Production of massive stable particles in inflaton decay

We point out that inflaton decays can be a copious source of stable or long--lived particles $\chi$ with mass exceeding the reheat temperature $T_R$. Once higher order processes are included, this statement is true for any $\chi$ particle with renormalizable (gauge or Yukawa) interactions. This contribution to the $\chi$ density often exceeds the contribution from thermal $\chi$ production, leading to significantly stronger constraints on model parameters than those resulting from thermal $\chi$ production alone. For example, we all but exclude models containing stable charged particles with mass less than half the mass of the inflaton.Comment: 4 revtex pages, 1 figure (uses axodraw). Slightly modified for better clarification, few changes in references. Final verssion published in Phys. Rev. Let

Symmetry restoration of the soft pion corrections for the light sea quark distributions in the small xx region

The soft pion correction at high energy may play a crucial role in non-perturbative parts of sea quark distributions. In this paper, we show that, while the soft pion correction for the strange sea qaurk distribution is suppressed in the large and the medium $x$ region compared with that for the up and the down sea quark one, it can become large and SU(3) flavor symmetric in the very small $x$ region. This gives us a good reason for the symmetry restoration of light sea quark distributions required by the mean charge sum rule for the light sea quarks. Then, by estimating this sum rule with the help of the results obtained by the soft pion correction, it is argued that there is a large symmetry restoration of the strange sea quark in the region from $x=10^{-2}$ to $10^{-6}$ at $Q^2\sim 1$ GeV.Comment: 22 pages including 4 eps figures, ReVTeX, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Total variation approximation for quasi-equilibrium distributions

Quasi-stationary distributions, as discussed by Darroch & Seneta (1965), have been used in biology to describe the steady state behaviour of population models which, while eventually certain to become extinct, nevertheless maintain an apparent stochastic equilibrium for long periods. These distributions have some drawbacks: they need not exist, nor be unique, and their calculation can present problems. In this paper, we give biologically plausible conditions under which the quasi-stationary distribution is unique, and can be closely approximated by distributions that are simple to compute.Comment: 16 page

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 $\eta$-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, $\phi$. If the inflationary potential is cubic in $\phi$, consistency with observational data requires that $M_5 \simeq 9.2 \times 10^{-4} M_P$.Comment: 6 pages, 1 figure, to appear in Phys. Rev.

Threshold criterion for wetting at the triple point

Grand canonical simulations are used to calculate adsorption isotherms of various classical gases on alkali metal and Mg surfaces. Ab initio adsorption potentials and Lennard-Jones gas-gas interactions are used. Depending on the system, the resulting behavior can be nonwetting for all temperatures studied, complete wetting, or (in the intermediate case) exhibit a wetting transition. An unusual variety of wetting transitions at the triple point is found in the case of a specific adsorption potential of intermediate strength. The general threshold for wetting near the triple point is found to be close to that predicted with a heuristic model of Cheng et al. This same conclusion was drawn in a recent experimental and simulation study of Ar on CO_2 by Mistura et al. These results imply that a dimensionless wetting parameter w is useful for predicting whether wetting behavior is present at and above the triple temperature. The nonwetting/wetting crossover value found here is w circa 3.3.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure

Distributions and habitat associations of deep-water corals in Norfolk and Baltimore Canyons, Mid-Atlantic Bight, USA

A multi-disciplinary study of two major submarine canyons, Baltimore Canyon and Norfolk Canyon, off the US mid-Atlantic coast focused on the ecology and biology of canyon habitats, particularly those supporting deep-sea corals. Historical data on deep-sea corals from these canyons were sparse with less than 750 records for the mid-Atlantic region, with most being soft sediment species. This study substantially increased the number of deep-sea coral records for the target canyons and the region. Large gorgonians were the dominant structure-forming coral taxa on exposed hard substrates, but several species of scleractinians were also documented, including first observations of Lophelia pertusa in the mid-Atlantic Bight region. Coral distribution varied within and between the two canyons, with greater abundance of the octocoral Paragorgia arborea in Baltimore Canyon, and higher occurrence of stony corals in Norfolk Canyon; these observations reflect the differences in environmental conditions, particularly turbidity, between the canyons. Some species have a wide distribution (e.g., P. arborea, Primnoa resedaeformis, Anthothela grandiflora), while others are limited to certain habitat types and/or depth zones (e.g., Paramuricea placomus, L. pertusa, Solenosmilia variabilis). The distribution of a species is driven by a combination of factors, which include availability of appropriate physical structure and environmental conditions. Although the diversity of the structure-forming corals (gorgonians, branching scleractinians and large anemones) was low, many areas of both canyons supported high coral abundance and a diverse coral-associated community. The canyons provide suitable habitat for the development of deep-sea coral communities that is not readily available elsewhere on the sedimented shelf and slope of the Mid-Atlantic Bight

Like Sign Dilepton Signature for R-Parity Violating SUSY Search at the Tevatron Collider

The like sign dileptons provide the most promising signature for superparticle search in a large category of $R$-parity violating SUSY models. We estimate the like sign dilepton signals at the Tevatron collider, predicted by these models, over a wide region of the MSSM parameter space. One expects an unambiguous signal upto a gluino mass of $200 - 300$ GeV ($\geq 500$ GeV) with the present (proposed) accumulated luminosity of $\sim 0.1~(1)~{\rm fb}^{-1}$.Comment: 12 page LaTeX file; 5 figures available upon request from the autho