Chiral Phase Transition in Lattice QCD with Wilson Quarks

The nature of the chiral phase transition in lattice QCD is studied for the cases of 2, 3 and 6 flavors with degenerate Wilson quarks, mainly on a lattice with the temporal direction extension $N_t=4$. We find that the chiral phase transition is continuous for the case of 2 flavors, while it is of first order for 3 and 6 flavors.Comment: uuencoded compressed tar file, LaTeX, 14 pages, 7 figure

Post-Oligarchic Evolution of Protoplanetary Embryos and the Stability of Planetary Systems

We investigate the orbit-crossing time (T_c) of protoplanet systems both with and without a gas-disk background. The protoplanets are initially with equal masses and separation (EMS systems) scaled by their mutual Hill's radii. In a gas-free environment, we find log (T_c/yr) = A+B \log (k_0/2.3). Through a simple analytical approach, we demonstrate that the evolution of the velocity dispersion in an EMS system follows a random walk. The stochastic nature of random-walk diffusion leads to (i) an increasing average eccentricity ~ t^1/2, where t is the time; (ii) Rayleigh-distributed eccentricities (P(e,t)=e/\sigma^2 \exp(-e^2/(2\sigma^2)) of the protoplanets; (iii) a power-law dependence of T_c on planetary separation. As evidence for the chaotic diffusion, the observed eccentricities of known extra solar planets can be approximated by a Rayleigh distribution. We evaluate the isolation masses of the embryos, which determine the probability of gas giant formation, as a function of the dust and gas surface densities.Comment: 15 pages, 13 figures (2 color ones), accepted for publication in Ap

QCD Phase Transition with Strange Quark in Wilson Formalism for Fermions

The nature of QCD phase transition is studied with massless up and down quarks and a light strange quark, using the Wilson formalism for quarks on a lattice with the temporal direction extension $N_t=4$. We find that the phase transition is first order in the cases of both about 150 MeV and 400 MeV for the strange quark mass. These results together with those for three degenerate quarks suggest that QCD phase transition in nature is first order.Comment: uuencoded compressed tar file, LaTeX, 13 pages, 9 figures, Minor errors for quoting references are corrected and a reference is adde

Quasi-free Standing Epitaxial Graphene on SiC by Hydrogen Intercalation

Quasi-free standing epitaxial graphene is obtained on SiC(0001) by hydrogen intercalation. The hydrogen moves between the 6root3 reconstructed initial carbon layer and the SiC substrate. The topmost Si atoms which for epitaxial graphene are covalently bound to this buffer layer, are now saturated by hydrogen bonds. The buffer layer is turned into a quasi-free standing graphene monolayer with its typical linear pi-bands. Similarly, epitaxial monolayer graphene turns into a decoupled bilayer. The intercalation is stable in air and can be reversed by annealing to around 900 degrees Celsius.Comment: Accepted for publication in Physical Review Letter

Finite Temperature Transitions in Lattice QCD with Wilson Quarks --- Chiral Transitions and the Influence of the Strange Quark ---

The nature of finite temperature transitions in lattice QCD with Wilson quarks is studied near the chiral limit for the cases of 2, 3, and 6 flavors of degenerate quarks ($N_F=2$, 3, and 6) and also for the case of massless up and down quarks and a light strange quark ($N_F=2+1$). Our simulations mainly performed on lattices with the temporal direction extension $N_t=4$ indicate that the finite temperature transition in the chiral limit (chiral transition) is continuous for $N_F=2$, while it is of first order for $N_F=3$ and 6. We find that the transition is of first order for the case of massless up and down quarks and the physical strange quark where we obtain a value of $m_\phi/m_\rho$ consistent with the physical value. We also discuss the phase structure at zero temperature as well as that at finite temperatures.Comment: uuencoded compressed tar file, 70 pages, 32 figure

The string tension in SU(N) gauge theory from a careful analysis of smearing parameters

We report a method to select optimal smearing parameters before production runs and discuss the advantages of this selection for the determination of the string tension.Comment: Contribution to Lat97 poster session, title was 'How to measure the string tension', 3 pages, 5 colour eps figure

Testing improved actions for dynamical Kogut-Susskind quarks

We extend tests of "Naik" and "fat link" improvements of the Kogut-Susskind quark action to full QCD simulations, and verify that the improvements previously demonstrated in the quenched approximation apply also to dynamical quark simulations. We extend the study of flavor symmetry improvement to the complete set of pions, and find that the nonlocal pions are significantly heavier than the local non-Goldstone pion. These results can be used to estimate the lattice spacing necessary for realistic simulations with this action.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX, PostScript figures include

A doorway to Borromean halo nuclei: the Samba configuration

We exploit the possibility of new configurations in three-body halo nuclei - Samba type - (the neutron-core form a bound system) as a doorway to Borromean systems. The nuclei $^{12}$Be, $^{15}$B, $^{23}$N and $^{27}$F are of such nature, in particular $^{23}$N with a half-life of 37.7 s and a halo radius of 6.07 fm is an excellent example of Samba-halo configuration. The fusion below the barrier of the Samba halo nuclei with heavy targets could reveal the so far elusive enhancement and a dominance of one-neutron over two-neutron transfers, in contrast to what was found recently for the Borromean halo nucleus $^6$He + $^{238}$U.Comment: Accepted for publication in Modern Physics Letters

Time dependent CP asymmetry in B0→ρ0γB^0 \to \rho^0 \gamma decay to probe the origin of CP violation

Since the CP violation in the $B$ system has been investigated up to now only through processes related to the $B$--$\bar{B}$ mixing, urgently required is new way of study for the CP violation and establishing its origin in the $B$ system independent of the mixing process. In this work, we explore the exclusive $B^0 \to \rho^0 \gamma$ decay to obtain the time-dependent CP asymmetry in $b \to d$ decay process in the standard model and the supersymmetric model. We find that the complex RL and RR mass insertion to the squark sector in the MSSM can lead to a large CP asymmetry in $b \to d \gamma$ decay through the gluino-squark diagrams, which is not predicted in the Standard Model induced by the $B$--$\bar{B}$ mixing.Comment: 10 pages, 4 eps figure

Nonstandard optics from quantum spacetime

We study light propagation in the picture of semi-classical space-time that emerges in canonical quantum gravity in the loop representation. In such picture, where space-time exhibits a polymer-like structure at microscales, it is natural to expect departures from the perfect non-dispersiveness of ordinary vacuum. We evaluate these departures, computing the modifications to Maxwell's equations due to quantum gravity, and showing that under certain circumstances, non-vanishing corrections appear that depend on the helicity of propagating waves. These effects could lead to observable cosmological predictions of the discrete nature of quantum spacetime. In particular, recent observations of non-dispersiveness in the spectra of gamma-ray bursts at various energies could be used to constrain the type of semi-classical state that describes the universe.Comment: 4 pages, RevTeX, no figure