The Antighost Equation in N=1 Super-Yang-Mills Theories

The antighost equation valid for usual gauge theories in the Landau gauge, is generalized to the case of $N=1$ supersymmetric gauge theories in a supersymmetric version of the Landau gauge. This equation, which expresses the nonrenormalization of the Faddeev-Popov ghost field, plays an important role in the proof of the nonrenormalization theorems for the chiral anomalies.Comment: 8 pages, for the sake of clarity expressions (3.1) and (3.2) have been modified. Due to an E-mail error, the old file was empt

LAGEOS-type Satellites in Critical Supplementary Orbit Configuration and the Lense-Thirring Effect Detection

In this paper we analyze quantitatively the concept of LAGEOS--type satellites in critical supplementary orbit configuration (CSOC) which has proven capable of yielding various observables for many tests of General Relativity in the terrestrial gravitational field, with particular emphasis on the measurement of the Lense--Thirring effect.Comment: LaTex2e, 20 pages, 7 Tables, 6 Figures. Changes in Introduction, Conclusions, reference added, accepted for publication in Classical and Quantum Gravit

Supersymmetric Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons theory

We prove that three-dimensional N=1 supersymmetric Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons theory is finite to all loops. This leaves open the possibility that different regularization methods give different finite effective actions. We show that for this model dimensional regularization and regularization by dimensional reduction yield the same effective action.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, latex, espcrc2. Contribution to the Proceedings of the 30th Ahrenshoop Symposium on the Theory of Elementary Particles, edited by D. Lust, H.-J. Otto and G. Weigt, to appear in Nuclear Physics B, Proceedings Supplemen

Will the recently approved LARES mission be able to measure the Lense-Thirring effect at 1%?

After the approval by the Italian Space Agency of the LARES satellite, which should be launched at the end of 2009 with a VEGA rocket and whose claimed goal is a about 1% measurement of the general relativistic gravitomagnetic Lense-Thirring effect in the gravitational field of the spinning Earth, it is of the utmost importance to reliably assess the total realistic accuracy that can be reached by such a mission. The observable is a linear combination of the nodes of the existing LAGEOS and LAGEOS II satellites and of LARES able to cancel out the impact of the first two even zonal harmonic coefficients of the multipolar expansion of the classical part of the terrestrial gravitational potential representing a major source of systematic error. While LAGEOS and LAGEOS II fly at altitudes of about 6000 km, LARES will be placed at an altitude of 1450 km. Thus, it will be sensitive to much more even zonals than LAGEOS and LAGEOS II. Their corrupting impact \delta\mu has been evaluated by using the standard Kaula's approach up to degree L=70 along with the sigmas of the covariance matrices of eight different global gravity solutions (EIGEN-GRACE02S, EIGEN-CG03C, GGM02S, GGM03S, JEM01-RL03B, ITG-Grace02s, ITG-Grace03, EGM2008) obtained by five institutions (GFZ, CSR, JPL, IGG, NGA) with different techniques from long data sets of the dedicated GRACE mission. It turns out \delta\mu about 100-1000% of the Lense-Thirring effect. An improvement of 2-3 orders of magnitude in the determination of the high degree even zonals would be required to constrain the bias to about 1-10%.Comment: Latex, 15 pages, 1 table, no figures. Final version matching the published one in General Relativity and Gravitation (GRG

The contribution of TEM to solving issues in the oogenesis of lower metazoans: a comparison between Acoela and rhabditophoran Platyhelminthes

The chapter reports data on the oogenesis and eggshell formation in some Acoela obtained by our group over the years by means of transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and cytochemical techniques. In this review we show how TEM and appropriate cytochemical methods have been helpful in clarifying issues related to female germ cell differentiation and more in general to the cellular aspects of the reproductive biology in these lower metazoans. The ultrastructural findings have been compared with those from other Acoelomorpha (Acoela + Nemertodermatida) and rhabditophoran Platyhelminthe

Can noncommutativity resolve the Big-Bang singularity?

A possible way to resolve the singularities of general relativity is proposed based on the assumption that the description of space-time using commuting coordinates is not valid above a certain fundamental scale. Beyond that scale it is assumed that the space-time has noncommutative structure leading in turn to a resolution of the singularity. As a first attempt towards realizing the above programme a modification of the Kasner metric is constructed which is commutative only at large time scales. At small time scales, near the singularity, the commutation relations among the space coordinates diverge. We interpret this result as meaning that the singularity has been completely delocalized.Comment: Latex, 13 pages, 2 figures, accepted for publication in EPJ

Conservative evaluation of the uncertainty in the LAGEOS-LAGEOS II Lense-Thirring test

We deal with the test of the general relativistic gravitomagnetic Lense-Thirring effect currently ongoing in the Earth's gravitational field with the combined nodes \Omega of the laser-ranged geodetic satellites LAGEOS and LAGEOS II. One of the most important source of systematic uncertainty on the orbits of the LAGEOS satellites, with respect to the Lense-Thirring signature, is the bias due to the even zonal harmonic coefficients J_L of the multipolar expansion of the Earth's geopotential which account for the departures from sphericity of the terrestrial gravitational potential induced by the centrifugal effects of its diurnal rotation. The issue addressed here is: are the so far published evaluations of such a systematic error reliable and realistic? The answer is negative. Indeed, if the difference \Delta J_L among the even zonals estimated in different global solutions (EIGEN-GRACE02S, EIGEN-CG03C, GGM02S, GGM03S, ITG-Grace02, ITG-Grace03s, JEM01-RL03B, EGM2008, AIUB-GRACE01S) is assumed for the uncertainties \delta J_L instead of using their more or less calibrated covariance sigmas \sigma_{J_L}, it turns out that the systematic error \delta\mu in the Lense-Thirring measurement is about 3 to 4 times larger than in the evaluations so far published based on the use of the sigmas of one model at a time separately, amounting up to 37% for the pair EIGEN-GRACE02S/ITG-Grace03s. The comparison among the other recent GRACE-based models yields bias as large as about 25-30%. The major discrepancies still occur for J_4, J_6 and J_8, which are just the zonals the combined LAGEOS/LAGOES II nodes are most sensitive to.Comment: LaTex, 12 pages, 12 tables, no figures, 64 references. To appear in Central European Journal of Physics (CEJP