Dynamically Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking and Masses of Lightest Nonet Scalar Mesons as Composite Higgs Bosons

Based on the (approximate) chiral symmetry of QCD Lagrangian and the bound state assumption of effective meson fields, a nonlinearly realized effective chiral Lagrangian for meson fields is obtained from integrating out the quark fields by using the new finite regularization method. As the new method preserves the symmetry principles of the original theory and meanwhile keeps the finite quadratic term given by a physically meaningful characteristic energy scale $M_c$, it then leads to a dynamically spontaneous symmetry breaking in the effective chiral field theory. The gap equations are obtained as the conditions of minimal effective potential in the effective theory. The instanton effects are included via the induced interactions discovered by 't Hooft and found to play an important role in obtaining the physical solutions for the gap equations. The lightest nonet scalar mesons($\sigma$, $f_0$, $a_0$ and $\kappa$) appearing as the chiral partners of the nonet pseudoscalar mesons are found to be composite Higgs bosons with masses below the chiral symmetry breaking scale $\Lambda_{\chi} \sim 1.2$ GeV. In particular, the mass of the singlet scalar (or the $\sigma$) is found to be $m_{\sigma} \simeq 677$ MeV.Comment: 15 pages, Revtex, published version, Eur. Phys. J. C (2004) (DOI) 10.1140/epjcd/s2004-01-001-

The Role of Career Optimism and Perceived Barriers in College Students’ Academic Persistence: A Social Cognitive Career Theory Approach

Social Cognitive Career Theory (SCCT) suggests that one’s self-efficacy beliefs, one’s outcome expectations, and salient contextual influences impact the development of interests, goals, and goal-oriented behaviors. Additionally, initial support has been found in the SCCT literature to indicate that outcome expectations may mediate the relationship between self-efficacy and goals while contextual influences may moderate the relationship between self-efficacy and goals. By examining conditional indirect effects between academic self-efficacy, career optimism (an outcome expectation), perceived carrier barriers (a contextual influence), and intention to persist toward graduation (a goal) in a college student sample, this project aimed to further understand how these relationships operate. Furthermore, previous research utilizing SCCT has not examined career optimism as an outcome expectation. Data was collected from 349 undergraduates. Contrary to expectations, the proposed conditional indirect effects model was not supported. While academic self-efficacy significantly predicted persistence intentions, career optimism and perceived career barriers did not also predict persistence intentions. Results suggest that academic self-efficacy and proximal processes related to degree persistence were more salient than distal processes related to degree persistence for students in this sample

Changes in plant species richness distribution in Tibetan alpine grasslands under different precipitation scenarios

Species richness is the core of biodiversity-ecosystem functioning (BEF) research. Nevertheless, it is difficult to accurately predict changes in plant species richness under different climate scenarios, especially in alpine biomes. In this study, we surveyed plant species richness from 2009 to 2017 in 75 alpine meadows (AM), 199 alpine steppes (AS), and 71 desert steppes (DS) in the Tibetan Autonomous Region, China. Along with 20 environmental factors relevant to species settlement, development, and survival, we first simulated the spatial pattern of plant species richness under current climate conditions using random forest modelling. Our results showed that simulated species richness matched well with observed values in the field, showing an evident decrease from meadows to steppes and then to deserts. Summer precipitation, which ranked first among the 20 environmental factors, was further confirmed to be the most critical driver of species richness distribution. Next, we simulated and compared species richness patterns under four different precipitation scenarios, increasing and decreasing summer precipitation by 20% and 10%, relative to the current species richness pattern. Our findings showed that species richness in response to altered precipitation was grassland-type specific, with meadows being sensitive to decreasing precipitation, steppes being sensitive to increasing precipitation, and deserts remaining resistant. In addition, species richness at low elevations was more sensitive to decreasing precipitation than to increasing precipitation, implying that droughts might have stronger influences than wetting on species composition. In contrast, species richness at high elevations (also in deserts) changed slightly under different precipitation scenarios, likely due to harsh physical conditions and small species pools for plant recruitment and survival. Finally, we suggest that policymakers and herdsmen pay more attention to alpine grasslands in central Tibet and at low elevations where species richness is sensitive to precipitation changes

Scheme for Attophysics Experiments at a X-ray SASE FEL

We propose a concept for production of high power coherent attosecond pulses in X-ray range. An approach is based on generation of 8th harmonic of radiation in a multistage HGHG FEL (high gain high harmonic free electron laser) configuration starting from shot noise. Single-spike phenomena occurs when electron bunch is passed through the sequence of four relatively short undulators. The first stage is a conventional "long" wavelength (0.8 nm) SASE FEL which operates in the high-gain linear regime. The 0.1 nm wavelength range is reached by successive multiplication (0.8 nm $\to$ 0.4 nm $\to$ 0.2 nm $\to$ 0.1 nm) in a stage sequence. Our study shows that the statistical properties of the high-harmonic radiation from the SASE FEL, operating in linear regime, can be used for selection of radiation pulses with a single spike in time domain. The duration of the spikes is in attosecond range. Selection of single-spike high-harmonic pulses is achieved by using a special trigger in data acquisition system. The potential of X-ray SASE FEL at TESLA at DESY for generating attosecond pulses is demonstrated. Since the design of XFEL laboratory at TESLA is based on the use of long SASE undulators with tunable gap, no special place nor additional FEL undulators are required for attophysics experiments. The use of a 10 GW-level attosecond X-ray pulses at X-ray SASE FEL facility will enable us to track processes inside atoms.Comment: 21 pages, 12 figures, submitted to Optics Communication