374 research outputs found
Libel Reform: An Appraisal
Today, I am going to talk about the law of libel. A major part of my work at U.S. News is prepublication review of U.S. News and World Report and The Atlantic. I make difficult decisions such as assessing the risk that the Ayatollah Khomeini might sue the magazine for libel. I am not sure if you can libel the Ayatollah, but be careful if you do-he has very potent remedies. I will not focus on the law of libel as it is practiced in Michigan or in other states today. Instead, I want to examine proposals for the total restructuring of defamation law. Perhaps in evaluating such proposed changes, we can better appreciate the strengths and weaknesses of existing libel law
Trial Participants in the Newsgathering Process
The 1990s produced a number of sensational criminal and civil trials. The media and public avidly followed the murder trials of O.J. Simpson and the Menendez brothers, the Oklahoma City bombing trials of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, and the trial of those charged in the World Trade Center bombing. Civil trials involving products liability, medical malpractice, environmental pollution; the civil trial of O.J. Simpson; Paula Jones\u27s sexual harassment action against President Clinton; and the notorious antitrust case against Microsoft similarly captured the public\u27s attention. Also, as might be expected, trial judges and the legal system generally grappled with questions concerning the effects of potentially harmful publicity on the administration of justice. Most of the attention naturally concerned the potential prejudicial effect of media coverage in criminal cases on the fair trial rights of the defendant. Even when the publicity is generated by the defense in criminal cases, however, there is concern for the effect of outside influences on the courtroom proceedings. Similarly, the potential for harmful publicity in civil cases, e.g., disclosure of trade secrets, private personal matters, or other confidential information, stimulates judicial and legislative concern
Phenomenological Constraints on Axion Models of Dynamical Dark Matter
In two recent papers (arXiv:1106.4546, arXiv:1107.0721), we introduced
"dynamical dark matter" (DDM), a new framework for dark-matter physics in which
the requirement of stability is replaced by a delicate balancing between
lifetimes and cosmological abundances across a vast ensemble of individual
dark-matter components whose collective behavior transcends that normally
associated with traditional dark-matter candidates. We also presented an
explicit model involving axions in large extra spacetime dimensions, and
demonstrated that this model has all of the features necessary to constitute a
viable realization of the general DDM framework. In this paper, we complete our
study by performing a general analysis of all phenomenological constraints
which are relevant to this bulk-axion DDM model. Although the analysis in this
paper is primarily aimed at our specific DDM model, many of our findings have
important implications for bulk axion theories in general. Our analysis can
also serve as a prototype for phenomenological studies of theories in which
there exist large numbers of interacting and decaying particles.Comment: 48 pages, LaTeX, 13 figures, 1 tabl
On the Inconsistency of Fayet-Iliopoulos Terms in Supergravity Theories
Motivated by recent discussions, we revisit the issue of whether globally
supersymmetric theories with non-zero Fayet-Iliopoulos terms may be
consistently coupled to supergravity. In particular, we examine claims that a
fundamental inconsistency arises due to the conflicting requirements which are
imposed on the -symmetry properties of the theory by the supergravity
framework. We also prove that certain kinds of Fayet-Iliopoulos contributions
to the supercurrent supermultiplets of theories with non-zero Fayet-Iliopoulos
terms fail to exist. A key feature of our discussion is an explicit comparison
between results from the chiral (or ``old minimal'') and linear (or ``new
minimal'') formulations of supergravity, and the effects within each of these
formalisms that are induced by the presence of non-zero Fayet-Iliopoulos terms.Comment: Comments: 69 pages, LaTeX, 2 figures, 7 tables. Significant new
material on conformal-compensator formalisms added, previous results
clarified and extended, references adde
Dynamical Dark Matter: II. An Explicit Model
In a recent paper (arXiv:1106.4546), we introduced "dynamical dark matter," a
new framework for dark-matter physics, and outlined its underlying theoretical
principles and phenomenological possibilities. Unlike most traditional
approaches to the dark-matter problem which hypothesize the existence of one or
more stable dark-matter particles, our dynamical dark-matter framework is
characterized by the fact that the requirement of stability is replaced by a
delicate balancing between cosmological abundances and lifetimes across a vast
ensemble of individual dark-matter components. This setup therefore
collectively produces a time-varying cosmological dark-matter abundance, and
the different dark-matter components can interact and decay throughout the
current epoch. While the goal of our previous paper was to introduce the broad
theoretical aspects of this framework, the purpose of the current paper is to
provide an explicit model of dynamical dark matter and demonstrate that this
model satisfies all collider, astrophysical, and cosmological constraints. The
results of this paper therefore constitute an "existence proof" of the
phenomenological viability of our overall dynamical dark-matter framework, and
demonstrate that dynamical dark matter is indeed a viable alternative to the
traditional paradigm of dark-matter physics. Dynamical dark matter must
therefore be considered alongside other approaches to the dark-matter problem,
particularly in scenarios involving large extra dimensions or string theory in
which there exist large numbers of particles which are neutral under
Standard-Model symmetries.Comment: 45 pages, LaTeX, 10 figures. Replaced to match published versio
Trying Cases in the Media: Legal Ethics, Fair Trials and Free Press
The 2000 symposium consisted of a panel discussion which used role-playing and a mock trial to highlight the issues of lawyer/litigant comments to the press before and during trial and the dilemma of journalists confronted by court demands for documents, testimony, or sources of information obtained in the course of gathering news on pending trials. Participants included:
As United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Freedonia: John Douglas, Associate Professor of Law at the University of Richmond.
