Can the Lepton Flavor Mixing Matrix Be Symmetric?

Current neutrino oscillation data indicate that the 3x3 lepton flavor mixing matrix V is likely to be symmetric about its V_{e3}-V_{\mu 2}-V_{\tau 1} axis. This off-diagonal symmetry corresponds to three pairs of {\it congruent} unitarity triangles in the complex plane. Terrestrial matter effects can substantially modify the genuine CP-violating parameter and off-diagonal asymmetries of V in realistic long-baseline experiments of neutrino oscillations.Comment: RexTex 14 pages (4 PS figures). More discussions adde

More Straightforward Extraction of the Fundamental Lepton Mixing Parameters from Long-Baseline Neutrino Oscillations

We point out the simple reversibility between the fundamental neutrino mixing parameters in vacuum and their effective counterparts in matter. The former can therefore be expressed in terms of the latter, allowing more straightforward extraction of the genuine lepton mixing quantities from a variety of long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments. In addition to the parametrization-independent results, we present the formulas based on the standard parametrization of the lepton flavor mixing matrix and give a typical numerical illustration.Comment: RevTex 10 pages. Minor changes. Phys. Rev. D in printin

A new measurement of thermal conductivity of amorphous ice and its implications for the thermal evolution of comets

Very slowly deposited amorphous ice has a thermal conductivity about four orders of magnitude or more smaller than hitherto estimated. Using the exceedingly low value of the thermal conductivity of comets deduced from the properties of amorphous ice leads to the expectation that internal heating of comets is negligible below the outer several tens of centimeters

Testing CPT Invariance in B^0_d-\bar{B}^0_d and B^0_s-\bar{B}^0_s Oscillations

Recent CDF and D0 measurements of B^0_s-\bar{B}^0_s mixing make it possible to search for CP violation and test CPT symmetry in a variety of B_s decays. Considering both coherent B^0_d\bar{B}^0_d decays at the \Upsilon (4S) resonance and coherent B^0_s\bar{B}^0_s decays at the \Upsilon (5S) resonance, we formulate their time-dependent and time-integrated rates by postulating small CPT violation in B^0_d-\bar{B}^0_d and B^0_s-\bar{B}^0_s oscillations. We show that the opposite-sign dilepton events from either C-odd or C-even B^0_q\bar{B}^0_q states (for q = d or s) can be used to determine or constrain the CPT-violating parameter at a super-B factory. The possibility of distinguishing between the effect of CPT violation and that of \Delta B = -\Delta Q transitions is also discussed.Comment: LaTex 12 pages. A minor change. Accepted for publication in Phys. Rev.

Flavor violating decays of the Higgs bosons in the THDM-III

We calculate the branching ratios for the decays of neutral Higgs bosons ($h^{0},H^{0},A^{0}$) into pairs of fermions, including flavor violating processes, in the context of the General Two Higgs Doublet Model III.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, 6 tables. Text clarifying equations and references added, typos correction

High-Accuracy Self-Calibration for Smart, Optical Orbiting Payloads Integrated with Attitude and Position Determination.

A high-accuracy space smart payload integrated with attitude and position (SSPIAP) is a new type of optical remote sensor that can autonomously complete image positioning. Inner orientation parameters (IOPs) are a prerequisite for image position determination of an SSPIAP. The calibration of IOPs significantly influences the precision of image position determination of SSPIAPs. IOPs can be precisely measured and calibrated in a laboratory. However, they may drift to a significant degree because of vibrations during complicated launches and on-orbit functioning. Therefore, laboratory calibration methods are not suitable for on-orbit functioning. We propose an on-orbit self-calibration method for SSPIAPs. Our method is based on an auto-collimating dichroic filter combined with a micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) point-source focal plane. A MEMS procedure is used to manufacture a light transceiver focal plane, which integrates with point light sources and a complementary metal oxide semiconductor (CMOS) sensor. A dichroic filter is used to fabricate an auto-collimation light reflection element. The dichroic filter and the MEMS point light sources focal plane are integrated into an SSPIAP so it can perform integrated self-calibration. Experiments show that our method can achieve micrometer-level precision, which is good enough to complete real-time calibration without temporal or spatial limitations

Image tag completion by local learning

The problem of tag completion is to learn the missing tags of an image. In this paper, we propose to learn a tag scoring vector for each image by local linear learning. A local linear function is used in the neighborhood of each image to predict the tag scoring vectors of its neighboring images. We construct a unified objective function for the learning of both tag scoring vectors and local linear function parame- ters. In the objective, we impose the learned tag scoring vectors to be consistent with the known associations to the tags of each image, and also minimize the prediction error of each local linear function, while reducing the complexity of each local function. The objective function is optimized by an alternate optimization strategy and gradient descent methods in an iterative algorithm. We compare the proposed algorithm against different state-of-the-art tag completion methods, and the results show its advantages