Search for solar axions with mass around 1 eV using coherent conversion of axions into photons

A search for solar axions has been performed using an axion helioscope which is equipped with a 2.3-m long 4 T superconducting magnet, a gas container to hold dispersion-matching gas, PIN-photodiode X-ray detectors, and a telescope mount mechanism to track the sun. A mass region around ma=1 eV$m_a=1\text{eV}$ was newly explored. From the absence of any evidence, analysis sets a limit on axion–photon coupling constant to be g_aγγ<5.6–13.4×¹⁰⁻¹⁰ GeV⁻¹$g_{a\gamma \gamma }<5.6\text{–}13.4\times {10}^{\mathrm{-10}}{\text{GeV}}^{\mathrm{-1}}$ for the axion mass of 0.84<ma<1.00 eV$0.84<m_a<1.00\text{eV}$ at 95% confidence level. It is the first result to search for the axion in the g_aγγ–ma$g_{a\gamma \gamma }\text{–}{m}_a$ parameter region of the preferred axion models with a magnetic helioscope.     

LHC reach of low scale gauge mediation with perturbatively stable vacuum

Very light gravitino scenario m_3/2?16 eV$m_{3/2}?16\text{eV}$ is very interesting, since there is no cosmological problem. However in such a scenario, stability of the vacuum is an important issue. Recently, Yonekura and one of the authors RS have investigated the parameter space of a low scale gauge mediation with a perturbatively stable vacuum and found that there are severe upper bounds on the gaugino masses. In this Letter, we show that such a model can be completely excluded/discovered at very early stage of the LHC run.     

Comparative kinetic stability of classical and non-classical fullerenes C46

Molecular dynamics is used to study the kinetic stability of a classical fullerene C₄₆ and its non-classical analog with a square. The lifetimes of both clusters till the moments of their isomerization are directly calculated as functions of temperature. The activation energies _Ea$E_a$ of isomerization processes are determined from the fits of the results obtained to the Arrhenius law. For the non-classical fullerene, the value of _Ea=3.1±0.2 eV$E_a=3.1\pm 0.2\text{eV}$ is found to be considerably below that for the classical one, _Ea=4.5±0.3 eV$E_a=4.5\pm 0.3\text{eV}$. In view of rather low kinetic stability of non-classical C₄₆, its experimental registration in a gas phase seems to be problematic.     

Gravitino overproduction in inflaton decay

Most of the inflation models end up with non-vanishing vacuum expectation values of the inflaton fields ?   in the true vacuum, which induce, in general, non-vanishing auxiliary field G?$G_{?}$ for the inflaton potential in supergravity. We show that the presence of nonzero G?$G_{?}$ gives rise to inflaton decay into a pair of the gravitinos and are thereby severely constrained by cosmology especially if the gravitino is unstable and its mass is in a range of O(100) GeV–O(10) TeV$O(100)\text{GeV}\text{–}O(10)\text{TeV}$. For several inflation models, we explicitly calculate the values of G?$G_{?}$ and find that most of them are excluded or on the verge of being excluded for the gravitino mass in that range. We conclude that an inflation model with vanishing G?$G_{?}$, typically realized in a chaotic inflation, is favored in a sense that it naturally avoids the potential gravitino overproduction problem.     

WIMP dark matter from gravitino decays and leptogenesis

The spontaneous breaking of B−L$B-L$ symmetry naturally accounts for the small observed neutrino masses via the seesaw mechanism. We have recently shown that the cosmological realization of B−L$B-L$ breaking in a supersymmetric theory can successfully generate the initial conditions of the hot early universe, i.e. entropy, baryon asymmetry and dark matter, if the gravitino is the lightest superparticle (LSP). This implies relations between neutrino and superparticle masses. Here we extend our analysis to the case of very heavy gravitinos which are motivated by hints for the Higgs boson at the LHC. We find that the nonthermal production of ‘pure’ wino or higgsino LSPs, i.e. weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), in heavy gravitino decays can account for the observed amount of dark matter while simultaneously fulfilling the constraints imposed by primordial nucleosynthesis and leptogenesis within a range of LSP, gravitino and neutrino masses. For instance, a mass of the lightest neutrino of 0.05 eV$0.05\text{eV}$ would require a higgsino mass below 900 GeV$900\text{GeV}$ and a gravitino mass of at least 10 TeV$10\text{TeV}$.     

Electromagnetic superconductivity of vacuum induced by strong magnetic field: Numerical evidence in lattice gauge theory

Using numerical simulations of quenched SU(2)$\mathit{SU}(2)$ gauge theory we demonstrate that an external magnetic field leads to spontaneous generation of quark condensates with quantum numbers of electrically charged ρ   mesons if the strength of the magnetic field exceeds the critical value e_Bc=0.927(77) GeV²$e{B}_c=0.927(77){\text{GeV}}^2$ or _Bc=(1.56±0.13)⋅10¹⁶ Tesla$B_c=(1.56\pm 0.13)\cdot {10}^{16}\text{Tesla}$. The condensation of the charged ρ mesons in strong magnetic field is a key feature of the magnetic-field-induced electromagnetic superconductivity of the vacuum.     

Search for solar hadronic axions produced by a bremsstrahlung-like process

We have searched for hadronic axions which may be produced in the Sun by a bremsstrahlung-like process, and observed in the HPGe detector by an axioelectric effect. A conservative upper limit on the hadronic axion mass of ma?334 eV$m_a?334\text{eV}$ at 95% C.L. is obtained. Our experimental approach is based on the axion–electron coupling and it does not include the axion–nucleon coupling, which suffers from the large uncertainties related to the estimation of the flavor-singlet axial-vector matrix element.     

