We calculate the gravitational perturbations produced by a small mass in eccentric orbit about a much more massive Schwarzschild black hole and use the numerically computed perturbations to solve for the metric. The calculations are initially made in the frequency domain and provide Fourier-harmonic modes for the gauge-invariant master functions that satisfy inhomogeneous versions of the Regge-Wheeler and Zerilli equations. These gravitational master equations have specific singular sources containing both delta function and derivative-of-delta function terms. We demonstrate in this paper successful application of the method of extended homogeneous solutions, developed recently by Barack, Ori, and Sago, to handle source terms of this type. The method allows transformation back to the time domain, with exponential convergence of the partial mode sums that represent the field. This rapid convergence holds even in the region of $r$ traversed by the point mass and includes the time-dependent location of the point mass itself. We present numerical results of mode calculations for certain orbital parameters, including highly accurate energy and angular momentum fluxes at infinity and at the black hole event horizon. We then address the issue of reconstructing the metric perturbation amplitudes from the master functions, the latter being weak solutions of a particular form to the wave equations. The spherical harmonic amplitudes that represent the metric in Regge-Wheeler gauge can themselves be viewed as weak solutions. They are in general a combination of (1) two differentiable solutions that adjoin at the instantaneous location of the point mass (a result that has order of continuity $C^{-1}$ typically) and (2) (in some cases) a delta function distribution term with a computable time-dependent amplitude.

Previously the five dimensional $S^1$-rotating black rings have been superposed in a concentric way by some solitonic methods, and regular systems of two $S^1$-rotating black rings were constructed by the authors and then Evslin and Krishnan (we called these solutions “black di-rings”). In this place we show some characteristics of the solutions of five dimensional black di-rings, especially in thermodynamic equilibrium. After the summary of the di-ring expressions and their physical quantities, first we comment on the equivalence of the two different solution sets of the black di-rings. Then the existence of thermodynamic black di-rings is shown, in which both isothermality and isorotation between the inner black ring and the outer black ring are realized. We also give detailed analysis of peculiar properties of the thermodynamic black di-ring including discussion about a certain kind of thermodynamic stability (instability) of the system.

The state-space pair correlation functions and the notion of stability of extremal and nonextremal black holes in string theory and $M$ theory are considered from the viewpoint of thermodynamic Ruppeiner geometry. We have explicitly analyzed the state-space configurations for (i) the two- and three-charge extremal black holes, (ii) the four- and six-charge nonextremal black branes, which both arise from the string theory solutions. An extension is considered for the $D_6\mathrm{\text{−}}{D}_4\mathrm{\text{−}}{D}_2\mathrm{\text{−}}{D}_0$ multicentered black branes, fractional small black branes, and two-charge rotating fuzzy rings in the setup of Mathur’s fuzzball configurations. The state-space pair correlations and the nature of stabilities have been investigated for three-charged bubbling black-brane foams, and thereby the $M$-theory solutions are brought into the present consideration. Novel aspects of the state-space interactions have been envisaged from the coarse graining counting entropy of underlying conformal field theory microstates.

It is known that in $f(R)$ theories of gravity with an independent connection which can be both nonmetric and nonsymmetric, this connection can always be algebraically eliminated in favor of the metric and the matter fields, so long as it is not coupled to the matter explicitly. We show here that this is a special characteristic of $f(R)$ actions, and it is not true for actions that include other curvature invariants. This contradicts some recent claims in the literature. We clarify the reasons for this contradiction.

