H-Band Spectroscopic Classification of OB Stars

We present a new spectroscopic classification for OB stars based on H-band (1.5 micron to 1.8 micron) observations of a sample of stars with optical spectral types. Our initial sample of nine stars demonstrates that the combination of He I 1.7002 micron and H Brackett series absorption can be used to determine spectral types for stars between about O4 and B7 (to within about +/- 2 sub-types). We find that the Brackett series exhibits luminosity effects similar to the Balmer series for the B stars. This classification scheme will be useful in studies of optically obscured high mass star forming regions. In addition, we present spectra for the OB stars near 1.1 micron and 1.3 micron which may be of use in analyzing their atmospheres and winds.Comment: Accepted by AJ, 16 pages Latex (aastex4.0) including 4 figures and 2 tables. A complete PostScript copy is available at ftp://degobah.colorado.edu/pub/rblum/Hband

What is the discrete gauge symmetry of the R-parity violating MSSM?

The lack of experimental evidence for supersymmetry motivates R-parity violating realizations of the MSSM. Dropping R-parity, alternative symmetries have to be imposed in order to stabilize the proton. We determine the possible discrete R and non-R symmetries, which allow for renormalizable R-parity violating terms in the superpotential and which, at the effective level, are consistent with the constraints from nucleon decay. Assuming a gauge origin, we require the symmetry to be discrete gauge anomaly-free, allowing also for cancellation via the Green Schwarz mechanism. Furthermore, we demand lepton number violating neutrino mass terms either at the renormalizable or non-renormalizable level. In order to solve the mu problem, the discrete Z_N or Z_N^R symmetries have to forbid any bilinear superpotential operator at tree level. In the case of renormalizable baryon number violation the smallest possible symmetry satisfying all conditions is a unique hexality Z_6^R. In the case of renormalizable lepton number violation the smallest symmetries are two hexalities, one Z_6 and one Z_6^R.Comment: 25 pages, version to appear in PR

A Completely Invariant SUSY Transform of Supersymmetric QED

We study the SUSY breaking of the covariant gauge-fixing term in SUSY QED and observe that this corresponds to a breaking of the Lorentz gauge condition by SUSY. Reasoning by analogy with SUSY's violation of the Wess-Zumino gauge, we argue that the SUSY transformation, already modified to preserve Wess-Zumino gauge, should be further modified by another gauge transformation which restores the Lorentz gauge condition. We derive this modification and use the resulting transformation to derive a Ward identitiy relating the photon and photino propagators without using ghost fields. Our transformation also fulfills the SUSY algebra, modulo terms that vanish in Lorentz gauge

Symmetry of bound and antibound states in the semiclassical limit

We consider one dimensional scattering and show how the presence of a mild positive barrier separating the interaction region from infinity implies that the bound and antibound states are symmetric modulo exponentially small errors in 1/h. This simple result was inspired by a numerical experiment and we describe the numerical scheme for an efficient computation of resonances in one dimension

Large Lepton Mixings from Continuous Symmetries

Within the broad context of quark-lepton unification, we investigate the implications of broken continuous family symmetries which result from requiring that in the limit of exact symmetry, the Dirac mass matrices yield hierarchical masses for the quarks and charged leptons, but lead to degenerate light neutrino masses as a consequence of the seesaw mechanism, without requiring hierarchical right-handed neutrino mass terms. Quark mixing is then naturally small and proportional to the size of the perturbation, but lepton mixing is large as a result of degenerate perturbation theory, shifted from maximal mixing by the size of the perturbation. Within this approach, we study an illustrative two-family prototype model with an SO(2) family symmetry, and discuss extensions to three-family models.Comment: 23 page

Observation and absolute frequency measurements of the 1S0 - 3P0 optical clock transition in ytterbium

We report the direct excitation of the highly forbidden (6s^2) 1S0 - (6s6p) 3P0 optical transition in two odd isotopes of ytterbium. As the excitation laser frequency is scanned, absorption is detected by monitoring the depletion from an atomic cloud at ~70 uK in a magneto-optical trap. The measured frequency in 171Yb (F=1/2) is 518,295,836,593.2 +/- 4.4 kHz. The measured frequency in 173Yb (F=5/2) is 518,294,576,850.0 +/- 4.4 kHz. Measurements are made with a femtosecond-laser frequency comb calibrated by the NIST cesium fountain clock and represent nearly a million-fold reduction in uncertainty. The natural linewidth of these J=0 to J=0 transitions is calculated to be ~10 mHz, making them well-suited to support a new generation of optical atomic clocks based on confinement in an optical lattice.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figure

Hodge Dual for Soldered Bundles

In order to account for all possible contractions allowed by the presence of the solder form, a generalized Hodge dual is defined for the case of soldered bundles. Although for curvature the generalized dual coincides with the usual one, for torsion it gives a completely new dual definition. Starting from the standard form of a gauge lagrangian for the translation group, the generalized Hodge dual yields precisely the lagrangian of the teleparallel equivalent of general relativity, and consequently also the Einstein-Hilbert lagrangian of general relativity.Comment: 8 pages, no figures. Accepted for publication in Journal of Physics

Triplet Leptogenesis in Left-Right Symmetric Seesaw Models

We discuss scalar triplet leptogenesis in a specific left-right symmetric seesaw model. We show that the Majorana phases that are present in the model can be effectively used to saturate the existing upper limit on the CP-asymmetry of the triplets. We solve the relevant Boltzmann equations and analyze the viability of triplet leptogenesis. It is known for this kind of scenario that the efficiency of leptogenesis is maximal if there exists a hierarchy between the branching ratios of the triplet decays into leptons and Higgs particles. We show that triplet leptogenesis typically favors branching ratios with not too strong hierarchies, since maximal efficiency can only be obtained at the expense of suppressed CP-asymmetries.Comment: 16 pages, 5 figures, published versio

Mesoscopic theory of the viscoelasticity of polymers

We have advanced our previous static theory of polymer entanglement involving an extended Cahn-Hilliard functional, to include time-dependent dynamics. We go beyond the Gaussian approximation, to the one-loop level, to compute the frequency dependent storage and loss moduli of the system. The three parameters in our theory are obtained by fitting to available experimental data on polystyrene melts of various chain lengths. This provides a physical representation of the parameters in terms of the chain length of the system. We discuss the importance of the various terms in our energy functional with respect to their contribution to the viscoelastic response of the polymeric system.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.