Symmetry Nonrestoration at High Temperature in Little Higgs Models

A detailed study of the high temperature dynamics of the scalar sector of Little Higgs scenarios, proposed to stabilize the electroweak scale, shows that the electroweak gauge symmetry remains broken even at temperatures much larger than the electroweak scale. Although we give explicit results for a particular modification of the Littlest Higgs model, we expect that the main features are generic. As a spin-off, we introduce a novel way of dealing with scalar fluctuations in nonlinear sigma models, which might be of interest for phenomenological applications.Comment: 23 pages, LaTeX, 4 figure

Soliton solutions of the improved quark mass density-dependent model at finite temperature

The improved quark mass density-dependent model (IQMDD) based on soliton bag model is studied at finite temperature. Appling the finite temperature field theory, the effective potential of the IQMDD model and the bag constant $B(T)$ have been calculated at different temperatures. It is shown that there is a critical temperature $T_{C}\simeq 110 \mathrm{MeV}$. We also calculate the soliton solutions of the IQMDD model at finite tmperature. It turns out that when $T<T_{C}$, there is a bag constant $B(T)$ and the soliton solutions are stable. However, when $T>T_{C}$ the bag constant $B(T)=0$ and there is no soliton solution, therefore, the confinement of quarks are removed quickly.Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures; Version to appear in Physical Review

1/N Expansion in Correlated Graphene

We examine the 1/N expansion, where N is the number of two-component Dirac fermions, for Coulomb interactions in graphene with a gap of magnitude $\Delta = 2 m$. We find that for $N\alpha\gg1$, where $\alpha$ is graphene's "fine structure constant", there is a crossover as a function of distance $r$ from the usual 3D Coulomb law, $V(r) \sim 1/r$, to a 2D Coulomb interaction, $V(r) \sim \ln(N\alpha/mr)$, for $m^{-1} \ll r \ll m^{-1} N \alpha/6$. This effect reflects the weak "confinement" of the electric field in the graphene plane. The crossover also leads to unusual renormalization of the quasiparticle velocity and gap at low momenta. We also discuss the differences between the interaction potential in gapped graphene and usual QED for different coupling regimes.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures; expanded presentation, references adde

Extended Thomas-Fermi Density Functional for the Unitary Fermi Gas

We determine the energy density $\xi (3/5) n \epsilon_F$ and the gradient correction $\lambda \hbar^2(\nabla n)^2/(8m n)$ of the extended Thomas-Fermi (ETF) density functional, where $n$ is number density and $\epsilon_F$ is Fermi energy, for a trapped two-components Fermi gas with infinite scattering length (unitary Fermi gas) on the basis of recent diffusion Monte Carlo (DMC) calculations [Phys. Rev. Lett. {\bf 99}, 233201 (2007)]. In particular we find that $\xi=0.455$ and $\lambda=0.13$ give the best fit of the DMC data with an even number $N$ of particles. We also study the odd-even splitting $\gamma N^{1/9} \hbar \omega$ of the ground-state energy for the unitary gas in a harmonic trap of frequency $\omega$ determining the constant $\gamma$. Finally we investigate the effect of the gradient term in the time-dependent ETF model by introducing generalized Galilei-invariant hydrodynamics equations.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, 1 table; corrected some typos; published in Phys. Rev. A; added erratum: see also the unpublished diploma thesis of Marco Manzoni (supervisors: N. Manini and L. Salasnich) at http://www.mi.infm.it/manini/theses/manzoni.pd

Three-dimensional Roton-Excitations and Supersolid formation in Rydberg-excited Bose-Einstein Condensates

We study the behavior of a Bose-Einstein condensate in which atoms are weakly coupled to a highly excited Rydberg state. Since the latter have very strong van der Waals interactions, this coupling induces effective, nonlocal interactions between the dressed ground state atoms, which, opposed to dipolar interactions, are isotropically repulsive. Yet, one finds partial attraction in momentum space, giving rise to a roton-maxon excitation spectrum and a transition to a supersolid state in three-dimensional condensates. A detailed analysis of decoherence and loss mechanisms suggests that these phenomena are observable with current experimental capabilities.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figure

Fermion Energies in the Background of a Cosmic String

We provide a thorough exposition, including technical and numerical details, of previously published results on the quantum stabilization of cosmic strings. Stabilization occurs through the coupling to a heavy fermion doublet in a reduced version of the standard model. We combine the vacuum polarization energy of fermion zero-point fluctuations and the binding energy of occupied energy levels, which are of the same order in a semi-classical expansion. Populating these bound states assigns a charge to the string. We show that strings carrying fermion charge become stable if the electro-weak bosons are coupled to a fermion that is less than twice as heavy as the top quark. The vacuum remains stable in our model, because neutral strings are not energetically favored. These findings suggests that extraordinarily large fermion masses or unrealistic couplings are not required to bind a cosmic string in the standard model.Comment: 38 pages, 6 figures, version accepted for publication in Phys Rev