Stars of strange matter?

We investigate suggestions that quark matter with strangeness per baryon of order unity may be stable. We model this matter at nuclear matter densities as a gas of close packed Λ-particles. From the known mass of the Λ-particle we obtain an estimate of the energy and chemical potential of strange matter at nuclear densities. These are sufficiently high to preclude any phase transition from neutron matter to strange matter in the region near nucleon matter density. Including effects from gluon exchange phenomenologically, we investigate higher densities, consistently making approximations which underestimate the density of transition. In this way we find a transition density ρ_tr≳7ρ₀, where ρ₀ is nuclear matter density is not far from the maximum density in the center of the most massive neutron stars that can be constructed. Since we have underestimated ρ_tr and still find it to be ∼7ρ₀, we do not believe that the transition from neutron to quark matter is likely in neutron stars. Moreover, measured masses of observed neutron stars are ≅1.4 M_⊙, where M_⊙ is the solar mass. For such masses, the central (maximum) density is ρ_c<5ρ₀. Transition to quark matter is certainly excluded for these densities.     

Hierarchical chiral symmetry breaking and quark mass matrices revisited

We demonstrate how the assumption of hierarchical chiral symmetry breaking can be systematically used to create phenomenologically satisfactory mass matrices. In place of postulating a particular set of mass matrices at the outset, we emphasize that once a particular basis for the first stage of chiral symmetry breaking is selected, the following steps are determined by the known information on quark masses and mixings. We illustrate this procedure for the basis originally chosen by Fritzsch and find a modified set of quark mass matrices, corresponding to equal final-stage nondiagonal radiative contributions, which fits the data much better in the minimal Higgs framework, providedm _t ?88 GeV and the mixing ratio |V _ub |/|V _cb |?0.15.     

Mass corrections to the tau decay rate

In this note radiative corrections to the total hadronic decay rate of the τ-lepton are studied employing perturbative QCD and the operator product expansion. We calculate quadratic quark mass corrections to the decay rate rationR _τ to the order0(α _s ² m²) and find that they contribute appreciably to the Cabbibo supressed decay modes of the τ-lepton. We also discuss corrections of mass dimensionD=4, where we emphasize the need of a suitable choice of the renormalization scale of the quark and gluon condensates.     

A theory of flavor mixing

We investigate the origin of the Cabibbo angle and other flavor-mixing angles in an ambidextrous SU(2)_L × SU(2)_R × U(1) gauge theory of weak and electromagnetic interactions involving 2n quark flavors. We show how a discrete symmetry of the Lagrangian leads to flavor-diagonal weak currents where all flavor-mixing angles vanish. Each quark is assigned a position on the “clock of flavor” and the charged-current weak interactions are identified as nearest-flavor couplings. Soft breakdown of the discrete symmetry leads to a one-parameter family of flavor-mixing angles in the charged weak currents. All angles are expressed in terms of this parameter and quark mass ratios. The neutral currents remain flavor diagonal. Upper and lower bounds on 2n, the number of flavors, are obtained by constraining the theory to fit what is known from experiment. Departures from Cabibbo universality become intolerable if 2n < 8. It is impossible to obtain enough CP violation if 2n > 12. We conclude that the number of flavors must be 8, 10, or 12. We construct a more ambitious theory in which the Cabibbo angle and its analogs are O(α) calculable radiative corrections. For reasonable values of the quark mass ratios, we fail to obtain a Cabibbo angle of the right order of magnitude. Our theory involves an equal number of lepton flavors and quark flavors. A large number of flavors is required if neutrinos are to be sufficiently light. We explore the case of 2n = 12, and find a novel mechanism for the neutrino induction of trimuon events.     

Mass of the up quark and chiral symmetry at infinite momentum

We find here that a very low mass for the X⁰ meson (m_X0=305.5 MeV) is predicted from a study of the pseudoscalar mesons in the framework of chiral symmetry at infinite momentum when the up quark mass vanishes (as an alternative to axion).     

Hadronic spectroscopy in lattice QCD with dynamical staggered quark loops

We have made a high statistics hadron mass calculation at β = 5.4 on a 6³ × 24 lattice, for the two flavour fully coupled staggered QCD. We show that the systematic error of the pseudofermionic method is small for mass measurements. As has already been shown for Wilson fermions, we find that the effect of the quark loops can be readsorbed in a shift of the coupling constant. At the quark mass values (am) = 0.2, 0.1 we also find that the proton-rho mass ratio is no longer than in the quenched theory.     

