Phase conversion dissipation in multicomponent compact stars

We propose a mechanism for the damping of density oscillations in multicomponent compact stars. The mechanism is the periodic conversion between different phases, i.e., the movement of the interface between them, induced by pressure oscillations in the star. The damping grows nonlinearly with the amplitude of the oscillation. We study in detail the case of r-modes in a hybrid star with a sharp interface, and we find that this mechanism is powerful enough to saturate the r-mode at very low saturation amplitude, of order $10^{-10}$, and is therefore likely to be the dominant r-mode saturation mechanism in hybrid stars with a sharp interface.Comment: 17 pages, 8 figures. Typos in Eq. (15), Eqs. (64)-(65) and Eqs. (B4)-(B5) correcte

Signatures for quark matter from multi-messenger observations

We review the prospects for detecting quark matter in neutron star cores. We survey the proposed signatures and emphasize the importance of data from neutron star mergers, which provide access to dynamical properties that operate on short timescales that are not probed by other neutron star observables.Comment: 23 pages, 4 figures; refs. added, accepted for publicatio

Efficient Downlink Channel Reconstruction for FDD Multi-Antenna Systems

In this paper, we propose an efficient downlink channel reconstruction scheme for a frequency-division-duplex multi-antenna system by utilizing uplink channel state information combined with limited feedback. Based on the spatial reciprocity in a wireless channel, the downlink channel is reconstructed by using frequency-independent parameters. We first estimate the gains, delays, and angles during uplink sounding. The gains are then refined through downlink training and sent back to the base station (BS). With limited overhead, the refinement can substantially improve the accuracy of the downlink channel reconstruction. The BS can then reconstruct the downlink channel with the uplink-estimated delays and angles and the downlink-refined gains. We also introduce and extend the Newtonized orthogonal matching pursuit (NOMP) algorithm to detect the delays and gains in a multi-antenna multi-subcarrier condition. The results of our analysis show that the extended NOMP algorithm achieves high estimation accuracy. Simulations and over-the-air tests are performed to assess the performance of the efficient downlink channel reconstruction scheme. The results show that the reconstructed channel is close to the practical channel and that the accuracy is enhanced when the number of BS antennas increases, thereby highlighting that the promising application of the proposed scheme in large-scale antenna array systems

Pair Production of Doubly-Charged Scalars: Neutrino Mass Constraints and Signals at the LHC

We study the pair production of doubly charged Higgs bosons at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), assuming the doubly charged Higgs to be part of an SU(2)_L triplet which generates Majorana masses for left-handed neutrinos. Such pair-production has the advantage that it is not constrained by the triplet vacuum expectation value, which tends to make the single production rate rather small. We point out that, in addition to the Drell-Yan (DY) production mechanism, two-photon processes also contribute to H++H++ production at a level comparable to the QCD corrections to the DY channel. Decays of the doubly charged Higgs into both the l+l+ and W+W+ modes are studied in detail to optimize the signal observation over the backgrounds. Doubly charged scalars should be observable at the LHC with 300 fb^-1 integrated luminosity in the ll channel upto the mass range of 1 TeV even with a branching fraction of about 60 %, and in the WW channel upto a mass of 700 GeV. Such a doubly charged Higgs, if it is a member of a triplet generating neutrino masses,cannot be long-lived on the scale of collider detectors although it might lead to a displaced secondary vertex during its decay if it is lighter than about 250 GeV.Comment: revtex4, 23 pages, 14 figures, version published in Physical Review