The PL calibration for Milky Way Cepheids and its implications for the distance scale

The rationale behind recent calibrations of the Cepheid PL relation using the Wesenheit formulation is reviewed and reanalyzed, and it is shown that recent conclusions regarding a possible change in slope of the PL relation for short-period and long-period Cepheids are tied to a pathological distribution of HST calibrators within the instability strip. A recalibration of the period-luminosity relation is obtained using Galactic Cepheids in open clusters and groups, the resulting relationship, described by log L/L_sun = 2.415(+-0.035) + 1.148(+-0.044)log P, exhibiting only the moderate scatter expected from color spread within the instability strip. The relationship is confirmed by Cepheids with HST parallaxes, although without the need for Lutz-Kelker corrections, and in general by Cepheids with revised Hipparcos parallaxes, albeit with concerns about the cited precisions of the latter. A Wesenheit formulation of Wv = -2.259(+-0.083) - 4.185(+-0.103)log P for Galactic Cepheids is tested successfully using Cepheids in the inner regions of the galaxy NGC 4258, confirming the independent geometrical distance established for the galaxy from OH masers. Differences between the extinction properties of interstellar and extragalactic dust may yet play an important role in the further calibration of the Cepheid PL relation and its application to the extragalactic distance scale.Comment: Accepted for Publication (Astrophysics & Space Science

Problems and possibilities in fine-tuning of the Cepheid P-L relationship

Factors contributing to the scatter around the ridge-line period-luminosity relationship are listed, followed by a discussion how to eliminate the adverse effects of these factors (mode of pulsation, crossing number, temperature range, reddening, binarity, metallicity, non-linearity of the relationship, blending), in order to reduce the dispersion of the P-L relationship.Comment: 7 pages, 8 figures; accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Scienc

Further Evidence for Intrinsic Redshifts in Normal Spiral Galaxies

Evidence from galaxy absolute magnitudes, linear diameters, and HyperLeda images is presented which strongly supports the interpretation that some normal spiral galaxies can contain large non-cosmological (intrinsic) redshifts in excess of 5000 km s-1.Comment: 17 pages, Astrophysics&Space Science - Accepted for publicatio

Perturbative QCD and factorization of coherent pion photoproduction on the deuteron

We analyze the predictions of perturbative QCD for pion photoproduction on the deuteron, gamma D -> pi^0 D, at large momentum transfer using the reduced amplitude formalism. The cluster decomposition of the deuteron wave function at small binding only allows the nuclear coherent process to proceed if each nucleon absorbs an equal fraction of the overall momentum transfer. Furthermore, each nucleon must scatter while remaining close to its mass shell. Thus the nuclear photoproduction amplitude, M_{gamma D -> pi^0 D}(u,t), factorizes as a product of three factors: (1) the nucleon photoproduction amplitude, M_{gamma N_1 -> pi^0 N_1}(u/4,t/4), at half of the overall momentum transfer, (2) a nucleon form factor, F_{N_2}(t/4), at half the overall momentum transfer, and (3) the reduced deuteron form factor, f_d(t), which according to perturbative QCD, has the same monopole falloff as a meson form factor. A comparison with the recent JLAB data for gamma D -> pi^0 D of Meekins et al. [Phys. Rev. C 60, 052201 (1999)] and the available gamma p -> pi^0 p data shows good agreement between the perturbative QCD prediction and experiment over a large range of momentum transfers and center of mass angles. The reduced amplitude prediction is consistent with the constituent counting rule, p^11_T M_{gamma D -> pi^0 D} -> F(theta_cm), at large momentum transfer. This is found to be consistent with measurements for photon lab energies E_gamma > 3 GeV at theta_cm=90 degrees and \elab > 10 GeV at 136 degrees.Comment: RevTeX 3.1, 17 pages, 6 figures; v2: incorporates minor changes as version accepted by Phys Rev