We extend the general relativistic description of galaxy clustering developed in Yoo, Fitzpatrick, and Zaldarriaga (2009). For the first time we provide a fully general relativistic description of the observed matter power spectrum and the observed galaxy power spectrum with the linear bias ansatz. It is significantly different from the standard Newtonian description on large scales and especially its measurements on large scales can be misinterpreted as the detection of the primordial non-Gaussianity even in the absence thereof. The key difference in the observed galaxy power spectrum arises from the real-space matter fluctuation defined as the matter fluctuation at the hypersurface of the observed redshift. As opposed to the standard description, the shape of the observed galaxy power spectrum evolves in redshift, providing additional cosmological information. While the systematic errors in the standard Newtonian description are negligible in the current galaxy surveys at low redshift, correct general relativistic description is essential for understanding the galaxy power spectrum measurements on large scales in future surveys with redshift depth $z\ge 3$. We discuss ways to improve the detection significance in the current galaxy surveys and comment on applications of our general relativistic formalism in future surveys.

We show here how renormalized perturbation theory calculations applied to the quasilinear growth of the large-scale structure can be carried on in presence of primordial non-Gaussian (PNG) initial conditions. It is explicitly demonstrated that the series reordering scheme proposed in Bernardeau, Crocce, and Scoccimarro [Phys. Rev. D 78, 103521 (2008)] is preserved for non-Gaussian initial conditions. This scheme applies to the power spectrum and higher-order spectra and is based on a reorganization of the contributing terms into the sum of products of multipoint propagators. In case of PNG, new contributing terms appear, the importance of which is discussed in the context of current PNG models. The properties of the building blocks of such resummation schemes, the multipoint propagators, are then investigated. It is first remarked that their expressions are left unchanged at one-loop order irrespective of statistical properties of the initial field. We furthermore show that the high-momentum limit of each of these propagators can be explicitly computed even for arbitrary initial conditions. They are found to be damped by an exponential cutoff whose expression is directly related to the moment generating function of the one-dimensional displacement field. This extends what had been established for multipoint propagators for Gaussian initial conditions. Numerical forms of the cutoff are shown for the so-called local model of PNG.

In this paper, we use a known duality between expanding and contracting cosmologies to construct a dual of the inflationary flow hierarchy applicable to contracting cosmologies such as ekpyrotic and cyclic models. We show that the inflationary flow equations are invariant under the duality and therefore apply equally well to inflation or to cyclic cosmology. We construct a self-consistent small-parameter approximation dual to the slow-roll approximation in inflation, and calculate the power spectrum of perturbations in this limit. We also recover the matter-dominated contracting solution of Wands, and the recently proposed adiabatic ekpyrosis solution.

We demonstrate how the two dominant constituents of the Universe, dark energy and dark matter, could possess a large scattering cross section without considerably impacting observations. Unlike interacting models which invoke energy exchange between the two fluids, the background cosmology remains unaltered, leaving fewer observational signatures. Following a brief review of the scattering cross sections between cosmologically significant particles, we explore the implications of an elastic interaction between dark matter and dark energy. The growth of large scale structure is suppressed, yet this effect is found to be weak due to the persistently low dark energy density. Thus we conclude that the dark matter–dark energy cross section may exceed the Thomson cross section by several orders of magnitude.

The resonance parameters of the excited $\psi$-family resonances, namely, the $\psi (4040)$, $\psi (4160)$, and $\psi (4415)$, were determined by fitting the $R$ values measured by experiments. It is found that the previously reported leptonic partial widths of these states were merely one possible solution among a four-fold ambiguity. By fitting the most precise experimental data on the $R$ values measured by the BES collaboration, this work presents all four sets of solutions. These results may affect the interpretation of the charmonium and charmonium-like states above $4\mathrm{GeV}/c^2$.

If collider experiments demonstrate that the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) is a good description of nature at the weak scale, the experimental priority will be the precise determination of superpartner masses. These masses are governed by the weak scale values of the soft supersymmetry-breaking (SUSY-breaking) parameters, which are in turn highly dependent on the SUSY-breaking scheme present at high scales. It is therefore of great interest to find patterns in the soft parameters that can distinguish different high-scale SUSY-breaking structures, identify the scale at which the breaking is communicated to the visible sector, and determine the soft breaking parameters at that scale. In this work, we demonstrate that 1-loop renormalization group invariant quantities present in the MSSM may be used to answer each of these questions. We apply our method first to generic flavor-blind models of SUSY breaking, and then we examine in detail the subset of these models described by general gauge mediation and the constrained MSSM with nonuniversal Higgs masses. As renormalization group invariance generally does not hold beyond leading-log order, we investigate the magnitude and direction of the 2-loop corrections. We find that with superpartners at the TeV scale, these 2-loop effects are either negligible, or they are of the order of optimistic experimental uncertainties and have definite signs, which allows them to be easily accounted for in the overall uncertainty.

