2,185 research outputs found
Analytic structure in the coupling constant plane in perturbative QCD
We investigate the analytic structure of the Borel-summed perturbative QCD
amplitudes in the complex plane of the coupling constant. Using the method of
inverse Mellin transform, we show that the prescription dependent Borel-Laplace
integral can be cast, under some conditions, into the form of a dispersion
relation in the a-plane. We also discuss some recent works relating resummation
prescriptions, renormalons and nonperturbative effects, and show that a method
proposed recently for obtaining QCD nonperturbative condensates from
perturbation theory is based on special assumptions about the analytic
structure in the coupling plane that are not valid in QCD.Comment: 14 pages, revtex4, 1 eps-figur
Does candidates’ media exposure affect vote shares? Evidence from Pope breaking news
I study the impact of politicians’ media exposure in campaign on their vote share, exploiting an exogenous change in coverage during the Italian 2013 electoral race. Right before the election, the Pope Benedict XVI suddenly resigned and broadcast coverage of politics markedly dropped. Only five days of lower visibility of the right-wing leader and TV tycoon Berlusconi (-26 percentage points) caused a 2 percentage points dip in his vote share, and lead to his defeat by 0.4 percentage points. Following the TV coverage disruption, a part of Berlusconi’s electorate resorted to Internet for political news, and later favored a new party with Internet-centred propaganda
Theory of unitarity bounds and low energy form factors
We present a general formalism for deriving bounds on the shape parameters of
the weak and electromagnetic form factors using as input correlators calculated
from perturbative QCD, and exploiting analyticity and unitarity. The values
resulting from the symmetries of QCD at low energies or from lattice
calculations at special points inside the analyticity domain can beincluded in
an exact way. We write down the general solution of the corresponding Meiman
problem for an arbitrary number of interior constraints and the integral
equations that allow one to include the phase of the form factor along a part
of the unitarity cut. A formalism that includes the phase and some information
on the modulus along a part of the cut is also given. For illustration we
present constraints on the slope and curvature of the K_l3 scalar form factor
and discuss our findings in some detail. The techniques are useful for checking
the consistency of various inputs and for controlling the parameterizations of
the form factors entering precision predictions in flavor physics.Comment: 11 pages latex using EPJ style files, 5 figures; v2 is version
accepted by EPJA in Tools section; sentences and figures improve
from decays: contour-improved versus fixed-order summation in a new QCD perturbation expansion
We consider the determination of from hadronic decays, by
investigating the contour-improved (CI) and the fixed-order (FO)
renormalization group summations in the frame of a new perturbation expansion
of QCD, which incorporates in a systematic way the available information about
the divergent character of the series. The new expansion functions, which
replace the powers of the coupling, are defined by the analytic continuation in
the Borel complex plane, achieved through an optimal conformal mapping. Using a
physical model recently discussed by Beneke and Jamin, we show that the new
CIPT approaches the true results with great precision when the perturbative
order is increased, while the new FOPT gives a less accurate description in the
regions where the imaginary logarithms present in the expansion of the running
coupling are large. With the new expansions, the discrepancy of 0.024 in
between the standard CI and FO summations is reduced to
only 0.009. From the new CIPT we predict , which practically coincides with the result of the
standard FOPT, but has a more solid theoretical basis
Convergence of the expansion of the Laplace-Borel integral in perturbative QCD improved by conformal mapping
The optimal conformal mapping of the Borel plane was recently used to
accelerate the convergence of the perturbation expansions in QCD. In this work
we discuss the relevance of the method for the calculation of the Laplace-Borel
integral expressing formally the QCD Green functions. We define an optimal
expansion of the Laplace-Borel integral in the principal value prescription and
establish conditions under which the expansion is convergent.Comment: 10 pages, no figure
T Cell Leukemia/Lymphoma 1A is essential for mouse epidermal keratinocytes proliferation promoted by insulin-like growth factor 1
T Cell Leukemia/Lymphoma 1A is expressed during B-cell differentiation and, when overexpressed, acts as an oncogene in mouse (Tcl1a) and human (TCL1A) B-cell chronic lymphocytic leukemia (B-CLL) and T-cell prolymphocytic leukemia (T-PLL). Furthermore, in the murine system Tcl1a is expressed in the ovary, testis and in pre-implantation embryos, where it plays an important role in blastomere proliferation and in embryonic stem cell (ESC) proliferation and self-renewal. We have also observed that Tcl1-/-adult mice exhibit alopecia and deep ulcerations. This finding has led us to investigate the role of TCL1 in mouse skin and hair follicles. We have found that TCL1 is expressed in the proliferative structure (i.e.The secondary hair germ) and in the stem cell niche (i.e.The bulge) of the hair follicle during regeneration phase and it is constitutively expressed in the basal layer of epidermis where it is required for the correct proliferative-differentiation program