1,428 research outputs found
Relaxing Cosmological Constraints on Large Extra Dimensions
We reconsider cosmological constraints on extra dimension theories from the
excess production of Kaluza-Klein gravitons. We point out that, if the normalcy
temperature is above 1 GeV, then graviton states produced at this temperature
will decay early enough that they do not affect the present day dark matter
density, or the diffuse gamma ray background. We rederive the relevant
cosmological constraints for this scenario.Comment: 17 pages, latex, revtex4; added a short discussion of other
constraints, reference
The Zero Age Main Sequence of WIMP burners
We modify a stellar structure code to estimate the effect upon the main
sequence of the accretion of weakly interacting dark matter onto stars and its
subsequent annihilation. The effect upon the stars depends upon whether the
energy generation rate from dark matter annihilation is large enough to shut
off the nuclear burning in the star. Main sequence WIMP burners look much like
protostars moving on the Hayashi track, although they are in principle
completely stable. We make some brief comments about where such stars could be
found, how they might be observed and more detailed simulations which are
currently in progress. Finally we comment on whether or not it is possible to
link the paradoxically young OB stars found at the galactic centre with WIMP
burners.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figs. Matches published versio
Dark Matter Capture in the First Stars: a Power Source and Limit on Stellar Mass
The annihilation of weakly interacting massive particles can provide an
important heat source for the first (Pop. III) stars, potentially leading to a
new phase of stellar evolution known as a "Dark Star". When dark matter (DM)
capture via scattering off of baryons is included, the luminosity from DM
annihilation may dominate over the luminosity due to fusion, depending on the
DM density and scattering cross-section. The influx of DM due to capture may
thus prolong the lifetime of the Dark Stars. Comparison of DM luminosity with
the Eddington luminosity for the star may constrain the stellar mass of zero
metallicity stars; in this case DM will uniquely determine the mass of the
first stars. Alternatively, if sufficiently massive Pop. III stars are found,
they might be used to bound dark matter properties.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures, 3 Tables updated captions and graphs, corrected
grammer, and added citations revised for submission to JCA
3d Spinfoam Quantum Gravity: Matter as a Phase of the Group Field Theory
An effective field theory for matter coupled to three-dimensional quantum
gravity was recently derived in the context of spinfoam models in
hep-th/0512113. In this paper, we show how this relates to group field theories
and generalized matrix models. In the first part, we realize that the effective
field theory can be recasted as a matrix model where couplings between matrices
of different sizes can occur. In a second part, we provide a family of
classical solutions to the three-dimensional group field theory. By studying
perturbations around these solutions, we generate the dynamics of the effective
field theory. We identify a particular case which leads to the action of
hep-th/0512113 for a massive field living in a flat non-commutative space-time.
The most general solutions lead to field theories with non-linear redefinitions
of the momentum which we propose to interpret as living on curved space-times.
We conclude by discussing the possible extension to four-dimensional spinfoam
models.Comment: 17 pages, revtex4, 1 figur
Discriminating Minimal SUGRA and Minimal Gauge Mediation Models at the Early LHC
Among various supersymmetric (SUSY) standard models, the gravity mediation
model with a neutralino LSP and the gauge mediation model with a very light
gravitino are attractive from the cosmological view point. These models have
different scales of SUSY breaking and their underlying physics in high energy
is quite different. However, if the sparticles' decay into the gravitino is
prompt in the latter case, their collider signatures can be similar: multiple
jets and missing transverse momentum. In this paper, we study the
discrimination between these models in minimal cases at the LHC based on the
method using the significance variables in several different modes and show the
discrimination is possible at a very early stage after the discovery.Comment: 29 pages, 3 figures, captions improved, typos corrected, appendix
added, version published in JHE
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Engineering with logic: Rigorous test-oracle specification and validation for TCP/IP and the Sockets API
Conventional computer engineering relies on test-and-debug development processes, with the behavior of common interfaces described (at best) with prose specification documents. But prose specifications cannot be used in test-and-debug development in any automated way, and prose is a poor medium for expressing complex (and loose) specifications.
