The total flow concept for geothermal energy conversion

A geothermal development project has been initiated at the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory (LLL) to emphasize development of methods for recovery and conversion of the energy in geothermal deposits of hot brines. Temperatures of these waters vary from 150 C to more than 300 C with dissolved solids content ranging from less than 0.1% to over 25% by weight. Of particular interest are the deposits of high-temperature/high-salinity brines, as well as less saline brines, known to occur in the Salton Trough of California. Development of this resource will depend on resolution of the technical problems of brine handling, scale and precipitation control, and corrosion/erosion resistant systems for efficient conversion of thermal to electrical energy. Research experience to date has shown these problems to be severe. Hence, the LLL program emphasizes development of an entirely different approach called the Total Flow concept

Contamination cannot explain the lack of large-scale power in the cosmic microwave background radiation

Several anomalies appear to be present in the large-angle cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy maps of WMAP. One of these is a lack of large-scale power. Because the data otherwise match standard models extremely well, it is natural to consider perturbations of the standard model as possible explanations. We show that, as long as the source of the perturbation is statistically independent of the source of the primary CMB anisotropy, no such model can explain this large-scale power deficit. On the contrary, any such perturbation always reduces the probability of obtaining any given low value of large-scale power. We rigorously prove this result when the lack of large-scale power is quantified with a quadratic statistic, such as the quadrupole moment. When a statistic based on the integrated square of the correlation function is used instead, we present strong numerical evidence in support of the result. The result applies to models in which the geometry of spacetime is perturbed (e.g., an ellipsoidal Universe) as well as explanations involving local contaminants, undiagnosed foregrounds, or systematic errors. Because the large-scale power deficit is arguably the most significant of the observed anomalies, explanations that worsen this discrepancy should be regarded with great skepticism, even if they help in explaining other anomalies such as multipole alignments.Comment: 9 pages. Submitted to Phys. Rev.

The RR-parity Violating Decays of Charginos and Neutralinos in the B-L MSSM

The $B-L$ MSSM is the MSSM with three right-handed neutrino chiral multiplets and gauged $B-L$ symmetry. The $B-L$ symmetry is broken by the third family right-handed sneutrino acquiring a VEV, thus spontaneously breaking $R$-parity. Within a natural range of soft supersymmetry breaking parameters, it is shown that a large and uncorrelated number of initial values satisfy all present phenomenological constraints; including the correct masses for the $W^{\pm}$, $Z^0$ bosons, having all sparticles exceeding their present lower bounds and giving the experimentally measured value for the Higgs boson. For this "valid" set of initial values, there are a number of different LSPs, each occurring a calculable number of times. We plot this statistically and determine that among the most prevalent LSPs are chargino and neutralino mass eigenstates. In this paper, the $R$-parity violating decay channels of charginos and neutralinos to standard model particles are determined, and the interaction vertices and decay rates computed analytically. These results are valid for any chargino and neutralino, regardless of whether or not they are the LSP. For chargino and neutralino LSPs, we will-- in a subsequent series of papers --present a numerical study of their RPV decays evaluated statistically over the range of associated valid initial points.Comment: 62 pages, 12 figures, added references in section 1, corrected some calculation error

Massive Spin-2 Scattering and Asymptotic Superluminality

We place model-independent constraints on theories of massive spin-2 particles by considering the positivity of the phase shift in eikonal scattering. The phase shift is an asymptotic $S$-matrix observable, related to the time delay/advance experienced by a particle during scattering. Demanding the absence of a time advance leads to constraints on the cubic vertices present in the theory. We find that, in theories with massive spin-2 particles, requiring no time advance means that either: (i) the cubic vertices must appear as a particular linear combination of the Einstein-Hilbert cubic vertex and an $h_{\mu\nu}^3$ potential term or (ii) new degrees of freedom or strong coupling must enter at parametrically the mass of the massive spin-2 field. These conclusions have implications for a variety of situations. Applied to theories of large-$N$ QCD, this indicates that any spectrum with an isolated massive spin-2 at the bottom must have these particular cubic self-couplings. Applied to de Rham-Gabadadze-Tolley massive gravity, the constraint is in accord with and generalizes previous results obtained from a shockwave calculation: of the two free dimensionless parameters in the theory there is a one parameter line consistent with a subluminal phase shift.Comment: 46 pages, 1 figure. v2: Minor corrections. v3: Minor edits; orthogonalized \oplus tensor polarizations. Results are unaffecte

The Minimal SUSY B−LB-L Model: From the Unification Scale to the LHC

This paper introduces a random statistical scan over the high-energy initial parameter space of the minimal SUSY $B-L$ model--denoted as the $B-L$ MSSM. Each initial set of points is renormalization group evolved to the electroweak scale--being subjected, sequentially, to the requirement of radiative $B-L$ and electroweak symmetry breaking, the present experimental lower bounds on the $B-L$ vector boson and sparticle masses, as well as the lightest neutral Higgs mass of $\sim$125 GeV. The subspace of initial parameters that satisfies all such constraints is presented, shown to be robust and to contain a wide range of different configurations of soft supersymmetry breaking masses. The low-energy predictions of each such "valid" point - such as the sparticle mass spectrum and, in particular, the LSP - are computed and then statistically analyzed over the full subspace of valid points. Finally, the amount of fine-tuning required is quantified and compared to the MSSM computed using an identical random scan. The $B-L$ MSSM is shown to generically require less fine-tuning.Comment: 65 pages, 18 figure