QCD phase transition with strange quark in wilson formalism for fermions

The nature of QCD phase transition is studied with massless up and down quarks and a light strange quark, using the Wilson formalism for quarks on a lattice with the temporal direction extensionN _t=4. We find that the phase transition is of first order for the physical strange quark mass.     

QCD phase transition with strange quark in wilson formalism for fermions

The nature of QCD phase transition is studied with massless up and down quarks and a light strange quark, using the Wilson formalism for quarks on a lattice with the temporal direction extensionN _t=4. We find that the phase transition is of first order for the physical strange quark mass.     

The goldstone pion in SU(2) lattice QCD at low quark mass: Scaling and finite size effects

Results for the pion sector of an extensive numerical simulation of quenched SU(2) QCD with staggered fermions are presented. A wide range of quark masses, gauge couplings and lattice sizes is investigated. The systematic and statistical errors are carefully analyzed. Finite size effects occurring on small lattices and/or at low quark masses are studied in detail. When they are absent or weak, we find that the pion mass and coupling constant verify approximate scaling behaviour at low quark mass for β ≳ 2.4. We determine the K and π coupling constants to be in the ratio 1.25(5). At β = 2.3, we show that the square pion mass contains a substantial contribution which is non-linear in the quark mass and renders chiral limit extrapolations less reliable.     

Non-decoupling,triviality and theϱ parameter

The dependence of the ? parameter on the mass of the Higgs scalar and the top quark is computed non-perturbatively using the 1/N _F expansion in the standard model. We find an explicit expression for the ? parameter thatrequires the presence of a physical cutoff. This should come as no surprise since the theory is presumably trivial. By taking this cutoff into account, we find that the ? parameter can take values only within a limited range and has finite ambiguities that are suppressed by inverse powers of the cutoff scale, the so called “scaling-violations”. We find that large deviations from the perturbative results are possible, but only when the cutoff effects are also large.     

Anomalous cross section for photon-photon scattering in gauge theories

We consider the deep inelastic structure functions of the photon in an asymptotically free gauge theory. In contrast to the case of a hadronic target, we find that the shortdistance analysis determines the shape and magnitude and not merely the Q² dependence of the structure functions. The structure functions of the free quark theory are renormalized by finite, calculable factors. For example, at x = 0.1, we find that F₂ will, at large Q², exceed the free quark result by a factor 1.751, while for x = 0.5, F₂ is suppressed asymptotically, relative to the free quark theory, by a factor 0.964, and at x = 0.8, by a factor 0.611.     

A QCD Sum Rule Approach with an Explicit Di-quark Field

We introduce a phenomenological QCD sum rule with an explicit diquark field. We investigate certain configurations of hadrons are expected to have a good diquark structure. The parameters of the model are a diquark mass ${(m_\phi)}$ and condensate ${(\langle \phi^2\rangle)}$ . Assuming that Λ baryons can be represented by a diquark and a spectator quark configuration, we find the sum rule works well for Λ, Λ _c , and Λ _b . We also find a duality relation between the mass and the condensate for which the parameter sets give good Borel curves. To maintain good Borel curve, a smaller diquark condensate is needed for an increased diquark mass. Using these parameter sets, we test the diquark structure in some hadrons which contain both good and bad diquark configurations.     

T-odd quarks at the large hadron collider: 2010-2012

We study the potential of the current Large Hadron Collider (LHC) 7 TeV run to search for heavy, colored vector-like fermions, which are assumed to carry a conserved Z₂ quantum number forcing them to be pair-produced. Each fermion is assumed to decay directly into a Standard Model quark and an invisible stable particle. T-odd quarks and the lightest T-odd particle (LTP) of the Littlest Higgs model with T-parity provide an example of this setup. We estimate the bounds based on the published CMS search for events with jets and missing transverse energy in the 35 pb−1 data set collected in the 2010 run. We find that T-odd quark masses below about 450 GeV are ruled out for the LTP mass about 100 GeV. This bound is somewhat stronger than the published Tevatron constraint. We also estimate the reach with higher integrated luminosities expected in the 2011-2012 run. If no deviation from the SM is observed, we expect that a bound on the T-odd quark mass of about 650 GeV, for the LTP mass of 300 GeV and below, can be achieved with 1 fb−1 of data. We comment on the possibility of using initial-state radiation jets to constrain the region with nearly-degenerate T-odd quark and LTP.     

