3,346 research outputs found
Kinetic decoupling of neutralino dark matter
After neutralinos cease annihilating in the early Universe, they may still
scatter elastically from other particles in the primordial plasma. At some
point in time, however, they will eventually stop scattering. We calculate the
cross sections for neutralino elastic scattering from standard-model particles
to determine the time at which this kinetic decoupling occurs. We show that
kinetic decoupling occurs above a temperature MeV. Thereafter,
neutralinos act as collisionless cold dark matter.Comment: Replaced with revised version, new references adde
THE USE OF PRIVATE LANDS IN THE U.S. FOR OUTDOOR RECREATION: RESULTS OF A NATIONWIDE SURVEY
Land Economics/Use, Resource /Energy Economics and Policy,
QED radiative corrections to the decay pi^0 to e^+e^-
We reconsider QED radiative corrections (RC) to the
decay width. One kind of RC investigated earlier has a renormalization group
origin and can be associated with the final state interaction of electron and
positron. It determines the distribution of lepton pair invariant masses in the
whole kinematic region. The other type of RC has a double-logarithmic character
and is related to almost on-mass-shell behavior of the lepton form factors. The
total effect of RC for the decay is estimated to be
3.2% and for the decay is 4.3%.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure
Microscopic calculation of 6Li elastic and transition form factors
Variational Monte Carlo wave functions, obtained from a realistic Hamiltonian
consisting of the Argonne v18 two-nucleon and Urbana-IX three-nucleon
interactions, are used to calculate the 6Li ground-state longitudinal and
transverse form factors as well as transition form factors to the first four
excited states. The charge and current operators include one- and two-body
components, leading terms of which are constructed consistently with the
two-nucleon interaction. The calculated form factors and radiative widths are
in good agreement with available experimental data.Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, REVTeX, submitted to Physical Review Letters,
with updated introduction and reference
Degenerate Fermi gas perturbations at standard background cosmology
The hypothesis of a tiny fraction of the cosmic inventory evolving
cosmologically as a degenerate Fermi gas test fluid at some dominant
cosmological background is investigated. Our analytical results allow for
performing preliminary computations to the evolution of perturbations for
relativistic and non-relativistic test fluids. The density fluctuation,
, the fluid velocity divergence, , and an explicit expression
for the dynamics of the shear stress, , are obtained for a degenerate
Fermi gas in the background regime of radiation. Extensions to the dominance of
matter and to the CDM cosmological background are also investigated
and lessons concerning the formation of large structures of degenerate Fermi
gas are depicted.Comment: 20 pages, 4 figure
W/Z Bremsstrahlung as the Dominant Annihilation Channel for Dark Matter, Revisited
We revisit the calculation of electroweak bremsstrahlung contributions to
dark matter annihilation. Dark matter annihilation to leptons is necessarily
accompanied by electroweak radiative corrections, in which a or boson
is also radiated. Significantly, while many dark matter models feature a
helicity suppressed annihilation rate to fermions, bremsstrahlung process can
remove this helicity suppression such that the branching ratios Br(), Br(), and Br() dominate over
Br() and Br(). We find this is most significant in
the limit where the dark matter mass is nearly degenerate with the mass of the
boson which mediates the annihilation process. Electroweak bremsstrahlung has
important phenomenological consequences both for the magnitude of the total
dark matter annihilation cross section and for the character of the
astrophysical signals for indirect detection. Given that the and gauge
bosons decay dominantly via hadronic channels, it is impossible to produce
final state leptons without accompanying protons, antiprotons, and gamma rays.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures; replaced to match published versio
Neutrino Telescopes' Sensitivity to Dark Matter
The nature of the dark matter of the Universe is yet unknown and most likely
is connected with new physics. The search for its composition is under way
through direct and indirect detection. Fundamental physical aspects such as
energy threshold, geometry and location are taken into account to investigate
proposed neutrino telescopes of km^3 volume sensitivities to dark matter. These
sensitivities are just sufficient to test a few WIMP scenarios. Telescopes of
km^3 volume, such as IceCube, can definitely discover or exclude superheavy (M
> 10^10 GeV) Strong Interacting Massive Particles (Simpzillas). Smaller
neutrino telescopes such as ANTARES, AMANDA-II and NESTOR can probe a large
region of the Simpzilla parameter space.Comment: 28 pages, 9 figure
Biomass, community composition and N:P recycling ratios of zooplankton in northern high-latitude lakes with contrasting levels of N deposition and dissolved organic carbon
