Determination of Delta G/G from Open Charm events at COMPASS

One of the main goals of the COMPASS experiment at CERN is the determination of the gluon polarisation in the nucleon, Delta G/G. It is determined from spin asymmetries in the scattering of 160 GeV/c polarised muons on a polarised LiD target. The gluon polarisation is accessed by the selection of photon-gluon fusion (PGF) events. A very clean selection of PGF events can be obtained with charmed mesons in the final state. Their detection is based on the reconstruction of D* and D0 mesons in the COMPASS spectrometer. The analysis method for the first measurement of Delta G/G from the open charm channel is described and the result from COMPASS for the 2002-2004 data taking period is presented.Comment: Talk given at the XV International Workshop on Deep-Inelastic Scattering and Related Subjects, April 16-20, 2007, Munich, Germany http://www.mppmu.mpg.de/dis200

On the relation between p-adic and ordinary strings

The amplitudes for the tree-level scattering of the open string tachyons, generalised to the field of p-adic numbers, define the p-adic string theory. There is empirical evidence of its relation to the ordinary string theory in the p_to_1 limit. We revisit this limit from a worldsheet perspective and argue that it is naturally thought of as a continuum limit in the sense of the renormalisation group.Comment: 13 pages harvmac (b), 2 eps figures; v2: revtex, shortened, published versio

On rationality of the intersection points of a line with a plane quartic

We study the rationality of the intersection points of certain lines and smooth plane quartics C defined over F_q. For q \geq 127, we prove the existence of a line such that the intersection points with C are all rational. Using another approach, we further prove the existence of a tangent line with the same property as soon as the characteristic of F_q is different from 2 and q \geq 66^2+1. Finally, we study the probability of the existence of a rational flex on C and exhibit a curious behavior when the characteristic of F_q is equal to 3.Comment: 17 pages. Theorem 2 now includes the characteristic 2 case; Conjecture 1 from the previous version is proved wron

A Search for Instantons at HERA

A search for QCD instanton (I) induced events in deep-inelastic scattering (DIS) at HERA is presented in the kinematic range of low x and low Q^2. After cutting into three characteristic variables for I-induced events yielding a maximum suppression of standard DIS background to the 0.1% level while still preserving 10% of the I-induced events, 549 data events are found while 363^{+22}_{-26} (CDM) and 435^{+36}_{-22} (MEPS) standard DIS events are expected. More events than expected by the standard DIS Monte Carlo models are found in the data. However, the systematic uncertainty between the two different models is of the order of the expected signal, so that a discovery of instantons can not be claimed. An outlook is given on the prospect to search for QCD instanton events using a discriminant based on range searching in the kinematical region Q^2\gtrsim100\GeV^2 where the I-theory makes safer predictions and the QCD Monte Carlos are expected to better describe the inclusive data.Comment: Invited talk given at the Ringberg Workshop on HERA Physics on June 19th, 2001 on behalf of the H1 collaboratio

Factorizing Numbers with the Gauss Sum Technique: NMR Implementations

Several physics-based algorithms for factorizing large number were recently published. A notable recent one by Schleich et al. uses Gauss sums for distinguishing between factors and non-factors. We demonstrate two NMR techniques that evaluate Gauss sums and thus implement their algorithm. The first one is based on differential excitation of a single spin magnetization by a cascade of RF pulses. The second method is based on spatial averaging and selective refocusing of magnetization for Gauss sums corresponding to factors. All factors of 16637 and 52882363 are successfully obtained.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures; Abstract and Conclusion are slightly modified. References added and formatted with Bibte

Detecting brute-force attacks on cryptocurrency wallets

Blockchain is a distributed ledger, which is protected against malicious modifications by means of cryptographic tools, e.g. digital signatures and hash functions. One of the most prominent applications of blockchains is cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. In this work, we consider a particular attack on wallets for collecting assets in a cryptocurrency network based on brute-force search attacks. Using Bitcoin as an example, we demonstrate that if the attack is implemented successfully, a legitimate user is able to prove that fact of this attack with a high probability. We also consider two options for modification of existing cryptocurrency protocols for dealing with this type of attacks. First, we discuss a modification that requires introducing changes in the Bitcoin protocol and allows diminishing the motivation to attack wallets. Second, an alternative option is the construction of special smart-contracts, which reward the users for providing evidence of the brute-force attack. The execution of this smart-contract can work as an automatic alarm that the employed cryptographic mechanisms, and (particularly) hash functions, have an evident vulnerability.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures; published versio

On pattern structures of the N-soliton solution of the discrete KP equation over a finite field

The existence and properties of coherent pattern in the multisoliton solutions of the dKP equation over a finite field is investigated. To that end, starting with an algebro-geometric construction over a finite field, we derive a "travelling wave" formula for $N$-soliton solutions in a finite field. However, despite it having a form similar to its analogue in the complex field case, the finite field solutions produce patterns essentially different from those of classical interacting solitons.Comment: 12 pages, 3 figure

Efficient algorithms for pairing-based cryptosystems

We describe fast new algorithms to implement recent cryptosystems based on the Tate pairing. In particular, our techniques improve pairing evaluation speed by a factor of about 55 compared to previously known methods in characteristic 3, and attain performance comparable to that of RSA in larger characteristics.We also propose faster algorithms for scalar multiplication in characteristic 3 and square root extraction over Fpm, the latter technique being also useful in contexts other than that of pairing-based cryptography