QCD--Instanton Induced Final States in Deep Inelastic Scattering

We report briefly on a broad and systematic study of possible manifestations of QCD-instantons at HERA. We concentrate on the high multiplicity final state structure, reminiscent of an isotropically decaying ``fireball''. First results of a Monte Carlo simulation are presented, with emphasis on the typical event-structure and the transverse energy, muon and $K^0$ flows.Comment: 10 pages, latex, epsfig, 9 uuencoded figure

Immune infiltrate in sarcomas

Sarcomas are malignant tumors emerging from mesenchymal tissues including bone, cartilage, adipose tissue and muscle. Sarcomas are rare, accounting for only 2 to 3 percent of all adult cancers. Underlying pathogenic mechanisms are slowly beginning to be understood and in about a third of sarcomas include unique chromosomal translocations that generate fusion genes, which encode fusion proteins most of which function as aberrant transcription factors. However, two thirds of sarcoma harbor complex genetic alterations that preclude clear assessment of their pathogenesis. Numerous studies suggest that the immune system has an important role in the control of tumor progression. It is documented that patients with tumors having a strong cytotoxic T cell infiltrate have a better overall survival rate than those with tumors that do not. It is also well known that cancer can evade the host immune defenses. Thus it seems important to characterize tumor immune infiltrates and determine their precise role with regard to tumor growth. Unlike other types of cancer, immune infiltrates in sarcomas have been little studied. The aim of this study is to characterize the phenotype of immune cell populations infiltrating different types of sarcomas. Samples of seven types of sarcomas have been analyzed. Following tumor dissociation, immune infiltrates were analyzed by flow cytometry. Our preliminary results show myeloid cells to be the dominant population, followed by small amounts of T cells. The myeloid population is heterogeneous and is composed of different cell subsets, including macrophages (HLADR+CD11b+) and cells displaying HLADR- plus a combination of CD11b+ CD15+ and CD33+ phenotypes. These cells could correspond to myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs), which are strongly immunosuppressive and promote tumor growth and metastasis. Different T cell subpopulations have also been found. The dominant subset consists of CD4+ T cells, typically associated with helper functions. Samples with high levels of CD4+ T cells and CD25+Foxp3+ T cell (that correspond to regulatory cells) had low counts of CD4-/CD8+ T cells that are associated with cytotoxic functions. Immune cell infiltrates in sarcomas are poorly described in the literature. A better phenotypic and functional characterization of these cells could probably help in the development of new therapeutic strategies

Bounds on QCD Instantons from HERA

Signals for processes induced by QCD instantons are searched for in HERA data on the hadronic final state in deep-inelastic scattering. The maximally allowed fraction of instanton induced events is found at 95% confidence level to be on the percent level in the kinematic domain 0.0001<x<0.01 and 5 < Q-squared < 100 GeV-squared. The most stringent limits are obtained from the multiplicity distributions.Comment: 14 pages, latex, 9 figures as ps/ep

Monte Carlo simulation of baryon and lepton number violating processes at high energies

We report results obtained with the first complete event generator for electroweak baryon and lepton number violating interactions at supercolliders. We find that baryon number violation would be very difficult to establish, but lepton number violation can be seen provided at least a few hundred L violating events are available with good electron or muon identification in the energy range 10 GeV to 1 TeV.Comment: 40 Pages uuencoded LaTeX (20 PostScript figures included), Cavendish-HEP-93/6, CERN-TH.7090/9

Neutrino spin oscillations in gravitational fields

We study neutrino spin oscillations in gravitational fields. The quasi-classical approach is used to describe the neutrino spin evolution. First we examine the case of a weak gravitational field. We obtain the effective Hamiltonian for the description of neutrino spin oscillations. We also receive the neutrino transition probability when a particle propagates in the gravitational field of a rotating massive object. Then we apply the general technique to the description of neutrino spin oscillations in the Schwarzschild metric. The neutrino spin evolution equation for the case of the neutrino motion in the vicinity of a black hole is obtained. The effective Hamiltonian and the transition probability are also derived. We examine the neutrino oscillations process on different circular orbits and analyze the frequencies of spin transitions. The validity of the quasi-classical approach is also considered.Comment: RevTeX4, 9 pages, 1 esp figure; article was revised, some misprints were corrected, 6 references added; accepted for publication in Int.J.Mod.Phys.

Dark Matter and Dark Forces from a supersymmetric hidden sector

We show that supersymmetric "Dark Force" models with gravity mediation are viable. To this end, we analyse a simple string-inspired supersymmetric hidden sector model that interacts with the visible sector via kinetic mixing of a light Abelian gauge boson with the hypercharge. We include all induced interactions with the visible sector such as neutralino mass mixing and the Higgs portal term. We perform a detailed parameter space scan comparing the produced dark matter relic abundance and direct detection cross sections to current experiments.Comment: 40 pages, 11 figures comprising 21 plots. 4Mb total size. v2: figures and references updated; typos removed; some extra explanations added. Matches version published in PR

Neutrino Models of Dark Energy

I consider a scenario proposed by Fardon, Nelson and Weiner where dark energy and neutrinos are connected. As a result, neutrino masses are not constant but depend on the neutrino number density. By examining the full equation of state for the dark sector, I show that in this scenario the dark energy is equivalent to having a cosmological constant, but one that "runs" as the neutrino mass changes with temperature. Two examples are examined that illustrate the principal feautures of the dark sector of this scenario. In particular, the cosmological constant is seen to be negligible for most of the evolution of the Universe, becoming inportant only when neutrinos become non-relativistic. Some speculations on features of this scenario which might be present in a more realistic theory are also presented.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures. Added comments on why FNW scenario always leads to a running cosmological constant and a few references. To be published in Phys. Rev.

Numerical investigation of friction in inflaton equations of motion

The equation of motion for the expectation value of a scalar quantum field does not have the local form that is commonly assumed in studies of inflationary cosmology. We have recently argued that the true, temporally non-local equation of motion does not possess a time-derivative expansion and that the conversion of inflaton energy into particles is not, in principle, described by the friction term estimated from linear response theory. Here, we use numerical methods to investigate whether this obstacle to deriving a local equation of motion is purely formal, or of some quantitative importance. Using a simple scalar-field model, we find that, although the non-equilibrium evolution can exhibit significant damping, this damping is not well described by the local equation of motion obtained from linear response theory. It is possible that linear response theory does not apply to the situation we study only because thermalization turns out to be slow, but we argue that that the large discrepancies we observe indicate a failure of the local approximation at a more fundamental level.Comment: 13 pages, 7 figure

Instanton propagator and instanton induced processes in scalar model

The propagator in the instanton background in the $(- \lambda \phi^{4})$ scalar model in four dimensions is studied.Leading and sub-leading terms of its asymptotics for large momenta and its on-shell double residue are calculated analytically. These results are applied to the analysis of the initial-state and initial-final-state corrections and the calculation of the next-to-leading (propagator) correction to the exponent of the cross section of instanton induced multiparticle scattering processes.Comment: 44 pages, 7 postscript figures, LaTe