Parity Violation in Astrophysics

Core collapse supernovae are gigantic explosions of massive stars that radiate 99% of their energy in neutrinos. This provides a unique opportunity for large scale parity or charge conjugation violation. Parity violation in a strong magnetic field could lead to an asymmetry in the neutrino radiation and recoil of the newly formed neutron star. Charge conjugation violation in the neutrino-nucleon interaction reduces the ratio of neutrons to protons in the neutrino driven wind above the neutron star. This is a problem for r-process nucleosynthesis in this wind. On earth, parity violation is an excellent probe of neutrons because the weak charge of a neutron is much larger than that of a proton. The Parity Radius Experiment (PREX) at Jefferson Laboratory aims to precisely measure the neutron radius of $^{208}$Pb with parity violating elastic electron scattering. This has many implications for astrophysics, including the structure of neutron stars, and for atomic parity nonconservation experiments.}Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, proceedings of PAVI04 conference in Grenoble, Franc

Proton Differential Elliptic Flow and the Isospin-Dependence of the Nuclear Equation of State

Within an isospin-dependent transport model for nuclear reactions involving neutron-rich nuclei, we study the first-order direct transverse flow of protons and their second-order differential elliptic flow as a function of transverse momentum. It is found that the differential elliptic flow of mid-rapidity protons, especially at high transverse momenta, is much more sensitive to the isospin dependence of the nuclear equation of state than the direct flow. Origins of these different sensitivities and their implications to the experimental determination of the isospin dependence of the nuclear equation of state by using neutron-rich heavy-ion collisions at intermediate energies are discussed.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figures. Phys. Rev. C (2001) in pres

Instanton Moduli and Brane Creation

We obtain new intersecting 5-brane, string and pp-wave solutions in the heterotic string on a torus and on a K3 manifold. In the former case the 5-brane is supported by Yang-Mills instantons, and in the latter case both the 5-brane and the string are supported by the instantons. The instanton moduli are parameterised by the sizes and locations of the instantons. We exhibit two kinds of phase transition in which, for suitable choices of the instanton moduli, a 5-brane and/or a string can be created. One kind of phase transition occurs when the size of an instanton vanishes, while the other occurs when a pair of Yang-Mills instantons coalesce. We also study the associated five-dimensional black holes and the implications of these phase transitions for the black-hole entropy. Specifically, we find that the entropy of the three-charge black holes is zero when the instantons are separated and of non-zero scale size, but becomes non-zero (which can be counted miscrospically) after either of the phase transitions.Comment: 18 pages, Late

Self-consistent description of nuclear compressional modes

Isoscalar monopole and dipole compressional modes are computed for a variety of closed-shell nuclei in a relativistic random-phase approximation to three different parametrizations of the Walecka model with scalar self-interactions. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of self-consistency which by itself, and with little else, guarantees the decoupling of the spurious isoscalar-dipole strength from the physical response and the conservation of the vector current. A powerful new relation is introduced to quantify the violation of the vector current in terms of various ground-state form-factors. For the isoscalar-dipole mode two distinct regions are clearly identified: (i) a high-energy component that is sensitive to the size of the nucleus and scales with the compressibility of the model and (ii) a low-energy component that is insensitivity to the nuclear compressibility. A fairly good description of both compressional modes is obtained by using a ``soft'' parametrization having a compression modulus of K=224 MeV.Comment: 28 pages and 10 figures; submitted to PR

Sensitivity of deexcitation energies of superdeformed secondary minima to the density dependence of symmetry energy with the relativistic mean-field theory

The relationship between deexcitation energies of superdeformed secondary minima relative to ground states and the density dependence of the symmetry energy is investigated for heavy nuclei using the relativistic mean field (RMF) model. It is shown that the deexcitation energies of superdeformed secondary minima are sensitive to differences in the symmetry energy that are mimicked by the isoscalar-isovector coupling included in the model. With deliberate investigations on a few Hg isotopes that have data of deexcitation energies, we find that the description for the deexcitation energies can be improved due to the softening of the symmetry energy. Further, we have investigated deexcitation energies of odd-odd heavy nuclei that are nearly independent of pairing correlations, and have discussed the possible extraction of the constraint on the density dependence of the symmetry energy with the measurement of deexcitation energies of these nuclei.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figure

Wavy Strings: Black or Bright?