The TCP/IP protocols and Sockets API are a good example of this: they play a vital role in modern communication and computation, and interoperability between implementations is essential. But what exactly they are is surprisingly obscure: their original development focused on “rough consensus and running code,” augmented by prose RFC specifications that do not precisely define what it means for an implementation to be correct. Ultimately, the actual standard is the de facto one of the common implementations, including, for example, the 15 000 to 20 000 lines of the BSD implementation—optimized and multithreaded C code, time dependent, with asynchronous event handlers, intertwined with the operating system, and security critical.
This article reports on work done in the
Netsem
project to develop lightweight mathematically rigorous techniques that can be applied to such systems: to specify their behavior precisely (but loosely enough to permit the required implementation variation) and to test whether these specifications and the implementations correspond with specifications that are
executable as test oracles
. We developed post hoc specifications of TCP, UDP, and the Sockets API, both of the service that they provide to applications (in terms of TCP bidirectional stream connections) and of the internal operation of the protocol (in terms of TCP segments and UDP datagrams), together with a testable abstraction function relating the two. These specifications are rigorous, detailed, readable, with broad coverage, and rather accurate. Working within a general-purpose proof assistant (HOL4), we developed
language idioms
(within higher-order logic) in which to write the specifications: operational semantics with nondeterminism, time, system calls, monadic relational programming, and so forth. We followed an
experimental semantics
approach, validating the specifications against several thousand traces captured from three implementations (FreeBSD, Linux, and WinXP). Many differences between these were identified, as were a number of bugs. Validation was done using a special-purpose
symbolic model checker
programmed above HOL4.
Having demonstrated that our logic-based engineering techniques suffice for handling real-world protocols, we argue that similar techniques could be applied to future critical software infrastructure at design time, leading to cleaner designs and (via specification-based testing) more robust and predictable implementations. In cases where specification looseness can be controlled, this should be possible with lightweight techniques, without the need for a general-purpose proof assistant, at relatively little cost.EPSRC Programme Grant EP/K008528/1 REMS: Rigorous Engineering for Mainstream Systems
EPSRC Leadership Fellowship EP/H005633 (Sewell)
Royal Society University Research Fellowship (Sewell)
St Catharine's College Heller Research Fellowship (Wansbrough),
EPSRC grant GR/N24872 Wide-area programming: Language, Semantics and Infrastructure Design
EPSRC grant EP/C510712 NETSEM: Rigorous Semantics for Real
Systems
EC FET-GC project IST-2001-33234 PEPITO Peer-to-Peer Computing: Implementation and Theory
CMI UROP internship support (Smith)
EC Thematic Network IST-2001-38957 APPSEM 2
NICTA was funded by the Australian Government's Backing Australia's Ability initiative, in part through the Australian Research Council
Randall-Sundrum black holes and strange stars
It has recently been suggested that the existence of bare strange stars is
incompatible with low scale gravity scenarios. It has been claimed that in such
models, high energy neutrinos incident on the surface of a bare strange star
would lead to catastrophic black hole growth. We point out that for the flat
large extra dimensional case, the parts of parameter space which give rise to
such growth are ruled out by other methods. We then go on to show in detail how
black holes evolve in the the Randall-Sundrum two brane scenario where the
extra dimensions are curved. We find that catastrophic black hole growth does
not occur in this situation either. We also present some general expressions
for the growth of five dimensional black holes in dense media.Comment: 16 pages, more numerics has lead to different path to same
conclusion. Accepted in PR
Coupling gauge theory to spinfoam 3d quantum gravity
We construct a spinfoam model for Yang-Mills theory coupled to quantum
gravity in three dimensional riemannian spacetime. We define the partition
function of the coupled system as a power series in g_0^2 G that can be
evaluated order by order using grasping rules and the recoupling theory. With
respect to previous attempts in the literature, this model assigns the
dynamical variables of gravity and Yang-Mills theory to the same simplices of
the spinfoam, and it thus provides transition amplitudes for the spin network
states of the canonical theory. For SU(2) Yang-Mills theory we show explicitly
that the partition function has a semiclassical limit given by the Regge
discretization of the classical Yang-Mills action.Comment: 18 page
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