388 research outputs found
Gravitational Lorentz Violations from M-Theory
In an attempt to bridge the gap between M-theory and braneworld
phenomenology, we present various gravitational Lorentz-violating braneworlds
which arise from p-brane systems. Lorentz invariance is still preserved locally
on the braneworld. For certain p-brane intersections, the massless graviton is
quasi-localized. This also results from an M5-brane in a C-field. In the case
of a p-brane perturbed from extremality, the quasi-localized graviton is
massive. For a braneworld arising from global AdS_5, gravitons travel faster
when further in the bulk, thereby apparently traversing distances faster than
light.Comment: 13 pages, 1 figure, LaTeX, references added, minor corrections and
addition
Breakdown of Semiclassical Methods in de Sitter Space
Massless interacting scalar fields in de Sitter space have long been known to
experience large fluctuations over length scales larger than Hubble distances.
A similar situation arises in condensed matter physics in the vicinity of a
critical point, and in this better-understood situation these large
fluctuations indicate the failure in this regime of mean-field methods. We
argue that for non-Goldstone scalars in de Sitter space, these fluctuations can
also be interpreted as signaling the complete breakdown of the semi-classical
methods widely used throughout cosmology. By power-counting the infrared
properties of Feynman graphs in de Sitter space we find that for a massive
scalar interacting through a \lambda \phi^4$ interaction, control over the loop
approximation is lost for masses smaller than m \simeq \sqrt \lambda H/2\pi,
where H is the Hubble scale. We briefly discuss some potential implications for
inflationary cosmology.Comment: 24 pages, 7 figures, v2; added references, clarified the resummation
discussio
Reheating the Universe After Multi-Field Inflation
We study in detail (p)reheating after multi-field inflation models with a
particular focus on N-flation. We consider a variety of different couplings
between the inflatons and the matter sector, including both quartic and
trilinear interactions with a light scalar field. We show that the presence of
multiple oscillating inflatons makes parametric resonance inefficient in the
case of the quartic interactions. Moreover, perturbative processes do not
permit a complete decay of the inflaton for this coupling. In order to recover
the hot big bang, we must instead consider trilinear couplings. In this case we
show that strong nonperturbative preheating is possible via multi-field
tachyonic resonance. In addition, late-time perturbative effects do permit a
complete decay of the condensate. We also study the production of gauge fields
for several prototype couplings, finding similar results to the trilinear
scalar coupling. During the course of our analysis we develop the mathematical
theory of the quasi-periodic Mathieu equation, the multi-field generalization
of the Floquet theory familiar from preheating after single field inflation. We
also elaborate on the theory of perturbative decays of a classical inflaton
condensate, which is applicable in single-field models also.Comment: 46+1 pages, 19 figure
Extracting W Boson Couplings from the Production of Four Leptons
We consider the processes , including all possible charged lepton combinations, with
regard to measuring parameters characterizing the boson. We calculate at
what level these processes can be used to measure anamolous triple-boson
vertice coupling parameters for the cases of colliders at 500
and 1 center of mass energies.Comment: 13 pages,OCIP/C-93-
Precision Electroweak Observables in the Minimal Moose Little Higgs Model
Little Higgs theories, in which the Higgs particle is realized as the
pseudo-Goldstone boson of an approximate global chiral symmetry have generated
much interest as possible alternatives to weak scale supersymmetry. In this
paper we analyze precision electroweak observables in the Minimal Moose model
and find that in order to be consistent with current experimental bounds, the
gauge structure of this theory needs to be modified. We then look for viable
regions of parameter space in the modified theory by calculating the various
contributions to the S and T parameters.Comment: v2: 17 pages, 9 figures. Typeset in JHEP style. Added a references
and two figures showing parameter space for each of two reference points.
