Juliette: A model of sexual consent

The ‘yes means yes’ model of sexual consent and the political and ethical commitments that underpin this model have three fundamental disadvantages. This position unfairly polices the sexual expression of participants; it demands an unreasonably high standard for defining sexual interaction as consensual; and by denying the body’s capacity for expressing sexual consent this model allows perpetrators of sexual violence to define consent. I argue that a critical examination of Marquis de Sade’s novel Juliette can provide the basis for a model of sexual consent that avoids these problems by refraining from pre-judging the means by which consent is communicated

Justifying an Adequate Response to the Vulnerable Other

Is it possible to justify requiring that I respond adequately to the other’s vulnerability? I contend that insofar as I value my own personal identity it is consistent to respond adequately to the vulnerability of the other. Part one provides a break down of vulnerability in terms of its fundamental indeterminacy. Part two illustrates how the ability to respond either adequately or inadequately to the other’s vulnerability is implied by the fundamental co-constitution of personal identity. I understand myself as a self only insofar as I stand in relation to other selves that see me as a self. If the relationship between recognition and identity also holds for the other, my response to her vulnerability founds her identity as well. In part three the relationship developed in part two is employed to justify the obligation to respond adequately to the vulnerable other. If I value my own personal identity, then I require an adequate response from others, because that response plays an integral role in the foundation of my personal identity. The other cannot respond adequately to my vulnerability unless her own identity is assured. Only if I respond adequately to the vulnerability of the other will she be in a position to assure my identity. Therefore, I ought to respond adequately to the vulnerability of others if for no other reason than it puts the other in a position where she can assure the personal identity that I value

Christian Ministry and Ministries

(Excerpt) Surely there is no more complicated task in the repertoire of contemporary theological needs than that of accounting for the traditions of ordained ministries in the churches and the effects these have had on the ministry of the church over the past two thousand years. Should you doubt this, I am confident that all such doubt will be removed during these next two days. I am less confident that my colleagues and I will leave you with any greater clarity than when we started. Should this nonetheless occur, it will be due to their efforts more than to mine. And should it seem to you that I am occasionally clear in my own presentation, then you will doubtless have misunderstood me. For I can think of no one fundamental statement about Christian ministry or ministries that can be made without fear of or need for qualification. Christians, it seems, have been nowhere more creative than in what they have made of their ministries

Three Poems

Poetry by Basma Kavanag

Discretising the velocity distribution for directional dark matter experiments

Dark matter (DM) direct detection experiments which are directionally-sensitive may be the only method of probing the full velocity distribution function (VDF) of the Galactic DM halo. We present an angular basis for the DM VDF which can be used to parametrise the distribution in order to mitigate astrophysical uncertainties in future directional experiments and extract information about the DM halo. This basis consists of discretising the VDF in a series of angular bins, with the VDF being only a function of the DM speed $v$ within each bin. In contrast to other methods, such as spherical harmonic expansions, the use of this basis allows us to guarantee that the resulting VDF is everywhere positive and therefore physical. We present a recipe for calculating the event rates corresponding to the discrete VDF for an arbitrary number of angular bins $N$ and investigate the discretisation error which is introduced in this way. For smooth, Standard Halo Model-like distribution functions, only $N=3$ angular bins are required to achieve an accuracy of around $10-30\%$ in the number of events in each bin. Shortly after confirmation of the DM origin of the signal with around 50 events, this accuracy should be sufficient to allow the discretised velocity distribution to be employed reliably. For more extreme VDFs (such as streams), the discretisation error is typically much larger, but can be improved with increasing $N$. This method paves the way towards an astrophysics-independent analysis framework for the directional detection of dark matter.Comment: 36 pages, 11 figures. Matches version accepted in JCAP. Python code for Radon transform calculation available from the autho

Earth-Scattering of super-heavy Dark Matter: updated constraints from detectors old and new

Direct searches for Dark Matter (DM) are continuously improving, probing down to lower and lower DM-nucleon interaction cross sections. For strongly-interacting massive particle (SIMP) Dark Matter, however, the accessible cross section is bounded from above due to the stopping effect of the atmosphere, Earth and detector shielding. We present a careful calculation of the SIMP signal rate, focusing on super-heavy DM ($m_\chi \gtrsim 10^5 \,\,\mathrm{GeV}$) for which the standard nuclear-stopping formalism is applicable, and provide code for implementing this calculation numerically. With recent results from the low-threshold CRESST 2017 surface run, we improve the maximum cross section reach of direct detection searches by a factor of around 5000, for DM masses up to $10^8 \,\,\mathrm{GeV}$. A reanalysis of the longer-exposure, sub-surface CDMS-I results (published in 2002) improves the previous cross section reach by two orders of magnitude, for masses up to $10^{15} \,\,\mathrm{GeV}$. Along with complementary constraints from SIMP capture and annihilation in the Earth and Sun, these improved limits from direct nuclear scattering searches close a number of windows in the SIMP parameter space in the mass range $10^6$ GeV to $10^{13}$ GeV, of particular interest for heavy DM produced gravitationally at the end of inflation.Comment: 12 pages, 7 figures. Code available at https://github.com/bradkav/verne . Comments welcome. v2: Fixed references and minor typos, corrected "$\nu$-cleus" to "CRESST 2017 surface run". v3: Added Appendix A with explicit expressions and coordinate system. v4: Added discussion of variance in final DM speed. Version published in PR

Re-examining the significance of the 750 GeV diphoton excess at ATLAS

The excess seen in the diphoton channel at around 750 GeV by both ATLAS and CMS has caused a great deal of excitement in the particle physics community. However, there has recently been much discussion about uncertainties in the significance of the peak seen by the ATLAS experiment. In this note, we aim to estimate this significance using a range of possible parametrisations for the smooth diphoton background. We obtain a local significance close to that reported by ATLAS and further demonstrate that the significance of the excess is not substantially reduced when more complicated background functions are considered. In particular, the background contribution is strongly constrained by the small numbers of events at large diphoton invariant mass. Future data releases will improve constraints on the diphoton background, as well as clarifying the true nature of the 750 GeV excess.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures. Code available at https://github.com/bradkav/ATLASfits/releases/latest . Additional references and discussion on impact of using binned data added in v3. Comments very welcom