2,720 research outputs found
The controversy in the process: potential scattering or resonance ?
The reaction shows a broad peak at 1.5
GeV in the channel which has no counterpart in the
channel. This "resonance" is considered as a candidate for a
state in the "s-channel". We show, however, that it can also
be explained by potential scattering of via the -
exchange in the "t-channel".Comment: 12 pages, latex, 3 postscript figures, to appear in Zeitschrift fur
Physi
Dirac Equation at Finite Temperature
In this paper, we propose finite temperature Dirac equation, which can
describe the quantum systems in an arbitrary temperature for a relativistic
particle of spin-1/2. When the temperature T=0, it become Dirac equation. With
the equation, we can study the relativistic quantum systems in an arbitrary
temperature.Comment: arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1005.2751,
arXiv:hep-ph/0004125, arXiv:hep-ph/0005272 by other author
Willingness to participate in future HIV prevention studies among gay and bisexual men in Scotland, UK: a challenge for intervention trials
This article examines willingness to participate in future HIV prevention research among gay and bisexual men in Scotland, UK. Anonymous, self-complete questionnaires and Orasure Gäó oral fluid samples were collected in commercial gay venues. 1,320 men were eligible for inclusion. 78.2% reported willingness to participate in future HIV prevention research; 64.6% for an HIV vaccine, 57.4% for a behaviour change study, and 53.0% for a rectal microbicide. In multivariate analysis, for HIV vaccine research, greater age, minority ethnicity, and not providing an oral fluid sample were associated with lower willingness; heterosexual orientation and not providing an oral fluid sample were for microbicides; higher education and greater HIV treatment optimism were for behaviour change. STI testing remained associated with being more willing to participate in microbicide research and frequent gay scene use remained associated with being more willing to participate in behaviour change research. Having an STI in the past 12 months remained significantly associated with being willing to participate in all three study types. There were no associations between sexual risk behaviour and willingness. Although most men expressed willingness to participate in future research, recruitment of high-risk men, who have the potential to benefit most, is likely to be more challenging
Relic densities including Sommerfeld enhancements in the MSSM
We have developed a general formalism to compute Sommerfeld enhancement (SE)
factors for a multi-state system of fermions, in all possible spin
configurations and with generic long-range interactions. We show how to include
such SE effects in an accurate calculation of the thermal relic density for
WIMP dark matter candidates. We apply the method to the MSSM and perform a
numerical study of the relic abundance of neutralinos with arbitrary
composition and including the SE due to the exchange of the W and Z bosons,
photons and Higgses. We find that the relic density can be suppressed by a
factor of a few in a seizable region of the parameter space, mostly for
Wino-like neutralino with mass of a few TeV, and up to an order of magnitude
close to a resonance.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figures; table 1 corrected and rearranged, numerical
results practically unchanged, matches published versio
Quantum black hole entropy and Newton constant renormalization
We discuss the status of the black hole entropy formula in low energy effective field theory. The low energy expansion of the
black hole entropy is studied in a non-equilibrium situation: the semiclassical
decay of hot flat space by black hole nucleation. In this context the entropy
can be defined as an enhancement factor in the semiclassical decay rate, which
is dominated by a sphaleron-like saddle point. We find that all perturbative
divergences appearing in Euclidean calculations of the entropy can be
renormalized in low energy couplings. We also discuss some formal aspects of
the relation between the Euclidean and Hamiltonian approaches to the one loop
corrections to black hole entropy and geometric entropy, and we emphasize the
virtues of the use of covariant regularization prescriptions. In fact, the
definition of black hole entropy in terms of decay rates {\it requires} the use
of covariant measures and accordingly, covariant regularizations in path
integrals. Finally, we speculate on the possibility that low energy effective
field theory could be sufficient to understand the microscopic degrees of
freedom underlying black hole entropy. We propose a qualitative physical
picture in which black hole entropy refers to a space of quasi-coherent states
of infalling matter, together with its gravitational field. We stress that this
scenario might provide a low energy explanation of both the black hole entropy
and the information puzzle.Comment: 24 pages, LaTeX. Several points have been clarified, though results
remain the same. Minor typos corrected, and references updated. Version to
appear in Phys. Rev.
