128 research outputs found
Photoionization of ultracold and Bose-Einstein condensed Rb atoms
Photoionization of a cold atomic sample offers intriguing possibilities to
observe collective effects at extremely low temperatures. Irradiation of a
rubidium condensate and of cold rubidium atoms within a magneto-optical trap
with laser pulses ionizing through 1-photon and 2-photon absorption processes
has been performed. Losses and modifications in the density profile of the
remaining trapped cold cloud or the remaining condensate sample have been
examined as function of the ionizing laser parameters. Ionization
cross-sections were measured for atoms in a MOT, while in magnetic traps losses
larger than those expected for ionization process were measured.Comment: 9 pages, 7 figure
Magnetic trapping of ultracold neutrons
Three-dimensional magnetic confinement of neutrons is reported. Neutrons are
loaded into an Ioffe-type superconducting magnetic trap through inelastic
scattering of cold neutrons with 4He. Scattered neutrons with sufficiently low
energy and in the appropriate spin state are confined by the magnetic field
until they decay. The electron resulting from neutron decay produces
scintillations in the liquid helium bath that results in a pulse of extreme
ultraviolet light. This light is frequency downconverted to the visible and
detected. Results are presented in which 500 +/- 155 neutrons are magnetically
trapped in each loading cycle, consistent with theoretical predictions. The
lifetime of the observed signal, 660 s +290/-170 s, is consistent with the
neutron beta-decay lifetime.Comment: 17 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in Physical Review
The Geological Record of Ocean Acidification
Ocean acidification may have severe consequences for marine ecosystems; however, assessing its future impact is difficult because laboratory experiments and field observations are limited by their reduced ecologic complexity and sample period, respectively. In contrast, the geological record contains long-term evidence for a variety of global environmental perturbations, including ocean acidification plus their associated biotic responses. We review events exhibiting evidence for elevated atmospheric CO2, global warming, and ocean acidification over the past ~300 million years of Earth's history, some with contemporaneous extinction or evolutionary turnover among marine calcifiers. Although similarities exist, no past event perfectly parallels future projections in terms of disrupting the balance of ocean carbonate chemistry—a consequence of the unprecedented rapidity of CO2 release currently taking place
Electroweak Symmetry Breaking via UV Insensitive Anomaly Mediation
Anomaly mediation solves the supersymmetric flavor and CP problems. This is
because the superconformal anomaly dictates that supersymmetry breaking is
transmitted through nearly flavor-blind infrared physics that is highly
predictive and UV insensitive. Slepton mass squareds, however, are predicted to
be negative. This can be solved by adding D-terms for U(1)_Y and U(1)_{B-L}
while retaining the UV insensitivity. In this paper we consider electroweak
symmetry breaking via UV insensitive anomaly mediation in several models. For
the MSSM we find a stable vacuum when tanbeta < 1, but in this region the top
Yukawa coupling blows up only slightly above the supersymmetry breaking scale.
For the NMSSM, we find a stable electroweak breaking vacuum but with a chargino
that is too light. Replacing the cubic singlet term in the NMSSM superpotential
with a term linear in the singlet we find a stable vacuum and viable spectrum.
