Unresolved Unidentified Source Contribution to the Gamma-ray Background

The large majority of EGRET point sources remain without an identified low-energy counterpart, and a large fraction of these sources are most likely extragalactic. Whatever the nature of the extragalactic EGRET unidentified sources, faint unresolved objects of the same class must have a contribution to the diffuse extragalactic gamma-ray background (EGRB). Understanding this component of the EGRB, along with other guaranteed contributions from known sources, is essential if we are to use this emission to constrain exotic high-energy physics. Here, we follow an empirical approach to estimate whether a potential contribution of unidentified sources to the EGRB is likely to be important, and we find that it is. Additionally, we show how upcoming GLAST observations of EGRET unidentified sources, as well as of their fainter counterparts, can be combined with GLAST observations of the Galactic and extragalactic diffuse backgrounds to shed light on the nature of the EGRET unidentified sources even without any positional association of such sources with low-energy counterparts.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, submitted to Ap

Nucleation of quark matter bubbles in neutron stars

The thermal nucleation of quark matter bubbles inside neutron stars is examined for various temperatures which the star may realistically encounter during its lifetime. It is found that for a bag constant less than a critical value, a very large part of the star will be converted into the quark phase within a fraction of a second. Depending on the equation of state for neutron star matter and strange quark matter, all or some of the outer parts of the star may subsequently be converted by a slower burning or a detonation.Comment: 13 pages, REVTeX, Phys.Rev.D (in press), IFA 93-32. 5 figures (not included) available upon request from [email protected]

On Constraining Electroweak-Baryogenesis with Inhomogeneous Primordial Nucleosynthesis

Primordial nucleosynthesis calculations are shown to be able to provide constraints on electroweak baryogenesis which produce a highly inhomogeneous distribution of the baryon-to-photon ratio. Such baryogenesis scenarios overproduce 4He and/or 7Li and can be ruled out whenever a fraction f<3*10e-6(100 GeV/T)^3 of nucleated bubbles of broken-symmetry phase contributes > 10% of the baryon number within the horizon volume.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures (figures available by email), UCRL-JC-11522

Curvature energy effects on strange quark matter nucleation at finite density

We consider the effects of the curvature energy term on thermal strange quark matter nucleation in dense neutron matter. Lower bounds on the temperature at which this process can take place are given and compared to those without the curvature term.Comment: PlainTex, 6 pp., IAG-USP Rep.5

Q-balls in Underground Experiments

In this paper we present some features of Q-balls and we discuss their interactions with matter, and their energy losses in the Earth, for a large range of velocities. These calculations are used to compute the fractional geometrical acceptance of the MACRO detector. Furthermore a systematic analysis of the energy losses of Q-balls in three types of detectors is investigated. More specifically we have computed the light yield in liquid scintillators, the ionization in streamer tubes and the Restricted Energy Loss in the CR39 nuclear track detectors.Comment: 7 pages, 4 PS figures included with epsfig, uses espcrc2.sty Talk given at the Sixth Topical Seminar on Neutrino and Astroparticle Physics, San Miniato, Italy, 17-21 May 199

The Pierre Auger Observatory: Results on Ultra-High Energy Cosmic Rays

The focus of this article is on recent results on ultra-high energy cosmic rays obtained with the Pierre Auger Observatory. The world's largest instrument of this type and its performance are described. The observations presented here include the energy spectrum, the primary particle composition, limits on the fluxes of photons and neutrinos and a discussion of the anisotropic distribution of the arrival directions of the most energetic particles. Finally, plans for the construction of a Northern Auger Observatory in Colorado, USA, are discussed.Comment: Proceedings of the International Workshop on Advances in Cosmic Ray Science, Waseda University, Shinjuku, Tokyo, Japan, March 2008; to be published in the Journal of the Physical Society of Japan (JPSJ) supplemen