We investigate axial charge production in two-color QCD out of equilibrium. We compute the real-time evolution starting with spatially homogeneous strong gauge fields, while the fermions are in vacuum. The idealized class of initial conditions is motivated by glasma flux tubes in the context of heavy-ion collisions. We focus on axial charge production at early times, where important aspects of the anomalous dynamics can be derived analytically. This is compared to real-time lattice simulations. Quark production at early times leading to anomalous charge generation is investigated using Wilson fermions. Our results indicate that coherent gauge fields can transiently produce significant amounts of axial charge density, while part of the induced charges persist to be present even well beyond characteristic decoherence times. The comparisons to analytic results provide stringent tests of real-time representations of the axial anomaly on the lattice.

The ${\gamma }^{*}\gamma \to {\pi }^0$ transition form factor, $G(Q^2)$, is computed on the entire domain of spacelike momenta using a continuum approach to the two valence body bound-state problem in relativistic quantum field theory: the result agrees with data obtained by the CELLO, CLEO, and Belle Collaborations. The analysis unifies this prediction with that of the pion’s valence-quark parton distribution amplitude (PDA) and elastic electromagnetic form factor and demonstrates, too, that a fully self-consistent treatment can readily connect a pion PDA that is a broad, concave function at the hadronic scale with the perturbative QCD prediction for the transition form factor in the hard photon limit. The normalization of that limit is set by the scale of dynamical chiral symmetry breaking, which is a crucial feature of the Standard Model. Understanding of the latter will thus remain incomplete until definitive transition form factor data are available on $Q^2>10{\mathrm{GeV}}^2$.

Using holography we study the evolution of the Wilson loop of a quark-antiquark pair in a dynamical strongly coupled plasma. The time-dependent plasma, whose dynamics is originated from the energy injection, is dual to the anti–de Sitter-Vaidya background. The quark-antiquark pair is represented by the endpoints of a string stretched from the boundary to the bulk. The evolution of the system is studied by evaluating the expectation value of the Wilson loop, throughout the process. Our results show that the evolution of the Wilson loop depends on the speed of the energy injection as well as the final temperature of the plasma. For high enough temperatures and rapid energy injection, it starts oscillating around its equilibrium value, immediately after the injection.

We study the properties of two-point functions and quasinormal modes in a strongly coupled field theory holographically dual to a small black hole in global anti-de Sitter spacetime. Our results are seen to smoothly interpolate between known limits corresponding to large black holes and thermal AdS space, demonstrating that the Son-Starinets prescription works even when there is no black hole in the spacetime. Omitting issues related to the internal space, the results can be given a field theory interpretation in terms of the microcanonical ensemble, which provides access to energy densities forbidden in the canonical description.

The Bose-Einstein condensation of bound pairs made of equally and oppositely charged fermions in a magnetic field is investigated using a relativistic model. The Gaussian fluctuations have been taken into account in order to study the spectrum of bound pairs in the strong coupling region. We found, in the weak coupling region, that the condensation temperature increases with an increasing magnetic field displaying the magnetic catalysis effect. In the strong coupling region, the inverse magnetic catalysis appears when the magnetic field is low and is replaced by the usual magnetic catalysis effect when magnetic field is sufficiently high, in contrast to the nonrelativistic case where the inverse magnetic catalysis prevails in the strong coupling region regardless of the strength of the magnetic field. The resulting response to the magnetic field is the consequence of the competition between the dimensional reduction by Landau orbitals in pairing dynamics and the anisotropy of the kinetic spectrum of the bound pairs. We thus conclude that dimensional reduction dominates in the weak domain and strong coupling one except in the small magnetic field region, where the enhanced fluctuations dominate.

We study, in the cosmic string spacetime, the average rate of change of energy for an atom coupled to massless scalar fields and uniformly accelerated in a direction parallel to the string in vacuum. We find that both the noninertial motion and the nontrivial global spacetime topology affect the atomic transition rates, so an accelerated atom (an Unruh detector) does feel the string contrary to claims in the literature. We demonstrate that the equivalence between the effect of uniform acceleration and that of thermal radiation on the transition rates of the atom, which is valid in the Minkowski spacetime, holds only on the string.

