518 research outputs found
Particle production in models with helicity-0 graviton ghost in de Sitter spacetime
We revisit the problem of the helicity-0 ghost mode of massive graviton in
the de Sitter background. In general, the presence of a ghost particle, which
has negative energy, drives the vacuum to be unstable through pair production
of ghost particles and ordinary particles. In the case that the vacuum state
preserves the de Sitter invariance, the number density created by the pair
production inevitably diverges due to unsuppressed ultra-violet(UV)
contributions. In such cases one can immediately conclude that the model is not
viable. However, in the massive gravity theory we cannot construct a vacuum
state which respects the de Sitter invariance. Therefore the presence of a
ghost does not immediately mean the breakdown of the model. Explicitly
estimating the number density and the energy density of particles created by
the pair production of two conformal scalar particles and one helicity-0 ghost
graviton, we find that these densities both diverge. However, since models with
helicity-0 ghost graviton have no de Sitter invariant vacuum state, it is
rather natural to consider a UV cutoff scale in the three-dimensional momentum
space. Then, even if we take the cutoff scale as large as the Planck scale, the
created number density and energy density are well suppressed. In many models
the cutoff scale is smaller than the Planck scale. In such models the created
number density and the energy density are negligiblly small as long as only the
physics below the cutoff scale is concerned.Comment: 7 pages, 1 figur
No de Sitter invariant vacuum in massive gravity theory with ghost
In this letter we point out that the massive gravity theory with a graviton
ghost mode in de Sitter background cannot possess a de Sitter invariant vacuum
state. In order to avoid a negative norm state, we must associate the creation
operator of the ghost mode with a negative-energy mode function instead of a
positive-energy one as the mode function. Namely, we have to adopt a different
procedure of quantization for a ghost. When a theory has a symmetry mixing a
ghost mode with ordinary non-ghost modes, the choice of a ghost mode is not
unique. However, quantization of a ghost is impossible without specifying a
choice of ghost mode, which breaks the symmetry. For this reason, the vacuum
state cannot respect the symmetry. In the massive gravity theory with a
graviton ghost mode in de Sitter background, the ghost is the helicity-0 mode
of the graviton. This ghost mode is mixed with the other helicity graviton
modes under the action of de Sitter symmetry. Therefore, there is no de Sitter
invariant vacuum in such models. This leads to an interesting possibility that
non-covariant cutoff of the low energy effective theory may naturally arise. As
a result, the instability due to the pair production of a ghost and normal
non-ghost particles gets much milder and that the model may escape from being
rejected.Comment: 5 page
Gauge Group and Topology Change
The purpose of this study is to examine the effect of topology change in the
initial universe. In this study, the concept of -cobordism is introduced to
argue about the topology change of the manifold on which a transformation group
acts. This -manifold has a fiber bundle structure if the group action is
free and is related to the spacetime in Kaluza-Klein theory or
Einstein-Yang-Mills system. Our results revealed that fundamental processes of
compactification in -manifolds. In these processes, the initial high
symmetry and multidimensional universe changes to present universe by the
mechanism which lowers the dimensions and symmetries.Comment: 8 page
Ghosts in the self-accelerating universe
The self-accelerating universe realizes the accelerated expansion of the
universe at late times by large-distance modification of general relativity
without a cosmological constant. The Dvali-Gabadadze-Porrati (DGP) braneworld
model provides an explicit example of the self-accelerating universe. Recently,
the DGP model becomes very popular to study the observational consequences of
the modified gravity models as an alternative to dark energy models in GR.
However, it has been shown that the self-accelerating universe in the DGP model
contains a ghost at the linearized level. The ghost carries negative energy
densities and it leads to the instability of the spacetime. In this article, we
review the origin of the ghost in the self-accelerating universe and explore
the physical implication of the existence of the ghost.Comment: Invited topical review for Classical and Quantum Gravity, 20 pages, 4
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Momentum distribution of accelerated ions in ultra-intense laser-plasma interactions via neutron spectroscopy
Copyright 2003 American Institute of Physics. This article may be downloaded for personal use only. Any other use requires prior permission of the author and the American Institute of Physics. The following article appeared in Physics of Plasmas, 10(9), 3712-3716, 2003 and may be found at http://dx.doi.org/10.1063/1.159365
Measurements of Proton, Helium and Muon Spectra at Small Atmospheric Depths with the BESS Spectrometer
The cosmic-ray proton, helium, and muon spectra at small atmospheric depths
of 4.5 -- 28 g/cm^2 were precisely measured during the slow descending period
of the BESS-2001 balloon flight. The variation of atmospheric secondary
particle fluxes as a function of atmospheric depth provides fundamental
information to study hadronic interactions of the primary cosmic rays with the
atmosphere.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figures, 4 table
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