Instantons and the Spin of the Nucleon

Motivated by measurements of the flavor singlet axial coupling constant of the nucleon in polarized deep inelastic scattering we study the contribution of instantons to OZI violation in the axial-vector channel. We consider, in particular, the f_1-a_1 meson splitting, the flavor singlet and triplet axial coupling of a constituent quark, and the axial coupling constant of the nucleon. We show that instantons provide a short distance contribution to OZI violating correlation functions which is repulsive in the f_1 meson channel and adds to the flavor singlet three-point function of a constituent quark. We also show that the sign of this contribution is determined by positivity arguments. We compute long distance contributions using numerical simulations of the instanton liquid. We find that the iso-vector axial coupling constant of a constituent quark is (g_A^3)_Q=0.9 and that of a nucleon is g_A^3=1.28, in good agreement with experiment. The flavor singlet coupling of a quark is close to one, while that of a nucleon is suppressed, g_A^0=0.77. However, this number is larger than the experimental value g_A^0=(0.28-0.41).Comment: 36 pages, 16 figures, revised version (references added

Hadronic Wave Functions in the Instanton Model

We study hadronic wave functions using an instanton model for the QCD vacuum. The wave functions are defined in terms of gauge invariant Bethe Salpeter amplitudes which we have determined numerically using a Monte Carlo simulation of the instanton ensemble. We find that the pion and the proton, as well as the rho meson and the delta have very similar wave functions but observe a sizeable splitting between mesons or baryons with different spin. We compare our results with data obtained in lattice gauge simulations.Comment: 20 pages, uuencoded postscript file appended, SUNY-NTG-94-

Search for infrared counterparts of gamma-ray bursters

The result of two searches for infrared counterparts of Gamma-ray Bursters (GRB's) is reported. The first search was made using data from the Infrared Astronomy Satellite and covered 23 positions. The second search was made with the Kitt Peak 1.5 m telescope and covered 3 positions. In neither of these two searches was any infrared candidate detected

Gamma-ray burster recurrence timescales

Three optical transients have been found which are associated with gamma-ray bursters (GRBs). The deduced recurrence timescale for these optical transients (tau sub opt) will depend on the minimum brightness for which a flash would be detected. A detailed analysis using all available data of tau sub opt as a function of E(gamma)/E(opt) is given. For flashes similar to those found in the Harvard archives, the best estimate of tau sub opt is 0.74 years, with a 99% confidence interval from 0.23 years to 4.7 years. It is currently unclear whether the optical transients from GRBs also give rise to gamma-ray events. One way to test this association is to measure the recurrence timescale of gamma-ray events tau sub gamma. A total of 210 gamma-ray error boxes were examined and it was found that the number of observed overlaps is not significantly different from the number expected from chance coincidence. This observation can be used to place limits on tau sub gamma for an assumed luminosity function. It was found that tau sub gamma is approx. 10 yr if bursts are monoenergetic. However, if GRBs have a power law luminosity function with a wide dynamic range, then the limit is tau sub gamma 0.5 yr. Hence, the gamma-ray data do not require tau sub gamma and tau sub opt to be different