1,125 research outputs found
Supergravity Inflation on the Brane
We study N=1 Supergravity inflation in the context of the braneworld
scenario. Particular attention is paid to the problem of the onset of inflation
at sub-Planckian field values and the ensued inflationary observables. We find
that the so-called -problem encountered in supergravity inspired
inflationary models can be solved in the context of the braneworld scenario,
for some range of the parameters involved. Furthermore, we obtain an upper
bound on the scale of the fifth dimension, M_5 \lsim 10^{-3} M_P, in case the
inflationary potential is quadratic in the inflaton field, . If the
inflationary potential is cubic in , consistency with observational data
requires that .Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, to appear in Phys. Rev.
Topological Inflation in Dual Superstring Models
We study the possibility of obtaining inflationary solutions from S-dual
superstring potentials. We find, in particular, that such solutions occur at
the core of domain walls separating degenerate minima whose positions differ by
modular transformations.Comment: 12 pages, uuencoded gzipped tar format, Latex, 2 figure
Probing neutrino non-standard interactions with atmospheric neutrino data
We have reconsidered the atmospheric neutrino anomaly in light of the laetst
data from Super-Kamiokande contained events and from Super-Kamiokande and MACRO
up-going muons. We have reanalysed the proposed solution to the atmospheric
neutrino anomaly in terms of non-standard neutrino-matter interactions (NSI) as
well as the standard nu_mu -> nu_tau oscillations (OSC). Our statistical
analysis shows that a pure NSI mechanism is now ruled out at 99%, while the
standard nu_mu -> nu_tau OSC mechanism provides a quite remarkably good
description of the anomaly. We therefore study an extended mechanism of
neutrino propagation which combines both oscillation and non-standard
neutrino-matter interactions, in order to derive limits on flavour-changing
(FC) and non-universal (NU) neutrino interactions. We obtain that the
off-diagonal flavour-changing neutrino parameter epsilon and the diagonal
non-universality neutrino parameter epsilon' are confined to -0.03 < epsilon <
0.02 and |epsilon'| < 0.05 at 99.73% CL. These limits are model independent and
they are obtained from pure neutrino-physics processes. The stability of the
neutrino oscillation solution to the atmospheric neutrino anomaly against the
presence of non-standard neutrino interactions establishes the robustness of
the near-maximal atmospheric mixing and massive-neutrino hypothesis. The best
agreement with the data is obtained for Delta_m^2 = 2.3*10^{-3} eV^2,
sin^2(2*theta) = 1, epsilon = 6.7*10^{-3} and epsilon' = 1.1*10^{-3}, although
the chi^2 function is quite flat in the epsilon and epsilon' directions for
epsilon, epsilon' -> 0.Comment: 26 pages, LaTeX file using REVTeX4, 1 table and 12 figures included.
Added a revised analysis which takes into account the new 1489-day
Super-Kamiokande and final MACRO data. The bound on NSI parameters is
considerably improve
Soft lepton-flavor violation in a multi-Higgs-doublet seesaw model
We consider the Standard Model with an arbitrary number n_H of Higgs doublets
and enlarge the lepton sector by adding to each lepton family \ell a
right-handed neutrino singlet \nu_{\ell R}. We assume that all Yukawa-coupling
matrices are diagonal, but the Majorana mass matrix M_R of the right-handed
neutrino singlets is an arbitrary symmetric matrix, thereby introducing an
explicit but soft violation of all lepton numbers. We investigate
lepton-flavor-violating processes within this model. We pay particular
attention to the large-m_R behavior of the amplitudes for these processes,
where m_R is the order of magnitude of the matrix elements of M_R. While the
amplitudes for processes like tau^- --> mu^- gamma and Z --> tau^+ mu^- drop as
1/m_R^2 for arbitrary n_H, processes like tau^- --> mu^- e^+ e^- and mu^- -->
e^- e^+ e^- obey this power law only for n_H = 1. For n_H \geq 2, on the
contrary, those amplitudes do not fall off when m_R increases, rather they
converge towards constants. This non-decoupling of the right-handed scale
occurs because of the sub-process ell^- --> ell'^- {S_b^0}^*, where S_b^0 is a
neutral scalar which subsequently decays to e^+ e^-. That sub-process has a
contribution from charged-scalar exchange which, for n_H \geq 2, does not
decrease when m_R tends to infinity. We also perform a general study of the
non-decoupling and argue that, after performing the limit m_R --> \infty and
removing the \nu_R from the Lagrangian, our model becomes a multi-Higgs-doublet
Standard Model with suppressed flavor-changing Yukawa couplings. Finally, we
show that, with the usual assumptions about the mass scales in the seesaw
mechanism, the branching ratios of all lepton-flavor-changing processes are
several orders of magnitude smaller than present experimental limits.Comment: 46 pages, 2 figures, Revte
N=1 Supergravity Chaotic Inflation in the Braneworld Scenario
We study a N=1 Supergravity chaotic inflationary model, in the context of the
braneworld scenario. It is shown that successful inflation and reheating
consistent with phenomenological constraints can be achieved via the new terms
in the Friedmann equation arising from brane physics. Interestingly, the model
satisfies observational bounds with sub-Planckian field values, implying that
chaotic inflation on the brane is free from the well known difficulties
associated with the presence of higher order non-renormalizable terms in the
superpotential. A bound on the mass scale of the fifth dimension, M_5 \gsim
1.3 \times 10^{-6} M_P, is obtained from the requirement that the reheating
