The Dispersive Approach to Electroweak Processes in the Background Magnetic Field

We propose a new method to compute amplitudes of electroweak processes in the strong background magnetic field, using $\gamma\to e^+e^-$ as an example. We show that the {\it moments} of $\gamma\to e^+e^-$ width are proportional to the derivatives of photon polarization function at the zero energy. Hence, the pair-production width can be easily calculated from the latter by the inverse Mellin transform. The prospects of our approach are commented.Comment: 3 pages, talk presented in DPF2000, Aug. 9-12, Ohio State

Conducting Carbon Wires in Ordered, Nanometer-Sized Channels

The encapsulation of graphite-type carbon wires in the regular, 3-nanometer-wide hexagonal channels of the mesoporous host MCM-41 is reported. Acrylonitrile monomers are introduced through vapor or solution transfer and polymerized in the channels with external radical initiators. Pyrolysis of the intrachannel polyacrylonitrile results in filaments whose microwave conductivity is about 10 times that of bulk carbonized polyacrylonitrile. The MCM host plays a key role in ordering the carbon structure, most likely through the parallel alignment of the precursor polymer chains in the channels. The fabrication of stable carbon filaments in ordered, nanometer-sized channels represents an important step toward the development of nanometer electronics

Warps and Cosmic Infall

N-body simulations show that when infall reorientates the outer parts of a galactic halo by several degrees per Gyr, a self-gravitating disk that is embedded in the halo develops an integral-sign warp that is comparable in amplitude to observed warps. Studies of angular-momentum acquisition suggest that the required rate of halo reorientation is realistic for galaxies like the Milky Way.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, submitted to MNRAS on June 19, 199

The Orbit and Mass of the Sagittarius Dwarf Galaxy

Possible orbital histories of the Sgr dwarf galaxy are explored. A special-purpose N-body code is used to construct the first models of the Milky Way - Sgr Dwarf system in which both the Milky Way and the Sgr Dwarf are represented by full N-body systems and followed for a Hubble time. These models are used to calibrate a semi-analytic model of the Dwarf's orbit that enable us to explore a wider parameter space than is accessible to the N-body models. We conclude that the extant data on the Dwarf are compatible with a wide range of orbital histories. At one extreme the Dwarf initially possesses 10^{11} Solar Mass and starts from a Galactocentric distance 200 kpc. At the other extreme the Dwarf starts with 10^9 Solar Mass and Galactocentric distance 60 kpc, similar to its present apocentric distance. In all cases the Dwarf is initially dark-matter dominated and the current velocity dispersion of the Dwarf's dark matter is tightly constrained to be 21 km/s. This number is probably compatible with the smaller measured dispersion of the Dwarf's stars because of (a) the dynamical difference between dark and luminous matter, and (b) velocity anisotropy.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figures, submitted to MNRAS on August 3, 199

On non hadronic origin of high energy neutrinos

Some of the non hadronic interactions, such as the \eta resonance formation in the \gamma \gamma interactions and the muon pair production in the e\gamma interactions, are identified as possible source interactions for generating high energy neutrinos in the cosmos.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure, talk given at First NCTS Workshop on Astroparticle Physics, 6-9 December, 2001, Kenting, Taiwan (to appear in its proceedings edited by H. Athar, Guey-Lin Lin, and K.-W. Ng