Beyond the rainbow: effects from pion back-coupling

We investigate hadronic unquenching effects in light quarks and mesons. To this end we take into account the back-coupling of the pion onto the quark propagator within the non-perturbative continuum framework of Schwinger-Dyson equations (SDE) and Bethe-Salpeter equations (BSE). We improve on a previous approach by explicitly solving both the coupled system of DSEs and BSEs in the complex plane and the normalisation problem for Bethe-Salpeter kernels depending on the total momentum of the meson. As a result of our study we find considerable unquenching effects in the spectrum of light pseudoscalar, vector and axial-vector mesons.Comment: 9 pages, 5 figures. Minor typos corrected. Version to appear in PR

Probing the gluon self-interaction in light mesons

We investigate masses and decay constants of light mesons from a coupled system of Dyson--Schwinger and Bethe--Salpeter equations. We explicitly take into account dominant non-Abelian contributions to the dressed quark-gluon vertex stemming from the gluon self-interaction. We construct the corresponding Bethe-Salpeter kernel that satisfies the axial-vector Ward-Takahashi identity. Our numerical treatment fully includes all momentum dependencies with all equations solved completely in the complex plane. This approach goes well beyond the rainbow-ladder approximation and permits us to investigate the influence of the gluon self-interaction on the properties of mesons. As a first result we find indications of a nonperturbative cancellation of the gluon self-interaction contributions and pion cloud effects in the mass of the rho-meson.Comment: 4 pages, 5 figures. Matches published version in PR

Probing Unquenching Effects in the Gluon Polarisation in Light Mesons

We introduce an extension to the ladder truncated Bethe-Salpeter equation for mesons and the rainbow truncated quark Dyson-Schwinger equations which includes quark-loop corrections to the gluon propagator. This truncation scheme obeys the axialvector Ward-Takahashi identity relating the quark self-energy and the Bethe-Salpeter kernel. Two different approximations to the Yang-Mills sector are used as input: the first is a sophisticated truncation of the full Yang-Mills Dyson-Schwinger equations, the second is a phenomenologically motivated form. We find that the spectra and decay constants of pseudoscalar and vector mesons are overall described well for either approach. Meson mass results for charge eigenstate vector and pseudoscalar meson masses are compared to lattice data. The effects of unquenching the system are small but not negligible.Comment: 26 pages, 13 figure

Organic geochemistry of the crater-fill sediments from Boltysh impact crater, Ukraine

The Boltysh impact crater, is a complex structure formed on the basement rocks of the Ukrainian shield which has been dated at 65.17±0.64 Ma [1]. The Boltysh crater has been know for several decades and was originally drilled in the 1960s-1980s in a study of economic oil shale deposits. Unfortunately, the cores were not curated and have been lost. However we have recently re-drilled the impact crater and have recovered a near continuous record of ~400 m of organic rich sediments deposited in a deep isolated lake which overlie the basement rocks spanning a period ~10 Ma. At 24km diameter, Boltysh will not have contributed substantially to the worldwide devastation at the end of the Cretaceous. However, the precise age of the Boltysh impact relative to the Chicxulub impact and its location on a stable low lying coastal plain which allowed formation of the postimpact crater lake make it a particularly important locality. After the impact, the crater quickly filled with water in a short marine phase but returned to fresh water which persisted for >10Ma [2]. These strata contain a valuable record of Paleogene environmental change in central Europe, and one of very few terrestrial records of the KT event. This pre-eminent record of the Paleogene can help us to answer several related scientific questions including the relative age of Boltysh compared with Chicxulub, recovery from the impact, and later climate signals. The organic geochemistry and playnology indicate main inputs to be algal and higher plant within most of the core although there are some marked changes in inputs in some sections. A number of carbon isotope excursions are also present within the core which are currently being further investigated

Scientific drilling of the Boltysh impact crater, Ukraine

Introduction: The Boltysh crater has been known for several decades and was first drilled in the 1960s as part of a study of economic oil shale deposits. Unfortunately, the cores were not curated and have been lost. We have re-drilled the impact crater and have recovered a near continuous record of ~400 m of organicrich sediments together with 15 m of suevite

Microscopic resolution broadband dielectric spectroscopy

Results are presented for a non-contact measurement system capable of micron level spatial resolution. It utilises the novel electric potential sensor (EPS) technology, invented at Sussex, to image the electric field above a simple composite dielectric material. EP sensors may be regarded as analogous to a magnetometer and require no adjustments or offsets during either setup or use. The sample consists of a standard glass/epoxy FR4 circuit board, with linear defects machined into the surface by a PCB milling machine. The sample is excited with an a.c. signal over a range of frequencies from 10 kHz to 10 MHz, from the reverse side, by placing it on a conducting sheet connected to the source. The single sensor is raster scanned over the surface at a constant working distance, consistent with the spatial resolution, in order to build up an image of the electric field, with respect to the reference potential. The results demonstrate that both the surface defects and the internal dielectric variations within the composite may be imaged in this way, with good contrast being observed between the glass mat and the epoxy resin

Effective Field Theory Approach to String Gas Cosmology

We derive the 4D low energy effective field theory for a closed string gas on a time dependent FRW background. We examine the solutions and find that although the Brandenberger-Vafa mechanism at late times no longer leads to radion stabilization, the radion rolls slowly enough that the scenario is still of interest. In particular, we find a simple example of the string inspired dark matter recently proposed by Gubser and Peebles.Comment: 19 pages, 2 figures, comments adde

The shape of primordial non-Gaussianity and the CMB bispectrum

We present a set of formalisms for comparing, evolving and constraining primordial non-Gaussian models through the CMB bispectrum. We describe improved methods for efficient computation of the full CMB bispectrum for any general (non-separable) primordial bispectrum, incorporating a flat sky approximation and a new cubic interpolation. We review all the primordial non-Gaussian models in the present literature and calculate the CMB bispectrum up to l <2000 for each different model. This allows us to determine the observational independence of these models by calculating the cross-correlation of their CMB bispectra. We are able to identify several distinct classes of primordial shapes - including equilateral, local, warm, flat and feature (non-scale invariant) - which should be distinguishable given a significant detection of CMB non-Gaussianity. We demonstrate that a simple shape correlator provides a fast and reliable method for determining whether or not CMB shapes are well correlated. We use an eigenmode decomposition of the primordial shape to characterise and understand model independence. Finally, we advocate a standardised normalisation method for $f_{NL}$ based on the shape autocorrelator, so that observational limits and errors can be consistently compared for different models.Comment: 32 pages, 20 figure

Primordial non-Gaussianity and the CMB bispectrum

We present a new formalism, together with efficient numerical methods, to directly calculate the CMB bispectrum today from a given primordial bispectrum using the full linear radiation transfer functions. Unlike previous analyses which have assumed simple separable ansatze for the bispectrum, this work applies to a primordial bispectrum of almost arbitrary functional form, for which there may have been both horizon-crossing and superhorizon contributions. We employ adaptive methods on a hierarchical triangular grid and we establish their accuracy by direct comparison with an exact analytic solution, valid on large angular scales. We demonstrate that we can calculate the full CMB bispectrum to greater than 1% precision out to multipoles l<1800 on reasonable computational timescales. We plot the bispectrum for both the superhorizon ('local') and horizon-crossing ('equilateral') asymptotic limits, illustrating its oscillatory nature which is analogous to the CMB power spectrum