Global changes are causing decreases in inorganic nitrogen (N) concentrations, increases in coloured dissolved organic carbon (DOC) concentrations, and decreases in dissolved inorganic N to total phosphorus ratios (DIN:TP) in northern lakes. The effects of these changes on phytoplankton and zooplankton biomass and the N:P recycling ratio of zooplankton remain unresolved. In 33 Swedish headwater lakes across subarctic-to-boreal gradients with different levels of N deposition (low N in the north [Vasterbotten, boreal; Abisko, subarctic] vs. high N in the south [Varmland, boreal; Jamtland, subarctic]), we measured water chemistry, phytoplankton biomass (chlorophyll-a [Chl-a], Chl-a:TP), seston mineral quality (C:P, N:P), as well as zooplankton biomass, community composition, and C:N:P stoichiometry. We estimated nutrient imbalances and the N:P recycling ratios of zooplankton using ecological stoichiometry models. There was a large-scale gradient from low lake DIN and DIN:TP in the north to high DIN and DIN:TP in the south, with lower DIN:TP in lakes coinciding with higher DOC within each region. Lower lake DIN was associated with lower phytoplankton biomass (lower Chl-a:TP). Lower lake DIN:TP was associated with richer seston mineral quality (lower seston C:P and N:P) and higher zooplankton biomass. Zooplankton community composition differed in the north vs. south, with a dominance of N-requiring calanoid copepods with high N:P in the north and P-requiring cladocerans with low N:P in the south. Also, greater differences in zooplankton community composition were found between subarctic regions (with lower DOC) than between boreal regions (with higher DOC), suggesting that increases in lake DOC and associated declines in lake DIN:TP reduce differences in zooplankton community composition. The combination of lower lake DIN, higher lake DOC, and lower lake DIN:TP led to reduced zooplankton N:P recycling ratios, possibly by reducing seston N:P and/or by enhancing calanoid copepod dominance in the zooplankton community. Our findings suggest that the combination of declining N deposition and increasing lake browning in northern high-latitude lakes will reduce phytoplankton biomass, but will concurrently enhance seston mineral quality and probably also zooplankton biomass and their recycling efficiency of P relative to N
The reaction in the threshold region
Neutral pion photoproduction on the deuteron in the inelastic channel is
studied in the threshold region from 142 to 160 MeV. The calculation is based
on the use of the diagrammatic approach. Contributions from the pole diagrams,
one-loop diagrams both with - and - rescattering as well as
two-loop diagrams with simultaneous inclusion of these rescattering mechanisms
are taken into account. We have found a reasonable agreement with a very simple
calculation by J.C. Bergstrom et al. [Phys. Rev. C 57 (1998) 3203]. It is shown
that the `effective' electric dipole deuteron amplitude is negative in
agreement with a prediction of ChPT. We conclude that a deviation of about 20%
from a ChPT prediction for discovered in an experiment on coherent
photoproduction off the deuteron cannot be attributed to inadequate
estimates of inelastic channel contributions. We suggest that -
rescattering is responsible for the deviation of the free-nucleon
threshold amplitude from the value measured in that experimentComment: 17 pages, 7 figures, revtex. Submitted to Nucl. Phys.
Statistical coverage for supersymmetric parameter estimation: a case study with direct detection of dark matter
Models of weak-scale supersymmetry offer viable dark matter (DM) candidates.
Their parameter spaces are however rather large and complex, such that pinning
down the actual parameter values from experimental data can depend strongly on
the employed statistical framework and scanning algorithm. In frequentist
parameter estimation, a central requirement for properly constructed confidence
intervals is that they cover true parameter values, preferably at exactly the
stated confidence level when experiments are repeated infinitely many times.
Since most widely-used scanning techniques are optimised for Bayesian
statistics, one needs to assess their abilities in providing correct confidence
intervals in terms of the statistical coverage. Here we investigate this for
the Constrained Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (CMSSM) when only
constrained by data from direct searches for dark matter. We construct
confidence intervals from one-dimensional profile likelihoods and study the
coverage by generating several pseudo-experiments for a few benchmark sets of
pseudo-true parameters. We use nested sampling to scan the parameter space and
evaluate the coverage for the benchmarks when either flat or logarithmic priors
are imposed on gaugino and scalar mass parameters. The sampling algorithm has
been used in the configuration usually adopted for exploration of the Bayesian
posterior. We observe both under- and over-coverage, which in some cases vary
quite dramatically when benchmarks or priors are modified. We show how most of
the variation can be explained as the impact of explicit priors as well as
sampling effects, where the latter are indirectly imposed by physicality
conditions. For comparison, we also evaluate the coverage for Bayesian credible
intervals, and observe significant under-coverage in those cases.Comment: 30 pages, 5 figures; v2 includes major updates in response to
referee's comments; extra scans and tables added, discussion expanded, typos
corrected; matches published versio
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