The Core Composition of a White Dwarf in a Close Double Degenerate System

We report the identification of the double degenerate system NLTT 16249 that comprises a normal, hydrogen-rich (DA) white dwarf and a peculiar, carbon-polluted white dwarf (DQ) showing photospheric traces of nitrogen. We disentangled the observed spectra and constrained the properties of both stellar components. In the evolutionary scenario commonly applied to the sequence of DQ white dwarfs, both carbon and nitrogen would be dredged up from the core. The C/N abundance ratio (~ 50) in the atmosphere of this unique DQ white dwarf suggests the presence of unprocessed material (14N) in the core or in the envelope. Helium burning in the DQ progenitor may have terminated early on the red-giant branch after a mass-ejection event leaving unprocessed material in the core although current mass estimates do not favor the presence of a low-mass helium core. Alternatively, some nitrogen in the envelope may have survived an abridged helium-core burning phase prior to climbing the asymptotic giant-branch. Based on available data, we estimate a relatively short orbital period (P <~ 13 hrs) and on-going spectroscopic observations will help determine precise orbital parameters.Comment: Accepted for publication in ApJ Letter

One-Loop Corrections to the S and T Parameters in a Three Site Higgsless Model

In this paper we compute the the one-loop chiral logarithmic corrections to the S and T parameters in a highly deconstructed Higgsless model with only three sites. In addition to the electroweak gauge bosons, this model contains a single extra triplet of vector states (which we denote \rho^{\pm} and \rho^0), rather than an infinite tower of "KK" modes. We compute the corrections to S and T in 'tHooft-Feynman gauge, including the ghost, unphysical Goldstone-boson, and appropriate "pinch" contributions required to obtain gauge-invariant results for the one-loop self-energy functions. We demonstrate that the chiral-logarithmic corrections naturally separate into two parts, a model-independent part arising from scaling below the \rho mass, which has the same form as the large Higgs-mass dependence of the S or T parameter in the standard model, and a second model-dependent contribution arising from scaling between the \rho mass and the cutoff of the model. The form of the universal part of the one-loop result allows us to correctly interpret the phenomenologically derived limits on the S and T parameters (which depend on a "reference" Higgs-boson mass) in this three-site Higgsless model. Higgsless models may be viewed as dual to models of dynamical symmetry breaking akin to "walking technicolor", and in these terms our calculation is the first to compute the subleading 1/N corrections to the S and T parameters. We also discuss the reduction of the model to the ``two-site'' model, which is the usual electroweak chiral lagrangian, noting the ``non-decoupling'' contributions present in the limit as M_\rho goes to infinity.Comment: 58 pages; uses JHEP and axodraw. Extensively corrected to incorporate consistent perturbative expansion, additional pinch contributions, and running of delocalization parameter. Footnotes adde

Electroweak Corrections and Unitarity in Linear Moose Models

We calculate the form of the corrections to the electroweak interactions in the class of Higgsless models which can be "deconstructed'' to a chain of SU(2) gauge groups adjacent to a chain of U(1) gauge groups, and with the fermions coupled to any single SU(2) group and to any single U(1) group along the chain. The primary advantage of our technique is that the size of corrections to electroweak processes can be directly related to the spectrum of vector bosons ("KK modes"). In Higgsless models, this spectrum is constrained by unitarity. Our methods also allow for arbitrary background 5-D geometry, spatially dependent gauge-couplings, and brane kinetic energy terms. We find that, due to the size of corrections to electroweak processes in any unitary theory, Higgsless models with localized fermions are disfavored by precision electroweak data. Although we stress our results as they apply to continuum Higgsless 5-D models, they apply to any linear moose model including those with only a few extra vector bosons. Our calculations of electroweak corrections also apply directly to the electroweak gauge sector of 5-D theories with a bulk scalar Higgs boson; the constraints arising from unitarity do not apply in this case.Comment: 50 pages, 11 eps figures, typos correcte

