Broad Band Equilibration of Strangeness

We develop the "broad band equilibration" scenario for kaon productions at GSI energies with in-medium effects.Comment: 4 pages, latex with 2 eps figure, a talk in QM200

Recent Developments on Kaon Condensation and Its Astrophysical Implications

We discuss three different ways to arrive at kaon condensation at n_c = 3 n_0 where n_0 is nuclear matter density: (1) Fluctuating around the n=0 vacuum in chiral perturbation theory, (2) fluctuating around n_VM near the chiral restoration density n_chi where the vector manifestation of hidden local symmetry is reached and (3) fluctuating around the Fermi liquid fixed point at n_0. They all share one common theoretical basis, "hidden local symmetry." We argue that when the critical density n_c < n_chi is reached in a neutron star, the electrons turn into K^- mesons, which go into an S-wave Bose condensate. This reduces the pressure substantially and the neutron star goes into a black hole. Next we develop the argument that the collapse of a neutron star into a black hole takes place for a star of M = 1.5 M_sun. This means that Supernova 1987A had a black hole as result. We also show that two neutron stars in a binary have to be within 4% of each other in mass, for neutron stars sufficiently massive that they escape helium shell burning. For those that are so light that they do have helium shell burning, after a small correction for this they must be within 4% of each other in mass. Observations support the proximity in mass inside of a neutron star binary. The result of strangeness condensation is that there are 5 times more low-mass black-hole, neutron-star binaries than double neutron-star binaries although the former are difficult to observe.Comment: 42 pages, latex, 6 figure

A new state of matter at high temperature as "sticky molasses"

The main objective of this work is to explore the evolution in the structure of the quark-antiquark bound states in going down in the chirally restored phase from the so-called "zero binding points" $T_{zb}$ to the QCD critical temperature $T_c$ at which the Nambu-Goldstone and Wigner-Weyl modes meet. In doing this, we adopt the idea recently introduced by Shuryak and Zahed for charmed $\bar c c$, light-quark $\bar q q$ mesons $\pi, \sigma, \rho, A_1$ and gluons that at $T_{zb}$, the quark-antiquark scattering length goes through $\infty$ at which conformal invariance is restored, thereby transforming the matter into a near perfect fluid behaving hydrodynamically, as found at RHIC. We name this new state of matter as "sticky molasses". We show that the binding of these states is accomplished by the combination of (i) the color Coulomb interaction, (ii) the relativistic effects, and (iii) the interaction induced by the instanton-anti-instanton molecules. The spin-spin forces turned out to be small. While near $T_{zb}$ all mesons are large-size nonrelativistic objects bound by Coulomb attraction, near $T_c$ they get much more tightly bound, with many-body collective interactions becoming important and making the $\sigma$ and $\pi$ masses approach zero (in the chiral limit). The wave function at the origin grows strongly with binding, and the near-local four-Fermi interactions induced by the instanton molecules play an increasingly more important role as the temperature moves downward toward $T_c$.Comment: Invited Talk at KIAS-APCTP Symposium in Astro-Hadron Physics "Compact Stars: Quest for New States of Dense Matter", November 10-14, Seoul, Kore

In-Medium Effects on Charmonium Production in Heavy-Ion Collisions

Charmonium production in heavy-ion collisions is investigated within a kinetic theory framework incorporating in-medium properties of open- and hidden-charm states in line with recent QCD lattice calculations. A continuously decreasing open-charm threshold across the phase boundary of hadronic and quark-gluon matter is found to have important implications for the equilibrium abundance of charmonium states. The survival of $J/\psi$ resonance states above the transition temperature enables their recreation also in the Quark-Gluon Plasma. Including effects of chemical and thermal off-equilibrium, we compare our model results to available experimental data at CERN-SPS and BNL-RHIC energies. In particular, earlier found discrepancies in the $\psi'/\psi$ ratio can be resolved.Comment: 4 pages RevTex including 4 eps-figures. v2: Minor modifications and clarifications, typos corrected, Fig. 4 update

Health Coverage Expansion in California: What Can Consumers Afford to Spend?

Analyzes Californians' current spending on insurance premiums and out-of-pocket expenditures to assess whether proposals to make obtaining health insurance mandatory include sufficient measures to make it affordable for low- and middle-income families

The Case for Hypercritical Accretion in M33 X-7

The spin parameter of the black hole in M33 X-7 has recently been measured to be a*=0.77+-0.05 (Liu et al. 2008). It has been proposed that the spin of the 15.65 M_sun black hole is natal. We show that this is not a viable evolutionary path given the observed binary orbital period of 3.45 days since the explosion that would produce a black hole with the cited spin parameter and orbital period would disrupt the binary. Furthermore, we show that the system has to be evolved through the hypercritical mass transfer of about 5 M_sun from the secondary star to the black hole.Comment: 4 page