We present a systematic framework to obtain the most general solutions of the equations of motion in first order gravity theory with degenerate tetrads. There are many possible solutions. Generically, these exhibit nonvanishing torsion even in the absence of any matter coupling. These solutions are shown to contain a special set of eight configurations which are associated with the homogeneous model three-geometries of Thurston.

It has been shown that ultraenergetic collisions can occur near the horizon of an extremal Kerr black hole. Previous studies mainly focused on geodesic motions of particles. In this paper, we consider spinning test particles whose orbits are nongeodesic. By employing the Mathisson-Papapetrou-Dixon equation, we find the critical angular momentum satisfies $J=2E$ for extremal Kerr black holes. Although the conserved angular momentum $J$ and energy $E$ have been redefined in the presence of spin, the critical condition remains the same form. If a particle with this angular momentum collides with another particle arbitrarily close to the horizon of the black hole, the center-of-mass energy can be arbitrarily high. We also prove that arbitrarily high energies cannot be obtained for spinning particles near the horizons of nonextremal Kerr black holes.

The $\gamma$-ray observation of dwarf spheroidal satellites (dSph’s) is an ideal approach for probing the dark matter (DM) annihilation signature. The latest Fermi-LAT dSph searches have set stringent constraints on the velocity independent annihilation cross section in the small DM mass range, which gives very strong constraints on the scenario to explain the AMS-02 positron excess by DM annihilation. However, the dSph constraints would change in the velocity dependent annihilation scenarios, because the velocity dispersion in the dSph’s varies from that in the Milky Way. In this work, we use a likelihood map method to set constraints on the velocity dependent annihilation cross section from the Fermi-LAT observation of six dSph’s. We consider three typical forms of the annihilation cross section, i.e. p-wave annihilation, Sommerfeld enhancement, and Breit-Wigner resonance. For the p-wave annihilation and Sommerfeld enhancement, the dSph limits would become much weaker and stronger compared with those for the velocity independent annihilation, respectively. For the Breit-Wigner annihilation, the dSph limits would vary depending on the model parameters. We show that the scenario to explain the AMS-02 positron excess by DM annihilation is still viable in the velocity dependent cases.

We investigate the possibility of detecting the integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect by cross-correlating 21-cm surveys at high redshifts with galaxies in a way similar to the usual CMB-galaxy cross-correlation. The high-redshift 21-cm signal is dominated by CMB photons that travel freely without interacting with the intervening matter, and hence its late-time ISW signature should correlate extremely well with that of the CMB at its peak frequencies. Using the 21-cm temperature brightness instead of the CMB would thus be a further check of the detection of the ISW effect, measured by different instruments at different frequencies and suffering from different systematics. We also study the ISW effect on the photons that are scattered by HI clouds. We show that a detection of the unscattered photons is achievable with planned radio arrays, while one using scattered photons will require advanced radio interferometers, either an extended version of the planned Square Kilometre Array or futuristic experiments such as a lunar radio array.

We comment on the treatment of asymptotic black-disk scattering in a recent paper of Nastase and Sonnenschein [Phys. Rev. D 92, 105028 (2015)] on scattering in an updated version of the Heisenberg model which gives $pp$ and $\overline{p}p$ cross sections which increase at very high energies as ${\ln }^{2}s$. We show that the total cross section they define does not correspond to that measured in experiments, with the result that their limit for the ratio ${\sigma }_{\text{elas}}/{\sigma }_{\text{tot}}$ is too small by a factor 2. The correct ratio for black-disk scattering, ${\sigma }_{\text{elas}}/{\sigma }_{\text{tot}}\to 1/2$ for $s\to \infty$, is strongly supported by experiment.

Models with Dirac gauginos are appealing scenarios for physics beyond the Standard Model. They have smaller radiative corrections to scalar soft masses, a suppression of certain supersymmetry (SUSY) production processes at the LHC, and ameliorated flavor constraints. Unfortunately, they are generically plagued by tachyons charged under the Standard Model, and attempts to eliminate such states typically spoil the positive features. The recently proposed “Goldstone gaugino” mechanism provides a simple realization of Dirac gauginos that is automatically free of dangerous tachyonic states. We provide details on this mechanism and explore models for its origin. In particular, we find SUSY QCD models that realize this idea simply and discuss scenarios for unification.