Can sacrificial feeding areas protect aquatic plants from herbivore grazing? Using behavioural ecology to inform wildlife management
Effective wildlife management is needed for conservation, economic and human well-being objectives. However, traditional population control methods are frequently ineffective, unpopular with stakeholders, may affect non-target species, and can be both expensive and impractical to implement. New methods which address these issues and offer effective wildlife management are required. We used an individual-based model to predict the efficacy of a sacrificial feeding area in preventing grazing damage by mute swans (Cygnus olor) to adjacent river vegetation of high conservation and economic value. The accuracy of model predictions was assessed by a comparison with observed field data, whilst prediction robustness was evaluated using a sensitivity analysis. We used repeated simulations to evaluate how the efficacy of the sacrificial feeding area was regulated by (i) food quantity, (ii) food quality, and (iii) the functional response of the forager. Our model gave accurate predictions of aquatic plant biomass, carrying capacity, swan mortality, swan foraging effort, and river use. Our model predicted that increased sacrificial feeding area food quantity and quality would prevent the depletion of aquatic plant biomass by swans. When the functional response for vegetation in the sacrificial feeding area was increased, the food quantity and quality in the sacrificial feeding area required to protect adjacent aquatic plants were reduced. Our study demonstrates how the insights of behavioural ecology can be used to inform wildlife management. The principles that underpin our model predictions are likely to be valid across a range of different resource-consumer interactions, emphasising the generality of our approach to the evaluation of strategies for resolving wildlife management problems
Discrete approaches to quantum gravity in four dimensions
The construction of a consistent theory of quantum gravity is a problem in
theoretical physics that has so far defied all attempts at resolution. One
ansatz to try to obtain a non-trivial quantum theory proceeds via a
discretization of space-time and the Einstein action. I review here three major
areas of research: gauge-theoretic approaches, both in a path-integral and a
Hamiltonian formulation, quantum Regge calculus, and the method of dynamical
triangulations, confining attention to work that is strictly four-dimensional,
strictly discrete, and strictly quantum in nature.Comment: 33 pages, invited contribution to Living Reviews in Relativity; the
author welcomes any comments and suggestion
Light Stop Decay in the MSSM with Minimal Flavour Violation
In supersymmetric scenarios with a light stop particle and a
small mass difference to the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) assumed to
be the lightest neutralino, the flavour changing neutral current decay
can be the dominant decay channel and can
exceed the four-body stop decay for certain parameter values. In the framework
of Minimal Flavour Violation (MFV) this decay is CKM-suppressed, thus inducing
long stop lifetimes. Stop decay length measurements at the LHC can then be
exploited to test models with minimal flavour breaking through Standard Model
Yukawa couplings. The decay width has been given some time ago by an
approximate formula, which takes into account the leading logarithms of the MFV
scale. In this paper we calculate the exact one-loop decay width in the
framework of MFV. The comparison with the approximate result exhibits
deviations of the order of 10% for large MFV scales due to the neglected
non-logarithmic terms in the approximate decay formula. The difference in the
branching ratios is negligible. The large logarithms have to be resummed. The
resummation is performed by the solution of the renormalization group
equations. The comparison of the exact one-loop result and the tree level
flavour changing neutral current decay, which incorporates the resummed
logarithms, demonstrates that the resummation effects are important and should
be taken into account.Comment: 29 page
A New Class of Four-Dimensional N=1 Supergravity with Non-minimal Derivative Couplings
In the N=1 four-dimensional new-minimal supergravity framework, we
supersymmetrise the coupling of the scalar kinetic term to the Einstein tensor.
This coupling, although introduces a non-minimal derivative interaction of
curvature to matter, it does not introduce harmful higher-derivatives. For this
construction, we employ off-shell chiral and real linear multiplets. Physical
scalars are accommodated in the chiral multiplet whereas curvature resides in a
linear one.Comment: 18 pages, version published at JHE
Numerical Hermitian Yang-Mills Connections and Vector Bundle Stability in Heterotic Theories
A numerical algorithm is presented for explicitly computing the gauge
connection on slope-stable holomorphic vector bundles on Calabi-Yau manifolds.
To illustrate this algorithm, we calculate the connections on stable monad
bundles defined on the K3 twofold and Quintic threefold. An error measure is
introduced to determine how closely our algorithmic connection approximates a
solution to the Hermitian Yang-Mills equations. We then extend our results by
investigating the behavior of non slope-stable bundles. In a variety of
examples, it is shown that the failure of these bundles to satisfy the
Hermitian Yang-Mills equations, including field-strength singularities, can be
accurately reproduced numerically. These results make it possible to
numerically determine whether or not a vector bundle is slope-stable, thus
providing an important new tool in the exploration of heterotic vacua.Comment: 52 pages, 15 figures. LaTex formatting of figures corrected in
version 2
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