BF models, Duality and Bosonization on higher genus surfaces

The generating functional of two dimensional $BF$ field theories coupled to fermionic fields and conserved currents is computed in the general case when the base manifold is a genus g compact Riemann surface. The lagrangian density $L=dB{\wedge}A$ is written in terms of a globally defined 1-form $A$ and a multi-valued scalar field $B$. Consistency conditions on the periods of $dB$ have to be imposed. It is shown that there exist a non-trivial dependence of the generating functional on the topological restrictions imposed to $B$. In particular if the periods of the $B$ field are constrained to take values $4\pi n$, with $n$ any integer, then the partition function is independent of the chosen spin structure and may be written as a sum over all the spin structures associated to the fermions even when one started with a fixed spin structure. These results are then applied to the functional bosonization of fermionic fields on higher genus surfaces. A bosonized form of the partition function which takes care of the chosen spin structure is obtainedComment: 17 page

The Large Magellanic Cloud and the Distance Scale

The Magellanic Clouds, especially the Large Magellanic Cloud, are places where multiple distance indicators can be compared with each other in a straight-forward manner at considerable precision. We here review the distances derived from Cepheids, Red Variables, RR Lyraes, Red Clump Stars and Eclipsing Binaries, and show that the results from these distance indicators generally agree to within their errors, and the distance modulus to the Large Magellanic Cloud appears to be defined to 3% with a mean value of 18.48 mag, corresponding to 49.7 Kpc. The utility of the Magellanic Clouds in constructing and testing the distance scale will remain as we move into the era of Gaia.Comment: 23 pages, accepted for publication in Astrophysics and Space Science. From a presentation at the conference The Fundamental Cosmic Distance Scale: State of the Art and the Gaia Perspective, Naples, May 201

Determination of the String Scale in D-Brane Scenarios and Dark Matter Implications

We analyze different phenomenological aspects of D-brane constructions. First, we obtain that scenarios with the gauge group and particle content of the supersymmetric standard model lead naturally to intermediate values for the string scale, in order to reproduce the value of gauge couplings deduced from experiments. Second, the soft terms, which turn out to be generically non universal, and Yukawa couplings of these scenarios are studied in detail. Finally, using these soft terms and the string scale as the initial scale for their running, we compute the neutralino-nucleon cross section. In particular we find regions in the parameter space of D-brane scenarios with cross sections in the range of $10^{-6}$--$10^{-5}$ pb, i.e. where current dark matter experiments are sensitive. For instance, this can be obtained for $\tan\beta > 5$.Comment: Figures improved, misprints corrected, results basically unchange

The Higgs intense--coupling regime in constrained SUSY models and its astrophysical implications

We analyze the Higgs intense--coupling regime, in which all Higgs particles of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model are light with masses of the same order and the value of \tb the ratio of vacuum expectation values of the two Higgs fields is large, in the framework of Supergravity scenarios with non--universal soft Supersymmetry breaking scalar masses in the Higgs sector. In particular, we calculate the relic density abundance of the lightest neutralino candidate for cold dark matter and the rates in direct and indirect detection at present and future experiments. We first show that while in the mSUGRA model this regime is disfavored by present data, there are regions in the parameter space of models with non--universal Higgs masses where it can occur. We then show that because of the large value of $\tan\beta$ and the relatively low values of the neutral Higgs boson masses, the cross section for neutralino--nucleon scattering is strongly enhanced in this regime and would allow for the observation of a signal in direct detection experiments such as CDMS--Soudan. The expected sensitivity of gamma--ray detectors like GLAST might be also sufficient to observe the annihilation of neutralinos in such a regime.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figure

A New Strategy of Quantum-State Estimation for Achieving the Cramer-Rao Bound

We experimentally analyzed the statistical errors in quantum-state estimation and examined whether their lower bound, which is derived from the Cramer-Rao inequality, can be truly attained or not. In the experiments, polarization states of bi-photons produced via spontaneous parametric down-conversion were estimated employing tomographic measurements. Using a new estimation strategy based on Akaike's information criterion, we demonstrated that the errors actually approach the lower bound, while they fail to approach it using the conventional estimation strategy.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figure

Large-scale magnetic fields from inflation due to a CPTCPT-even Chern-Simons-like term with Kalb-Ramond and scalar fields

We investigate the generation of large-scale magnetic fields due to the breaking of the conformal invariance in the electromagnetic field through the $CPT$-even dimension-six Chern-Simons-like effective interaction with a fermion current by taking account of the dynamical Kalb-Ramond and scalar fields in inflationary cosmology. It is explicitly demonstrated that the magnetic fields on 1Mpc scale with the field strength of $\sim 10^{-9}$G at the present time can be induced.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures, version accepted for publication in Eur. Phys. J.