CP Violation from 5-dimensional QED

It has been shown that QED in (1+4)-dimensional space-time, with the fifth dimension compactified on a circle, leads to CP violation (CPV). Depending on fermionic boundary conditions, CPV may be either explicit (through the Scherk--Schwarz mechanism), or spontaneous (via the Hosotani mechanism). The fifth component of the gauge field acquires (at the one-loop level) a non-zero vacuum expectation value. In the presence of two fermionic fields, this leads to spontaneous CPV in the case of CP-symmetric boundary conditions. Phenomenological consequences are illustrated by a calculation of the electric dipole moment for the fermionic zero-modes.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figure

Bounds on the lightest Higgs boson mass with three and four fermion generations

We present lower bounds on the Higgs boson mass in the Standard Model with three and four fermion generations SM(3,4), as well as upper bounds on the lightest Higgs boson mass in the minimal supersymmetric extension of the SM with three and four generations MSSM(3,4). Our analysis utilizes the SM(3,4) renormalization-group-improved one-loop effective potential of the Higgs boson to find the upper bounds on the Higgs mass in the MSSM(3,4) while the lower bounds in the SM(3,4) are derived from considerations of vacuum stability. All the bounds increase as the degenerate fourth generation mass increases, providing more room in theory space that respects the increasing experimental lower limit of the Higgs mass.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, Some additional discussion added. Final version to be published in International Journal of Modern Physics

A Real-Time Energy Monitor System for the Ipns Linac

Injected beam energy and energy spread are critical parameters affecting the performance of our rapid cycling synchrotron (RCS). A real-time energy monitoring system is being installed to examine the H- beam out of the Intense Pulsed Neutron Source (IPNS) 50 MeV linac. The 200 MHz Alvarez linac serves as the injector for the 450 MeV IPNS RCS. The linac provides an 80 ms macropulse of approximately 3x1012 H- ions 30 times per second for coasting-beam injection into the RCS. The RCS delivers protons to a heavy-metal spallation neutron target for material science studies. Using a number of strip-line beam position monitors (BPMs) distributed along the 50 MeV transport line from the linac to the RCS, fast signals from the strip lines are digitized and transferred to a computer which performs an FFT. Corrections for cable attenuation and oscilloscope bandwidth are made in the frequency domain. Rectangular pulse train phasing (RPTP) is imposed on the spectra prior to obtaining the inverse transform (IFFT). After the IFFT, the reconstructed time-domain signal is analyzed for pulse width as it progresses along the transport line. Time-of-flight measurements of the BPM signals provide beam energy. Finally, using the 3-size measurement technique, the longitudinal emittance and energy spread of the beam are determined

Higgs Boson Bounds in Three and Four Generation Scenarios

In light of recent experimental results, we present updated bounds on the lightest Higgs boson mass in the Standard Model (SM) and in the Minimal Supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (MSSM). The vacuum stability lower bound on the pure SM Higgs boson mass when the SM is taken to be valid up to the Planck scale lies above the MSSM lightest Higgs boson mass upper bound for a large amount of SUSY parameter space. If the lightest Higgs boson is detected with a mass M_{H} < 134 GeV (150 GeV) for a top quark mass M_{top} = 172 GeV (179 GeV), it may indicate the existence of a fourth generation of fermions. The region of inconsistency is removed and the MSSM is salvagable for such values of M_{H} if one postulates the existence of a fourth generation of leptons and quarks with isodoublet degenerate masses M_{L} and M_{Q} such that 60 GeV 170 GeV.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures. To be published in Physical Review

Nutritional Status of Under-five Children Living in an Informal Urban Settlement in Nairobi, Kenya

Malnutrition in sub-Saharan Africa contributes to high rates of childhood morbidity and mortality. However, little information on the nutritional status of children is available from informal settlements. During the period of post-election violence in Kenya during December 2007–March 2008, food shortages were widespread within informal settlements in Nairobi. To investigate whether food insecurity due to post-election violence resulted in high prevalence of acute and chronic malnutrition in children, a nutritional survey was undertaken among children aged 6-59 months within two villages in Kibera, where the Kenya Medical Research Institute/Centers for Disease Control and Prevention conducts population-based surveillance for infectious disease syndromes. During 25 March–4 April 2008, a structured questionnaire was administered to caregivers of 1,310 children identified through surveillance system databases to obtain information on household demographics, food availability, and child-feeding practices. Anthropometric measurements were recorded on all participating children. Indices were reported in z-scores and compared with the World Health Organization (WHO) 2005 reference population to determine the nutritional status of children. Data were analyzed using the Anthro software of WHO and the SAS. Stunting was found in 47.0% of the children; 11.8% were underweight, and 2.6% were wasted. Severe stunting was found in 23.4% of the children; severe underweight in 3.1%, and severe wasting in 0.6%. Children aged 36-47 months had the highest prevalence (58.0%) of stunting while the highest prevalence (4.1%) of wasting was in children aged 6-11 months. Boys were more stunted than girls (p<0.01), and older children were significantly (p<0.0001) stunted compared to younger children. In the third year of life, girls were more likely than boys to be wasted (p<0.01). The high prevalence of chronic malnutrition suggests that stunting is a sustained problem within this urban informal settlement, not specifically resulting from the relatively brief political crisis. The predominance of stunting in older children indicates failure in growth and development during the first two years of life. Food programmes in Kenya have traditionally focused on rural areas and refugee camps. The findings of the study suggest that tackling childhood stunting is a high priority, and there should be fostered efforts to ensure that malnutrition-prevention strategies include the urban poor

Bunch stabilization using rf phase modulation in the intense pulse neutron source (IPNS) rapid cycling synchrotron (RCS)

Phase modulation (PM) is used to increase the current limit in the IPNS RCS. A device referred to as a scrambler introduces a small oscillating phase between the two RCS rf cavities at approximately twice the synchrotrons frequency, f{sub s}. The modulation introduced by the scrambler generates longitudinal oscillations in the bunch at 2f{sub s}. Modulations in the bunch are also observed transversely indicating a coupling between longitudinal and transverse motion. Comparing PM with amplitude modulation (AM), coupling to the beam is roughly equivalent at 2f{sub s}

CP Violation from Dimensional Reduction: Examples in 4+1 Dimensions

We provide simple examples of the generation of complex mass terms and hence CP violation through dimensional reduction.Comment: 6 pages, typos corrected, 1 reference adde

Zebra finches and Dutch adults exhibit the same cue weighting bias in vowel perception

Vocal tract resonances, called formants, are the most important parameters in human speech production and perception. They encode linguistic meaning and have been shown to be perceived by a wide range of species. Songbirds are also sensitive to different formant patterns in human speech. They can categorize words differing only in their vowels based on the formant patterns independent of speaker identity in a way comparable to humans. These results indicate that speech perception mechanisms are more similar between songbirds and humans than realized before. One of the major questions regarding formant perception concerns the weighting of different formants in the speech signal (“acoustic cue weighting”) and whether this process is unique to humans. Using an operant Go/NoGo design, we trained zebra finches to discriminate syllables, whose vowels differed in their first three formants. When subsequently tested with novel vowels, similar in either their first formant or their second and third formants to the familiar vowels, similarity in the higher formants was weighted much more strongly than similarity in the lower formant. Thus, zebra finches indeed exhibit a cue weighting bias. Interestingly, we also found that Dutch speakers when tested with the same paradigm exhibit the same cue weighting bias. This, together with earlier findings, supports the hypothesis that human speech evolution might have exploited general properties of the vertebrate auditory system