temperature be higher than the temperature of the electroweak phase transition.Comment: 5 pages, 1 Table, Revtex
Confusing non-standard neutrino interactions with oscillations at a neutrino factory
Most neutrino mass theories contain non-standard interactions (NSI) of
neutrinos which can be either non-universal (NU) or flavor-changing (FC). We
study the impact of such interactions on the determination of neutrino mixing
parameters at a neutrino factory using the so-called ``golden channels''
\pnu{e}\to\pnu{\mu} for the measurement of \theta_{13}. We show that a certain
combination of FC interactions in neutrino source and earth matter can give
exactly the same signal as oscillations arising due to \theta_{13}. This
implies that information about \theta_{13} can only be obtained if bounds on
NSI are available. Taking into account the existing bounds on FC interactions,
this leads to a drastic loss in sensitivity in \theta_{13}, at least two orders
of magnitude. A near detector at a neutrino factory offers the possibility to
obtain stringent bounds on some NSI parameters. Such near site detector
constitutes an essential ingredient of a neutrino factory and a necessary step
towards the determination of \theta_{13} and subsequent study of leptonic CP
violation.Comment: 23 pages, 5 figures, improved version, accepted for publication in
Phs. Rev. D, references adde
WMAP and Supergravity Inflationary Models
We study a class of N=1 Supergravity inflationary models in which the
evolution of the inflaton dynamics is controlled by a single power in the
inflaton field at the point where the observed density fluctuations are
produced, in the context of the braneworld scenario, in light of WMAP results.
In particular, we find that the bounds on the spectral index and its running
constrain the parameter space both for models where the inflationary potential
is dominated by a quadratic term and by a cubic term in the inflaton field. We
also find that is required for the quadratic model whereas
for the cubic model. Moreover, we have determined an upper bound
on the five-dimensional Planck scale, M_5 \lsim 0.019 M, for the quadratic
model. On the other hand, a running spectral index with on large scales
and on small scales is not possible in either case.Comment: 7 pages, 4 eps figures, references corrected, version to appear in
Phys. Rev.
Effects of new physics in neutrino oscillations in matter
A new flavor changing electron neutrino interaction with matter would always
dominate the nu_e oscillation probability at sufficiently high neutrino
energies. Being suppressed by theta_{13}, the energy scale at which the new
effect starts to be relevant may be within the reach of realistic experiments,
where the peculiar dependence of the signal with energy could give rise to a
clear signature in the nu_e --> nu_tau channel. The latter could be observed by
means of a coarse large magnetized detector by exploiting tau --> mu decays. We
discuss the possibility of identifying or constraining such effects with a high
energy neutrino factory. We also comment on the model independent limits on
them.Comment: 11 pages, 5 figure
Alternate SlyA and H-NS nucleoprotein complexes control hlyE expression in Escherichia coli K-12
Haemolysin E is a cytolytic pore-forming toxin found in several Escherichia coli and Salmonella enterica strains. Expression of hlyE is repressed by the global regulator H-NS (histone-like nucleoid structuring protein), but can be activated by the regulator SlyA. Expression of a chromosomal hlyEâlacZ fusion in an E. coli slyA mutant was reduced to 60% of the wild-type level confirming a positive role for SlyA. DNase I footprint analysis revealed the presence of two separate SlyA binding sites, one located upstream, the other downstream of the hlyE transcriptional start site. These sites overlap AT-rich H-NS binding sites. Footprint and gel shift data showed that whereas H-NS prevented binding of RNA polymerase (RNAP) at the hlyE promoter (PhlyE), SlyA allowed binding of RNAP, but inhibited binding of H-NS. Accordingly, in vitro transcription analyses showed that addition of SlyA protein relieved H-NS-mediated repression of hlyE. Based on these observations a model for SlyA/H-NS regulation of hlyE expression is proposed in which the relative concentrations of SlyA and H-NS govern the nature of the nucleoprotein complexes formed at PhlyE. When H-NS is dominant RNAP binding is inhibited and hlyE expression is silenced; when SlyA is dominant H-NS binding is inhibited allowing RNAP access to the promoter facilitating hlyE transcription
Entanglement of two-mode Bose-Einstein condensates
We investigate the entaglement characteristics of two general bimodal
Bose-Einstein condensates - a pair of tunnel-coupled Bose-Einstein condensates
and the atom-molecule Bose-Einstein condensate. We argue that the entanglement
is only physically meaningful if the system is viewed as a bipartite system,
where the subsystems are the two modes. The indistinguishibility of the
particles in the condensate means that the atomic constituents are physically
inaccessible and thus the degree of entanglement between individual particles,
unlike the entanglement between the modes, is not experimentally relevant so
long as the particles remain in the condensed state. We calculate the
entanglement between the modes for the exact ground state of the two bimodal
condensates and consider the dynamics of the entanglement in the tunnel-coupled
case.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, submitted to Physical Review A, to be presented
at the third UQ Mathematical Physics workshop, Oct. 4-6; changes made in
response to referee comment
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