On Extended Electroweak Symmetries

We discuss extensions of the Standard Model through extending the electroweak gauge symmetry. An extended electroweak symmetry requires a list of extra fermionic and scalar states. The former is necessary to maintain cancellation of gauge anomalies, and largely fixed by the symmetry embedding itself. The latter is usually considered quite arbitrary, so long as a vacuum structure admitting the symmetry breaking is allowed. Anomaly cancellation may be used to link the three families of quarks and leptons together, given a perspective on flavor physics. It is illustrated lately that the kind of models may also have the so-called little Higgs mechanism incorporated. This more or less fixes the scalar sector and take care of the hierarchy problem, making such models of extended electroweak symmetries quite appealing candidates as TeV scale effective field theories.Comment: 1+8 pages of latex with ws-procs9x6.cls; talk presented at Coral Gables Conference 200

Little Higgs Model Completed with a Chiral Fermionic Sector

The implementation of the little Higgs mechanism to solve the hierarchy problem provides an interesting guiding principle to build particle physics models beyond the electroweak scale. Most model building works, however, pay not much attention to the fermionic sector. Through a case example, we illustrate how a complete and consistent fermionic sector of the TeV effective field theory may actually be largely dictated by the gauge structure of the model. The completed fermionic sector has specific flavor physics structure, and many phenomenological constraints on the model can thus be obtained beyond gauge, Higgs, and top physics. We take a first look on some of the quark sector constraints.Comment: 14 revtex pages with no figure, largely a re-written version of hep-ph/0307250 with elaboration on flavor sector FCNC constraints; accepted for publication in Phys.Rev.

Nitrous oxide in fresh water systems: An estimate for the yield of atmospheric N2O associated with disposal of human waste

The N2O content of waters in the Potomac and Merrimack Rivers was measured on a number of occasions over the period April to July 1977. The concentrations of dissolved N2O exceeded those which would apply in equilibrium with air by factors ranging from about 46 in the Potomac to 1.2 in the Merrimack. Highest concentrations of dissolved N2O were associated with sewage discharges from the vicinity of Washington, D. C., and analysis indicates a relatively high yield, 1.3 to 11%, for prompt conversion of waste nitrogen to N2O. Measurements of dissolved N2O in fresh water ponds near Boston demonstrated that aquatic systems provide both strong sources and sinks for atmospheric N2O

Eigenstate Structure in Graphs and Disordered Lattices

We study wave function structure for quantum graphs in the chaotic and disordered regime, using measures such as the wave function intensity distribution and the inverse participation ratio. The result is much less ergodicity than expected from random matrix theory, even though the spectral statistics are in agreement with random matrix predictions. Instead, analytical calculations based on short-time semiclassical behavior correctly describe the eigenstate structure.Comment: 4 pages, including 2 figure

A New Experiment to Study Hyperon CP Violation and the Charmonium System

Fermilab operates the world's most intense antiproton source, now exclusively dedicated to serving the needs of the Tevatron Collider. The anticipated 2009 shutdown of the Tevatron presents the opportunity for a world-leading low- and medium-energy antiproton program. We summarize the status of the Fermilab antiproton facility and review physics topics for which a future experiment could make the world's best measurements.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures, to appear in Proceedings of CTP symposium on Supersymmetry at LHC: Theoretical and Experimental Perspectives, The British University in Egypt, Cairo, Egypt, 11-14 March 200

Scarring Effects on Tunneling in Chaotic Double-Well Potentials

The connection between scarring and tunneling in chaotic double-well potentials is studied in detail through the distribution of level splittings. The mean level splitting is found to have oscillations as a function of energy, as expected if scarring plays a role in determining the size of the splittings, and the spacing between peaks is observed to be periodic of period {$2\pi\hbar$} in action. Moreover, the size of the oscillations is directly correlated with the strength of scarring. These results are interpreted within the theoretical framework of Creagh and Whelan. The semiclassical limit and finite-{$\hbar$} effects are discussed, and connections are made with reaction rates and resonance widths in metastable wells.Comment: 22 pages, including 11 figure

