Test of conformal gravity with astrophysical observations

Since it can describe the rotation curves of galaxies without dark matter and can give rise to accelerated expansion, conformal gravity attracts much attention recently. As a theory of modified gravity, it is important to test conformal gravity with astrophysical observations. Here we constrain conformal gravity with SNIa and Hubble parameter data and investigate whether it suffers from an age problem with the age of APM~08279+5255. We find conformal gravity can accommodate the age of APM~08279+5255 at 3 $\sigma$ deviation, unlike most of dark energy models which suffer from an age problem.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figure

The puzzle of anomalously large isospin violations in η(1405/1475)→3π\eta(1405/1475)\to 3\pi

The BES-III Collaboration recently report the observation of anomalously large isospin violations in $J/\psi\to \gamma\eta(1405/1475) \to \gamma \pi^0 f_0(980)\to \gamma +3\pi$, where the $f_0(980)$ in the $\pi\pi$ invariant mass spectrum appears to be much narrower ($\sim$ 10 MeV) than the peak width ($\sim$50 MeV) measured in other processes. We show that a mechanism, named as triangle singularity (TS), can produce a narrow enhancement between the charged and neutral $K\bar{K}$ thresholds, i.e., $2m_{K^\pm}\sim 2m_{K^0}$. It can also lead to different invariant mass spectra for $\eta(1405/1475)\to a_0(980)\pi$ and $K\bar{K}^*+c.c.$, which can possibly explain the long-standing puzzle about the need for two close states $\eta(1405)$ and $\eta(1475)$ in $\eta\pi\pi$ and $K\bar{K}\pi$, respectively. The TS could be a key to our understanding of the nature of $\eta(1405/1475)$ and advance our knowledge about the mixing between $a_0(980)$ and $f_0(980)$.Comment: 4 pages and 7 eps figures; Journal-matched versio

Spectral properties of Sturm-Liouville operators on infinite metric graphs

This paper mainly deals with the Sturm-Liouville operator \begin{equation*} \mathbf{H}=\frac{1}{w(x)}\left( -\frac{\mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}x}p(x)\frac{ \mathrm{d}}{\mathrm{d}x}+q(x)\right) ,\text{ }x\in \Gamma \end{equation*} acting in $L_{w}^{2}\left( \Gamma \right) ,$ where $\Gamma$ is a metric graph. We establish a relationship between the bottom of the spectrum and the positive solutions of quantum graphs, which is a generalization of the classical Allegretto-Piepenbrink theorem. Moreover, we prove the Persson-type theorem, which characterizes the infimum of the essential spectrum