Could quantum gravity be tested with high intensity Lasers?

In quantum gravity theories Planckian behavior is triggered by the energy of {\it elementary} particles approaching the Planck energy, $E_P$, but it's also possible that anomalous behavior strikes systems of particles with total energy near $E_P$. This is usually perceived to be pathological and has been labelled ``the soccer ball problem''. We point out that there is no obvious contradiction with experiment if {\it coherent} collections of particles with bulk energy of order $E_P$ do indeed display Planckian behavior, a possibility that would open a new experimental window. Unfortunately field theory realizations of deformed special relativity never exhibit a ``soccer ball problem''; we present several formulations where this is undeniably true. Upon closer scrutiny we discover that the only chance for Planckian behavior to be triggered by large coherent energies involves the details of second quantization. We find a formulation where the quanta have their energy-momentum (mass-shell) relations deformed as a function of the bulk energy of the coherent packet to which they belong, rather than the frequency. Given ongoing developments in Laser technology, such a possibility would be of great experimental interest

Quasinormal modes in kink excitations and kink-antikink interactions: a toy model

We study excitations and collisions of kinks in a scalar field theory where the potential has two minima with $Z_2$ symmetry. The field potential is designed to create a square well potential in the stability equation of the kink excitations. The stability equation is analogous to the Schr\"{o}dinger equation, and therefore we use quantum mechanics techniques to study the system. We modify the square well potential continuously, which allows the excitation to tunnel and consequently turns the normal modes of the kink into quasinormal modes. We study the effect of this transition, leading to energy leak, on isolated kink excitations. Finally, we investigate kink-antikink collisions and the resulting scaling and fractal structure of the resonance windows considering both normal and quasinormal modes and compare the results.Comment: 23 pages, 11 figure

New non-Gaussian feature in COBE-DMR Four Year Maps

We extend a previous bispectrum analysis of the Cosmic Microwave Background temperature anisotropy, allowing for the presence of correlations between different angular scales. We find a strong non-Gaussian signal in the ``inter-scale'' components of the bispectrum: their observed values concentrate close to zero instead of displaying the scatter expected from Gaussian maps. This signal is present over the range of multipoles $\ell=6 -18$, in contrast with previous detections. We attempt to attribute this effect to galactic foreground contamination, pixelization effects, possible anomalies in the noise, documented systematic errors studied by the COBE team, and the effect of assumptions used in our Monte Carlo simulations. Within this class of systematic errors the confidence level for rejecting Gaussianity varies between 97% and 99.8%.Comment: Replaced with revised version. Two typos in and around equation (3) have been corrected (components of bispectrum are of the form (l-1, l, l+1) with l even). Published in Ap.J.Let

Discrete and continuous symmetries in multi-Higgs-doublet models

We consider the Higgs sector of multi-Higgs-doublet models in the presence of simple symmetries relating the various fields. We construct basis invariant observables which may in principle be used to detect these symmetries for any number of doublets. A categorization of the symmetries into classes is required, which we perform in detail for the case of two and three Higgs doublets.Comment: 13 pages, RevTex, references adde