7,471 research outputs found
String Theory and the Dark Glueball Problem
We study cosmological constraints on dark pure Yang-Mills sectors. Dark
glueballs are overproduced for large regions of ultraviolet parameter space.
The problem may be alleviated in two ways: via a large preferential reheating
into the visible sector, motivating certain inflation or modulus decay models,
or via decays into axions or moduli, which are strongly constrained by
nucleosynthesis and bounds. String models frequently
have multiple hidden Yang-Mills sectors, which are subject to even stronger
constraints due to the existence of multiple dark glueballs.Comment: 10 page
Conscience, Incorporated
Do business corporations have free exercise rights? This question has become critically important in recent challenges to the Affordable Care Act’s so-called “contraception mandate.” A host of businesses selling ordinary goods and services claim that they cannot be compelled to provide employees with insurance that covers contraception. Courts have divided over whether corporations can assert rights of conscience, and existing theoretical accounts fail to provide guidance on this question.
This Article offers a new normative framework for evaluating corporate claims of conscience. Drawing on theories of conscience and collective rights, it develops a “social theory” of conscience that explains how individual moral identity is formed within associations and, consequently, how the social structure of those associations can support institutional claims for legal exemptions.
The social theory of conscience has direct implications for free exercise doctrine. For an institution to assert a valid claim, it must be a constitutive community, such that individual members regard the collective as intimately tied to their sense of self. Some institutions, like churches and other religious organizations, fit comfortably in this category. But the legal, social, and economic norms that govern modern business practice pervasively undermine the formation of tight personal connections to for-profit corporations and thereby erode the normative basis for institutional legal exemptions. Free exercise doctrine should therefore resist corporate claims to exemptions from the law
Dark Glueballs and their Ultralight Axions
Dark gauge sectors and axions are well-motivated in string theory. We
demonstrate that if a confining gauge sector gives rise to dark glueballs that
are a fraction of the dark matter, and the associated axion has a decay
constant near the string scale, then this axion is ultralight and naturally
realizes the fuzzy dark matter scenario with a modest tuning of a temperature
ratio. Astrophysical observations constrain the size of the glueball component
relative to the axionic component, while electric dipole moments constrain
mixing with the QCD axion.Comment: 8 pages, 2 figure
On the mechanics of discontinuous fibre reinforced composite materials (with particular reference to damping)
Summary: p. [ii-iv]
The Trouble with Corporate Conscience
Accomplished corporate law scholars claim that modern businesses need an infusion of morality. Disappointed by conventional regulatory responses to recurring corporate scandal, these scholars argue that corporate conscience provides a more fruitful path to systemic economic reform. In Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, which held that for-profit businesses can claim religious exemptions from general laws, the Supreme Court gave this notion of corporate conscience added momentum. Emboldened by the Court\u27s embrace of business goals extending beyond shareholder profit, proponents of a moralized marketplace now celebrate corporate conscience as an idea whose time has come. This Essay criticizes the leading arguments for corporate conscience. These arguments identify three plausible sources of corporate morality-shareholders, managers, and society as a whole. Although initially appealing, each account ultimately proves impractical, illegitimate, or self-defeating. These shortcomings not only give us reason to reject existing accounts on their own terms, but may also reveal a more accurate and attractive picture of the modern corporate world
Exploring the Vacuum Geometry of N=1 Gauge Theories
Using techniques of algorithmic algebraic geometry, we present a new and
efficient method for explicitly computing the vacuum space of N=1 gauge
theories. We emphasize the importance of finding special geometric properties
of these spaces in connecting phenomenology to guiding principles descending
from high-energy physics. We exemplify the method by addressing various
subsectors of the MSSM. In particular the geometry of the vacuum space of
electroweak theory is described in detail, with and without right-handed
neutrinos. We discuss the impact of our method on the search for evidence of
underlying physics at a higher energy. Finally we describe how our results can
be used to rule out certain top-down constructions of electroweak physics.Comment: 35 pages, 2 figures, LaTe
Vacuum Geometry and the Search for New Physics
We propose a new guiding principle for phenomenology: special geometry in the
vacuum space. New algorithmic methods which efficiently compute geometric
properties of the vacuum space of N=1 supersymmetric gauge theories are
described. We illustrate the technique on subsectors of the MSSM. The fragility
of geometric structure that we find in the moduli space motivates
phenomenologically realistic deformations of the superpotential, while arguing
against others. Special geometry in the vacuum may therefore signal the
presence of string physics underlying the low-energy effective theory.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX; v2: revised title, minor changes in wording,
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