4,627 research outputs found
Hypervelocity particle capture: Some considerations regarding suitable target media
Hypervelocity particles colliding with passive capture media will be traversed by shock waves; depending on the stress amplitude, the particle may remain solid or it may melt or vaporize. Any capture mechanism considered for cosmic dust collection in low Earth-orbit must be designed such that sample alteration and hence loss of scientific information is minimized. Capture of pristine particles is fundamentally difficult, because the specific heat of melting and even vaporization is exceeded upon impact at typical, geocentric encounter velocities. From the results of calculated and observed melting behaviors it is concluded that shock stresses in excess of 50 GPA should be avoided during hypervelocity particle capture on board Space Station and that stresses 20 GPa, even at 15 km/s collision velocities, should constitute desirable instrument design goals. Some principal characteristics of the capture medium that may satisfy these requirements are identified
Impact cratering in reduced-gravity environments: Early experiments on the NASA KC-135 aircraft
Impact experimentation on the NASA KC-135 Reduced-Gravity Aircraft was shown to be possible, practical, and of considerable potential use in examining the role of gravity on various impact phenomena. With a minimal facility, crater dimensional and growth-times were measured, and have demonstrated both agreement and disagreement with predictions. A larger facility with vacuum capability and a high-velocity gun would permit a much wider range of experimentation
Neutrino masses in the Lepton Number Violating MSSM
We consider the most general supersymmetric model with minimal particle
content and an additional discrete Z_3 symmetry (instead of R-parity), which
allows lepton number violating terms and results in non-zero Majorana neutrino
masses. We investigate whether the currently measured values for lepton masses
and mixing can be reproduced. We set up a framework in which Lagrangian
parameters can be initialised without recourse to assumptions concerning
trilinear or bilinear superpotential terms, CP-conservation or
intergenerational mixing and analyse in detail the one loop corrections to the
neutrino masses. We present scenarios in which the experimental data are
reproduced and show the effect varying lepton number violating couplings has on
the predicted atmospheric and solar mass^2 differences. We find that with
bilinear lepton number violating couplings in the superpotential of the order 1
MeV the atmospheric mass scale can be reproduced. Certain trilinear
superpotential couplings, usually, of the order of the electron Yukawa coupling
can give rise to either atmospheric or solar mass scales and bilinear
supersymmetry breaking terms of the order 0.1 GeV^2 can set the solar mass
scale. Further details of our calculation, Lagrangian, Feynman rules and
relevant generic loop diagrams, are presented in three Appendices.Comment: 48 pages, 7 figures, v2 references added, typos corrected, published
versio
Divergence-free Nonrenormalizable Models
A natural procedure is introduced to replace the traditional, perturbatively
generated counter terms to yield a formulation of covariant, self-interacting,
nonrenormalizable scalar quantum field theories that has the added virtue of
exhibiting a divergence-free perturbation analysis. To achieve this desirable
goal it is necessary to reexamine the meaning of the free theory about which
such a perturbation takes place.Comment: 22 pages. Version accepted for publication; involves modest addition
to the end of Sec.
Higgs mediated Double Flavor Violating top decays in Effective Theories
The possibility of detecting double flavor violating top quark transitions at
future colliders is explored in a model-independent manner using the effective
Lagrangian approach through the () decays. A
Yukawa sector that contemplates invariants of up to
dimension six is proposed and used to derive the most general flavor violating
and CP violating and vertices of renormalizable type.
Low-energy data, on high precision measurements, and experimental limits are
used to constraint the and vertices and then used to
predict the branching ratios for the decays. It is found
that this branching ratios may be of the order of , for a
relative light Higgs boson with mass lower than , which could be more
important than those typical values found in theories beyond the standard model
for the rare top quark decays () or . %% LHC experiments, by using a total integrated luminosity of of data, will be able to rule out, at 95% C.L., DFV top quark
decays up to a Higgs mass of 155 GeV/ or discover such a process up to a
Higgs mass of 147 GeV/.Comment: 24 pages, 11 figure
Thiemann transform for gravity with matter fields
The generalised Wick transform discovered by Thiemann provides a
well-established relation between the Euclidean and Lorentzian theories of
general relativity. We extend this Thiemann transform to the Ashtekar
formulation for gravity coupled with spin-1/2 fermions, a non-Abelian
Yang-Mills field, and a scalar field. It is proved that, on functions of the
gravitational and matter phase space variables, the Thiemann transform is
equivalent to the composition of an inverse Wick rotation and a constant
complex scale transformation of all fields. This result holds as well for
functions that depend on the shift vector, the lapse function, and the Lagrange
multipliers of the Yang-Mills and gravitational Gauss constraints, provided
that the Wick rotation is implemented by means of an analytic continuation of
the lapse. In this way, the Thiemann transform is furnished with a geometric
interpretation. Finally, we confirm the expectation that the generator of the
Thiemann transform can be determined just from the spin of the fields and give
a simple explanation for this fact.Comment: LaTeX 2.09, 14 pages, no figure
Stress transmission in granular matter
The transmission of forces through a disordered granular system is studied by
means of a geometrical-topological approach that reduces the granular packing
into a set of layers. This layered structure constitutes the skeleton through
which the force chains set up. Given the granular packing, and the region where
the force is applied, such a skeleton is uniquely defined. Within this
framework, we write an equation for the transmission of the vertical forces
that can be solved recursively layer by layer. We find that a special class of
analytical solutions for this equation are L\'evi-stable distributions. We
discuss the link between criticality and fragility and we show how the
disordered packing naturally induces the formation of force-chains and arches.
We point out that critical regimes, with power law distributions, are
associated with the roughness of the topological layers. Whereas, fragility is
associated with local changes in the force network induced by local granular
rearrangements or by changes in the applied force. The results are compared
with recent experimental observations in particulate matter and with computer
simulations.Comment: 14 pages, Latex, 5 EPS figure
Dynamical Symmetry Breaking in Planar QED
We investigate (2+1)-dimensional QED coupled with Dirac fermions both at zero
and finite temperature. We discuss in details two-components (P-odd) and
four-components (P-even) fermion fields. We focus on P-odd and P-even Dirac
fermions in presence of an external constant magnetic field. In the spontaneous
generation of the magnetic condensate survives even at infinite temperature. We
also discuss the spontaneous generation of fermion mass in presence of an
external magnetic field.Comment: 34 pages, 8 postscript figures, final version to appear on J. Phys.
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