962 research outputs found
New Topflavor Models with Seesaw Mechanism
New class of models are constructed in which the third family quarks, but not
leptons, experience a new SU(2) or U(1) gauge force. Anomaly cancellation
enforces the introduction of spectator quarks so that the top and bottom masses
are naturally generated via a seesaw mechanism. We find the new contributions
to the (S,T,U) parameters and Zbb vertex to be generically small. We further
analyze how the reasonable flavor mixing pattern can be generated to ensure the
top-seesaw mechanism and sufficiently suppress the flavor-changing effects for
light quarks. Collider signatures for the light Higgs boson and top quark are
also discussed.Comment: To match the version in Rapid Communication of PRD, RevTex 5p
Research Project as Boundary Object: negotiating the conceptual design of a tool for International Development
This paper reflects on the relationship between who one designs for and what one designs in the unstructured space of designing for political change; in particular, for supporting âInternational Developmentâ with ICT. We look at an interdisciplinary research project with goals and funding, but no clearly defined beneficiary group at start, and how amorphousness contributed to impact. The reported project researched a bridging tool to connect producers with consumers across global contexts and show players in the
supply chain and their circumstances. We explore how both the nature of the research and the toolâs function became contested as work progressed. To tell this tale, we invoke
the idea of boundary objects and the value of tacking back and forth between elastic meanings of the projectâs artefacts and processes. We examine the projectâs role in India, Chile and other arenas to draw out ways that it functioned as a catalyst and how absence of committed design choices acted as an unexpected strength in reaching its goals
What are communities of practice? A comparative review of four seminal works
This paper is a comparative review of four seminal works on communities of practice. It is argued that the ambiguities of the terms community and practice are a source of the concept's reusability allowing it to be reappropriated for different purposes, academic and practical. However, it is potentially confusing that the works differ so markedly in their conceptualizations of community, learning, power and change, diversity and informality. The three earlier works are underpinned by a common epistemological view, but Lave and Wenger's 1991 short monograph is often read as primarily about the socialization of newcomers into knowledge by a form of apprenticeship, while the focus in Brown and Duguid's article of the same year is, in contrast, on improvising new knowledge in an interstitial group that forms in resistance to management. Wenger's 1998 book treats communities of practice as the informal relations and understandings that develop in mutual engagement on an appropriated joint enterprise, but his focus is the impact on individual identity. The applicability of the concept to the heavily individualized and tightly managed work of the twenty-first century is questionable. The most recent work by Wenger â this time with McDermott and Snyder as coauthors â marks a distinct shift towards a managerialist stance. The proposition that managers should foster informal horizontal groups across organizational boundaries is in fact a fundamental redefinition of the concept. However it does identify a plausible, if limited, knowledge management (KM) tool. This paper discusses different interpretations of the idea of 'co-ordinating' communities of practice as a management ideology of empowerment
Holographic Meson Melting
The plasma phase at high temperatures of a strongly coupled gauge theory can
be holographically modelled by an AdS black hole. Matter in the fundamental
representation and in the quenched approximation is introduced through
embedding D7-branes in the AdS-Schwarzschild background. Low spin mesons
correspond to the fluctuations of the D7-brane world volume. As is well known
by now, there are two different kinds of embeddings, either reaching down to
the black hole horizon or staying outside of it. In the latter case the
fluctuations of the D7-brane world volume represent stable low spin mesons. In
the plasma phase we do not expect mesons to be stable but to melt at
sufficiently high temperature. We model the late stages of this meson melting
by the quasinormal modes of D7-brane fluctuations for the embeddings that do
reach down to the horizon. The inverse of the imaginary part of the quasinormal
frequency gives the typical relaxation time back to equilibrium of the meson
perturbation in the hot plasma. We briefly comment on the possible application
of our model to quarkonium suppression.Comment: 25+1 pages, 6 figures; v4: references adde
Supersymmetry in carbon nanotubes in a transverse magnetic field
Electron properties of Carbon nanotubes in a transverse magnetic field are
studied using a model of a massless Dirac particle on a cylinder. The problem
possesses supersymmetry which protects low energy states and ensures stability
of the metallic behavior in arbitrarily large fields. In metallic tubes we find
suppression of the Fermi velocity at half-filling and enhancement of the
density of states. In semiconducting tubes the energy gap is suppressed. These
features qualitatively persist (although to a smaller degree) in the presence
of electron interactions. The possibilities of experimental observation of
these effects are discussed.Comment: A new section on electron interaction effects added and explanation
on roles of supersymmetry expanded. Revtex4, 6 EPS figure file
Transcriptome profiling on the response of Mycosphaerella graminicola isolates to an azole fungicide using cDNA arrays