Low energy theorems in a nonlocal chiral quark model at finite temperature

We solve the Dyson equation and the Bethe-Salpeter equation for a nonlocal effective quark interaction kernel which is instantaneous and separable. The momentum-dependent dynamical quark mass, the scalar and pseudoscalar meson masses, the pion decay constant and the quark meson coupling constant are calculated at finite temperature in the Hartree approximation for the quark self energy. We obtain relations between these quantities, which coincide to leading order in the current quark mass (m ₀/Δm) with the basic low energy theorems: the Goldstone theorem, the Gell-Mann-Oakes-Renner relation and the Goldberger-Treimann relation at finite temperature. A formula for the σ?π mass gap is obtained which exhibits an additional contribution from the momentum dependence of the quark mass.     

Can the quark mass matrix be real?

We study the possibility of solving the strong CP problem in a theory where CP is broken spontaneously and the quark mass matrix, M_ij, not just its determinant, remains real to one part in 10⁸. We find that it is difficult to build natural models consistent with the known CP violation phenomenology. We find that such models require new fermions and possess a hierarchy problem. We present an SO(10) example which succeeds at the one-loop level, however, two-loop effects will introduce phases into M_ij.     

A possibility of asymptotic freedom without non-Abelian gauge theories

We discuss solutions of the renormalization group equations for a Yukawa field theory. For an increasing effective boson mass we find that the leading terms in the vertex functions in the high-energy region are given by diagrams which contain no internal boson lines. In e⁺e^? annihilation into hadrons we get the parton model formula R(s) = Σ_iQ_i², whereas in the deep inelastic e^?p scattering the simple parton model behaviour is modified by the (in general) non-canonical dimension of the quark field.     

Nucleation rate of the quark-gluon plasma droplet at finite quark chemical potential

The nucleation rate of quark-gluon plasma (QGP) droplet is computed at finite quark chemical potential. In the course of computing the nucleation rate, the finite size effects of the QGP droplet are taken into account. We consider the phenomenological flow parameter of quarks and gluons, which is dependent on quark chemical potential and we calculate the nucleation rate of the QGP droplet with this parameter. While calculating the nucleation rate, we find that for low values of quark phenomenological parameter ?? _q , nucleation rate is negligible and when ?? _q increases, nucleation rate increases significantly.     

A novel formulation of Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa matrix renormalization

We present a gauge-independent quark mass counterterm for the on-shell renormalization of the Cabibbo–Kobayashi–Maskawa (CKM) matrix in the Standard Model that is directly expressed in terms of the Lorentz-invariant self-energy functions, and automatically satisfies the hermiticity constraints of the mass matrix. It is very convenient for practical applications and leads to a gauge-independent CKM counterterm matrix that preserves unitarity and satisfies other highly desirable theoretical properties, such as flavor democracy.     

Pion properties at finite isospin chemical potential with isospin symmetry breaking

Pion properties at finite temperature, finite isospin and baryon chemical potentials are investigated within the SU(2) NJL model. In the mean field approximation for quarks and random phase approximation fpr mesons, we calculate the pion mass, the decay constant and the phase diagram with different quark masses for the u quark and d quark, related to QCD corrections, for the first time. Our results show an asymmetry between μI 0 and μI 0 in the phase diagram, and different values for the charged pion mass(or decay constant) and neutral pion mass(or decay constant) at finite temperature and finite isospin chemical potential. This is caused by the effect of isospin symmetry breaking, which is from different quark masses.     

Universal multiplicity hypothesis of QCD: Bounds on quark gluon coupling,quark mass and confinement region

Assuming the validity of the universal multiplicity hypothesis of quantum chromodynamics, we estimate bounds on quark gluon coupling (α_S) and quark mass (m) from the experimental data on charged hadron multiplicities. We obtain 0.3 < α_S < 0.5 and m ≈ 100 MeV. Our analysis also suggests the universal quark confinement region to be ≈ O (m_π^?1). Comparison with experiment is made for both the hadronic and leptonic induced reactions.