162 research outputs found
Charge-conjugation violating neutrino interactions in supernovae
The well known charge conjugation violating interactions in the Standard
Model increase neutrino- and decrease anti-neutrino- nucleon cross sections.
This impacts neutrino transport in core collapse supernovae through "recoil"
corrections of order the neutrino energy over the nucleon mass . All
corrections to neutrino transport deep inside a protoneutron star are
calculated from angular integrals of the Boltzmann equation. We find these
corrections significantly modify neutrino currents at high temperatures. This
produces a large mu and tau number for the protoneutron star and can change the
ratio of neutrons to protons. In addition, the relative size of neutrino mean
free paths changes. At high temperatures, the electron anti-neutrino mean free
path becomes {\it longer} than that for mu or tau neutrinos.Comment: 14 pages, 2 included ps figures, subm. to Phys. Rev.
Diluting Cosmological Constant In Infinite Volume Extra Dimensions
We argue that the cosmological constant problem can be solved in a braneworld
model with infinite-volume extra dimensions, avoiding no-go arguments
applicable to theories that are four-dimensional in the infrared. Gravity on
the brane becomes higher-dimensional at super-Hubble distances, which entails
that the relation between the acceleration rate and vacuum energy density flips
upside down compared to the conventional one. The acceleration rate decreases
with increasing the energy density. The experimentally acceptable rate is
obtained for the energy density larger than (1 TeV). The results are stable
under quantum corrections because supersymmetry is broken only on the brane and
stays exact in the bulk of infinite volume extra space. Consistency of 4D
gravity and cosmology on the brane requires the quantum gravity scale to be
around eV. Testable predictions emerging within this approach are:
(i) simultaneous modifications of gravity at sub-millimeter and the Hubble
scales; (ii) Hagedorn-type saturation in TeV energy collisions due to the Regge
spectrum with the spacing equal to eV.Comment: 36 pages, 1 eps fig; 4 refs and comment adde
Scalar, electromagnetic and Weyl perturbations of BTZ black holes: quasi normal modes
We calculate the quasinormal modes and associated frequencies of the Banados,
Zanelli and Teitelboim (BTZ) non-rotating black hole. This black hole lives in
2+1-dimensions in an asymptotically anti-de Sitter spacetime. We obtain exact
results for the wavefunction and quasi normal frequencies of scalar,
electromagnetic and Weyl (neutrino) perturbations.Comment: Latex, 14 page
Modern topics in theoretical nuclear physics
Over the past five years there have been profound advances in nuclear physics
based on effective field theory and the renormalization group. In this brief,
we summarize these advances and discuss how they impact our understanding of
nuclear systems and experiments that seek to unravel their unknowns. We discuss
future opportunities and focus on modern topics in low-energy nuclear physics,
with special attention to the strong connections to many-body atomic and
condensed matter physics, as well as to astrophysics. This makes it an exciting
era for nuclear physics.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, prepared for the Nuclear Physics Town Hall Meeting
at TRIUMF, Sept. 9-10, 2005, comments welcome, references adde
An Improved Brane Anti-Brane Action from Boundary Superstring Field Theory and Multi-Vortex Solutions
We present an improved effective action for the D-brane-anti-D-brane system
obtained from boundary superstring field theory. Although the action looks
highly non-trivial, it has simple explicit multi-vortex (i.e. codimension-2
multi-BPS D-brane) multi-anti-vortex solutions. The solutions have a curious
degeneracy corresponding to different ``magnetic'' fluxes at the core of each
vortex. We also generalize the brane anti-brane effective action that is
suitable for the study of the inflationary scenario and the production of
defects in the early universe. We show that when a brane and anti-brane are
distantly separated, although the system is classically stable it can decay via
quantum tunneling through the barrier.Comment: 24 pages, 1 figure, JHEP3.cls; v2: references added, tunneling rate
discussion expande
The repulsive nature of naked singularities from the point of view of Quantum Mechanics
We use the Dirac equation coupled to a background metric to examine what
happens to quantum mechanical observables like the probability density and the
radial current in the vicinity of a naked singularity of the
Reissner-Nordstr\"{o}m type. We find that the wave function of the Dirac
particle is regular in the point of the singularity. We show that the
probability density is exactly zero at the singularity reflecting
quantum-mechanically the repulsive nature of the naked singularity.
