Geophysical constraint on a relic background of the dilatons

According to a scenario in string cosmology, a relic background of light dilatons can be a significant component of the dark matter in the Universe. A new approach of searching for such a dilatonic background by observing Earth's surface gravity was proposed in my previous work. In this paper, the concept of the geophysical search is briefly reviewed, and the geophysical constraint on the dilaton background is presented as a function of the strength of the dilaton coupling, $q_b^2$. For simplicity, I focus on massless dilatons and assume a simple Earth model. With the current upper limit on $q_b^2$, we obtain the upper limit on the dimensionless energy density of the massless background, $\Omega_{DW}h^2_{100} \leq 6 \times 10^{-7}$, which is about one-order of magnitude more stringent than the one from astrophysical observations, at the frequency of $\sim$ 7 $\times$ 10$^{-5}$ Hz. If the magnitude of $q_b^2$ is experimentally found to be smaller than the current upper limit by one order of magnitude, the geophysical upper limit on $\Omega_{DW}h^2_{100}$ becomes less stringent and comparable to the one obtained from the astrophysical observations.Comment: 6 pages, Proceedings for the 8th Edoardo Amaldi Conference on Gravitational Waves, 21-26 June, 2009, Columbia University, New York, US

Heat conduction of single-walled carbon nanotube isotope-superlattice structures: A molecular dynamics study

Heat conduction of single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) isotope-superlattice is investigated by means of classical molecular dynamics simulations. Superlattice structures were formed by alternately connecting SWNTs with different masses. On varying the superlattice period, the critical value with minimum effective thermal conductivity was identified, where dominant physics switches from zone-folding effect to thermal boundary resistance of lattice interface. The crossover mechanism is explained with the energy density spectra where zone-folding effects can be clearly observed. The results suggest that the critical superlattice period thickness depends on the mean free path distribution of diffusive-ballistic phonons. The reduction of the thermal conductivity with superlattice structures beats that of the one-dimensional alloy structure, though the minimum thermal conductivity is still slightly higher than the value obtained by two-dimensional random mixing of isotopes.Comment: 7 Pages, 5 figures, accepted to Phys. Rev.

Negative Parity Baryons in the QCD Sum Rule

Masses and couplings of the negative parity excited baryons are studied in the QCD sum rule. Separation of the negative-parity spectrum is proposed and is applied to the flavor octet and singlet baryons. We find that the quark condensate is responsible for the mass splitting of the ground and the negative-parity excited states. This is expected from the chiral symmetry and supports the idea that the negative-parity baryon forms a parity doublet with the ground state. The meson-baryon coupling constants are also computed for the excited states in the QCD sum rule. It is found that the \pi NN^* coupling vanishes in the chiral limit.Comment: 13pp, LaTeX, 1 EPS figure, uses epsf.sty, Talk given by M.O. at CEBAF/INT workshop "N* physics", Seattle, September (1996), to appear in the proceeding

Hall effect of spin-chirality origin in a triangular-lattice helimagnet Fe1.3Sb

We report on a topological Hall effect possibly induced by scalar spin chirality in a quasi-two- dimensional helimagnet Fe$_{1+x}$Sb. In the low-temperature region where the spins on interstitial- Fe (concentration $x=0.3$) intervening the $120^\circ$ spin-ordered triangular planes tend to freeze, a non-trivial component of Hall resistivity with opposite sign of the conventional anomalous Hall term is observed under magnetic field applied perpendicular to the triangular-lattice plane. The observed unconventional Hall effect is ascribed to the scalar spin chirality arising from the heptamer spin-clusters around the interstitial-Fe sites, which can be induced by the spin modulation by the Dzyaloshinsky-Moriya interaction

Hyperon-nucleon coupling from QCD sum rules

The NKY coupling constant for $Y = \Lambda$ and $\Sigma$ is evaluated in a QCD sum rule calculation. We discuss and extend the result of a previous analysis in the $\rlap{/}{q}i\gamma_5$ structure and compare it with the result obtained with the use of the $\gamma_5 \sigma_{\mu \nu}$ structure. We find a huge violation of the SU(3) symmetry in the $\gamma_5 \sigma_{\mu \nu}$ structure.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, espcrc2.sty included. Talk presented at QCD99, Montpellier, France (to appear in Nucl.Phys.B Proc.Suppl.

Development of a low-mass and high-efficiency charged particle detector

We developed a low-mass and high-efficiency charged particle detector for an experimental study of the rare decay $K_L \rightarrow \pi^0 \nu \bar{\nu}$. The detector is important to suppress the background with charged particles to the level below the signal branching ratio predicted by the Standard Model (O(10$^{-11}$)). The detector consists of two layers of 3-mm-thick plastic scintillators with wavelength shifting fibers embedded and Multi Pixel Photon Counters for readout. We manufactured the counter and evaluated the performance such as light yield, timing resolution, and efficiency. With this design, we achieved the inefficiency per layer against penetrating charged particles to be less than $1.5 \times 10^{-5}$, which satisfies the requirement of the KOTO experiment determined from simulation studies.Comment: 20 pages, 18 figure