A complete calculation for direct detection of Wino dark matter

In the anomaly-mediated supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking scenario, neutral gaugino of SUL₍₂₎$\mathit{SU}{(2)}_L$ multiplet, Wino, can be the lightest SUSY particle and become a candidate for dark matter. We calculated scattering cross section of Wino dark matter with nucleon, which is responsible for direct detection of the dark matter, on the assumption that the SUSY particles and the heavier Higgs bosons have masses of the order of the gravitino mass in the SUSY standard model. In such a case, the Wino–nucleon coupling is generated by loop processes. We have included two-loop contribution to Wino–gluon interaction in the calculation, since it is one of the leading contributions to the Wino–nucleon coupling. It was found that the spin-independent scattering cross section with proton is ^{10−(46–48)} cm²${10}^{-(46\text{–}48)}{\text{cm}}^2$. While it is almost independent of the Wino mass, the result is quite sensitive to the Higgs boson mass due to the accidental cancellation.     

Terahertz spectroscopy of multiferroic EuFe3(BO3)4

The terahertz spectra of a rare-earth iron borate with the huntite structure are obtained for the first time. We study the low-temperature (4.0–90 K) α-polarized transmittance spectra of the EuFe₃(BO₃)₄ single crystal in the region 0.9–6.0 THz. Pronounced shifts of phonon frequencies and appearance of new phonon modes at the temperature _TS=58 K$T_S=58\text{K}$ of the R32→P₃₁21$R32\to P{3}_{1}21$ structural phase transition are observed. Additional shifts of phonon frequencies occur at the temperature _TN=34 K$T_N=34\text{K}$ of the magnetic ordering of the Fe subsystem, thus evidencing the spin–phonon coupling in this multiferroic material.     

Probing the reheating temperature at colliders and with primordial nucleosynthesis

Considering gravitino dark matter scenarios with a long-lived charged slepton, we show that collider measurements of the slepton mass and its lifetime can probe not only the gravitino mass but also the post-inflationary reheating temperature TR$T_{\mathrm{R}}$. In a model independent way, we derive upper limits on TR$T_{\mathrm{R}}$ and discuss them in light of the constraints from the primordial catalysis of ⁶Li through bound-state effects. In the collider-friendly region of slepton masses below 1 TeV, the obtained conservative estimate of the maximum reheating temperature is about TR=3×¹⁰⁹ GeV$T_{\mathrm{R}}=3\times {10}^9\text{GeV}$ for the limiting case of a small gluino–slepton mass splitting and about TR=¹⁰⁸ GeV$T_{\mathrm{R}}={10}^8\text{GeV}$ for the case that is typical for universal soft supersymmetry breaking parameters at the scale of grand unification. We find that a determination of the gluino–slepton mass ratio at the Large Hadron Collider will test the possibility of TR>¹⁰⁹ GeV$T_{\mathrm{R}}>{10}^9\text{GeV}$ and thereby the viability of thermal leptogenesis with hierarchical heavy right-handed Majorana neutrinos.     

Very-high-order weno schemes

We study weno(2r − 1) reconstruction [D.S. Balsara, C.W. Shu, Monotonicity prserving weno schemes with increasingly high-order of accuracy, J. Comput. Phys. 160 (2000) 405–452], with the mapping (wenom) procedure of the nonlinear weights [A.K. Henrick, T.D. Aslam, J.M. Powers, Mapped weighted-essentially-non-oscillatory schemes: achieving optimal order near critical points, J. Comput. Phys. 207 (2005) 542–567], which we extend up to weno17 (r=9)$(r=9)$. We find by numerical experiment that these procedures are essentially nonoscillatory without any stringent cfl limitation (cfl∈[0.8,1])$(\text{<small-caps>cfl</small-caps>}\in [0.8\text{,}1])$, for scalar hyperbolic problems (both linear and scalar conservation laws), provided that the exponent p_β$p_{\beta }$ in the definition of the Jiang–Shu [G.S. Jiang, C.W. Shu, Efficient implementation of weighted eno schemes, J. Comput. Phys. 126 (1996) 202–228] nonlinear weights be taken as p_β=r$p_{\beta }=r$, as originally proposed by Liu et al. [X.D. Liu, S. Osher, T. Chan, Weighted essentially nonoscillatory schemes, J. Comput. Phys. 115 (1994) 200–212], instead of p_β=2$p_{\beta }=2$ (this is valid both for weno and wenom reconstructions), although the optimal value of the exponent is probably p_β(r)∈[2,r]$p_{\beta }(r)\in [2\text{,}r]$. Then, we apply the family of very-high-order wenom_pβ=r${\text{<small-caps>wenom</small-caps>}}_{p_{\beta }=r}$ reconstructions to the Euler equations of gasdynamics, by combining local characteristic decomposition [A. Harten, B. Engquist, S. Osher, S.R. Chakravarthy, Uniformly high-order accurate essentially nonoscillatory schemes iii, J. Comput. Phys. 71 (1987) 231–303], with recursive-order-reduction (ror) aiming at aleviating the problems induced by the nonlinear interactions of characteristic fields within the stencil. The proposed ror algorithm, which generalizes the algorithm of Titarev and Toro [V.A. Titarev, E.F. Toro, Finite-volume weno schemes for 3-D conservation laws, J. Comput. Phys. 201 (2004) 238–260], is free of adjustable parameters, and the corresponding rorwenom_pβ=r${\text{<small-caps>rorwenom</small-caps>}}_{p_{\beta }=r}$ schemes are essentially nonoscillatory, as Δx→0$\mathrm{\Delta }x\to 0$, up to r=9$r=9$, for all of the test-cases studied. Finally, the unsplit linewise 2-D extension of the schemes is evaluated for several test-cases.