Why the Water Bridge does not collapse

In 2007 an interesting phenomenon was discovered: a thread of water, the so-called water bridge (WB), can hang between two glass beakers filled with deionized water if voltage is applied to them. We analyze the available explanations of the WB stability and propose a completely different one: the force that supports the WB is the surface tension of water and the role of electric field is not to allow the WB to reduce its surface energy by means of breaking into separate drops.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

DNA waves and water

Some bacterial and viral DNA sequences have been found to induce low frequency electromagnetic waves in high aqueous dilutions. This phenomenon appears to be triggered by the ambient electromagnetic background of very low frequency. We discuss this phenomenon in the framework of quantum field theory. A scheme able to account for the observations is proposed. The reported phenomenon could allow to develop highly sensitive detection systems for chronic bacterial and viral infections.Comment: Invited talk at the DICE2010 Conference, Castiglioncello, Italy September 201

Pure Gravity Mediation with m_{3/2} = 10-100TeV

Recently, the ATLAS and CMS collaborations reported exciting hints of a Standard Model-like Higgs boson with a mass around 125GeV. Such a Higgs boson mass can be easily obtained in the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model based on the "pure gravity mediation model" where the sfermion masses and the Higgs mass parameters are in tens to hundreds TeV range while the gauginos are in the hundreds GeV to TeV range. In this paper, we discuss detalis of the gaugino mass spectrum in the pure gravity mediation model. We also discuss the signals of the model at the current and future experiments such as cosmic ray observations and the LHC experiments. In particular, we show that the parameter space which is consistent with the thermal leptogenesis can be fully surveyed experimentally in the foreseeable future.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figure

More Visible Effects of the Hidden Sector

There is a growing appreciation that hidden sector dynamics may affect the supersymmetry breaking parameters in the visible sector (supersymmetric standard model), especially when the dynamics is strong and superconformal. We point out that there are effects that have not been previously discussed in the literature. For example, the gaugino masses are suppressed relative to the gravitino mass. We discuss their implications in the context of various mediation mechanisms. The issues discussed include anomaly mediation with singlets, the mu (B mu) problem in gauge and gaugino mediation, and distinct mass spectra for the superparticles that have not been previously considered.Comment: 25 pages; small clarifications and corrections, version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Neutrino Masses in Split Supersymmetry

We investigate the possibility to generate neutrino masses in the context of Split supersymmetric scenarios where all sfermions are very heavy. All relevant contributions coming from the R-parity violating terms to the neutrino mass matrix up to one-loop level are computed, showing the importance of the Higgs one-loop corrections. We conclude that it is not possible to generate all neutrino masses and mixings in Split SUSY with bilinear R-Parity violating interactions. In the case of Partial Split SUSY the one-loop Higgs contributions are enough to generate the neutrino masses and mixings in agreement with the experiment. In the context of minimal SUSY SU(5) we find new contributions which help us to generate neutrino masses in the case of Split SUSY.Comment: 33 pages, 6 figures, to appear in Physical Review

Quark-antiquark pair production in space-time dependent fields

Fermion-antifermion pair-production in the presence of classical fields is described based on the retarded and advanced fermion propagators. They are obtained by solving the equation of motion for the Dirac Green's functions with the respective boundary conditions to all orders in the field. Subsequently, various approximation schemes fit for different field configurations are explained. This includes longitudinally boost-invariant forms. Those occur frequently in the description of ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions in the semiclassical limit. As a next step, the gauge invariance of the expression for the expectation value of the number of produced fermion-antifermion pairs as a functional of said propagators is investigated in detail. Finally, the calculations are carried out for a longitudinally boost-invariant model-field, taking care of the last issue, especially.Comment: 32 pages, 8 figures, revised versio

Direct Detection of the Wino- and Higgsino-like Neutralino Dark Matters at One-Loop Level

The neutralino-nucleon (\tilde{\chi}^0-N) scattering is an important process for direct dark matter searches. In this paper we discuss one-loop contributions to the cross section in the wino-like and Higgsino-like LSP cases. The neutralino-nucleon scattering mediated by the Higgs \tilde{\chi}^0\tilde{\chi}^0 and Z\tilde{\chi}^0\tilde{\chi}^0 couplings at tree level is suppressed by the gaugino-Higgsino mixing at tree level when the neutralino is close to a weak eigenstate. The one-loop contribution to the cross section, generated by the gauge interaction, is not suppressed by any SUSY particle mass or mixing in the wino- and Higgsino-like LSP cases. It may significantly alter the total cross section when \sigma_{\tilde{\chi}^0 N}\sim 10^{-45} cm^2 or less.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures. Version to be published in Physical Review

The Minimal Model for Dark Matter and Unification

Gauge coupling unification and the success of TeV-scale weakly interacting dark matter are usually taken as evidence of low energy supersymmetry (SUSY). However, if we assume that the tuning of the higgs can be explained in some unnatural way, from environmental considerations for example, SUSY is no longer a necessary component of any Beyond the Standard Model theory. In this paper we study the minimal model with a dark matter candidate and gauge coupling unification. This consists of the SM plus fermions with the quantum numbers of SUSY higgsinos, and a singlet. It predicts thermal dark matter with a mass that can range from 100 GeV to around 2 TeV and generically gives rise to an electric dipole moment that is just beyond current experimental limits, with a large portion of its allowed parameter space accessible to next generation EDM and direct detection experiments. We study precision unification in this model by embedding it in a 5-D orbifold GUT where certain large threshold corrections are calculable, achieving gauge coupling and b-tau unification, and predicting a rate of proton decay just beyond current limits.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figures. v2: Minor typos and Reference errors corrected. Modified explanation of the KK mode contribution to runnin

COVID-19 and the impact on the cranio-oro-facial trauma care in Italy: An epidemiological retrospective cohort study

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has deeply modified the organization of hospitals, health care centers, and the patient’s behavior. The aim of this epidemiological retrospective cohort study is to evaluate if and how the COVID-19 pandemic has determined a modification in cranio-oro-facial traumatology service. Methods: The dataset included hospital emergency room access of a six-month pre-pandemic period and six months into pandemic outbreak. The variables collected were: patient age, gender, type of emergency access with relative color code, Glasgow Coma Scale Score, type of discharge. Results: 537 vs 237 (pre-pandemic vs pandemic) patients accessed the hospital emergency room and the mean age decreased from 60.79 ± 25.34 to 56.75 ± 24.50 year. Yellow and green code access went from 28.9% and 66.1% to 37.5% and 57.7% (pre-pandemic vs pandemic). Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS) shows an increase of 16.6% vs 27.8% of 15 grade score, a 28.7% vs 28.5% of the 14 grade score and reduction of 13 and 12 grade 40.2% and 14.5% vs 37.1 and 9.7% (pre-pandemic vs pandemic). Conclusions: Since the COVID-19 outbreak continues, epidemiological data are still necessary to perform public health intervention strategies and to appropriately predict the population needs, in order to properly manage the COVID-19 related to oral pathologies as well as the most common health problems