349 research outputs found
A new window on Strange Quark Matter as the ground state of strongly interacting matter
If strange quark matter is the true ground state of matter, it must have
lower energy than nuclear matter. Simultaneously, two-flavour quark matter must
have higher energy than nuclear matter, for otherwise the latter would convert
to the former. We show, using an effective chiral lagrangian, that the
existence of a new lower energy ground state for two-flavour quark matter, the
pion condensate, shrinks the window for strange quark matter to be the ground
state of matter and sets new limits on the current strange quark mass
Collisional Velocities and Rates in Resonant Planetesimal Belts
We consider a belt of small bodies around a star, captured in one of the
external or 1:1 mean-motion resonances with a massive perturber. The objects in
the belt collide with each other. Combining methods of celestial mechanics and
statistical physics, we calculate mean collisional velocities and collisional
rates, averaged over the belt. The results are compared to collisional
velocities and rates in a similar, but non-resonant belt, as predicted by the
particle-in-a-box method. It is found that the effect of the resonant lock on
the velocities is rather small, while on the rates more substantial. The
collisional rates between objects in an external resonance are by about a
factor of two higher than those in a similar belt of objects not locked in a
resonance. For Trojans under the same conditions, the collisional rates may be
enhanced by up to an order of magnitude. Our results imply, in particular,
shorter collisional lifetimes of resonant Kuiper belt objects in the solar
system and higher efficiency of dust production by resonant planetesimals in
debris disks around other stars.Comment: 31 pages, 11 figures (some of them heavily compressed to fit into
arxiv-maximum filesize), accepted for publication at "Celestial Mechanics and
Dynamical Astronomy
SU(N) Antiferromagnets and Strongly Coupled QED: Effective Field Theory for Josephson Junctions Arrays
We review our analysis of the strong coupling of compact QED on a lattice
with staggered Fermions. We show that, for infinite coupling, compact QED is
exactly mapped in a quantum antiferromagnet. We discuss some aspects of this
correspondence relevant for effective field theories of Josephson junctions
arrays.Comment: 33 pages,latex,Proceedings of "Common Trends in Condensed Matter and
High Energy Physics",DFUPG 1/9
SU(N) Quantum Antiferromagnets and the Phase Structure of QED in the Strong Coupling Limit
We examine the strong coupling limit of both compact and non compact QED on a
lattice with staggered fermions. We show that every SU(N) antiferromagnet with
spins in a particular fundamental representation of the SU(N) Lie Algebra and
with nearest neighbor couplings on a bipartite lattice is exactly equivalent to
the infinite coupling limit of lattice QED with the numbers of flavors of
electrons related to N and the dimension of spacetime D+1. We find that,for
both compact and noncompact QED,when N is odd the ground state of the strong
coupling limit breaks chiral symmetry in any dimensions and for any N and the
condensate is an isoscalar mass operator. When N is even,chiral symmetry is
broken if D is bigger or equal to 2 and N is small enough and the order
parameter is an isovector mass operator. We also find the exact ground state of
the lattice Coulomb gas as well as a variety of related lattice statistical
systems with long ranged interactions.Comment: latex, 45 pages, DFUPG 69/9
Low-lying meson spectrum of large strongly coupled lattice QCD
We compute the low energy mass spectrum of lattice QCD in the large
limit. Expanding around a gauge-invariant ground state, which spontaneously
breaks the discrete chiral symmetry, we derive an improved strong-coupling
expansion and evaluate, for any value of , the masses of the low-lying
states in the unflavored meson spectrum. We then take the 't Hooft limit by
rescaling ; the 't Hooft limit is smooth and no arbitrary
parameters are needed. We find, already at the fourth order of the strong
coupling perturbation theory, a very good agreement between the results of our
lattice computation and the known continuum values.Comment: 43 pages, 1 figure. Minor corrections. One reference added in section
Meson screening masses from lattice QCD with two light and the strange quark
We present results for screening masses of mesons built from light and
strange quarks in the temperature range of approximately between 140 MeV to 800
MeV. The lattice computations were performed with 2+1 dynamical light and
strange flavors of improved (p4) staggered fermions along a line of constant
physics defined by a pion mass of about 220 MeV and a kaon mass of 500 MeV. The
lattices had temporal extents Nt = 4, 6 and 8 and aspect ratios of Ns / Nt \geq
4. At least up to a temperature of 140 MeV the pseudo-scalar screening mass
remains almost equal to the corresponding zero temperature pseudo-scalar (pole)
mass. At temperatures around 3Tc (Tc being the transition temperature) the
continuum extrapolated pseudo-scalar screening mass approaches very close to
the free continuum result of 2 \pi T from below. On the other hand, at high
temperatures the vector screening mass turns out to be larger than the free
continuum value of 2 \pi T. The pseudo-scalar and the vector screening masses
do not become degenerate even for a temperature as high as 4Tc. Using these
mesonic spatial correlation functions we have also investigated the restoration
of chiral symmetry and the effective restoration of the axial symmetry. We have
found that the vector and the axial-vector screening correlators become
degenerate, indicating chiral symmetry restoration, at a temperature which is
consistent with the QCD transition temperature obtained in previous studies. On
the other hand, the pseudo-scalar and the scalar screening correlators become
degenerate only at temperatures larger than 1.3Tc, indicating that the
effective restoration of the axial symmetry takes place at a temperature larger
than the QCD transition temperature.Comment: Published versio
The Kuiper Belt and Other Debris Disks
We discuss the current knowledge of the Solar system, focusing on bodies in
the outer regions, on the information they provide concerning Solar system
formation, and on the possible relationships that may exist between our system
and the debris disks of other stars. Beyond the domains of the Terrestrial and
giant planets, the comets in the Kuiper belt and the Oort cloud preserve some
of our most pristine materials. The Kuiper belt, in particular, is a
collisional dust source and a scientific bridge to the dusty "debris disks"
observed around many nearby main-sequence stars. Study of the Solar system
provides a level of detail that we cannot discern in the distant disks while
observations of the disks may help to set the Solar system in proper context.Comment: 50 pages, 25 Figures. To appear in conference proceedings book
"Astrophysics in the Next Decade
The accelerated scaling attractor solution of the interacting agegraphic dark energy in Brans-Dicke theory
We investigate the interacting agegraphic dark energy in Brans-Dicke theory
and introduce a new series general forms of dark sector coupling. As examples,
we select three cases involving a linear interaction form (Model I) and two
nonlinear interaction form (Model II and Model III). Our conclusions show that
the accelerated scaling attractor solutions do exist in these models. We also
find that these interacting agegraphic dark energy modes are consistent with
the observational data. The difference in these models is that nonlinear
interaction forms give more approached evolution to the standard CDM
model than the linear one. Our work implies that the nonlinear interaction
forms should be payed more attention.Comment: 9 pages, 10 figures, accepted in Eur. Phys. J.
Contraints on unified models for dark matter and dark energy using H(z)
The differential age data of astrophysical objects that have evolved
passivelly during the history of the universe (e.g. red galaxies) allows to
test theoretical cosmological models through the predicted Hubble function
expressed in terms of the redshift , . We use the observational data
for to test unified scenarios for dark matter and dark energy.
Specifically, we focus our analysis on the Generalized Chaplygin Gas (GCG) and
the viscous fluid (VF) models. For the GCG model, it is shown that the unified
scenario for dark energy and dark matter requires some priors. For the VF model
we obtain estimations for the free parameters that may be compared with further
analysis mainly at perturbative level.Comment: Latex file, 10 pages, 19 figures in eps format. Accepted for
publication in European Journal of Physics
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