12,084 research outputs found
Investigation of single-crystal ferrite thin film
Chemical vapor deposition growth of epitaxial single crystal lithium ferrite thin film
Phase transitions and bubble nucleations for a phi^6 model in curved spacetime
Condsidering a massive self-interacting phi ^6 scalar field coupled
arbitrarily to a (2+1) dimensional Bianchi type-I spacetime, we evaluate the
one-loop effective potential. It is found that phi ^6 potential can be
regularized in (2+1) dimensional curved spacetime. A finite expression for the
energy-momentum tensor is obtained for this model. Evaluating the finite
temperature effective potential, the temperature dependence of phase
transitions is studied. The crucial dependence of the phase transitions on the
spacetime curvature and on the coupling to gravity are also verified. We also
discuss the nucleation of bubbles in a phi ^6 model. It is found that there
exists an exact solution for the damped motion of the bubble in the thin wall
regime.Comment: 15 pages, 6 figure
Cumulative luminosity functions of the X-ray point source population in M31
We present preliminary results from a detailed analysis of the X-ray point
sources in the XMM-Newton survey of M31. These sources are expected to be
mostly X-ray binaries. We have so far studied 225 of the 535 sources found by
automated source detection. Only sources which were present in all three EPIC
images were considered. X-ray binaries are identified by their energy spectrum
and power density spectrum. Unlike in other surveys we have obtained source
luminosities from freely fit emission models. We present uncorrected luminosity
functions of the sources analysed so far.Comment: 2 pages, 1 figure. To appear in proceedings of IAUS23
Leptogenesis implications in models with Abelian family symmetry and one extra real Higgs singlet
We show that the neutrino models, as suggested by Low, which have an
additional Abelian family symmetry and a real Higgs singlet to the default
see-saw do not hinder the possibility of successful thermal leptogenesis. For
these models (neglecting radiative effects), we have investigated the situation
of strong washout in both the one-flavor approximation and when flavor effects
are included. The result is that while such models predict that theta_{13}=0
and that one light neutrino to be massless, they do not modify or provide
significant constraints on the typical leptogenesis scenario where the final
asymmetry is dominated by the decays of the lightest right-handed neutrinos.Comment: 18 pages, RevTeX4, accepted by Phys. Rev. D. v2: minor corrections,
note and 1 ref. added, same content as published versio
A Spinor Theory of Gravity and the Cosmological Framework
Recently we have presented a new formulation of the theory of gravity based
on an implementation of the Einstein Equivalence Principle distinct from
General Relativity. The kinetic part of the theory - that describes how matter
is affected by the modified geometry due to the gravitational field - is the
same as in General Relativity. However, we do not consider the metric as an
independent field. Instead, it is an effective one, constructed in terms of two
fundamental spinor fields and and thus the metric does not
have a dynamics of its own, but inherits its evolution through its relation
with the fundamental spinors. In the first paper it was shown that the metric
that describes the gravitational field generated by a compact static and
spherically symmetric configuration is very similar to the Schwarzschild
metric. In the present paper we describe the cosmological framework in the
realm of the Spinor Theory of Gravity
Potentially Large One-loop Corrections to WIMP Annihilation
We compute one-loop corrections to the annihilation of non--relativistic
particles due to the exchange of a (gauge or Higgs) boson with
mass in the initial state. In the limit this leads to
the "Sommerfeld enhancement" of the annihilation cross section. However, here
we are interested in the case \mu \lsim m_\chi, where the one--loop
corrections are well--behaved, but can still be sizable. We find simple and
accurate expressions for annihilation from both and wave initial
states; they differ from each other if . In order to apply our
results to the calculation of the relic density of Weakly Interacting Massive
Particles (WIMPs), we describe how to compute the thermal average of the
corrected cross sections. We apply this formalism to scalar and Dirac fermion
singlet WIMPs, and show that the corrections are always very small in the
former case, but can be very large in the latter. Moreover, in the context of
the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, these corrections can decrease the
relic density of neutralinos by more than 1%, if the lightest neutralino is a
strongly mixed state.Comment: 25 pages, 8 figures. Added an appendix showing that the approximation
