Probing dense baryonic matter with strangeness

Strange particles allow to probe the properties of hot and dense baryonic matter. At incident energies close to the production threshold medium effects on the strange hadrons are magnified. Available data on K^0,+,−K^∗ (892), Φ, Λ, and Σ^∗ (1385) are summarized for the system Al+Al at an incident energy of 1.9 AGeV and compared to statistical model calculations. Results of searches for multi-baryonic strange bound states in the Λp-channel are presented.     

Universal behavior in the scattering of heavy, weakly interacting dark matter on nuclear targets

Particles that are heavy compared to the electroweak scale (M?mW), and that are charged under electroweak SU(2) gauge interactions display universal properties such as a characteristic fine structure in the mass spectrum induced by electroweak symmetry breaking, and an approximately universal cross section for scattering on nuclear targets. The heavy particle effective theory framework is developed to compute these properties. As illustration, the spin independent cross section for low-velocity scattering on a nucleon is evaluated in the limit M?mW, including complete leading-order matching onto quark and gluon operators, renormalization analysis, and systematic treatment of perturbative and hadronic-input uncertainties.     

Unified origin for baryonic visible matter and antibaryonic dark matter

We present a novel mechanism for generating both the baryon and dark matter densities of the Universe. A new Dirac fermion X carrying a conserved baryon number charge couples to the standard model quarks as well as a GeV-scale hidden sector. CP-violating decays of X, produced nonthermally in low-temperature reheating, sequester antibaryon number in the hidden sector, thereby leaving a baryon excess in the visible sector. The antibaryonic hidden states are stable dark matter. A spectacular signature of this mechanism is the baryon-destroying inelastic scattering of dark matter that can annihilate baryons at appreciable rates relevant for nucleon decay searches.     

A Schwarzschild-like model for baryons

We present a toy model of baryons using singular solutions of the SU(2) Yang-Mill-Higgs (YMH) field equations, which bears some similarity to the Schwarzschild solution of general relativity. The SU (2) solutions are used as a background field into which a scalar, SU (2) test particle is placed. This can be compared to placing an electrically charged particle in a Coulomb background field, except the SU (2) YMH solutions are singular on a spherical membrane thus trapping (confining) the test particle inside the sphere in a manner similar to certain bag models of baryons. An interesting consequence of this model is that the composite system is a fermion even though the original Lagrangian contains only bosonic fields.     

Effective-range corrections to the proton-proton fusion rate

Proton-proton fusion is considered in the effective field theory of Kaplan, Savage and Wise. Coulomb effects are included systematically in a non-perturbative way. Including the dimension-eight derivative coupling which determines the effective ranges of the scattering amplitudes, next-to-leading order corrections to the fusion rate are calculated. When the renormalization mass is well above the characteristic energies of the system, this contribution gives a rate which is eight percent below the standard value. The difference can be due to an unknown counterterm which comes in at this order.     

The delocalized effective degrees of freedom of a black hole at low frequencies

Identifying the fundamental degrees of freedom of a black hole poses a long-standing puzzle. Recently Goldberger and Rothstein forwarded a theory of the low frequency degrees of freedom within the effective field theory approach, where they are relevancy ordered but of unclear physical origin. Here these degrees of freedom are identified with near-horizon but non-compact gravitational perturbations which are decomposed into delocalized multipoles. Their world-line (kinetic) action is determined within the classical effective field theory (CLEFT) approach and their interactions are discussed. The case of the long-wavelength scattering of a scalar wave off a Schwarzschild black hole is treated in some detail, interpreting within the CLEFT approach the equality of the leading absorption cross section with the horizon area. Fifth Award in the 2008 Essay Competition of the Gravity Research Foundation.     

The bases of effective field theories

With reference to the equivalence theorem, we discuss the selection of basis operators for effective field theories in general. The equivalence relation can be used to partition operators into equivalence classes, from which inequivalent basis operators are selected. These classes can also be identified as containing Potential-Tree-Generated (PTG) operators, Loop-Generated (LG) operators, or both, independently of the specific dynamics of the underlying extended models, so long as it is perturbatively decoupling. For an equivalence class containing both, we argue that the basis operator should be chosen from among the PTG operators, because they may have the largest coefficients. We apply this classification scheme to dimension-six operators in an illustrative Yukawa model as well in the Standard Model (SM). We show that the basis chosen by Grzadkowski et al. [5] for the SM satisfies this criterion. In this light, we also revisit and verify our earlier result [6] that the dimension-six corrections to the triple-gauge-boson couplings only arise from LG operators, so the magnitude of the coefficients should only be a few parts per thousand of the SM gauge coupling if BSM dynamics respects decoupling. The same is true of the quartic-gauge-boson couplings.     

Absence of tricritical behavior of the random field Ising model in a honyecomb lattice

In this letter, we study the behavior of the random field Ising model on a honeycomb lattice by means of the effective field theory. We obtain the phase diagram in the T$T$–H$H$ plane for clusters with one spin in a finite size cluster scheme and it is observed the absence of a tricritical point.     

A quadrangular transverse Ising nanowire with an antiferromagnetic spin configuration

The phase diagrams and the temperature dependences of magnetizations in a transverse Ising nanowire with an antiferromagnetic spin configuration are investigated by the use of the effective-field theory with correlations (EFT) and the core–shell concept. Many characteristic and unexpected behaviors are found for them, especially for thermal variation of total magnetization m_T. The reentrant phenomenon induced by a transverse field in the core, the appearance of a compensation point, the non-monotonic variation with a compensation point, the reentrant phenomena with a compensation point and the existence of both a broad maximum and a compensation point have been found in the thermal variations of m_T.     

