920 research outputs found
Feminist Futures: Trauma, the Post-9/11 World and a Fourth Feminism?
This article will engage with the possibilities of feminist futures. That there is no monolithic feminism is a good, it at times uncomfortable, fact: positions, actions and knowledge – constantly being contested, questioned, and debated – mean that feminism is alive and well, and always changing in accord with larger social, historical and political changes. However, the ways in which social and political conditions on both local and global levels are impacting on feminism must be addressed. The post-9/11 world is one in which we need to re-think what feminisms have achieved and how the various groups positioned under the term “feminisms” can move forward. Have we arrived at the need for a “fourth” feminism in a so-called era of “terror”? This article will address the challenges future feminism face because of feminist histories: achieving some modest goals; recognizing what new directions past knowledge makes possible; addressing globalization and new technologies; and, assessing the possible impact of 9/11 on feminist futures
Neutrino Oscillations as a Probe of Dark Energy
We consider a class of theories in which neutrino masses depend significantly
on environment, as a result of interactions with the dark sector. Such theories
of mass varying neutrinos (MaVaNs) were recently introduced to explain the
origin of the cosmological dark energy density and why its magnitude is
apparently coincidental with that of neutrino mass splittings. In this Letter
we argue that in such theories neutrinos can exhibit different masses in matter
and in vacuum, dramatically affecting neutrino oscillations. Both long and
short baseline experiments are essential to test for these interactions. As an
example of modifications to the standard picture, we consider simple models
which may simultaneously account for the LSND anomaly, KamLAND, K2K and studies
of solar and atmospheric neutrinos, while providing motivation to continue to
search for neutrino oscillations in short baseline experiments such as BooNE.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, refs added, additional data considered, minor
change in conclusions about LSN
Gauge/Anomaly Syzygy and Generalized Brane World Models of Supersymmetry Breaking
In theories in which SUSY is broken on a brane separated from the MSSM matter
fields, supersymmetry breaking is naturally mediated in a variety of ways.
Absent other light fields in the theory, gravity will mediate supersymmetry
breaking through the conformal anomaly. If gauge fields propagate in the extra
dimension they, too, can mediate supersymmetry breaking effects. The presence
of gauge fields in the bulk motivates us to consider the effects of new
messenger fields with holomorphic and non-holomorphic couplings to the
supersymmetry breaking sector. These can lead to contributions to the soft
masses of MSSM fields which dramatically alter the features of brane world
scenarios of supersymmetry breaking. In particular, they can solve the negative
slepton mass squared problem of anomaly mediation and change the predictions of
gaugino mediation.Comment: 4 pages, RevTe
- …