We suggest that Hamiltonian matrix elements between physical states in QCD might be approximated, in Coulomb gauge, by “lattice-improved” tree diagrams; i.e. tree diagram contributions with dressed ghost, transverse gluon, and Coulomb propagators obtained from lattice simulations. Such matrix elements can be applied to a truncated-basis treatment of hadronic states which include constituent gluons. As an illustration, we apply this hybrid approach to the heavy quark potential, for quark-antiquark separations up to 2.4 fm. The Coulomb string tension in SU(3) gauge theory is about a factor of 4 times greater than the asymptotic string tension. In our approach we show that a single constituent gluon is in principle sufficient, up to 2.4 fm, to reduce this overshoot by the factor required. The static potential remains linear, although the precise value of the string tension depends on details of the Couloumb gauge ghost and gluon propagators in the infrared regime. In this connection we present new lattice results for the transverse gluon propagator in position space.

In this work, the photoproduction of $a_2(1320)$ off a proton target is investigated within an effective Lagrangian approach and the Regge model. The theoretical result indicates that the shapes of the total and differential cross sections of the $\gamma p\to a_2^{+}n$ reaction within the Feynman (isobar) model are much different from that of the Reggeized treatment. The obtained cross section is compared with the existing experimental results at low energies. The $a_2(1320)$ production cross section at high energies can be tested by the COMPASS experiment, which can provide important information for clarifying the role of the Reggeized treatment at that energy range.

Topological triangulations of orientable and nonorientable surfaces with arbitrary genus have important applications in quantum geometry, graph theory and statistical physics. However, until now, only the asymptotics for 2-spheres have been known analytically, and exact counts of triangulations are only available for both small genera and triangulations. We apply the Wang-Landau algorithm to calculate the number $N(m,h)$ of triangulations for several orders of magnitude in system size $m$ and type $h$ (equals genus in orientable triangulations). We verify that the limit of the entropy density of triangulations is independent of genus and orientability and are able to determine the next-to-leading-order and the next-to-next-to-leading-order terms. We conjecture for the number of surface triangulations the asymptotic behavior $$N(m,h)\to (170.4\pm 15.1{)}^h{m}^{-2(h-1)/5}{\left(\frac{256}{27}\right)}^{m/2},$$which might guide a mathematician’s proof for the exact asymptotics.

Motivated by a desire to understand quantum fluctuation energy densities and stress within a spatially varying dielectric medium, we examine the vacuum expectation value for the stress tensor of a scalar field with arbitrary conformal parameter, in the background of a given potential that depends on only one spatial coordinate. We regulate the expressions by incorporating a temporal-spatial cutoff in the (imaginary) time and transverse-spatial directions. The divergences are captured by the zeroth- and second-order WKB approximations. Then the stress tensor is “renormalized” by omitting the terms that depend on the cutoff. The ambiguities that inevitably arise in this procedure are both duly noted and restricted by imposing certain physical conditions; one result is that the renormalized stress tensor exhibits the expected trace anomaly. The renormalized stress tensor exhibits no pressure anomaly, in that the principle of virtual work is satisfied for motions in a transverse direction. We then consider a potential that defines a wall, a one-dimensional potential that vanishes for $z<0$ and rises like $z^{\alpha }$, $\alpha >0$, for $z>0$. Previously, the stress tensor had been computed outside of the wall, whereas now we compute all components of the stress tensor in the interior of the wall. The full finite stress tensor is computed numerically for the two cases where explicit solutions to the differential equation are available, $\alpha =1$ and 2. The energy density exhibits an inverse linear divergence as the boundary is approached from the inside for a linear potential, and a logarithmic divergence for a quadratic potential. Finally, the interaction between two such walls is computed, and it is shown that the attractive Casimir pressure between the two walls also satisfies the principle of virtual work (i.e., the pressure equals the negative derivative of the energy with respect to the distance between the walls).

We provide a fully covariant expression for the diffeomorphic charge in four-dimensional anti-de Sitter gravity, when the Gauss-Bonnet and Pontryagin terms are added to the action. The couplings of these topological invariants are such that the Weyl tensor and its dual appear in the on-shell variation of the action and such that the action is stationary for asymptotic (anti-)self-dual solutions in the Weyl tensor. In analogy with Euclidean electromagnetism, whenever the self-duality condition is global, both the action and the total charge are identically vanishing. Therefore, for such configurations, the magnetic mass equals the Ashtekhar-Magnon-Das definition.