Gauged Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with extra dimensions

We investigate phase structure of the D (> 4)-dimensional gauged Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model with $\delta(=D-4)$ extra dimensions compactified on TeV scale, based on the improved ladder Schwinger-Dyson (SD) equation in the bulk. We assume that the bulk running gauge coupling in the SD equation for the SU(N_c) gauge theory with N_f massless flavors is given by the truncated Kaluza-Klein effective theory and hence has a nontrivial ultraviolet fixed point (UVFP). We find the critical line in the parameter space of two couplings, the gauge coupling and the four-fermion coupling, which is similar to that of the gauged NJL model with fixed (walking) gauge coupling in four dimensions. It is shown that in the presence of such walking gauge interactions the four-fermion interactions become ``nontrivial'' even in higher dimensions, similarly to the four-dimensional gauged NJL model. Such a nontriviality holds only in the restricted region of the critical line (``nontrivial window'') with the gauge coupling larger than a non-vanishing value (``marginal triviality (MT)'' point), in contrast to the four-dimensional case where such a nontriviality holds for all regions of the critical line except for the pure NJL point. In the nontrivial window the renormalized effective potential yields a nontrivial interaction which is conformal invariant. The exisitence of the nontrivial window implies ``cutoff insensitivity'' of the physics prediction in spite of the ultraviolet dominance of the dynamics. In the formal limit D -> 4, the nontrivial window coincides with the known condition of the nontriviality of the four-dimensional gauged NJL model, $9/(2N_c) < N_f - N_c < 9/2 N_c$.Comment: 34 pages, 6 figures, references added, to appear in Phys.Rev.D. The title is changed in PR

Isotopic variation of parity violation in atomic ytterbium

We report on measurements of atomic parity violation, made on a chain of ytterbium isotopes with mass numbers A=170, 172, 174, and 176. In the experiment, we optically excite the 6s2 1S0 -> 5d6s 3D1 transition in a region of crossed electric and magnetic fields, and observe the interference between the Stark- and weak-interaction-induced transition amplitudes, by making field reversals that change the handedness of the coordinate system. This allows us to determine the ratio of the weak-interaction-induced electric-dipole (E1) transition moment and the Stark-induced E1 moment. Our measurements, which are at the 0.5% level of accuracy for three of the four isotopes measured, allow a definitive observation of the isotopic variation of the weak-interaction effects in an atom, which is found to be consistent with the prediction of the Standard Model. In addition, our measurements provide information about an additional Z' boson.Comment: 19 pages, 4 figures, 2 table

The Pion Decay Constants and the Rho-Meson Mass at Finite Temperature in the Hidden Local Symmetry

We study the temperature dependence of the pion decay constant and rho-meson mass in the hidden local symmetry model at one loop. Using the standard imaginary time formalism, we include the thermal effect of rho meson as well as that of pion. We show that the pion gives a dominant contribution to the pion decay constant and rho-meson contribution slightly decreases the critical temperature. The rho-meson pole mass increases as T^4/m_\rho^2 at low temperature dominated by the pion-loop effect. At high temperature, although the pion-loop effect decreases the rho-meson mass, the rho-loop contribution overcomes the pion-loop contribution and rho-meson mass increases with temperature. We also show that the conventional parameter a is stable as the temperature increases.Comment: We added a comment on the correction to the rho-meson mass from the omega-pi loop. This is the final version to be published in Phys. Rev. D. 19 pages (LaTeX-RevTeX), 7 PostScript figure

On different lagrangian formalisms for vector resonances within chiral perturbation theory

We study the relation of vector Proca field formalism and antisymmetric tensor field formalism for spin-one resonances in the context of the large N_C inspired chiral resonance Lagrangian systematically up to the order O(p6) and give a transparent prescription for the transition from vector to antisymmetric tensor Lagrangian and vice versa. We also discuss the possibility to describe the spin-one resonances using an alternative "mixed" first order formalism, which includes both types of fields simultaneously, and compare this one with the former two. We also briefly comment on the compatibility of the above lagrangian formalisms with the high-energy constraints for concrete VVP correlator.Comment: 34 pages, 3 figure