Videoconferencing via satellite. Opening Congress to the people: Technical report

The feasibility of using satellite videoconferencing as a mechanism for informed dialogue between Congressmen and constituents to strengthen the legislative process was evaluated. Satellite videoconferencing was defined as a two-way interactive television with the TV signals transmitted by satellite. With videoconferencing, one or more Congressmen in Washington, D. C. can see, hear and talk with groups of citizens at distant locations around the country. Simultaneously, the citizens can see, hear and talk with the Congressmen

Spin distribution of nuclear levels using static path approximation with random-phase approximation

We present a thermal and quantum-mechanical treatment of nuclear rotation using the formalism of static path approximation (SPA) plus random-phase approximation (RPA). Naive perturbation theory fails because of the presence of zero-frequency modes due to dynamical symmetry breaking. Such modes lead to infrared divergences. We show that composite zero-frequency excitations are properly treated within the collective coordinate method. The resulting perturbation theory is free from infrared divergences. Without the assumption of individual random spin vectors, we derive microscopically the spin distribution of the level density. The moment of inertia is thereby related to the spin-cutoff parameter in the usual way. Explicit calculations are performed for 56^Fe; various thermal properties are discussed. In particular, we demonstrate that the increase of the moment of inertia with increasing temperature is correlated with the suppression of pairing correlations.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review

Quark Condensate in the Deuteron

We study the changes produced by the deuteron on the QCD quark condensate by means the Feynman-Hellmann theorem and find that the pion mass dependence of the pion-nucleon coupling could play an important role. We also discuss the relation between the many body effect of the condensate and the meson exchange currents, as seen by photons and pions. For pion probes, the many-body term in the physical amplitude differs significantly from that of soft pions, the one linked to the condensate. Thus no information about the many-body term of the condensate can be extracted from the pion-deuteron scattering length. On the other hand, in the Compton amplitude, the relationship with the condensate is a more direct one.Comment: to appear in Physics Review C (19 pages, 3 figures

Exclusive K+K^+ production in proton-nucleus collisions

The exclusive $K^+$ meson production in a proton-nucleus collision, leading to two body final states, is investigated in a fully covariant two-nucleon model based on the effective Lagrangian picture. The explicit kaon production vertex is described via creation, propagation and decay into relevant channel of $N^*$(1650), $N^*$(1710) and $N^*$(1720) intermediate baryonic states in the initial collision of the projectile nucleon with one of its target counterparts which is modeled by the one-pion exchange process. The calculated cross sections show strong sensitivity to the medium effects on pion propagator and to the final hypernuclear state excited in the reaction.Comment: Two new figures, version accepted for publication by Phys. Rev.

Determination of the pion-nucleon coupling constant and scattering lengths

We critically evaluate the isovector GMO sum rule for forward pion-nucleon scattering using the recent precision measurements of negatively charged pion-proton and pion-deuteron scattering lengths from pionic atoms. We deduce the charged-pion-nucleon coupling constant, with careful attention to systematic and statistical uncertainties. This determination gives, directly from data a pseudoscalar coupling constant of 14.11+-0.05(statistical)+-0.19(systematic) or a pseudovector one of 0.0783(11). This value is intermediate between that of indirect methods and the direct determination from backward neutron-proton differential scattering cross sections. We also use the pionic atom data to deduce the coherent symmetric and antisymmetric sums of the negatively charged pion-proton and pion-neutron scattering lengths with high precision. The symmetric sum gives 0.0012+-0.0002(statistical)+-0.0008 (systematic) and the antisymmetric one 0.0895+-0.0003(statistical)+-0.0013(systematic), both in units of inverse charged pion-mass. For the need of the present analysis, we improve the theoretical description of the pion-deuteron scattering length.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Phys. Rev. C, few modifications and clarifications, no change in substance of the pape

Multiscale fluctuations in nuclear response

The nuclear collective response is investigated in the framework of a doorway picture in which the spreading width of the collective motion is described as a coupling to more and more complex configurations. It is shown that this coupling induces fluctuations of the observed strength. In the case of a hierarchy of overlapping decay channels, we observe Ericson fluctuations at different scales. Methods for extracting these scales and the related lifetimes are discussed. Finally, we show that the coupling of different states at one level of complexity to some common decay channels at the next level, may produce interference-like patterns in the nuclear response. This quantum effect leads to a new type of fluctuations with a typical width related to the level spacing.Comment: 34 Latex pages including 6 figures (submitted to Phys. Rev. C

Charge-Asymmetry of the Nucleon-Nucleon Interaction

Based upon the Bonn meson-exchange model for the nucleon-nucleon ($NN$) interaction, we study systematically the charge-symmetry-breaking (CSB) of the $NN$ interaction due to nucleon mass splitting. Particular attention is payed to CSB generated by the $2\pi$-exchange contribution to the $NN$ interaction, $\pi\rho$ diagrams, and other multi-meson-exchanges. We calculate the CSB differences in the $^1S_0$ effective range parameters as well as phase shift differences in $S$, $P$ and higher partial waves up to 300 MeV lab. energy. We find a total CSB difference in the singlet scattering length of 1.6 fm which explains the empirical value accurately. The corresponding CSB phase-shift differences are appreciable at low energy in the $^1S_0$ state. In the other partial waves, the CSB splitting of the phase shifts is small and increases with energy, with typical values in the order of 0.1 deg at 300 MeV in $P$ and $D$ waves.Comment: 11 pages, RevTex, 14 figure

Unitarity constraint for threshold coherent pion photoproduction on the deuteron and chiral perturbation theory

The contribution of the two-step process gamma + d -> p + n -> pi0 + d to the imaginary part of the amplitude for coherent pion production on the deuteron is calculated exploiting unitarity constraints. The result shows that this absorptive process is not negligible and has to be considered in an extraction of the elementary neutron production amplitude from the gamma + d -> pi0 + d cross section at threshold. In addition, it is argued that a consistent calculation of gamma + d -> pi0 + d in baryon chiral perturbation theory beyond next-to-leading order requires the inclusion of this absorptive process.Comment: 11 pages revtex including 2 postscript figure

Isoscalar off-shell effects in threshold pion production from pd collisions

We test the presence of pion-nucleon isoscalar off-shell effects in the $pd\to \pi^+ t$ reaction around the threshold region. We find that these effects significantly modify the production cross section and that they may provide the missing strength needed to reproduce the data at threshold.Comment: 6 pages, REVTeX, twocolumn, including 3 figures (Postscript), uses psfig, updated and extended versio

Correlation Between the Deuteron Characteristics and the Low-energy Triplet np Scattering Parameters

The correlation relationship between the deuteron asymptotic normalization constant, $A_{S}$, and the triplet np scattering length, $a_{t}$, is investigated. It is found that 99.7% of the asymptotic constant $A_{S}$ is determined by the scattering length $a_{t}$. It is shown that the linear correlation relationship between the quantities $A_{S}^{-2}$ and $1/a_{t}$ provides a good test of correctness of various models of nucleon-nucleon interaction. It is revealed that, for the normalization constant $A_{S}$ and for the root-mean-square deuteron radius $r_{d}$, the results obtained with the experimental value recommended at present for the triplet scattering length $a_{t}$ are exaggerated with respect to their experimental counterparts. By using the latest experimental phase shifts of Arndt et al., we obtain, for the low-energy scattering parameters ($a_{t}$, $r_{t}$, $P_{t}$) and for the deuteron characteristics ($A_{S}$, $r_{d}$), results that comply well with experimental data.Comment: 19 pages, 1 figure, To be published in Physics of Atomic Nucle