We consider the velocity dependence arising from scattering through dark multipole moments, and its effects on the consistency of the signals observed by DAMA and CoGeNT with the dark matter hypothesis. We focus on the effects of the experimental uncertainties on the fits, and show that the two experiments combined favor dark matter scattering with a velocity-dependent cross section over standard velocity and spin-independent scattering. When appropriate uncertainties are taken into account, we show that agreement of the two signals with each other and with the results of null experiments can be obtained.

We propose a dark-matter model in which the dark sector is gauged under a new $SU(2)$ group. The dark sector consists of $SU(2)$ dark gauge fields, two triplet dark Higgs fields, and two dark fermion doublets (dark-matter candidates in this model). The dark sector interacts with the standard model sector through kinetic and mass mixing operators. The model explains both PAMELA and Fermi LAT data very well and also satisfies constraints from both the dark-matter relic density and standard model precision observables. The phenomenology of the model at the LHC is also explored.

The QCD critical point can be found in heavy-ion collision experiments via the nonmonotonic behavior of many fluctuation observables as a function of the collision energy. The event-by-event fluctuations of various particle multiplicities are enhanced in those collisions that freeze-out near the critical point. Higher, non-Gaussian, moments of the event-by-event distributions of such observables are particularly sensitive to critical fluctuations, since their magnitude depends on the critical correlation length to a high power. We present quantitative estimates of the contribution of critical fluctuations to the third and fourth moments of the pion, proton and net proton multiplicities, as well as estimates of various measures of pion-proton correlations, all as a function of the same five nonuniversal parameters, one of which is the correlation length that parametrizes proximity to the critical point. We show how to use nontrivial but parameter-independent ratios among these more than a dozen fluctuation observables to discover the critical point. We also construct ratios that, if the critical point is found, can be used to overconstrain the values of the nonuniversal parameters.

A new production mechanism for the standard model Higgs boson in ultraperipheral collisions at the LHC, which allows central exclusive diffractive production by double pomeron exchange in photon-proton processes, is presented. The Higgs boson is centrally produced by gluon fusion with two large rapidity gaps emerging in the final state, being the main experimental signature for this process. As already studied for Pomeron-Pomeron and two-photon processes, the Higgs boson photoproduction is studied within this new mechanism in proton-proton ($pp$) and proton-nucleus ($pA$) collisions, where each system has a different dynamics to be taken into account. As a result, this mechanism predicts a production cross section for $pp$ collisions of about 1.8 fb, which is similar to that obtained in Pomeron-Pomeron processes. Besides, in $p\mathrm{Pb}$ collisions the cross sections have increased to about 0.6 pb, being comparable with the results of two-photon processes in $p\mathrm{Au}$ collisions. Therefore, as the rapidity gap survival probability is an open question in high-energy physics, an analysis for different values of this probability shows how competitive the mechanisms are in the LHC kinematical regime.

Constraints on a spin-independent interaction by the exchange of a neutral light boson are derived from precision data on the electron anomalous magnetic moment and from atomic spectroscopy of hydrogen and deuterium atoms. The mass range from $1\mathrm{eV}/c^2$ to $1\mathrm{MeV}/c^2$ is studied, and the effective coupling constant ${\alpha }^{\prime }$ is allowed below the level of ${10}^{-11}–{10}^{-13}$ depending on the value of the boson mass. The mass range corresponds to the Yukawa radius from 0.0002 nm to 20 nm, which covers the distances far above and far below the Bohr radius of the hydrogen atom.

