Fertilizer-use pattern and problems in wheat production in Punjab, India

Non-Peer Reviewe

Fine-tuning and naturalness issues in the two-zero neutrino mass textures

In this paper we analyze the compatibility of two-zero neutrino Majorana textures with the recent experimental data. Differently from previous works, we use the experimental data to fix the values of the non-vanishing mass matrix entries and study in detail the correlations and degree of fine-tuning among them, which is also a measure of how naturally a given texture is able to describe all neutrino data. This information is then used to expand the textures in powers of the Cabibbo angle; extracting random O(1) coefficients, we show that only in few cases such textures reproduce the mixing parameters in their 3 sigma ranges.Comment: 13 pages, 14 figures. Version to appear in NP

Four Zero Texture Fermion Mass Matrices in SO(10) GUT

We attempt the integration of the phenomenologically successful four zero texture of fermion mass matrices with the renormalizable SO(10) GUT. The resulting scenario is found to be highly predictive. Firstly, we examine the phenomenological implications of a class of the lepton mass matrices with parallel texture structures and obtain interesting constraints on the parameters of the charged lepton and the neutrino mass matrices. We combine these phenomenological constraints with the constraints obtained from SO(10) GUT to reduce the number of the free parameters and to further constrain the allowed ranges of the free parameters. The solar/atmospheric mixing angles obtained in this analysis are in fairly good agreement with the data.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

The consequences of SU(3) colorsingletness, Polyakov Loop and Z(3) symmetry on a quark-gluon gas

Based on quantum statistical mechanics we show that the $SU(3)$ color singlet ensemble of a quark-gluon gas exhibits a $Z(3)$ symmetry through the normaized character in fundamental representation and also becomes equivalent, within a stationary point approximation, to the ensemble given by Polyakov Loop. Also Polyakov Loop gauge potential is obtained by considering spatial gluons along with the invariant Haar measure at each space point. The probability of the normalized character in $SU(3)$ vis-a-vis Polyakov Loop is found to be maximum at a particular value exhibiting a strong color correlation. This clearly indicates a transition from a color correlated to uncorrelated phase or vise-versa. When quarks are included to the gauge fields, a metastable state appears in the temperature range $145\le T({\rm{MeV}}) \le 170$ due to the explicit $Z(3)$ symmetry breaking in the quark-gluon system. Beyond $T\ge 170$ MeV the metastable state disappears and stable domains appear. At low temperature a dynamical recombination of ionized $Z(3)$ color charges to a color singlet $Z(3)$ confined phase is evident along with a confining background that originates due to circulation of two virtual spatial gluons but with conjugate $Z(3)$ phases in a closed loop. We also discuss other possible consequences of the center domains in the color deconfined phase at high temperature.Comment: Version published in J. Phys.

Improving Contact Tracing in Minority Communities by Combating Misinformation and Distrust

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to challenge the global population as infection rates climb, and officials struggle to balance the need to slow the spread of COVID-19 but also open economies safely. The disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on minority communities has raised questions about the unique experiences of these communities in terms of not only becoming infected with COVID-19, but also mitigating its spread. Although contact tracing has been identified as an invaluable tool for managing community spread and supporting economic reopening, this is contingent, in part, upon compliance with contact tracer requests. In this study, we investigated how misinformation and distrust might influence intentions to comply with contact tracer requests among a sample of self-identified minority New Yorkers. Results showed that intentions to comply with contact tracing requests was directly related to knowledge about contact tracing, trust in contact tracers, trust in healthcare professionals, and self-identified political liberalism. Results also showed that increased intentions to comply with contact tracers was indirectly influenced by trust in healthcare professionals, trust in government healthcare officials, and trust in news media via increased trust in contact tracers, and health literacy and political liberalism through increased knowledge of contact tracing. These findings inform four policy recommendations for improving contact tracing compliance among minority individuals by combating misinformation and distrust