and references updated. Conclusions
unchange
Exotic Axions
We show that axion phenomenology may be significantly different than
conventionally assumed in theories which exhibit late phase transitions (below
the QCD scale). In such theories one can find multiple pseudoscalars with
axion-like couplings to matter, including a string scale axion, whose decay
constant far exceeds the conventional cosmological bound. Such theories have
several dark matter candidates.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, References adde
Lattice formulation of (2,2) supersymmetric gauge theories with matter fields
We construct lattice actions for a variety of (2,2) supersymmetric gauge
theories in two dimensions with matter fields interacting via a superpotential.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figures. Appendix added, references updated, typos fixe
Sign problems, noise, and chiral symmetry breaking in a QCD-like theory
The Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model reduced to 2+1 dimensions has two different path
integral formulations: at finite chemical potential one formulation has a
severe sign problem similar to that found in QCD, while the other does not. At
large N, where N is the number of flavors, one can compute the probability
distributions of fermion correlators analytically in both formulations. In the
former case one finds a broad distribution with small mean; in the latter one
finds a heavy tailed positive distribution amenable to the cumulant expansion
techniques developed in earlier work. We speculate on the implications of this
model for QCD.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures; Published version with minor changes from the
origina
Decoding the Brain: Neural Representation and the Limits of Multivariate Pattern Analysis in Cognitive Neuroscience
Since its introduction, multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA), or “neural decoding”, has transformed the field of cognitive neuroscience. Underlying its influence is a crucial inference, which we call the Decoder’s Dictum: if information can be decoded from patterns of neural activity, then this provides strong evidence about what information those patterns represent. Although the Dictum is a widely held and well-motivated principle in decoding research, it has received scant philosophical attention. We critically evaluate the Dictum, arguing that it is false: decodability is a poor guide for revealing the content of neural representations. However, we also suggest how the Dictum can be improved on, in order to better justify inferences about neural representation using MVPA
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