of the keratinocytes (KCs). Taking advantage of the murine models we have generated, including the Tcl1-/-and the K14-TCL1 transgenic mouse, we have analysed the function of TCL1 in mouse KCs and the molecular pathways involved. We provide evidence that in the epidermal compartment TCL1 has a role in the regulation of KC proliferation, differentiation, and apoptosis. In particular, the colony-forming efficiency (CFE) and the insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF1)-induced proliferation are dramatically impaired, while apoptosis is increased, in KCs from Tcl1-/-mice when compared to WT. Moreover, the expression of differentiation markers such as cytokeratin 6 (KRT6), filaggrin (FLG) and involucrin (IVL) are profoundly altered in mutant mice (Tcl1-/-). Importantly, by over-expressing TCL1A in basal KCs of the K14-TCL1 transgenic mouse model, we observed a significant rescue of cell proliferation, differentiation and apoptosis of the mutant phenotype. Finally, we found TCL1 to act, at least in part, via increasing phospho-ERK1/2 and decreasing phospho-P38 MAPK. Hence, our data demonstrate that regulated levels of Tcl1a are necessary for the correct proliferation and differentiation of the interfollicular KC
Infrared renormalons and analyticity structure in pQCD
Relation between the infrared renormalons, the Borel resummation
prescriptions, and the analyticity structure of Green functions in perturbative
QCD (pQCD) is investigated. A specific recently suggested Borel resummation
prescription resulted in the Principal Value and an additional power-suppressed
correction that is consistent with the Operator Product Expansion. Arguments
requiring the finiteness of the result for any power coefficient of the leading
infrared renormalon, and the consistency in the case of the absence of that
renormalon, require that this prescription be modified. The apparently most
natural modification leads to the result represented by the Principal Value.
The analytic structure of the amplitude in the complex coupling plane, obtained
in this way, is consistent with that obtained in the literature by other
methods.Comment: 6 pages, revtex4, 1 eps-figure; improved version - the paragraph
containing Eqs.(18) and (19) is new, as well as the next paragraph; the Title
modified; some references added; version to appear in Phys. Rev.
Improvements to the Method of Dispersion Relations for B Nonleptonic Decays
We bring some clarifications and improvements to the method of dispersion
relations in the external masses variables, that we proposed recently for
investigating the final state interactions in the B nonleptonic decays. We
first present arguments for the existence of an additional term in the
dispersion representation, which arises from an equal-time commutator in the
LSZ formalism and can be approximated by the conventional factorized amplitude.
The reality properties of the spectral function and the Goldberger-Treiman
procedure to perform the hadronic unitarity sum are analyzed in more detail. We
also improve the treatment of the strong interaction part by including the
contributions of both t and u-channel trajectories in the Regge amplitudes.
Applications to the and decays are
presented.Comment: 16 pages, 4 new figures. modifications of the dispersion
representatio
Finding the sigma pole by analytic extrapolation of scattering data
We investigate the determination of the pole from
scattering data below the threshold, including the new precise
results obtained from decay by NA48/2 Collaboration. We discuss also
the experimental status of the threshold parameters and and the
phase shift . In order to reduce the theoretical bias, we use a
large class of analytic parametrizations of the isoscalar -wave, based on
expansions in powers of conformal variables. The pole obtained with
this method is consistent with the prediction based on ChPT and Roy equations.
However, the theoretical uncertainties are now larger, reflecting the
sensitivity of the pole position to the specific parametrizations valid in the
physical region. We conclude that Roy equations offer the most precise method
for the determination of the pole from elastic scattering
Optimising large galaxy surveys for ISW detection
We report on investigations of the power of next generation cosmic microwave
background and large scale structure surveys in constraining the nature of dark
energy through the cross-correlation of the Integrated Sachs Wolfe effect and
the galaxy distribution. First we employ a signal to noise analysis to find the
most appropriate properties of a survey in order to detect the correlated
signal at a level of more than 4 sigma: such a survey should cover more than
35% of the sky, the galaxy distribution should be probed with a median redshift
higher than 0.8, and the number of galaxies detected should be higher than a
few per squared arcmin. We consider the forthcoming surveys DUNE, LSST, SNAP,
PanSTARRS. We then compute the constraints that the DUNE survey can put on the
nature of dark energy (through different parametrizations of its equation of
state) with a standard Fisher matrix analysis. We confirm that, with respect to
pure CMB constraints, cross-correlation constraints help in breaking
degeneracies among the dark energy and the cosmological parameters. Naturally,
the constraining capability is not independent of the choice of the dark energy
model. Despite being weaker than some other probes (like Gravitational
Weak-Lensing), these constraints are complementary to them, being sensitive to
the high-redshift behaviour of the dark energy.Comment: 7 pages, 9 figures, 2 table
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