On the extra factor of two in the phase of neutrino oscillations

Attempts to modify the standard expression for the phase in neutrino oscillations by an extra factor of two are based on misuse of quantum mechanics. Claims to present Bruno Pontecorvo and his coauthors as ``godfathers'' of this ``extra 2'' factor are easily disproved by unbiased reading their articles.Comment: 5 pages, two sentences at the end of the paper are deleted and two are adde

How strong can the coupling of leptonic photons be?

Consequences of possible existence of leptonic photon are considered for a range of values of leptonic charge. In the case of a strong Coulomb-like leptonic repulsion between electrons the existence of ordinary condensed matter is impossible: antineutrinos cannot neutralize this destructive repulsion. The upper limit of leptonic charge is inferred from the E\"{o}tv\"os type experiments. If however there exist light stable scalar bosons with leptonic charge (e.g. singlet antisneutrinos) they may neutralize the electron repulsion. Possible experimental manifestations of such leptonic bosons in gases and condensed matter are briefly discussed.Comment: 13 pages in standard LaTe

Macroscopic Strings and "Quirks" at Colliders

We consider extensions of the standard model containing additional heavy particles ("quirks") charged under a new unbroken non-abelian gauge group as well as the standard model. We assume that the quirk mass m is in the phenomenologically interesting range 100 GeV--TeV, and that the new gauge group gets strong at a scale Lambda < m. In this case breaking of strings is exponentially suppressed, and quirk production results in strings that are long compared to 1/Lambda. The existence of these long stable strings leads to highly exotic events at colliders. For 100 eV < Lambda < keV the strings are macroscopic, giving rise to events with two separated quirk tracks with measurable curvature toward each other due to the string interaction. For keV < Lambda < MeV the typical strings are mesoscopic: too small to resolve in the detector, but large compared to atomic scales. In this case, the bound state appears as a single particle, but its mass is the invariant mass of a quirk pair, which has an event-by-event distribution. For MeV < Lambda < m the strings are microscopic, and the quirks annihilate promptly within the detector. For colored quirks, this can lead to hadronic fireball events with 10^3 hadrons with energy of order GeV emitted in conjunction with hard decay products from the final annihilation.Comment: Added discussion of photon-jet decay, fixed minor typo

First evidence for electroweak radiative corrections from the new precision data

The analysis of the newest data on the leptonic Z-decays and m.sub(W) appears to reveal the first manifestations of electroweak radiative corrections. In fact, these data differ, at the level of 2.sigma., from their electroweak Born values, while they agree, to within 1.sigma., with the theoretical values which take the electroweak radiative corrections into account. Previous data were within 1.sigma. in agreement with both sets of values.The analysis of the newest data on the leptonic $Z$-decays and $m_W$ appears to reveal the first manifestations of electroweak radiative corrections. In fact, these data differ, at the level of $2\sigma$, from their electroweak Born values, while they agree, to within $1\sigma$, with the theoretical values which take the electroweak radiative corrections into account. Previous data were within $1\sigma$ in agreement with both sets of values

Extra quark-lepton generations and precision measurements

The existence of extra chiral generations with all fermions heavier than M_Z is strongly disfavoured by the precision electroweak data. However the data are fitted nicely even by a few extra generations, if one allows neutral leptons to have masses close to 50 GeV. The data allow inclusion of one additional generation of heavy fermions in SUSY extension of Standard Model if chargino and neutralino have masses close to 60 GeV with \Delta m =~ 1 GeV.Comment: 14 pages, 5 figure

On the search for muonic photons in neutrino experiments

Conserved muonic number may turn out to be a conserved muonic charge, coupled to muonic photons, gamma_mu. Muons and muonic neutrinos would emit gamma_mu's, which might be discovered by analysing the data from the past and future high energy neutrino experiments (like CHARM II, CCFR, CHORUS, NOMAD, etc.). There are two sources of gamma_mu's in these experiments: 1) internal bremsstrahlung in pion and kaon decays into mu and nu_mu, which provide neutrino beams; 2) external bremsstrahlung of muons in the shielding of the neutrino beam. In both cases the gamma_mu's would pass freely through the shielding and produce narrow muonic pairs in the neutrino detectors. These pairs could be distinguished from the trident events nu_mu + Z -> nu_mu + mu^+ + mu^- + Z by their kinematical properties: small p_t of the muon pair, small invariant mass, etc. All the above processes are quantitatively analysed in this paper.Comment: 12 pages, latex, 14 figures, LaTEX, PS file and figures in EPS format available at http://marwww.in2p3.fr/leptop/mugamma/mugamma.htm

Trialogue on the number of fundamental constants

This paper consists of three separate articles on the number of fundamental dimensionful constants in physics. We started our debate in summer 1992 on the terrace of the famous CERN cafeteria. In the summer of 2001 we returned to the subject to find that our views still diverged and decided to explain our current positions. LBO develops the traditional approach with three constants, GV argues in favor of at most two (within superstring theory), while MJD advocates zero.Comment: Version appearing in JHEP; 31 pages late

Massive Electrodynamics and the Magnetic Monopoles

We investigate in detail the problem of constructing magnetic monopole solutions within the finite-range electrodynamics (i.e., electrodynamics with non-zero photon mass, which is the simplest extension of the standard theory; it is fully compatible with the experiment). We first analyze the classical electrodynamics with the additional terms describing the photon mass and the magnetic charge; then we look for a solution analogous to the Dirac monopole solution. Next, we plug the found solution into the Schr\"{o}dinger equation describing the interaction between the the magnetic charge and the electron. After that, we try to derive the Dirac quantization condition for our case. Since gauge invariance is lost in massive electrodynamics, we use the method of angular momentum algebra. Under rather general assumptions we prove the theorem that the construction of such an algebra is not possible and therefore the quantization condition cannot be derived. This points to the conclusion that the Dirac monopole and the finite photon mass cannot coexist within one and the same theory. Some physical consequences of this conclusion are considered. The case of t'Hooft-Polyakov monopole is touched upon briefly.Comment: 24 pages, revtex, 1 figure appended as a PostScript fil

Extra generations and discrepancies of electroweak precision data

It is shown that additional chiral generations are not excluded by the latest electroweak precision data if one assumes that there is no mixing with the known three generations. In the case of ``heavy extra generations'', when all four new particles are heavier than $Z$ boson, quality of the fit for the one new generation is as good as for zero new generations (Standard Model). In the case of neutral leptons with masses around 50 GeV (``partially heavy extra generations'') the minimum of $\chi^2$ is between one and two extra generations.Comment: 10 pages, TeX. An additional reference and P.P.S. about heavy higgs are adde

Neutrino Wave Packets in Quantum Field Theory

We present a model of neutrino oscillations in the framework of quantum field theory in which the propagating neutrino and the particles participating to the production and detection processes are described by wave packets. The neutrino state is a superposition of massive neutrino wave packets determined by the production process, as naturally expected from causality. We show that the energies and momenta of the massive neutrino components relevant for neutrino oscillations are in general different from the average energies and momenta of the propagating massive neutrino wave packets, because of the effects of the detection process. Our results confirm the correctness of the standard expression for the oscillation length of extremely relativistic neutrinos and the existence of a coherence length.Comment: 25 page