138 research outputs found
The Expansion of the Universe and the Cosmological Constant Problem
The discovery that the expansion of the universe is accelerating in time is a
major discovery which still awaits adequate explanation. It is generally agreed
that this implies a cosmic repulsion as a result of the existence of a
cosmological constant . However, estimates of the cosmological constant, based
on calculations of the zero-point fluctuations of quantum fields are too large
by over a hundred orders of magnitude. This result is obtained by summing the
zero-point energies up to a large cutoff energy, based on the Planck scale.
Since there is no compelling reason for this choice, we argue that since all
known quantum electrodynamic (QED) effects involves interaction with matter, a
preferred choice should be based on causality and other considerations, leading
to a much lower value for the cosmological constant .Comment: Phys. Lett. A, in pres
Why is CPT fundamental?
G. L\"uders and W. Pauli proved the theorem based on
Lagrangian quantum field theory almost half a century ago. R. Jost gave a more
general proof based on ``axiomatic'' field theory nearly as long ago. The
axiomatic point of view has two advantages over the Lagrangian one. First, the
axiomatic point of view makes clear why is fundamental--because
it is intimately related to Lorentz invariance. Secondly, the axiomatic proof
gives a simple way to calculate the transform of any
relativistic field without calculating , and
separately and then multiplying them. The purpose of this
pedagogical paper is to ``deaxiomatize'' the theorem by
explaining it in a few simple steps. We use theorems of distribution theory and
of several complex variables without proof to make the exposition elementary.Comment: 17 pages, no figure
Conference Discussion of the Nuclear Force
Discussion of the nuclear force, lead by a round table consisting of T.
Cohen, E. Epelbaum, R. Machleidt, and F. Gross (chair). After an invited talk
by Machleidt, published elsewhere in these proceedings, brief remarks are made
by Epelbaum, Cohen, and Gross, followed by discussion from the floor moderated
by the chair. The chair asked the round table and the participants to focus on
the following issues: (i) What does each approach (chiral effective field
theory, large Nc, and relativistic phenomenology) contribute to our knowledge
of the nuclear force? Do we need them all? Is any one transcendent? (ii) How
important for applications (few body, nuclear structure, EMC effect, for
example) are precise fits to the NN data below 350 MeV? How precise do these
fits have to be? (iii) Can we learn anything about nonperturbative QCD from
these studies of the nuclear force? The discussion presented here is based on a
video recording made at the conference and transcribed afterward.Comment: Discussion at the 21st European Conference on Few Body Problems
(EFP21) held at Salamanca, Spain, 30 Aug - 3 Sept 201
Is the physical vacuum a preferred frame ?
It is generally assumed that the physical vacuum of particle physics should
be characterized by an energy momentum tensor in such a way to preserve exact
Lorentz invariance. On the other hand, if the ground state were characterized
by its energy-momentum vector, with zero spatial momentum and a non-zero
energy, the vacuum would represent a preferred frame. Since both theoretical
approaches have their own good motivations, we propose an experimental test to
decide between the two scenarios.Comment: 12 pages, no figure
On the Wess-Zumino-Witten anomalous functional at finite temperature
We discuss the finite temperature extension of the anomalous Wess-Zumino
-Witten lagrangian. The finite temperature S^1\times S^3 compactification makes
a structure in disconnected sectors, corresponding to different baryon numbers
appear naturally. The consistency of the anomalous functional is proved for
arbitrary baryon number configurations. The anomalous behavior of the
functional is shown to be consistent with the absence of finite temperature
corrections to chiral anomalies in
QCD, for each baryon number sector.Comment: 16 pages, FT/UCM/9/9
More on the infrared renormalization group limit cycle in QCD
We present a detailed study of the recently conjectured infrared
renormalization group limit cycle in QCD using chiral effective field theory.
It was conjectured that small increases in the up and down quark masses can
move QCD to the critical trajectory for an infrared limit cycle in the
three-nucleon system. At the critical quark masses, the binding energies of the
deuteron and its spin-singlet partner are tuned to zero and the triton has
infinitely many excited states with an accumulation point at the three-nucleon
threshold. We exemplify three parameter sets where this effect occurs at
next-to-leading order in the chiral counting. For one of them, we study the
structure of the three-nucleon system in detail using both chiral and contact
effective field theories. Furthermore, we investigate the matching of the
chiral and contact theories in the critical region and calculate the influence
of the limit cycle on three-nucleon scattering observables.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, discussion improved, results unchanged, version
to appear in EPJ
Evaluating chiral symmetry restoration through the use of sum rules
We pursue the idea of assessing chiral restoration via in-medium
modifications of hadronic spectral functions of chiral partners. The usefulness
of sum rules in this endeavor is illustrated, focusing on the vector and
axial-vector channels. We first present an update on constructing quantitative
results for pertinent vacuum spectral functions. These spectral functions serve
as a basis upon which the in-medium spectral functions can be constructed. A
striking feature of our analysis of the vacuum spectral functions is the need
to include excited resonances, dictated by satisfying the Weinberg-type sum
rules. This includes excited states in both the vector and axial-vector
channels. Preliminary results for the finite temperature vector spectral
function are presented. Based on a rho spectral function tested in dilepton
data which develops a shoulder at low energies, we find that the rho' peak
flattens off. The flattening may be a sign of chiral restoration, though a
study of the finite temperature axial-vector spectral function remains to be
carried out.Comment: 9 pages, conference proceedings from Resonance Workshop at UT Austin,
March 5-7 201
Charge-conjugation violating neutrino interactions in supernovae
The well known charge conjugation violating interactions in the Standard
Model increase neutrino- and decrease anti-neutrino- nucleon cross sections.
This impacts neutrino transport in core collapse supernovae through "recoil"
corrections of order the neutrino energy over the nucleon mass . All
corrections to neutrino transport deep inside a protoneutron star are
calculated from angular integrals of the Boltzmann equation. We find these
corrections significantly modify neutrino currents at high temperatures. This
produces a large mu and tau number for the protoneutron star and can change the
ratio of neutrons to protons. In addition, the relative size of neutrino mean
free paths changes. At high temperatures, the electron anti-neutrino mean free
path becomes {\it longer} than that for mu or tau neutrinos.Comment: 14 pages, 2 included ps figures, subm. to Phys. Rev.
String-localized Quantum Fields and Modular Localization
We study free, covariant, quantum (Bose) fields that are associated with
irreducible representations of the Poincar\'e group and localized in
semi-infinite strings extending to spacelike infinity. Among these are fields
that generate the irreducible representations of mass zero and infinite spin
that are known to be incompatible with point-like localized fields. For the
massive representation and the massless representations of finite helicity, all
string-localized free fields can be written as an integral, along the string,
of point-localized tensor or spinor fields. As a special case we discuss the
string-localized vector fields associated with the point-like electromagnetic
field and their relation to the axial gauge condition in the usual setting.Comment: minor correction
Electromagnetic corrections in eta --> 3 pi decays
We re-evaluate the electromagnetic corrections to eta --> 3 pi decays at
next-to-leading order in the chiral expansion, arguing that effects of order
e^2(m_u-m_d) disregarded so far are not negligible compared to other
contributions of order e^2 times a light quark mass. Despite the appearance of
the Coulomb pole in eta --> pi+ pi- pi0 and cusps in eta --> 3 pi0, the overall
corrections remain small.Comment: 21 pages, 11 figures; references updated, version published in EPJ
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