The Effects of Quantum Entropy on the Bag Constant

The effects of quantum entropy on the bag constant are studied at low temperatures and small chemical potentials. The inclusion of the quantum entropy of the quarks in the equation of state provides the hadronic bag with an additional heat which causes a decrease in the effective latent heat inside the bag. We have considered two types of baryonic bags, $\Delta$ and $\Omega^-$. In both cases we have found that the bag constant without the quantum entropy almost does not change with the temperature and the quark chemical potential. The contribution from the quantum entropy to the equation of state clearly decreases the value of the bag constant.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures (two parts each

Effective Two Higgs Doublets in Nonminimal Supersymmetric Models

The Higgs sectors of supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model have two doublets in the minimal version (MSSM), and two doublets plus a singlet in two others: with (UMSSM) and without (NMSSM) an extra U(1)'. A very concise comparison of these three models is possible if we assume that the singlet has a somewhat larger breaking scale compared to the electroweak scale. In that case, the UMSSM and the NMSSM become effectively two-Higgs-doublet models (THDM), like the MSSM. As expected, the mass of the lightest CP-even neutral Higgs boson has an upper bound in each case. We find that in the NMSSM, this bound exceeds not very much that of the MSSM, unless tan(beta) is near one. However, the upper bound in the UMSSM may be substantially enhanced.Comment: 8 pages, 1 table, 3 figure

Measuring Black Hole Spin using X-ray Reflection Spectroscopy

I review the current status of X-ray reflection (a.k.a. broad iron line) based black hole spin measurements. This is a powerful technique that allows us to measure robust black hole spins across the mass range, from the stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binaries to the supermassive black holes in active galactic nuclei. After describing the basic assumptions of this approach, I lay out the detailed methodology focusing on "best practices" that have been found necessary to obtain robust results. Reflecting my own biases, this review is slanted towards a discussion of supermassive black hole (SMBH) spin in active galactic nuclei (AGN). Pulling together all of the available XMM-Newton and Suzaku results from the literature that satisfy objective quality control criteria, it is clear that a large fraction of SMBHs are rapidly-spinning, although there are tentative hints of a more slowly spinning population at high (M>5*10^7Msun) and low (M<2*10^6Msun) mass. I also engage in a brief review of the spins of stellar-mass black holes in X-ray binaries. In general, reflection-based and continuum-fitting based spin measures are in agreement, although there remain two objects (GROJ1655-40 and 4U1543-475) for which that is not true. I end this review by discussing the exciting frontier of relativistic reverberation, particularly the discovery of broad iron line reverberation in XMM-Newton data for the Seyfert galaxies NGC4151, NGC7314 and MCG-5-23-16. As well as confirming the basic paradigm of relativistic disk reflection, this detection of reverberation demonstrates that future large-area X-ray observatories such as LOFT will make tremendous progress in studies of strong gravity using relativistic reverberation in AGN.Comment: 19 pages. To appear in proceedings of the ISSI-Bern workshop on "The Physics of Accretion onto Black Holes" (8-12 Oct 2012). Revised version adds a missing source to Table 1 and Fig.6 (IRAS13224-3809) and corrects the referencing of the discovery of soft lags in 1H0707-495 (which were in fact first reported in Fabian et al. 2009

Tilt Grain-Boundary Effects in S- and D-Wave Superconductors

We calculate the s- and d-wave superconductor order parameter in the vicinity of a tilt grain boundary. We do this self-consistently within the Bogoliubov de Gennes equations, using a realistic microscopic model of the grain boundary. We present the first self-consistent calculations of supercurrent flows in such boundaries, obtaining the current-phase characteristics of grain boundaries in both s-wave and d-wave superconductors