works well in a scalar toy model. To be published in PRD
Femtolensing and Picolensing by Axion Miniclusters
Non-linear effects in the evolution of the axion field in the early Universe
may lead to the formation of gravitationally bound clumps of axions, known as
``miniclusters.'' Minicluster masses and radii should be in the range and cm, and in plausible
early-Universe scenarios a significant fraction of the mass density of the
Universe may be in the form of axion miniclusters. If such axion miniclusters
exist, they would have the physical properties required to be detected by
``femtolensing.''Comment: 7 pages plus 2 figures (Fig.1 avalible upon request), LaTe
XMM-Newton reveals ~100 new LMXBs in M31 from variability studies
We have conducted a survey of X-ray sources in XMM-Newton observations of
M31, examining their power density spectra (PDS) and spectral energy
distributions (SEDs). Our automated source detection yielded 535 good X-ray
sources; to date, we have studied 225 of them. In particular, we examined the
PDS because low mass X-ray binaries (LMXBs) exhibit two distinctive types of
PDS. At low accretion rates, the PDS is characterised by a broken power law,
with the spectral index changing from ~0 to ~1 at some frequency in the range
\~0.01--1 Hz; we refer to such PDS as Type A. At higher accretion rates, the
PDS is described by a simple power law; we call these PDS Type B. Of the 225
sources studied to date, 75 exhibit Type A variability, and are almost
certainly LMXBs, while 6 show Type B but not Type A, and are likely LMXBs. Of
these 81 candidate LMXBs, 71 are newly identified in this survey; furthermore,
they are mostly found near the centre of M31. Furthermore, most of the X-ray
population in the disc are associated with the spiral arms, making them likely
high mass X-ray binaries (HMXBs). In general these HMXBs do not exhibit Type A
variability, while many central X-ray sources (LMXBs) in the same luminosity
range do. Hence the PDS may distinguish between LMXBs and HMXBs in this
luminosity range.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures. To appear in proceedings of IAUS230: "Populations
of High Energy Sources in Galaxies", 14-19 August 2005, Dublin, Eds E.J.A.
Meurs and G. Fabbian
Hill's Equation with Random Forcing Parameters: The Limit of Delta Function Barriers
This paper considers random Hill's equations in the limit where the periodic
forcing function becomes a Dirac delta function. For this class of equations,
the forcing strength , the oscillation frequency \af_k, and the period
are allowed to vary from cycle to cycle. Such equations arise in astrophysical
orbital problems in extended mass distributions, in the reheating problem for
inflationary cosmologies, and in periodic Schr{\"o}dinger equations. The growth
rates for solutions to the periodic differential equation can be described by a
matrix transformation, where the matrix elements vary from cycle to cycle.
Working in the delta function limit, this paper addresses several coupled
issues: We find the growth rates for the matrices that describe
the solutions. This analysis is carried out in the limiting regimes of both
large and small forcing strength parameters. For the
latter case, we present an alternate treatment of the dynamics in terms of a
Fokker-Planck equation, which allows for a comparison of the two approaches.
Finally, we elucidate the relationship between the fundamental parameters
(\af_k,q_k) appearing in the stochastic differential equation and the matrix
elements that specify the corresponding discrete map. This work provides
analytic -- and accurate -- expressions for the growth rates of these
stochastic differential equations in both the and the
limits.Comment: 29 pages, 3 figures, accepted to Journal of Mathematical Physic
Probing the stability of superheavy dark matter particles with high-energy neutrinos
Two of the most fundamental properties of the dark matter particle, the mass
and the lifetime, are only weakly constrained by the astronomical and
cosmological evidence of dark matter. We derive in this paper lower limits on
the lifetime of dark matter particles with masses in the range 10 TeV-10^15 TeV
from the non-observation of ultrahigh energy neutrinos in the AMANDA, IceCube,
Auger and ANITA experiments. For dark matter particles which produce neutrinos
in a two body or a three body decay, we find that the dark matter lifetime must
be longer than O(10^26-10^28) s for masses between 10 TeV and the Grand
Unification scale. Finally, we also calculate, for concrete particle physics
scenarios, the limits on the strength of the interactions that induce the dark
matter decay.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures; v2: references added, discussion improved,
matches the version published at JCA
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