Supersymmetry preserving and breaking degenerate vacua, and radiative moduli stabilization

We propose a new type of moduli stabilization scenario where the supersymmetric and supersymmetry-breaking minima are degenerate at the leading level. The inclusion of the loop-corrections originating from the matter fields resolves this degeneracy of vacua. Light axions are predicted in one of our models.Comment: 18 pages, 14 figure

New effective interaction for pfpf-shell nuclei and its implications for the stability of the NN=ZZ=28 closed core

The effective interaction GXPF1 for shell-model calculations in the full $pf$ shell is tested in detail from various viewpoints such as binding energies, electro-magnetic moments and transitions, and excitation spectra. The semi-magic structure is successfully described for $N$ or Z=28 nuclei, $^{53}$Mn, $^{54}$Fe, $^{55}$Co and $^{56,57,58,59}$Ni, suggesting the existence of significant core-excitations in low-lying non-yrast states as well as in high-spin yrast states. The results of $N=Z$ odd-odd nuclei, $^{54}$Co and $^{58}$Cu, also confirm the reliability of GXPF1 interaction in the isospin dependent properties. Studies of shape coexistence suggest an advantage of Monte Carlo Shell Model over conventional calculations in cases where full-space calculations still remain too large to be practical.Comment: 29pages, 26figures, to be published in Physical Review

Superconductivity and antiferromagnetism in the two-dimensional Hubbard model: a variational study

A variational ground state of the repulsive Hubbard model on a square lattice is investigated numerically for an intermediate coupling strength (U = 8t) and for moderate sizes (from 6 x 6 to 10 x 10). Our ansatz is clearly superior to other widely used variational wave functions. The results for order parameters and correlation functions provide new insight for the antiferromagnetic state at half filling as well as strong evidence for a superconducting phase away from half filling.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figure

Gauge coupling unification in SO(32) heterotic string theory with magnetic fluxes

We study $SO(32)$ heterotic string theory on torus with magnetic fluxes. Non-vanishing fluxes can lead to non-universal gauge kinetic functions for $SU(3) \times SU(2) \times U(1)_Y$ which is the important features of $SO(32)$ heterotic string theory in contrast to the $E_8\times E_8$ theory. It is found that the experimental values of gauge couplings are realized with ${\cal O}(1)$ values of moduli fields based on the realistic models with the $SU(3) \times SU(2) \times U(1)_Y$ gauge symmetry and three chiral generations of quarks and leptons without chiral exotics.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figure

El Chichon aerosols in the stratosphere: Analyses of lidar data and calculations of radiation budget

Lidar observation at Fukuoka has provided over four years the data of ElChichon aerosols in the stratosphere. Analyses of the data show that an enormous amount of volcanic aerosols has continuously decreased since the beginning of 1983 with significant fluctuations. These fluctuations reveal themselves as a seasonal variation of aerosol content with a maximum in winter-spring and a minimum in summer. The vertical structure of the aerosol layer also shows the seasonal variation. Although the height of a peak around 18 km in the vertical profile of scattering ratio show littel variation, the higher second peak appears frequently from late fall and the lower third peak from late winter to late spring just as two and more tropopauses appear in these periods. The mechanism which causes the seasonal variation will be discussed in terms of the transport by the atmoshperic circulation and the removal through the tropopause gap. Radiation budget in the atmosphere was calculated taking into account the large amount of aerosols observed in the early stages of the El Chichon event. The heating rate of the atmosphere is more than 1 K in the bottom region of the stratosphere even in the nighttime. The possible effect of the volcanic aerosols on the other geophysical phenomena will be discussed using the calculated values of the heating rate

Sequestered string models imply split supersymmetry

Sequestering is a promising mechanism in 4D string models to reconcile high-scale inflation with low-energy supersymmetry. In this scenario the MSSM lives on branes at singularities and it is sequestered from the sources of supersymmetry breaking in the bulk. The soft-terms are suppressed with respect to the gravitino mass so that all moduli are heavy enough to avoid any cosmological moduli problem. In this paper we study stability bounds and flavour constraints on sequestered string models, finding that they can be satisfied if the soft-terms give rise to a mass spectrum typical of split supersymmetry with TeV-scale gauginos and sfermions around 107 GeV. When instead scalar and gaugino masses are of the same order of magnitude, large flavour changing neutral currents can be avoided only by pushing the soft-terms above 106 GeV. However this scenario is in tension with stability bounds due to the presence of charge and colour breaking vacua which could be populated in the early universe, and the possible emergence of directions along which the potential is unbounded from below