Recent developments in string theory have brought forth a considerable interest in time-dependent hair on extended objects. This novel new hair is typically characterized by a wave profile along the horizon and angular momentum quantum numbers $l,m$ in the transverse space. In this work, we present an extensive treatment of such oscillating black objects, focusing on their geometric properties. We first give a theorem of purely geometric nature, stating that such wavy hair cannot be detected by any scalar invariant built out of the curvature and/or matter fields. However, we show that the tidal forces detected by an infalling observer diverge at the `horizon' of a black string superposed with a vibration in any mode with $l \ge 1$. The same argument applied to longitudinal ($l=0$) waves detects only finite tidal forces. We also provide an example with a manifestly smooth metric, proving that at least a certain class of these longitudinal waves have regular horizons.Comment: 45 pages, latex, no figure

Collective modes of asymmetric nuclear matter in Quantum HadroDynamics

We discuss a fully relativistic Landau Fermi liquid theory based on the Quantum Hadro-Dynamics ($QHD$) effective field picture of Nuclear Matter ({\it NM}). From the linearized kinetic equations we get the dispersion relations of the propagating collective modes. We focus our attention on the dynamical effects of the interplay between scalar and vector channel contributions. A beautiful ``mirror'' structure in the form of the dynamical response in the isoscalar/isovector degree of freedom is revealed, with a complete parallelism in the role respectively played by the compressibility and the symmetry energy. All that strongly supports the introduction of an explicit coupling to the scalar-isovector channel of the nucleon-nucleon interaction. In particular we study the influence of this coupling (to a $\delta$-meson-like effective field) on the collective response of asymmetric nuclear matter ($ANM$). Interesting contributions are found on the propagation of isovector-like modes at normal density and on an expected smooth transition to isoscalar-like oscillations at high baryon density. Important ``chemical'' effects on the neutron-proton structure of the mode are shown. For dilute $ANM$ we have the isospin distillation mechanism of the unstable isoscalar-like oscillations, while at high baryon density we predict an almost pure neutron wave structure of the propagating sounds.Comment: 18 pages (LATEX), 8 Postscript figures, uses "epsfig

N=3 Warped Compactifications

Orientifolds with three-form flux provide some of the simplest string examples of warped compactification. In this paper we show that some models of this type have the unusual feature of D=4, N=3 spacetime supersymmetry. We discuss their construction and low energy physics. Although the local form of the moduli space is fully determined by supersymmetry, to find its global form requires a careful study of the BPS spectrum.Comment: 27 pages, v2: 32pp., RevTeX4, fixed factors, slightly improved sections 3D and 4B, v3: added referenc

Singularities In Scalar-Tensor Cosmologies

In this article, we examine the possibility that there exist special scalar-tensor theories of gravity with completely nonsingular FRW solutions. Our investigation in fact shows that while most probes living in such a Universe never see the singularity, gravity waves always do. This is because they couple to both the metric and the scalar field, in a way which effectively forces them to move along null geodesics of the Einstein conformal frame. Since the metric of the Einstein conformal frame is always singular for configurations where matter satisfies the energy conditions, the gravity wave world lines are past inextendable beyond the Einstein frame singularity, and hence the geometry is still incomplete, and thus singular. We conclude that the singularity cannot be entirely removed, but only be made invisible to most, but not all, probes in the theory.Comment: 23 pages, latex, no figure

From Big Crunch to Big Bang

We consider conditions under which a universe contracting towards a big crunch can make a transition to an expanding big bang universe. A promising example is 11-dimensional M-theory in which the eleventh dimension collapses, bounces, and re-expands. At the bounce, the model can reduce to a weakly coupled heterotic string theory and, we conjecture, it may be possible to follow the transition from contraction to expansion. The possibility opens the door to new classes of cosmological models. For example, we discuss how it suggests a major simplification and modification of the recently proposed ekpyrotic scenario.Comment: 16 pages, compressed and RevTex file, including three postscript figure files. Minor changes, version to appear in Physical Review