Underground muons from the direction of Cygnus X-3

The flux of underground muons from the direction of the binary Cygnus X-3 was measured by the Soudan 2 proton decay detector. This time-projection calorimeter is located at a depth of 2200 m (water equivalent) in northern Minnesota at latitude 48 deg N, longitude 92 deg W. An analysis was then performed that compared both the total observed flux and the observed flux per transit with the number of events expected in the absence of a source. This expected number of events was determined by combining the detector acceptance as a function of time with detector acceptance as a function of the local spatial coordinates. These functions were evaluated by use of off-source events. The direction of Cygnus X-3 was defined as a 2 deg half-angle cone, centered on the nominal source coordinates. This definition is consistent with the expected appearance of a point source in the Soudan 2 detector after consideration of track reconstruction errors, multiple scattering in the rock, and possible systematic effects. Details of the analysis and the results are presented

The relevance of positivity in spin physics

Positivity reduces substantially the allowed domain for spin observables. We briefly recall some methods used to determine these domains and give some typical examples for exclusive and inclusive spin-dependent reactions.Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, Talk presented at CIPANP 2009, San Diego California, USA, May 26-31, 2009 To be published in AIP Conference Proceeding

Growth and Containment of a Hierarchical Criminal Network

We model the hierarchical evolution of an organized criminal network via antagonistic recruitment and pursuit processes. Within the recruitment phase, a criminal kingpin enlists new members into the network, who in turn seek out other affiliates. New recruits are linked to established criminals according to a probability distribution that depends on the current network structure. At the same time, law enforcement agents attempt to dismantle the growing organization using pursuit strategies that initiate on the lower level nodes and that unfold as self-avoiding random walks. The global details of the organization are unknown to law enforcement, who must explore the hierarchy node by node. We halt the pursuit when certain local criteria of the network are uncovered, encoding if and when an arrest is made; the criminal network is assumed to be eradicated if the kingpin is arrested. We first analyze recruitment and study the large scale properties of the growing network; later we add pursuit and use numerical simulations to study the eradication probability in the case of three pursuit strategies, the time to first eradication and related costs. Within the context of this model, we find that eradication becomes increasingly costly as the network increases in size and that the optimal way of arresting the kingpin is to intervene at the early stages of network formation. We discuss our results in the context of dark network disruption and their implications on possible law enforcement strategies.Comment: 16 pages, 11 Figures; New title; Updated figures with color scheme better suited for colorblind readers and for gray scale printin

Baryons in the Field Correlator Method

The ground and $P$-wave excited states of $nnn$, $nns$ and $ssn$ baryons are studied in the framework of the field correlator method using the running strong coupling constant in the Coulomb-like part of the three-quark potential. The string correction for the confinement potential of the orbitally excited baryons, which is the leading contribution of the proper inertia of the rotating strings, is estimated.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures. Talk given at APS April Meeting, Denver, Colorado, May 2-5, 2009 and at the Tenth Conference on the Intersections of Particle and Nuclear Physics (CIPANP 2009), San Diego, California, May 26-31, 200

A Simple Stochastic Model for Generating Broken Cloud Optical Depth and Top Height Fields

A simple and fast algorithm for generating two correlated stochastic twodimensional (2D) cloud fields is described. The algorithm is illustrated with two broken cumulus cloud fields: cloud optical depth and cloud top height retrieved from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS). Only two 2D fields are required as an input. The algorithm output is statistical realizations of these two fields with approximately the same correlation and joint distribution functions as the original ones. The major assumption of the algorithm is statistical isotropy of the fields. In contrast to fractals and the Fourier filtering methods frequently used for stochastic cloud modeling, the proposed method is based on spectral models of homogeneous random fields. For keeping the same probability density function as the (first) original field, the method of inverse distribution function is used. When the spatial distribution of the first field has been generated, a realization of the correlated second field is simulated using a conditional distribution matrix. This paper is served as a theoretical justification to the publicly available software that has been recently released by the authors and can be freely downloaded from http://i3rc.gsfc.nasa.gov/Public codes clouds.htm. Though 2D rather than full 3D, stochastic realizations of two correlated cloud fields that mimic statistics of given fields have proved to be very useful to study 3D radiative transfer features of broken cumulus clouds for better understanding of shortwave radiation and interpretation of the remote sensing retrievals

Are There Diquarks in the Nucleon?

This work is devoted to the study of diquark correlations inside the nucleon. We analyze some matrix elements which encode information about the non-perturbative forces, in different color anti-triplet diquark channels. We suggest a lattice calculation to check the quark-diquark picture and clarify the role of instanton-mediated interactions. We study in detail the physical properties of the 0+ diquark, using the Random Instanton Liquid Model. We find that instanton forces are sufficiently strong to form a diquark bound-state, with a mass of ~500 MeV, which is compatible with earlier estimates. We also compute its electro-magnetic form factor and find that the diquark is a broad object, with a size comparable with that of the proton.Comment: Final version, accepted for publication on Phys. Rev.

Electroweak Symmetry Breaking and Proton Decay in SO(10) SUSY-GUT with TeV W_R

In a recent paper, we proposed a new class of supersymmetric SO(10) models for neutrino masses where the TeV scale electroweak symmetry is SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R\times U(1)_{B-L} making the associated gauge bosons W_R and Z' accessible at the Large Hadron Collider. We showed that there exists a domain of Yukawa coupling parameters and symmetry breaking patterns which give an excellent fit to all fermion masses including neutrinos. In this sequel, we discuss an alternative Yukawa pattern which also gives good fermion mass fit and then study the predictions of both models for proton lifetime. Consistency with current experimental lower limits on proton life time require the squark masses of first two generations to be larger than ~ 1.2 TeV. We also discuss how one can have simultaneous breaking of both SU(2)_R\times U(1)_{B-L} and standard electroweak symmetries via radiative corrections.Comment: 31 pages, 5 figures, 4 tables

The Symmetries of Nature

The study of the symmetries of nature has fascinated scientists for eons. The application of the formal mathematical description of symmetries during the last century has produced many breakthroughs in our understanding of the substructure of matter. In this talk, a number of these advances are discussed, and the important role that George Sudarshan played in their development is emphasize

Charm meson resonances in D→PℓνD \to P \ell \nu decays

Motivated by recent experimental results we reconsider semileptonic $D \to P \ell \nu_{\ell}$ decays within a model which combines heavy quark symmetry and properties of the chiral Lagrangian. We include excited charm meson states, some of them recently observed, in our Lagrangian and determine their impact on the charm meson semileptonic form factors. We find that the inclusion of excited charm meson states in the model leads to a rather good agreement with the experimental results on the $q^2$ shape of the $F_+(q^2)$ form factor. We also calculate branching ratios for all $D \to P \ell \nu_{\ell}$ decays.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figures; minor corrections, added some discussion, version as publishe