Corrected typo
Brane Bremsstrahlung in DBI Inflation
We consider the effect of trapped branes on the evolution of a test brane
whose motion generates DBI inflation along a warped throat. The coupling
between the inflationary brane and a trapped brane leads to the radiation of
non-thermal particles on the trapped brane. We calculate the Gaussian spectrum
of the radiated particles and their backreaction on the DBI motion of the
inflationary brane. Radiation occurs for momenta lower than the speed of the
test brane when crossing the trapped brane. The slowing down effect is either
due to a parametric resonance when the interaction time is small compared to
the Hubble time or a tachyonic resonance when the interaction time is large. In
both cases the motion of the inflationary brane after the interaction is
governed by a chameleonic potential,which tends to slow it down. We find that a
single trapped brane can hardly slow down a DBI inflaton whose fluctuations
lead to the Cosmic Microwave Background spectrum. A more drastic effect is
obtained when the DBI brane encounters a tightly spaced stack of trapped
branes.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figur
Fluctuations of an evaporating black hole from back reaction of its Hawking radiation: Questioning a premise in earlier work
This paper delineates the first steps in a systematic quantitative study of
the spacetime fluctuations induced by quantum fields in an evaporating black
hole. We explain how the stochastic gravity formalism can be a useful tool for
that purpose within a low-energy effective field theory approach to quantum
gravity. As an explicit example we apply it to the study of the
spherically-symmetric sector of metric perturbations around an evaporating
black hole background geometry. For macroscopic black holes we find that those
fluctuations grow and eventually become important when considering sufficiently
long periods of time (of the order of the evaporation time), but well before
the Planckian regime is reached. In addition, the assumption of a simple
correlation between the fluctuations of the energy flux crossing the horizon
and far from it, which was made in earlier work on spherically-symmetric
induced fluctuations, is carefully analyzed and found to be invalid. Our
analysis suggests the existence of an infinite amplitude for the fluctuations
of the horizon as a three-dimensional hypersurface. We emphasize the need for
understanding and designing operational ways of probing quantum metric
fluctuations near the horizon and extracting physically meaningful information.Comment: 10 pages, REVTeX; minor changes, a few references added and a brief
discussion of their relevance included. To appear in the proceedings of the
10th Peyresq meeting. Dedicated to Rafael Sorkin on the occasion of his 60th
birthda
Cosmic Black-Hole Hair Growth and Quasar OJ287
An old result ({\tt astro-ph/9905303}) by Jacobson implies that a black hole
with Schwarzschild radius acquires scalar hair, ,
when the (canonically normalized) scalar field in question is slowly
time-dependent far from the black hole, with
time-independent. Such a time dependence could arise in
scalar-tensor theories either from cosmological evolution, or due to the slow
motion of the black hole within an asymptotic spatial gradient in the scalar
field. Most remarkably, the amount of scalar hair so induced is independent of
the strength with which the scalar couples to matter. We argue that Jacobson's
Miracle Hair-Growth Formula implies, in particular, that an
orbiting pair of black holes can radiate {\em dipole} radiation, provided only
that the two black holes have different masses. Quasar OJ 287, situated at
redshift , has been argued to be a double black-hole binary
system of this type, whose orbital decay recently has been indirectly measured
and found to agree with the predictions of General Relativity to within 6%. We
argue that the absence of observable scalar dipole radiation in this system
yields the remarkable bound on the
instantaneous time derivative at this redshift (as opposed to constraining an
average field difference, , over cosmological times), provided
only that the scalar is light enough to be radiated --- i.e. m \lsim 10^{-23}
eV --- independent of how the scalar couples to matter. This can also be
interpreted as constraining (in a more model-dependent way) the binary's motion
relative to any spatial variation of the scalar field within its immediate
vicinity within its host galaxy.Comment: 20 page
The absence of ABCA1 decreases soluble ApoE levels but does not diminish amyloid deposition in two murine models of Alzheimer disease.
J Biol Chem. 2005 Dec 30;280(52):43243-56. Epub 2005 Oct 5.
The absence of ABCA1 decreases soluble ApoE levels but does not diminish amyloid deposition in two murine models of Alzheimer disease.
Hirsch-Reinshagen V, Maia LF, Burgess BL, Blain JF, Naus KE, McIsaac SA, Parkinson PF, Chan JY, Tansley GH, Hayden MR, Poirier J, Van Nostrand W, Wellington CL.
Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia V4Z 5H5, Canada.
Abstract
ABCA1, a cholesterol transporter expressed in the brain, has been shown recently to be required to maintain normal apoE levels and lipidation in the central nervous system. In addition, ABCA1 has been reported to modulate beta-amyloid (Abeta) production in vitro. These observations raise the possibility that ABCA1 may play a role in the pathogenesis of Alzheimer disease. Here we report that the deficiency of ABCA1 does not affect soluble or guanidine-extractable Abeta levels in Tg-SwDI/B or amyloid precursor protein/presenilin 1 (APP/PS1) mice, but rather is associated with a dramatic reduction in soluble apoE levels in brain. Although this reduction in apoE was expected to reduce the amyloid burden in vivo, we observed that the parenchymal and vascular amyloid load was increased in Tg-SwDI/B animals and was not diminished in APP/PS1 mice. Furthermore, we observed an increase in the proportion of apoE retained in the insoluble fraction, particularly in the APP/PS1 model. These data suggested that ABCA1-mediated effects on apoE levels and lipidation influenced amyloidogenesis in vivo.
PMID: 16207707 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE
Effects of genuine dimension-six Higgs operators
We systematically discuss the consequences of genuine dimension-six Higgs
operators. These operators are not subject to stringent constraints from
electroweak precision data. However, they can modify the couplings of the Higgs
boson to electroweak gauge bosons and, in particular, the Higgs
self-interactions. We study the sensitivity to which those couplings can be
probed at future \ee linear colliders in the sub-TeV and in the multi-TeV
range. We find that for GeV with a luminosity of 1 ab the
anomalous and couplings may be probed to about the 0.01 level, and
the anomalous coupling to about the 0.1 level.Comment: 21 pages, 17 figures; typos corrected and references adde
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