Effective field theory: A modern approach to anomalous couplings

We advocate an effective field theory approach to anomalous couplings. The effective field theory approach is the natural way to extend the standard model such that the gauge symmetries are respected. It is general enough to capture any physics beyond the standard model, yet also provides guidance as to the most likely place to see the effects of new physics. The effective field theory approach also clarifies that one need not be concerned with the violation of unitarity in scattering processes at high energy. We apply these ideas to pair production of electroweak vector bosons.     

QCD inequalities for the nucleon mass and the free energy of baryonic matter

The positivity of the integrand of certain Euclidean space functional integrals for two flavor QCD with degenerate quark masses implies that the free energy per unit volume for QCD with a baryon chemical potential mu(B) (and zero isospin chemical potential) is greater than the free energy with an isospin chemical potential mu(I)=(2 mu(B)/N(c)) (and zero baryon chemical potential). The same result applies to QCD with any number of heavy flavors in addition to the two light flavors so long as the chemical potential is understood as applying to the light quark contributions to the baryon number. This relation implies a bound on the nucleon mass: there exists a particle X in QCD (presumably the pion) such that M(N)> or =(N(c) m(X)/2 I(X)) where m(X) is the mass of the particle and I(X) is its isospin.     

A proposal for covariant renormalizable field theory of gravity

The class of covariant gravity theories which have nice ultraviolet behavior and seem to be (super)-renormalizable is proposed. The apparent breaking of Lorentz invariance occurs due to the coupling with the effective fluid which is induced by Lagrange multiplier constrained scalar field. Spatially-flat FRW cosmology for such covariant field gravity may have accelerating solutions. Renormalizable versions of more complicated modified gravity which depends on Riemann and Ricci tensor squared may be constructed in the same way.     

Bayesian methods for parameter estimation in effective field theories

We demonstrate and explicate Bayesian methods for fitting the parameters that encode the impact of short-distance physics on observables in effective field theories (EFTs). We use Bayes’ theorem together with the principle of maximum entropy to account for the prior information that these parameters should be natural, i.e., O(1) in appropriate units. Marginalization can then be employed to integrate the resulting probability density function (pdf) over the EFT parameters that are not of specific interest in the fit. We also explore marginalization over the order of the EFT calculation, M, and over the variable, R, that encodes the inherent ambiguity in the notion that these parameters are O(1). This results in a very general formula for the pdf of the EFT parameters of interest given a data set, D. We use this formula and the simpler “augmented χ²” in a toy problem for which we generate pseudo-data. These Bayesian methods, when used in combination with the “naturalness prior”, facilitate reliable extractions of EFT parameters in cases where χ² methods are ambiguous at best. We also examine the problem of extracting the nucleon mass in the chiral limit, M₀, and the nucleon sigma term, from pseudo-data on the nucleon mass as a function of the pion mass. We find that Bayesian techniques can provide reliable information on M₀, even if some of the data points used for the extraction lie outside the region of applicability of the EFT.     

First extraction of the 3.42 A GeV 12C beam for studies of baryonic matter at Nuclotron

The results of the first extraction of the 3.42 A GeV ¹²C beam at Nuclotron and its transportation to the experimental area is presented. It is demonstrated that the beam parameters are sufficient for the first phase of the experiments on the studies of the dense baryonic matter at Nuclotron.     

Three-dimensional structure of low-density nuclear matter

We numerically explore the pasta structures and properties of low-density nuclear matter without any assumption on the geometry. We observe conventional pasta structures, while a mixture of the pasta structures appears as a metastable state at some transient densities. We also discuss the lattice structure of droplets.     

A generating functional for ultrasoft amplitudes in hot QCD

The effective amplitudes for gluon momenta pgT in hot QCD exhibit damping as a result of collisions. The whole set of n-point amplitudes is shown to be generated from one functional , in addition to the induced current j_μ(X;A).     

An effective field theory approach to two trapped particles

We discuss the problem of two particles interacting via short-range interactions within a harmonic-oscillator trap. The interactions are organized according to their number of derivatives and defined in truncated model spaces made from a bound-state basis. Leading-order (LO) interactions are iterated to all orders, while corrections are treated in perturbation theory. We show explicitly that next-to-LO and next-to-next-to-LO interactions improve convergence as the model space increases. In the large-model-space limit we regain results from a pseudopotential. Arbitrary scattering lengths are considered, as well as a generalization to include the non-vanishing range of the interaction.     

Effective field theory for bound state reflection

Elastic quantum bound-state reflection from a hard-wall boundary provides direct information regarding the structure and compressibility of quantum bound states. We discuss elastic quantum bound-state reflection and derive a general theory for elastic reflection of shallow dimers from hard-wall surfaces using effective field theory. We show that there is a small expansion parameter for analytic calculations of the reflection scattering length. We present a calculation up to second order in the effective Hamiltonian in one, two, and three dimensions. We also provide numerical lattice results for all three cases as a comparison with our effective field theory results. Finally, we provide an analysis of the compressibility of the alpha particle confined to a cubic lattice with vanishing Dirichlet boundaries.     

The effective chiral Lagrangian from the theta term

We construct the effective chiral Lagrangian involving hadronic and electromagnetic interactions originating from the QCD term. We impose vacuum alignment at both quark and hadronic levels, including field redefinitions to eliminate pion tadpoles. We show that leading time-reversal-violating (TV) hadronic interactions are related to isospin-violating interactions that can in principle be determined from charge-symmetry-breaking experiments. We discuss the complications that arise from TV electromagnetic interactions. Some implications of the expected sizes of various pion-nucleon TV interactions are presented, and the pion-nucleon form factor is used as an example.