20,024 research outputs found
Footballs, Conical Singularities and the Liouville Equation
We generalize the football shaped extra dimensions scenario to an arbitrary
number of branes. The problem is related to the solution of the Liouville
equation with singularities and explicit solutions are presented for the case
of three branes. The tensions of the branes do not need to be tuned with each
other but only satisfy mild global constraints.Comment: 15 pages, Refs. added, minor changes. Typo in eq. 4.3 corrected.
Version to be published in PR
Short distances, black holes, and TeV gravity
The Hawking effect can be rederived in terms of two-point functions and in
such a way that it makes it possible to estimate, within the conventional
semiclassical theory, the contribution of ultrashort distances at to the
Planckian spectrum. Thermality is preserved for black holes with . However, deviations from the Planckian spectrum can be found for mini black
holes in TeV gravity scenarios, even before reaching the Planck phase.Comment: 4 pages. Contribution to the MG11 Meeting (Berlin, July 2006
Large mixing angles for neutrinos from infrared fixed points
Radiative amplification of neutrino mixing angles may explain the large
values required by solar and atmospheric neutrino oscillations. Implementation
of such mechanism in the Standard Model and many of its extensions (including
the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model) to amplify the solar angle, the
atmospheric or both requires (at least two) quasi-degenerate neutrino masses,
but is not always possible. When it is, it involves a fine-tuning between
initial conditions and radiative corrections. In supersymmetric models with
neutrino masses generated through the Kahler potential, neutrino mixing angles
can easily be driven to large values at low energy as they approach infrared
pseudo-fixed points at large mixing (in stark contrast with conventional
scenarios, that have infrared pseudo-fixed points at zero mixing). In addition,
quasi-degeneracy of neutrino masses is not always required.Comment: 36 pages, 7 ps figure
Theoretical Constraints on the Vacuum Oscillation Solution to the Solar Neutrino Problem
The vacuum oscillation (VO) solution to the solar anomaly requires an
extremely small neutrino mass splitting, Delta m^2_{sol}\leq 10^{-10} eV^2. We
study under which circumstances this small splitting (whatever its origin) is
or is not spoiled by radiative corrections. The results depend dramatically on
the type of neutrino spectrum. If m_1^2 \sim m_2^2 \geq m_3^2, radiative
corrections always induce too large mass splittings. Moreover, if m_1 and m_2
have equal signs, the solar mixing angle is driven by the renormalization group
evolution to very small values, incompatible with the VO scenario (however, the
results could be consistent with the small-angle MSW scenario). If m_1 and m_2
have opposite signs, the results are analogous, except for some small (though
interesting) windows in which the VO solution may be natural with moderate
fine-tuning. Finally, for a hierarchical spectrum of neutrinos, m_1^2 << m_2^2
<< m_3^2, radiative corrections are not dangerous, and therefore this scenario
is the only plausible one for the VO solution.Comment: 13 pages, LaTeX, 3 ps figures (psfig.sty
Acceleration radiation, transition probabilities, and trans-Planckian physics
An important question in the derivation of the acceleration radiation, which
also arises in Hawking's derivation of black hole radiance, is the need to
invoke trans-Planckian physics for the quantum field that originates the
created quanta. We point out that this issue can be further clarified by
reconsidering the analysis in terms of particle detectors, transition
probabilities, and local two-point functions. By writing down separate
expressions for the spontaneous- and induced-transition probabilities of a
uniformly accelerated detector, we show that the bulk of the effect comes from
the natural (non trans-Planckian) scale of the problem, which largely
diminishes the importance of the trans-Planckian sector. This is so, at least,
when trans-Planckian physics is defined in a Lorentz invariant way. This
analysis also suggests how to define and estimate the role of trans-Planckian
physics in the Hawking effect itself.Comment: 19 page
Consequences of short range interactions between dark matter and protons in galaxy clusters
Protons gain energy in short range collisions with heavier dark matter
particles (DMPs) of comparable velocity dispersion. We examine the conditions
under which the heating of baryons by scattering off DMPs can offset radiative
cooling in the cores of galaxy clusters. Collisions with a constant cross
section independent of the relative velocity of the colliding particles, cannot
produce stable thermal balance. In this case, avoiding an unrealistic increase
of the central temperatures yields the upper bound on the cross-section,
\sigma_xp<10^-25 cm^2 (m_x/m_p), where m_x and m_p are the DMP and proton mass,
respectively. A stable balance, however, can be achieved for a power law
dependence on the relative velocity, V, of the form \sigma_xp \propto V^a with
a<-3. An advantage of this heating mechanism is that it preserves the metal
gradients observed in clusters.Comment: 7 pages, new calculations include
Unconventional cosmology on the (thick) brane
We consider the cosmology of a thick codimension 1 brane. We obtain the
matching conditions leading to the cosmological evolution equations and show
that when one includes matter with a pressure component along the extra
dimension in the brane energy-momentum tensor, the cosmology is of non-standard
type. In particular one can get acceleration when a dust of non-relativistic
matter particles is the only source for the (modified) Friedman equation. Our
equations would seem to violate the conservation of energy-momentum from a 4D
perspective, but in 5D the energy-momentum is conserved. One could write down
an effective conserved 4D energy-momentum tensor attaching a ``dark energy''
component to the energy-momentum tensor of matter that has pressure along the
extra dimension. This extra component could, on a cosmological scale, be
interpreted as matter-coupled quintessence. We comment on the effective 4D
description of this effect in terms of the time evolution of a scalar field
(the 5D radion) coupled to this kind of matter.Comment: 9 pages, v2. eq.(17) corrected, comments on effective theory change
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