They are Small Worlds After All: Revised Properties of Kepler M Dwarf Stars and their Planets

We classified the reddest ($r-J>2.2$) stars observed by the NASA $Kepler$ mission into main sequence dwarf or evolved giant stars and determined the properties of 4216 M dwarfs based on a comparison of available photometry with that of nearby calibrator stars, as well as available proper motions and spectra. We revised the properties of candidate transiting planets using the stellar parameters, high-resolution imaging to identify companion stars, and, in the case of binaries, fitting light curves to identify the likely planet host. In 49 of 54 systems we validated the primary as the host star. We inferred the intrinsic distribution of M dwarf planets using the method of iterative Monte Carlo simulation. We compared several models of planet orbital geometry and clustering and found that one where planets are exponentially distributed and almost precisely coplanar best describes the distribution of multi-planet systems. We determined that $Kepler$ M dwarfs host an average of $2.2 \pm 0.3$ planets with radii of 1-4$R_{\oplus}$ and orbital periods of 1.5-180 d. The radius distribution peaks at $\sim 1.2R_{\oplus}$ and is essentially zero at $4R_{\oplus}$, although we identify three giant planet candidates other than the previously confirmed Kepler-45b. There is suggestive but not significant evidence that the radius distribution varies with orbital period. The distribution with logarithmic orbital period is flat except for a decline for orbits less than a few days. Twelve candidate planets, including two Jupiter-size objects, experience an irradiance below the threshold level for a runaway greenhouse on an Earth-like planet and are thus in a "habitable zone".Comment: MNRAS, in press. Tables 1, 3, and 4 are available in electronic form in the "anc" director

A study of unmanned mission opportunities to comets and asteroids

Several unmanned multiple-target mission opportunities to comets and asteroids were studied. The targets investigated include Grigg-Skjellerup, Giacobini-Zinner, Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak, Borrelly, Halley, Schaumasse, Geographos, Eros, Icarus, and Toro, and the trajectories consist of purely ballistic flight, except that powered swingbys and deep space burns are employed when necessary. Optimum solar electric rendezvous trajectories to the comets Giacobini-Zinner/85, Borrelly/87, and Temple (2)/83 and /88 employing the 8.67 kw Sert III spacecraft modified for interplanetary flight were also investigated. The problem of optimizing electric propulsion heliocentric trajectories, including the effects of geocentric launch asymptote declination on launch vehicle performance capability, was formulated, and a solution developed using variational calculus techniques. Improvements were made to the HILTOP trajectory optimization computer program. An error analysis of high-thrust maneuvers involving spin-stabilized spacecraft was developed and applied to a synchronous meteorological satellite mission

Alternative experimental evidence for chiral restoration in excited baryons

Given existing empirical spectral patterns of excited hadrons it has been suggested that chiral symmetry is approximately restored in excited hadrons at zero temperature/density (effective symmetry restoration). If correct, this implies that mass generation mechanisms and physics in excited hadrons is very different as compared to the lowest states. One needs an alternative and independent experimental information to confirm this conjecture. Using very general chiral symmetry arguments it is shown that strict chiral restoration in a given excited nucleon forbids its decay into the N \pi channel. Hence those excited nucleons which are assumed from the spectroscopic patterns to be in approximate chiral multiplets must only "weakly" decay into the N \pi channel, (f_{N^*N\pi}/f_{NN\pi})^2 << 1. However, those baryons which have no chiral partner must decay strongly with a decay constant comparable with f_{NN\pi}. Decay constants can be extracted from the existing decay widths and branching ratios. It turnes out that for all those well established excited nucleons which can be classified into chiral doublets N_+(1440) - N_-(1535), N_+(1710) - N_-(1650), N_+(1720) - N_-(1700), N_+(1680) - N_-(1675), N_+(2220) - N_-(2250), N_+(?) - N_-(2190), N_+(?) - N_-(2600), the ratio is (f_{N^*N\pi}/f_{NN\pi})^2 ~ 0.1 or much smaller for the high-spin states. In contrast, the only well established excited nucleon for which the chiral partner cannot be identified from the spectroscopic data, N(1520), has a decay constant into the N\pi channel that is comparable with f_{NN\pi}. This gives an independent experimental verification of the chiral symmetry restoration scenario.Comment: 4 pp. A new footnote with an alternative proof of impossibility of parity doublet decay into pi + N is added. To appear in Phys. Rev. Let

Resonant Leptogenesis and Verifiable Seesaw from Large Extra Dimensions

In the presence of large extra dimensions, the fundamental scale could be as low as a few TeV. This yields leptogenesis and seesaw at a TeV scale. Phenomenologically two TeV-scale Majorana fermions with a small mass split can realize a resonant leptogenesis whereas a TeV-scale Higgs triplet with a small trilinear coupling to the standard model Higgs doublet can give a verifiable seesaw. We propose an interesting scenario where the small parameters for the resonant leptogenesis and the type-II seesaw can be simultaneously generated by the propagation of lepton number violation from distant branes to our world.Comment: 5 pages. More discussions and references. Published in PR

See-Saw Energy Scale and the LSND Anomaly

The most general, renormalizable Lagrangian that includes massive neutrinos contains ``right-handed neutrino'' Majorana masses of order M. While there are prejudices in favor of M much larger than the weak scale, virtually nothing is known about the magnitude of M. I argue that the LSND anomaly provides, currently, the only experimental hint: M around 1 eV. If this is the case, the LSND mixing angles are functions of the active neutrino masses and mixing and, remarkably, adequate fits to all data can be naturally obtained. I also discuss consequences of this ``eV-seesaw'' for supernova neutrino oscillations, tritium beta-decay, neutrinoless double-beta decay, and cosmology.Comment: revtex, 4 pages, no figure

Resonant Leptogenesis in the Minimal B-L Extended Standard Model at TeV

We investigate the resonant leptogenesis scenario in the minimal B-L extended standard model(SM) with the B-L symmetry breaking at the TeV scale. Through detailed analysis of the Boltzmann equations, we show how much the resultant baryon asymmetry via leptogenesis is enhanced or suppressed, depending on the model parameters, in particular, the neutrino Dirac Yukawa couplings and the TeV-scale Majorana masses of heavy degenerate neutrinos. In order to consider a realistic case, we impose a simple ansatz for the model parameters and analyze the neutrino oscillation parameters and the baryon asymmetry via leptogenesis as a function of only a single CP-phase. We find that for a fixed CP-phase all neutrino oscillation data and the observed baryon asymmetry of the present universe can be simultaneously reproduced.Comment: 25 pages, 15 figures, version to be published in Phys. Rev.

Numerical indications of a q-generalised central limit theorem

We provide numerical indications of the $q$-generalised central limit theorem that has been conjectured (Tsallis 2004) in nonextensive statistical mechanics. We focus on $N$ binary random variables correlated in a {\it scale-invariant} way. The correlations are introduced by imposing the Leibnitz rule on a probability set based on the so-called $q$-product with $q \le 1$. We show that, in the large $N$ limit (and after appropriate centering, rescaling, and symmetrisation), the emerging distributions are $q_e$-Gaussians, i.e., $p(x) \propto [1-(1-q_e) \beta(N) x^2]^{1/(1-q_e)}$, with $q_e=2-\frac{1}{q}$, and with coefficients $\beta(N)$ approaching finite values $\beta(\infty)$. The particular case $q=q_e=1$ recovers the celebrated de Moivre-Laplace theorem.Comment: Minor improvements and corrections have been introduced in the new version. 7 pages including 4 figure