Furthermore, the surface integral of the radial current over a sphere in the
vicinity of the naked singularity turns out to be also zero.Comment: 11 page
Computational Nuclear Physics and Post Hartree-Fock Methods
We present a computational approach to infinite nuclear matter employing
Hartree-Fock theory, many-body perturbation theory and coupled cluster theory.
These lectures are closely linked with those of chapters 9, 10 and 11 and serve
as input for the correlation functions employed in Monte Carlo calculations in
chapter 9, the in-medium similarity renormalization group theory of dense
fermionic systems of chapter 10 and the Green's function approach in chapter
11. We provide extensive code examples and benchmark calculations, allowing
thereby an eventual reader to start writing her/his own codes. We start with an
object-oriented serial code and end with discussions on strategies for porting
the code to present and planned high-performance computing facilities.Comment: 82 pages, to appear in Lecture Notes in Physics (Springer), "An
advanced course in computational nuclear physics: Bridging the scales from
quarks to neutron stars", M. Hjorth-Jensen, M. P. Lombardo, U. van Kolck,
Editor
Decoherence and CPT Violation in a Stringy Model of Space-Time Foam
I discuss a model inspired from the string/brane framework, in which our
Universe is represented as a three brane, propagating in a bulk space time
punctured by D0-brane (D-particle) defects. As the D3-brane world moves in the
bulk, the D-particles cross it, and from an effective observer on D3 the
situation looks like a ``space-time foam'' with the defects ``flashing'' on and
off (``D-particle foam''). The open strings, with their ends attached on the
brane, which represent matter in this scenario, can interact with the
D-particles on the D3-brane universe in a topologically non-trivial manner,
involving splitting and capture of the strings by the D0-brane defects. Such
processes are described by logarithmic conformal field theories on the
world-sheet. Physically, they result in effective decoherence of the string
matter on the D3 brane, and as a result, of CPT Violation, but of a type that
implies an ill-defined nature of the effective CPT operator. Due to electric
charge conservation, only electrically neutral (string) matter can exhibit such
interactions with the D-particle foam. This may have unique, experimentally
detectable, consequences for electrically-neutral entangled quantum matter
states on the brane world, in particular the modification of the pertinent EPR
Correlation of neutral mesons in a meson factory.Comment: 41 pages Latex, five eps figures incorporated. Uses special macro
Strong evidences of hadron acceleration in Tycho's Supernova Remnant
Very recent gamma-ray observations of G120.1+1.4 (Tycho's) supernova remnant
(SNR) by Fermi-LAT and VERITAS provided new fundamental pieces of information
for understanding particle acceleration and non-thermal emission in SNRs. We
want to outline a coherent description of Tycho's properties in terms of SNR
evolution, shock hydrodynamics and multi-wavelength emission by accounting for
particle acceleration at the forward shock via first order Fermi mechanism. We
adopt here a quick and reliable semi-analytical approach to non-linear
diffusive shock acceleration which includes magnetic field amplification due to
resonant streaming instability and the dynamical backreaction on the shock of
both cosmic rays (CRs) and self-generated magnetic turbulence. We find that
Tycho's forward shock is accelerating protons up to at least 500 TeV,
channelling into CRs about the 10 per cent of its kinetic energy. Moreover, the
CR-induced streaming instability is consistent with all the observational
evidences indicating a very efficient magnetic field amplification (up to ~300
micro Gauss). In such a strong magnetic field the velocity of the Alfv\'en
waves scattering CRs in the upstream is expected to be enhanced and to make
accelerated particles feel an effective compression factor lower than 4, in
turn leading to an energy spectrum steeper than the standard prediction
{\propto} E^-2. This latter effect is crucial to explain the GeV-to-TeV
gamma-ray spectrum as due to the decay of neutral pions produced in nuclear
collisions between accelerated nuclei and the background gas. The
self-consistency of such an hadronic scenario, along with the fact that the
concurrent leptonic mechanism cannot reproduce both the shape and the
normalization of the detected the gamma-ray emission, represents the first
clear and direct radiative evidence that hadron acceleration occurs efficiently
in young Galactic SNRs.Comment: Minor changes. Accepted for publication in Astronomy & Astrophysic
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