We determine an upper bound for a possible right-handed $b\to c$ quark current admixture in semileptonic $\overline{B}\to X_c{\ell }^{-}\overline{\nu }$ decays from a simultaneous fit to moments of the lepton-energy and hadronic-mass distribution measured as a function of the lower limit on the lepton energy, using data measured by the BABAR detector. The right-handed admixture is parametrized by a new parameter $c_R$ as coefficient of computed moments with right-handed quark current. For the standard-model part we use the prediction of the heavy-quark expansion up to order $1/m_b^3$ and perturbative corrections and for the right-handed contribution only up to order $1/m_b^2$ and perturbative corrections. We find $c_R^{\prime }={0.05}_{-0.50}^{+0.33}$ in agreement with the standard-model prediction of zero. Additionally, we give a constraint on a possible right-handed admixture from exclusive decays, which is with a value of $c_R^{\prime }=0.01\pm 0.03$ more restrictive than our value from the inclusive fit. The difference in $|V_{cb}|$ between the inclusive and exclusive extraction is only slightly reduced when allowing for a right-handed admixture in the range of $c_R^{\prime }=0.01\pm 0.03$.

We report on the results of the search for extremely-high energy neutrinos with energies above ${10}^7\mathrm{GeV}$ obtained with the partially ($\sim 30\%$) constructed IceCube in 2007. From the absence of signal events in the sample of 242.1 days of effective live time, we derive a 90% C.L. model independent differential upper limit based on the number of signal events per energy decade at $E^2{\varphi }_{{\nu }_e+{\nu }_{\mu }+{\nu }_{\tau }}\simeq 1.4\times {10}^{-6}\mathrm{GeV}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}{sec}^{-1}{\mathrm{sr}}^{-1}$ for neutrinos in the energy range from $3\times {10}^7$ to $3\times {10}^9\mathrm{GeV}$.

Encouraged by the recent construction of fuzzy sphere solutions in the Aharony, Bergman, Jafferis, and Maldacena (ABJM) theory, we re-analyze the latter from the perspective of a Matrix-like model. In particular, we argue that a vortex solution exhibits properties of a supergraviton, while a kink represents a 2-brane. Other solutions are also consistent with the Matrix-type interpretation. We study vortex scattering and compare with graviton scattering in the massive ABJM background, however our results are inconclusive. We speculate on how to extend our results to construct a Matrix theory of ABJM.

We study the dynamical evolution of a scalar field coupling to Einstein’s tensor in the background of a Reissner-Nordström black hole. Our results show that the coupling constant $\eta$ imprints in the wave dynamics of a scalar perturbation. In the weak coupling, we find that with the increase of the coupling constant $\eta$ the real parts of the fundamental quasinormal frequencies decrease and the absolute values of imaginary parts increase for fixed charge $q$ and multipole number $l$. In the strong coupling, we find that for $l\ne 0$ the instability occurs when $\eta$ is larger than a certain threshold value ${\eta }_c$ which deceases with the multipole number $l$ and charge $q$. However, for the lowest $l=0$, we find that there does not exist such a threshold value and the scalar field always decays for arbitrary coupling constant.

We present the first analytical superposition of a charged black hole with an annular disk of extremal dust. In order to obtain the solutions, we first solve the Einstein-Maxwell field equations for sources that represent disklike configurations of matter in confomastatic spacetimes by assuming a functional dependence among the metric function, the electric potential, and an auxiliary function, which is taken as a solution of the Laplace equation. We then employ the Lord Kelvin inversion method applied to models of finite extension in order to obtain annular disks. The structures obtained extend to infinity, but their total masses are finite and all the energy conditions are satisfied. Finally, we observe that the extremal Reissner-Nordström black hole can be embedded into the center of the disks by adding a boundary term in the inversion.