3,132 research outputs found
Probing the Planck Scale with Neutrino Oscillations
Quantum gravity "foam", among its various generic Lorentz non-invariant
effects, would cause neutrino mixing. It is shown here that, if the foam is
manifested as a nonrenormalizable effect at scale M, the oscillation length
generically decreases with energy as (E/M)^(-2). Neutrino observatories and
long-baseline experiments should have therefore already observed foam-induced
oscillations, even if M is as high as the Planck energy scale. The null
results, which can be further strengthened by better analysis of current data
and future experiments, can be taken as experimental evidence that Lorentz
invariance is fully preserved at the Planck scale, as is the case in critical
string theory.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures. Final version published in PRD. 1 figure,
references, clarifications and explanations added. Results unchange
Unconventional resistivity at the border of metallic antiferromagnetism in NiS2
We report low-temperature and high-pressure measurements of the electrical
resistivity \rho(T) of the antiferromagnetic compound NiS_2 in its
high-pressure metallic state. The form of \rho(T) suggests that metallic
antiferromagnetism in NiS_2 is quenched at a critical pressure p_c=76+-5 kbar.
Near p_c the temperature variation of \rho(T) is similar to that observed in
NiS_{2-x}Se_x near the critical composition x=1 where the Neel temperature
vanishes at ambient pressure. In both cases \rho(T) varies approximately as
T^{1.5} over a wide range below 100 K. However, on closer analysis the
resistivity exponent in NiS_2 exhibits an undulating variation with temperature
not seen in NiSSe (x=1). This difference in behaviour may be due to the effects
of spin-fluctuation scattering of charge carriers on cold and hot spots of the
Fermi surface in the presence of quenched disorder, which is higher in NiSSe
than in stoichiometric NiS_2.Comment: 7 page
The X-ray jet in the Crab Nebula: radical implications for pulsar theory?
The recent Chandra image of the Crab nebula shows a striking, axisymmetric
polar jet. It is shown that jets are formed in axisymmetric, magnetized pulsar
winds and that the jet luminosity scales relative to the total as
(\gamma_0\sigma_{eq})^{-4/3}, where \sigma_{eq} is the ratio of Poynting flux
to particle kinetic energy output at the equator at the base of the flow and
\gamma_0 the initial Lorentz factor of the flow. The results are applied to the
image of the Crab nebula, and the limit is set for the Crab pulsar of
\sigma_{eq} \leq 100. It is argued that conventional pulsar theory needs to be
reexamined in light of these limits.Comment: 13 page
Relativistic calculations of the K-K charge transfer and K-vacancy production probabilities in low-energy ion-atom collisions
The previously developed technique for evaluation of charge-transfer and
electron-excitation processes in low-energy heavy-ion collisions [I.I. Tupitsyn
et al., Phys. Rev. A 82, 042701(2010)] is extended to collisions of ions with
neutral atoms. The method employs the active electron approximation, in which
only the active electron participates in the charge transfer and excitation
processes while the passive electrons provide the screening DFT potential. The
time-dependent Dirac wave function of the active electron is represented as a
linear combination of atomic-like Dirac-Fock-Sturm orbitals, localized at the
ions (atoms). The screening DFT potential is calculated using the overlapping
densities of each ions (atoms), derived from the atomic orbitals of the passive
electrons. The atomic orbitals are generated by solving numerically the
one-center Dirac-Fock and Dirac-Fock-Sturm equations by means of a
finite-difference approach with the potential taken as the sum of the exact
reference ion (atom) Dirac-Fock potential and of the Coulomb potential from the
other ion within the monopole approximation. The method developed is used to
calculate the K-K charge transfer and K-vacancy production probabilties for the
Ne -- F collisions at the F projectile
energies 130 keV/u and 230 keV/u. The obtained results are compared with
experimental data and other theoretical calculations. The K-K charge transfer
and K-vacancy production probabilities are also calculated for the Xe --
Xe collision.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure
A light-fronts approach to electron-positron pair production in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions
We perform a gauge-transformation on the time-dependent Dirac equation
describing the evolution of an electron in a heavy-ion collision to remove the
explicit dependence on the long-range part of the interaction. We solve, in an
ultra-relativistic limit, the gauged-transformed Dirac equation using
light-front variables and a light-fronts representation, obtaining
non-perturbative results for the free pair-creation amplitudes in the collider
frame. Our result reproduces the result of second-order perturbation theory in
the small charge limit while non-perturbative effects arise for realistic
charges of the ions.Comment: 39 pages, Revtex, 7 figures, submitted to PR
Measurement of electron-hole friction in an n-doped GaAs/AlGaAs quantum well using optical transient grating spectroscopy
We use phase-resolved transient grating spectroscopy to measure the drift and
diffusion of electron-hole density waves in a semiconductor quantum well. The
unique aspects of this optical probe allow us to determine the frictional force
between a two-dimensional Fermi liquid of electrons and a dilute gas of holes.
Knowledge of electron-hole friction enables prediction of ambipolar dynamics in
high-mobility electron systems.Comment: to appear in PR
The Role of Fission in Neutron Star Mergers and Its Impact on the r-Process Peaks
Comparing observational abundance features with nucleosynthesis predictions of stellar evolution or explosion simulations, we can scrutinize two aspects: (a) the conditions in the astrophysical production site and (b) the quality of the nuclear physics input utilized. We test the abundance features of r-process nucleosynthesis calculations for the dynamical ejecta of neutron star merger simulations based on three different nuclear mass models: The Finite Range Droplet Model, the (quenched version of the) Extended Thomas Fermi Model with Strutinsky Integral, and the Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov mass model. We make use of corresponding fission barrier heights and compare the impact of four different fission fragment distribution models on the final r-process abundance distribution. In particular, we explore the abundance distribution in the second r-process peak and the rare-earth sub-peak as a function of mass models and fission fragment distributions, as well as the origin of a shift in the third r-process peak position. The latter has been noticed in a number of merger nucleosynthesis predictions. We show that the shift occurs during the r-process freeze-out when neutron captures and β-decays compete and an (n,γ)-(γ,n) equilibrium is no longer maintained. During this phase neutrons originate mainly from fission of material above A = 240. We also investigate the role of β-decay half-lives from recent theoretical advances, which lead either to a smaller amount of fissioning nuclei during freeze-out or a faster (and thus earlier) release of fission neutrons, which can (partially) prevent this shift and has an impact on the second and rare-earth peak as well.Peer reviewe
The Kodaira dimension of the moduli of K3 surfaces
The moduli space of polarised K3 surfaces of degree 2d is a quasi-projective
variety of dimension 19. For general d very little has been known about the
Kodaira dimension of these varieties. In this paper we present an almost
complete solution to this problem. Our main result says that this moduli space
is of general type for d>61 and for d=46,50,54,58,60.Comment: 47 page
- …