As Freedonia criminal defense lawyer: Gerald Zerkin, Private Defense Attorney.
As investigative journalist: Steve Nash, Associate Professor of Journalism at the University of Richmond.
As federal judge: Judge Margaret P. Spencer, Virginia Circuit Court Judge.
As media attorney: Craig Thomas Merritt, Attorney.
As first amendment attorney: J. Joshua Wheeler, Attorney and Director of Programs for the Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression, and adjunct professor at University of Virginia.
As Chief Justice: Paul D. Carrington, The Chadwick Professor of Law at Duke University.
As Associate Justices of the United States Supreme Court: C. Thomas Dienes, Patricia Roberts Harris Professor of Law at George Washington University\u27s Law School; John E. Nowak, David C. Baum Professor of Law at the University of Illinois; Molly Delea, third-year law student, University of Richmond School of Law; Kate Murray, third-year law student, University of Richmond School of Law; Thomas Queen, third-year law student, University of Richmond School of Law; and Courtney Sydnor, third-year law student, University of Richmond School of Law
Bounds on Universal Extra Dimensions
We show that the bound from the electroweak data on the size of extra
dimensions accessible to all the standard model fields is rather loose. These
"universal" extra dimensions could have a compactification scale as low as 300
GeV for one extra dimension. This is because the Kaluza-Klein number is
conserved and thus the contributions to the electroweak observables arise only
from loops. The main constraint comes from weak-isospin violation effects. We
also compute the contributions to the S parameter and the vertex.
The direct bound on the compactification scale is set by CDF and D0 in the few
hundred GeV range, and the Run II of the Tevatron will either discover extra
dimensions or else it could significantly raise the bound on the
compactification scale. In the case of two universal extra dimensions, the
current lower bound on the compactification scale depends logarithmically on
the ultra-violet cutoff of the higher dimensional theory, but can be estimated
to lie between 400 and 800 GeV. With three or more extra dimensions, the cutoff
dependence may be too strong to allow an estimate.Comment: 22 pages, Latex, 1 eps figure. Published version; minor correction in
the Kaluza-Klein decompositio
Echoes of the fifth dimension?
In this article we examine the question of whether the highest energy cosmic
ray primaries could be ultra relativistic magnetic monopoles. The analysis is
performed within the framework of large compact dimensions and TeV scale
quantum gravity. Our study indicates that while this hypothesis must be
regarded as highly speculative it cannot be ruled out with present data.Comment: Revised version accepted for publication in Physical Review D. The
bibliography has been considerably reduced for the journal version due to
limited spac
Measurement of triple gauge boson couplings from W⁺W⁻ production at LEP energies up to 189 GeV
A measurement of triple gauge boson couplings is presented, based on W-pair data recorded by the OPAL detector at LEP during 1998 at a centre-of-mass energy of 189 GeV with an integrated luminosity of 183 pb⁻¹. After combining with our previous measurements at centre-of-mass energies of 161–183 GeV we obtain κ = 0.97_{-0.16}^{+0.20}, g_{1}^{z} = 0.991_{-0.057}^{+0.060} and λ = -0.110_{-0.055}^{+0.058}, where the errors include both statistical and systematic uncertainties and each coupling is determined by setting the other two couplings to their Standard Model values. These results are consistent with the Standard Model expectations
New Particles Working Group Report of the Snowmass 2013 Community Summer Study
This report summarizes the work of the Energy Frontier New Physics working
group of the 2013 Community Summer Study (Snowmass)
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