Most of the parameter region with correct vacua requires a large superpotential
coupling, precisely what is expected in the ``Fat Higgs'' model in which the
superpotential is generated dynamically. We have therefore found the first
viable UV complete, UV insensitive supersymmetry breaking model that solves the
flavor and CP problems automatically: the Fat Higgs model with UV insensitive
anomaly mediation. Moreover, the cosmological gravitino problem is naturally
solved, opening up the possibility of realistic thermal leptogenesis.Comment: 27 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl
Leptogenesis and rescattering in supersymmetric models
The observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe can be due to the
violating decay of heavy right handed (s)neutrinos. The amount of the asymmetry
depends crucially on their number density. If the (s)neutrinos are generated
thermally, in supersymmetric models there is limited parameter space leading to
enough baryons. For this reason, several alternative mechanisms have been
proposed. We discuss the nonperturbative production of sneutrino quanta by a
direct coupling to the inflaton. This production dominates over the
corresponding creation of neutrinos, and it can easily (i.e. even for a rather
small inflaton-sneutrino coupling) lead to a sufficient baryon asymmetry. We
then study the amplification of MSSM degrees of freedom, via their coupling to
the sneutrinos, during the rescattering phase which follows the nonperturbative
production. This process, which mainly influences the (MSSM) flat
directions, is very efficient as long as the sneutrinos quanta are in the
relativistic regime. The rapid amplification of the light degrees of freedom
may potentially lead to a gravitino problem. We estimate the gravitino
production by means of a perturbative calculation, discussing the regime in
which we expect it to be reliable.Comment: (20 pages, 6 figures), references added, typos corrected. Final
version in revte
Black Hole Spin via Continuum Fitting and the Role of Spin in Powering Transient Jets
The spins of ten stellar black holes have been measured using the
continuum-fitting method. These black holes are located in two distinct classes
of X-ray binary systems, one that is persistently X-ray bright and another that
is transient. Both the persistent and transient black holes remain for long
periods in a state where their spectra are dominated by a thermal accretion
disk component. The spin of a black hole of known mass and distance can be
measured by fitting this thermal continuum spectrum to the thin-disk model of
Novikov and Thorne; the key fit parameter is the radius of the inner edge of
the black hole's accretion disk. Strong observational and theoretical evidence
links the inner-disk radius to the radius of the innermost stable circular
orbit, which is trivially related to the dimensionless spin parameter a_* of
the black hole (|a_*| < 1). The ten spins that have so far been measured by
this continuum-fitting method range widely from a_* \approx 0 to a_* > 0.95.
The robustness of the method is demonstrated by the dozens or hundreds of
independent and consistent measurements of spin that have been obtained for
several black holes, and through careful consideration of many sources of
systematic error. Among the results discussed is a dichotomy between the
transient and persistent black holes; the latter have higher spins and larger
masses. Also discussed is recently discovered evidence in the transient sources
for a correlation between the power of ballistic jets and black hole spin.Comment: 30 pages. Accepted for publication in Space Science Reviews. Also to
appear in hard cover in the Space Sciences Series of ISSI "The Physics of
Accretion onto Black Holes" (Springer Publisher). Changes to Sections 5.2,
6.1 and 7.4. Section 7.4 responds to Russell et al. 2013 (MNRAS, 431, 405)
who find no evidence for a correlation between the power of ballistic jets
and black hole spi
Scenarios of modulated perturbations
In an alternative mechanism recently proposed, adiabatic cosmological
perturbations are generated at the decay of the inflaton field due to small
fluctuations of its coupling to matter. This happens whenever the coupling is
governed by the vacuum expectation value of another field, which acquires
fluctuations during inflation. We discuss generalization and various possible
implementations of this mechansim, and present some specific particle physics
examples. In many cases the second field can start oscillating before
perturbations are imprinted, or survive long enough so to dominate over the
decay products of the inflaton. The primordial perturbations will then be
modified accordingly in each case.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figures. Final version to appear in Phys. Rev.
The Spherically Symmetric Standard Model with Gravity
Spherical reduction of generic four-dimensional theories is revisited. Three
different notions of "spherical symmetry" are defined. The following sectors
are investigated: Einstein-Cartan theory, spinors, (non-)abelian gauge fields
and scalar fields. In each sector a different formalism seems to be most
convenient: the Cartan formulation of gravity works best in the purely
gravitational sector, the Einstein formulation is convenient for the Yang-Mills
sector and for reducing scalar fields, and the Newman-Penrose formalism seems
to be the most transparent one in the fermionic sector. Combining them the
spherically reduced Standard Model of particle physics together with the
usually omitted gravity part can be presented as a two-dimensional (dilaton
gravity) theory.Comment: 58 pages, 2 eps figure
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