Condensate fluctuations of a trapped, ideal Bose gas

For a non-self-interacting Bose gas with a fixed, large number of particles confined to a trap, as the ground state occupation becomes macroscopic, the condensate number fluctuations remain micrscopic. However, this is the only significant aspect in which the grand canonical description differs from canonical or microcanonical in the thermodynamic limit. General arguments and estimates including some vanishingly small quantities are compared to explicit, fixed-number calculations for 10^2 to 10^6 particles.Comment: 16 pages (REVTeX) plus 4 figures (ps), revision includes brief comparison of repulsive-interaction vs. fixed-N fluctuation damping. To be published in Phys. Rev.

ρ\rho Polarization and `Model Independent' Extraction of ∣Vub∣/∣Vcd∣|V_{ub}|/|V_{cd}| from D→ρℓνD\to\rho\ell\nu and B→ρℓνB\to\rho\ell\nu

We briefly discuss the predictions of the heavy quark effective theory for the semileptonic decays of a heavy pseudoscalar to a light one, or to a light vector meson. We point out that measurement of combinations of differential helicity decay rates at Cleo-c and the $B$ factories can provide a model independent means of extracting the ratio $|V_{ub}|/|V_{cd}|$. We briefly discuss the corrections to this prediction.Comment: 8 pages, LaTeX, 1 figur

Unitarity of Quantum Theory and Closed Time-Like Curves

Interacting quantum fields on spacetimes containing regions of closed timelike curves (CTCs) are subject to a non-unitary evolution $X$. Recently, a prescription has been proposed, which restores unitarity of the evolution by modifying the inner product on the final Hilbert space. We give a rigorous description of this proposal and note an operational problem which arises when one considers the composition of two or more non-unitary evolutions. We propose an alternative method by which unitarity of the evolution may be regained, by extending $X$ to a unitary evolution on a larger (possibly indefinite) inner product space. The proposal removes the ambiguity noted by Jacobson in assigning expectation values to observables localised in regions spacelike separated from the CTC region. We comment on the physical significance of the possible indefiniteness of the inner product introduced in our proposal.Comment: 13 pages, LaTeX. Final revised paper to be published in Phys Rev D. Some changes are made to expand our discussion of Anderson's Proposal for restoring unitarit

Mesoscopic Fermi gas in a harmonic trap

We study the thermodynamical properties of a mesoscopic Fermi gas in view of recent possibilities to trap ultracold atoms in a harmonic potential. We focus on the effects of shell closure for finite small atom numbers. The dependence of the chemical potential, the specific heat and the density distribution on particle number and temperature is obtained. Isotropic and anisotropic traps are compared. Possibilities of experimental observations are discussed.Comment: 8 pages, 9 eps-figures included, Revtex, submitted to Phys. Rev. A, minor changes to figures and captions, corrected typo

Static observables of relativistic three-fermion systems with instantaneous interactions

We show that static properties like the charge radius and the magnetic moment of relativistic three-fermion bound states with instantaneous interactions can be formulated as expectation values with respect to intrinsically defined wavefunctions. The resulting operators can be given a natural physical interpretation in accordance with relativistic covariance. We also indicate how the formalism may be generalized to arbitrary moments. The method is applied to the computation of static baryon properties with numerical results for the nucleon charge radii and the baryon octet magnetic moments. In addition we make predictions for the magnetic moments of some selected nucleon resonances and discuss the decomposition of the nucleon magnetic moments in contributions of spin and angular momentum, as well as the evolution of these contributions with decreasing quark mass.Comment: 13 pages, including 2 figures and 3 tables, submitted to Eur.Phys.J.

A proof of factorization for B -> D pi

We prove that the matrix elements of four fermion operators mediating the decay B^0 -> D^+ \pi^- and B^- -> D^0 \pi^- factor into the product of a form factor describing the B -> D transition and a convolution of a short distance coefficient with the nonperturbative pion light-cone wave function. This is shown to all orders in alpha_s, up to corrections suppressed by factors of 1/mb, 1/mc, and 1/E_pi. It is not necessary to assume that the pion state is dominated by the q-qbar Fock state.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figs, PRL versio

Path Integrals, Density Matrices, and Information Flow with Closed Timelike Curves

Two formulations of quantum mechanics, inequivalent in the presence of closed timelike curves, are studied in the context of a soluable system. It illustrates how quantum field nonlinearities lead to a breakdown of unitarity, causality, and superposition using a path integral. Deutsch's density matrix approach is causal but typically destroys coherence. For each of these formulations I demonstrate that there are yet further alternatives in prescribing the handling of information flow (inequivalent to previous analyses) that have implications for any system in which unitarity or coherence are not preserved.Comment: 25 pages, phyzzx, CALT-68-188

The Heavy-Light Spectrum from Lattice NRQCD

We present a lattice investigation of heavy-light mesons in the quenched approximation, using non-relativistic QCD for the heavy quark and a clover improved Wilson formulation for the light quark. A comprehensive calculation of the heavy-light spectrum has been performed for various heavy quark masses around the $b$. Our results for the $B_s-B_d$ splitting agree well with the experimental value. We find the $\Lambda_b-B$ splitting to be compatible with experiment, albeit with large error bars. Our $B^*-B$ splitting is slightly low, which could be explained as an effect of quenching. For the first time, we are able to estimate the mass of $P$ states at the $B$ and compare them with experiment.Comment: 24 pages, latex, 10 figures in uuencoded compressed postscrip

A Rigourous Treatment of the Lattice Renormalization Problem of F_B

The $B$-meson decay constant can be measured on the lattice using a $1/m_b$ expansion. To relate the physical quantity to Monte Carlo data one has to know the renormalization coefficient, $Z$, between the lattice operators and their continuum counterparts. We come back to this computation to resolve discrepancies found in previous calculations. We define and discuss in detail the renormalization procedure that allows the (perturbative) computation of $Z$. Comparing the one-loop calculations in the effective Lagrangian approach with the direct two-loop calculation of the two-point $B$-meson correlator in the limit of large $b$-quark mass, we prove that the two schemes give consistent results to order $\alpha_s$. We show that there is, however, a renormalization prescription ambiguity that can have sizeable numerical consequences. This ambiguity can be resolved in the framework of an $O(a)$ improved calculation, and we describe the correct prescription in that case. Finally we give the numerical values of $Z$ that correspond to the different types of lattice approximations discussed in the paper.Comment: 27 pages, 2 figures (Plain TeX, figures in an appended postscript file

Two Photon Contribution to Polarization in K+→π+μ+μ−K^+ \rightarrow \pi^+ \mu^+ \mu^-

Short distance physics involving virtual top and charm quarks contributes to $\mu^+$ (and $\mu^-$) polarization in the decay $K^+ \rightarrow \pi^+ \mu^+ \mu^-$. Measurement of the parity violating asymmetry $(\Gamma_R - \Gamma_L)/(\Gamma_R + \Gamma_L)$, where $\Gamma_R$ and $\Gamma_L$ are the rates to produce right and left-handed $\mu^+$, may provide valuable information on the unitarity triangle. The parity violating asymmetry also gets a contribution from Feynman diagrams with two photon intermediate states. We estimate this two photon contribution to the asymmetry and discuss briefly the two photon contribution to time reversal odd asymmetries that involve both the $\mu^+$ and $\mu^-$ polarizations.Comment: (19 pages, 5 figures available on request. Uses phyzzx), CALT-68-1798, UCSD/PTH 92-2