Resistance to azole antifungals is a major problem in the control of diseases caused by fungal pathogens of both humans and plants. Potential for the development of azole resistance in the wheat leaf blotch pathogen Mycosphaerella graminicola, the causal agent of the most economically significant foliar disease of wheat in north-western Europe, is now of particular concern after the recent emergence of widespread resistance to quinone outside inhibitor fungicides. Using a cDNA microarray representing around 25% of the genome, we have profiled the transcriptional response of M. graminicola to epoxiconazole, currently the most widely used azole fungicide on cereal crops. By comparing the transcription profiles of two M. graminicola isolates with contrasting sensitivities to epoxiconazole we show qualitative and quantitative differences in differentially expressed genes, including those involved in ergosterol biosynthesis, mitochondrial respiration and transport mechanisms. This represents the first study investigating the response of a plant pathogenic fungus to a fungicide using cDNA microarray technology
Calculating Quenching Weights
We calculate the probability (``quenching weight'') that a hard parton
radiates an additional energy fraction due to scattering in spatially extended
QCD matter. This study is based on an exact treatment of finite in-medium path
length, it includes the case of a dynamically expanding medium, and it extends
to the angular dependence of the medium-induced gluon radiation pattern. All
calculations are done in the multiple soft scattering approximation
(Baier-Dokshitzer-Mueller-Peign\'e-Schiff--Zakharov ``BDMPS-Z''-formalism) and
in the single hard scattering approximation (N=1 opacity approximation). By
comparison, we establish a simple relation between transport coefficient, Debye
screening mass and opacity, for which both approximations lead to comparable
results. Together with this paper, a CPU-inexpensive numerical subroutine for
calculating quenching weights is provided electronically. To illustrate its
applications, we discuss the suppression of hadronic transverse momentum
spectra in nucleus-nucleus collisions. Remarkably, the kinematic constraint
resulting from finite in-medium path length reduces significantly the
transverse momentum dependence of the nuclear modification factor, thus leading
to consistency with the data measured at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider
(RHIC).Comment: 45 pages LaTeX, 20 eps-figure
Beautiful Mirrors and Precision Electroweak Data
The Standard Model (SM) with a light Higgs boson provides a very good
description of the precision electroweak observable data coming from the LEP,
SLD and Tevatron experiments. Most of the observables, with the notable
exception of the forward-backward asymmetry of the bottom quark, point towards
a Higgs mass far below its current experimental bound. The disagreement, within
the SM, between the values for the weak mixing angle as obtained from the
measurement of the leptonic and hadronic asymmetries at lepton colliders, may
be taken to indicate new physics contributions to the precision electroweak
observables. In this article we investigate the possibility that the inclusion
of additional bottom-like quarks could help resolve this discrepancy. Two
inequivalent assignments for these new quarks are analysed. The resultant fits
to the electroweak data show a significant improvement when compared to that
obtained in the SM. While in one of the examples analyzed, the exotic quarks
are predicted to be light, with masses below 300 GeV, and the Higgs tends to be
heavy, in the second one the Higgs is predicted to be light, with a mass below
250 GeV, while the quarks tend to be heavy, with masses of about 800 GeV. The
collider signatures associated with the new exotic quarks, as well as the
question of unification of couplings within these models and a possible
cosmological implication of the new physical degrees of freedom at the weak
scale are also discussed.Comment: 21 pages, 4 embedded postscript figures, LaTeX. Two minor corrections
performe
Single Top Production as a Window to Physics Beyond the Standard Model
Production of single top quarks at a high energy hadron collider is studied
as a means to identify physics beyond the standard model related to the
electroweak symmetry breaking. The sensitivity of the -channel mode,
the -channel -gluon fusion mode, and the \tw mode to various possible
forms of new physics is assessed, and it is found that the three modes are
sensitive to different forms of new physics, indicating that they provide
complimentary information about the properties of the top quark. Polarization
observables are also considered, and found to provide potentially useful
information about the structure of the interactions of top.Comment: References added and minor discussion improvements; results
unchanged; Version to be published in PR
Cosmological effects of scalar-photon couplings: dark energy and varying-α models
We study cosmological models involving scalar fields coupled to radiation and discuss their effect on the redshift evolution of the cosmic microwave background temperature, focusing on links with varying fundamental constants and dynamical dark energy. We quantify how allowing for the coupling of scalar fields to photons, and its important effect on luminosity distances, weakens current and future constraints on cosmological parameters. In particular, for evolving dark energy models, joint constraints on the dark energy equation of state combining BAO radial distance and SN luminosity distance determinations, will be strongly dominated by BAO. Thus, to fully exploit future SN data one must also independently constrain photon number non-conservation arising from the possible coupling of SN photons to the dark energy scalar field. We discuss how observational determinations of the background temper- ature at different redshifts can, in combination with distance measures data, set tight constraints on interactions between scalar fields and photons, thus breaking this degeneracy. We also discuss prospects for future improvements, particularly in the context of Euclid and the E-ELT and show that Euclid can, even on its own, provide useful dark energy constraints while allowing for photon number non-conservation
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