Thin accretion disc with a corona in a central magnetic field

We study the steady-state structure of an accretion disc with a corona surrounding a central, rotating, magnetized star. We assume that the magneto-rotational instability is the dominant mechanism of angular momentum transport inside the disc and is responsible for producing magnetic tubes above the disc. In our model, a fraction of the dissipated energy inside the disc is transported to the corona via these magnetic tubes. This energy exchange from the disc to the corona which depends on the disc physical properties is modified because of the magnetic interaction between the stellar magnetic field and the accretion disc. According to our fully analytical solutions for such a system, the existence of a corona not only increases the surface density but reduces the temperature of the accretion disc. Also, the presence of a corona enhances the ratio of gas pressure to the total pressure. Our solutions show that when the strength of the magnetic field of the central neutron star is large or the star is rotating fast enough, profiles of the physical variables of the disc significantly modify due to the existence of a corona.Comment: Accepted for publication in Astrophysics & Space Scienc

Isospin breaking in the vector current of the nucleon

Extraction of the nucleon's strange form factors from experimental data requires a quantitative understanding of the unavoidable contamination from isospin violation. A number of authors have addressed this issue during the past decade, and their work is reviewed here. The predictions from early models are largely consistent with recent results that rely as much as possible on input from QCD symmetries and related experimental data. The resulting bounds on isospin violation are sufficiently precise to be of value to on-going experimental and theoretical studies of the nucleon's strange form factors.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. Presented at the International Workshop "From Parity Violation to Hadronic Structure and more...", Milos, Greece, 16-20 May 2006. Version 2 is only to update Refs. [21] and [25

Long distance regularization in chiral perturbation theory with decuplet

We investigate the use of long distance regularization in SU(3) baryon chiral perturbation theory with decuplet fields. The one-loop decuplet contributions to the octet baryon masses, axial couplings, S-wave nonleptonic hyperon decays and magnetic moments are evaluated in a chirally consistent fashion by employing a cutoff to implement long distance regularization. The convergence of the chiral expansions of these quantities is improved compared to the dimensionally regularized version which indicates that the propagation of Goldstone bosons over distances smaller than a typical hadronic size, which is beyond the regime of chiral perturbation theory but included by dimensional regularization, is removed by use of a cutoff.Comment: 31 page

Effects of genuine dimension-six Higgs operators

We systematically discuss the consequences of genuine dimension-six Higgs operators. These operators are not subject to stringent constraints from electroweak precision data. However, they can modify the couplings of the Higgs boson to electroweak gauge bosons and, in particular, the Higgs self-interactions. We study the sensitivity to which those couplings can be probed at future \ee linear colliders in the sub-TeV and in the multi-TeV range. We find that for $\sqrt s=500$ GeV with a luminosity of 1 ab$^{-1}$ the anomalous $WWH$ and $ZZH$ couplings may be probed to about the 0.01 level, and the anomalous $HHH$ coupling to about the 0.1 level.Comment: 21 pages, 17 figures; typos corrected and references adde

Current Status of Simulations

As the title suggests, the purpose of this chapter is to review the current status of numerical simulations of black hole accretion disks. This chapter focuses exclusively on global simulations of the accretion process within a few tens of gravitational radii of the black hole. Most of the simulations discussed are performed using general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) schemes, although some mention is made of Newtonian radiation MHD simulations and smoothed particle hydrodynamics. The goal is to convey some of the exciting work that has been going on in the past few years and provide some speculation on future directions.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figures, to appear in the proceedings of the ISSI-Bern workshop on "The Physics of Accretion onto Black Holes" (8-12 October 2012

The Momentum Dependence of the ρ−ω\rho-\omega Mixing Amplitude in a Hadronic Model

We calculate the momentum dependence of the $\rho-\omega$ mixing amplitude in a purely hadronic model. The basic assumption of the model is that the mixing amplitude is generated by $N{\bar{N}}$ loops and thus driven entirely by the neutron-proton mass difference. The value of the amplitude at the $\omega$-meson point is expressed in terms of only the $NN\omega$ and the $NN\rho$ coupling constants. Using values for these couplings constrained by empirical two-nucleon data we obtain a value for the mixing amplitude in agreement with experiment. Extending these results to the spacelike region, we find a $\rho-\omega$ contribution to the NN interaction that is strongly suppressed and opposite in sign relative to the conventional contribution obtained from using the constant on-shell value for the mixing amplitude.Comment: 11 pages, SCRI-12219