34 research outputs found
Higgs for Graviton: Simple and Elegant Solution
A Higgs mechanism for gravity is presented, where four scalars with global
Lorentz symmetry are employed. We show that in the broken symmetry phase a
graviton absorbs all scalars and become massive spin 2 particle with five
degrees of freedom. The resulting theory is unitary and free of ghosts.Comment: 8 pages, References added. The decoupling of ghost state is analyzed
in detail
What two models may teach us about duality violations in QCD
Though the operator product expansion is applicable in the calculation of
current correlation functions in the Euclidean region, when approaching the
Minkowskian domain, violations of quark-hadron duality are expected to occur,
due to the presence of bound-state or resonance poles. In QCD finite-energy sum
rules, contour integrals in the complex energy plane down to the Minkowskian
axis have to be performed, and thus the question arises what the impact of
duality violations may be. The structure and possible relevance of duality
violations is investigated on the basis of two models: the Coulomb system and a
model for light-quark correlators which has already been studied previously. As
might yet be naively expected, duality violations are in some sense "maximal"
for zero-width bound states and they become weaker for broader resonances whose
poles lie further away from the physical axis. Furthermore, to a certain
extent, they can be suppressed by choosing appropriate weight functions in the
finite-energy sum rules. A simplified Ansatz for including effects of duality
violations in phenomenological QCD sum rule analyses is discussed as well.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures; version to appear in JHE
On Non-Linear Actions for Massive Gravity
In this work we present a systematic construction of the potentially
ghost-free non-linear massive gravity actions. The most general action can be
regarded as a 2-parameter deformation of a minimal massive action. Further
extensions vanish in 4 dimensions. The general mass term is constructed in
terms of a "deformed" determinant from which this property can clearly be seen.
In addition, our formulation identifies non-dynamical terms that appear in
previous constructions and which do not contribute to the equations of motion.
We elaborate on the formal structure of these theories as well as some of their
implications.Comment: v3: 22 pages, minor comments added, version to appear in JHE
Development of SimCells as a novel chassis for functional biosensors
This work serves as a proof-of-concept for bacterially derived SimCells (Simple Cells), which contain the cell machinery from bacteria and designed DNA (or potentially a simplified genome) to instruct the cell to carry out novel, specific tasks. SimCells represent a reprogrammable chassis without a native chromosome, which can host designed DNA to perform defined functions. In this paper, the use of Escherichia coli MC1000 âminD minicells as a non-reproducing chassis for SimCells was explored, as demonstrated by their ability to act as sensitive biosensors for small molecules. Highly purified minicells derived from E. coli strains containing gene circuits for biosensing were able to transduce the input signals from several small molecules (glucarate, acrylate and arabinose) into the production of green fluorescent protein (GFP). A mathematical model was developed to fit the experimental data for induction of gene expression in SimCells. The intracellular ATP level was shown to be important for SimCell function. A purification and storage protocol was developed to prepare SimCells which could retain their functions for an extended period of time. This study demonstrates that SimCells are able to perform as 'smart bioparticles' controlled by designed gene circuits
New physics searches at near detectors of neutrino oscillation experiments
We systematically investigate the prospects of testing new physics with tau
sensitive near detectors at neutrino oscillation facilities. For neutrino beams
from pion decay, from the decay of radiative ions, as well as from the decays
of muons in a storage ring at a neutrino factory, we discuss which effective
operators can lead to new physics effects. Furthermore, we discuss the present
bounds on such operators set by other experimental data currently available.
For operators with two leptons and two quarks we present the first complete
analysis including all relevant operators simultaneously and performing a
Markov Chain Monte Carlo fit to the data. We find that these effects can induce
tau neutrino appearance probabilities as large as O(10^{-4}), which are within
reach of forthcoming experiments. We highlight to which kind of new physics a
tau sensitive near detector would be most sensitive.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures, REVTeX
f(R) theories
Over the past decade, f(R) theories have been extensively studied as one of
the simplest modifications to General Relativity. In this article we review
various applications of f(R) theories to cosmology and gravity - such as
inflation, dark energy, local gravity constraints, cosmological perturbations,
and spherically symmetric solutions in weak and strong gravitational
backgrounds. We present a number of ways to distinguish those theories from
General Relativity observationally and experimentally. We also discuss the
extension to other modified gravity theories such as Brans-Dicke theory and
Gauss-Bonnet gravity, and address models that can satisfy both cosmological and
local gravity constraints.Comment: 156 pages, 14 figures, Invited review article in Living Reviews in
Relativity, Published version, Comments are welcom
Neutrinos
229 pages229 pages229 pagesThe Proceedings of the 2011 workshop on Fundamental Physics at the Intensity Frontier. Science opportunities at the intensity frontier are identified and described in the areas of heavy quarks, charged leptons, neutrinos, proton decay, new light weakly-coupled particles, and nucleons, nuclei, and atoms