Magnetic Hydrogen Atmosphere Models and the Neutron Star RX J1856.5-3754

RX J1856.5-3754 is one of the brightest nearby isolated neutron stars, and considerable observational resources have been devoted to it. However, current models are unable to satisfactorily explain the data. We show that our latest models of a thin, magnetic, partially ionized hydrogen atmosphere on top of a condensed surface can fit the entire spectrum, from X-rays to optical, of RX J1856.5-3754, within the uncertainties. In our simplest model, the best-fit parameters are an interstellar column density N_H \approx 1x10^20 cm^-2 and an emitting area with R^infty \approx 17 km (assuming a distance to RX J1856.5-3754 of 140 pc), temperature T^infty \approx 4.3x10^5 K, gravitational redshift z_g \sim 0.22, atmospheric hydrogen column y_H \approx 1 g cm^-2, and magnetic field B \approx (3-4)x10^12 G; the values for the temperature and magnetic field indicate an effective average over the surface. We also calculate a more realistic model, which accounts for magnetic field and temperature variations over the neutron star surface as well as general relativistic effects, to determine pulsations; we find there exist viewing geometries that produce pulsations near the currently observed limits. The origin of the thin atmospheres required to fit the data is an important question, and we briefly discuss mechanisms for producing these atmospheres. Our model thus represents the most self-consistent picture to date for explaining all the observations of RX J1856.5-3754.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures; MNRAS, accepte

Enhanced chiral logarithms in partially quenched QCD

I discuss the properties of pions in ``partially quenched'' theories, i.e. those in which the valence and sea quark masses, $m_V$ and $m_S$, are different. I point out that for lattice fermions which retain some chiral symmetry on the lattice, e.g. staggered fermions, the leading order prediction of the chiral expansion is that the mass of the pion depends only on $m_V$, and is independent of $m_S$. This surprising result is shown to receive corrections from loop effects which are of relative size $m_S \ln m_V$, and which thus diverge when the valence quark mass vanishes. Using partially quenched chiral perturbation theory, I calculate the full one-loop correction to the mass and decay constant of pions composed of two non-degenerate quarks, and suggest various combinations for which the prediction is independent of the unknown coefficients of the analytic terms in the chiral Lagrangian. These results can also be tested with Wilson fermions if one uses a non-perturbative definition of the quark mass.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures, uses psfig. Typos in eqs (18)-(20) corrected (alpha_4 is replaced by alpha_4/2

Non-thermalization in trapped atomic ion spin chains

Linear arrays of trapped and laser cooled atomic ions are a versatile platform for studying emergent phenomena in strongly-interacting many-body systems. Effective spins are encoded in long-lived electronic levels of each ion and made to interact through laser mediated optical dipole forces. The advantages of experiments with cold trapped ions, including high spatiotemporal resolution, decoupling from the external environment, and control over the system Hamiltonian, are used to measure quantum effects not always accessible in natural condensed matter samples. In this review we highlight recent work using trapped ions to explore a variety of non-ergodic phenomena in long-range interacting spin-models which are heralded by memory of out-of-equilibrium initial conditions. We observe long-lived memory in static magnetizations for quenched many-body localization and prethermalization, while memory is preserved in the periodic oscillations of a driven discrete time crystal state.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figures, submitted for edition of Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A on "Breakdown of ergodicity in quantum systems

Twenty-One Millisecond Pulsars in Terzan 5 Using the Green Bank Telescope

We have discovered 21 millisecond pulsars (MSPs) in the globular cluster Terzan 5 using the Green Bank Telescope, bringing the total of known MSPs in Terzan 5 to 24. These discoveries confirm fundamental predictions of globular cluster and binary system evolution. Thirteen of the new MSPs are in binaries, of which two show eclipses and two have highly eccentric orbits. The relativistic periastron advance for the two eccentric systems indicates that at least one of these pulsars has a mass >1.68 Msun at 95% confidence. Such large neutron star masses constrain the equation of state of matter at or beyond the nuclear equilibrium density.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures. Accepted by Science. Published electronically via Science Express 13 Jan 200