In this work we calculate the angular eigenvalues of the ($n+4$)-dimensional simply rotating Kerr-(A)dS spheroidal harmonics using the asymptotic iteration method. We make some comparisons between this method and that of the continued fraction method and use the latter to check our results. We also present analytic expressions for the small rotation limit up to $O(c^3)$ with the coefficient of each power up to $O({\alpha }^2)$, where $c=a\omega$ and $\alpha =a^2\Lambda$ ($a$ is the angular velocity, $\omega$ the frequency, and $\Lambda$ the cosmological constant).

Our universe experienced the accelerated expansion at least twice; an extreme inflationary acceleration in the early universe and the recent mild acceleration. By introducing the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) phase of a boson field, we have been developing a unified model of dark energy (DE) and dark matter (DM) for the later mild acceleration. In this scenario, two phases of BEC ($=\mathrm{DE}$) and normal gas ($=\mathrm{DM}$) transform with each other through BEC phase transition. This unified model has successfully explained the mild acceleration as an attractor. We extend this BEC cosmology to the early universe without introducing new ingredients. In this scenario, the inflation is naturally initiated by the condensation of the bosons in the huge vacuum energy. This inflation and even the cosmic expansion eventually terminates exactly at zero energy density. We call this stage as stagflation. At this stagflation era, particle production and the decay of BEC take place. The former makes the universe turn into the standard hot big bang stage and the latter makes the cosmological constant vanishingly small after the inflation. Furthermore, we calculate the density fluctuations produced in this model, which turns out to be in the range allowed by the present observational data. We also show that the stagflation is quite robust and easily appears when one allows negative region of the potential. Further, we comment on the possibility that BEC generation/decay series might have continued all the time in the cosmic history from the inflation to present.

It is shown that, in the context of split supersymmetry, a simple model with a single complex scalar field can produce chaotic inflation and generate the observed amount of baryon asymmetry via the Affleck-Dine mechanism. While the inflaton quantum fluctuations give rise to curvature perturbation, we show that quantum fluctuations of the phase of the scalar field can produce baryonic isocurvature perturbation. Combining with constraints from WMAP data, all parameters in the model can be determined to within a narrow range.

We discuss the relic problem of string gas cosmology (SGC) using gravitinos and magnetic monopoles as examples. Since SGC operates near or at the Hagedorn temperature, relics are produced copiously; in the absence of dilution, their abundances are too large. A subsequent phase of reheating can solve the gravitino problem, but fails to dilute monopoles sufficiently. We propose a subsequent phase of inflation as the most natural solution to the monopole problem; unfortunately, inflation marginalizes almost all potential achievements of SGC, with the exception of a possible explanation of the dichotomy of space (why did only three dimensions inflate?).

In this paper, we study the flux of electrons and positrons injected by pulsars and by annihilating or decaying dark matter in the context of recent ATIC, PAMELA, Fermi, and HESS data. We review the flux from a single pulsar and derive the flux from a distribution of pulsars. We point out that the particle acceleration in the pulsar magnetosphere is insufficient to explain the observed excess of electrons and positrons with energy $E\sim 1\mathrm{TeV}$ and one has to take into account an additional acceleration of electrons at the termination shock between the pulsar and its wind nebula. We show that at energies less than a few hundred GeV, the expected flux from a continuous distribution of pulsars provides a good approximation to the expected flux from pulsars in the Australia Telescope National Facility catalog. At higher energies, we demonstrate that the electron/positron flux measured at the Earth will be dominated by a few young nearby pulsars, and therefore the spectrum would contain bumplike features. We argue that the presence of such features at high energies would strongly suggest a pulsar origin of the anomalous contribution to electron and positron fluxes. The absence of features either points to a dark matter origin or constrains pulsar models in such a way that the fluctuations are suppressed. Also we derive that the features can be partially smeared due to spatial variation of the energy losses during propagation.

Masses for $\{Q\overline{q}\}\{{\overline{Q}}^{{(}^{\prime })}q\}$ molecular states are systematically studied in QCD sum rules. The interpolating currents representing the related molecular states are proposed. Technically, contributions of the operators up to dimension six are included in operator product expansion. Mass spectra for molecular states with $\{Q\overline{q}\}\{{\overline{Q}}^{{(}^{\prime })}q\}$ configurations are obtained.

We investigate the exclusive semileptonic $B_c\to (D,{\eta }_c,B,B_s)\ell {\nu }_{\ell }$, ${\eta }_b\to B_c\ell {\nu }_{\ell }$ ($\ell =e,\mu ,\tau$) decays using the light-front quark model constrained by the variational principle for the QCD-motivated effective Hamiltonian. The form factors $f_{+}(q^2)$ and $f_{-}(q^2)$ are obtained from the analytic continuation method in the $q^{+}=0$ frame. While the form factor $f_{+}(q^2)$ is free from the zero mode, the form factor $f_{-}(q^2)$ is not free from the zero mode in the $q^{+}=0$ frame. We quantify the zero-mode contributions to $f_{-}(q^2)$ for various semileptonic $B_c$ decays. Using our effective method to relate the non-wave-function vertex to the light-front valence wave function, we incorporate the zero-mode contribution as a convolution of the zero-mode operator with the initial and final state wave functions. Our results are then compared to the available experimental data and the results from other theoretical approaches. Since the prediction on the magnetic dipole $B_c^{*}\to B_c+\gamma$ decay turns out to be very sensitive to the mass difference between $B_c^{*}$ and $B_c$ mesons, the decay width $\Gamma (B_c^{*}\to B_c\gamma )$ may help in determining the mass of $B_c^{*}$ experimentally. Furthermore, we compare the results from the harmonic oscillator potential and the linear potential and identify the decay processes that are sensitive to the choice of confining potential. From the future experimental data on these sensitive processes, one may obtain more realistic information on the potential between the quark and antiquark in the heavy meson system.

We calculate the next-to-leading-order (NLO) QCD correction to $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to J/\psi c\overline{c}$ at the $B$ factories, and present theoretical predictions on the momentum and production angular distribution for $J/\psi$ production, and momentum distribution for $J/\psi$ polarization at NLO for the first time. By applying Brodsky, Lepage, and Mackenzie scale setting for the renormalization scale, it is found that the QCD perturbative expansion is significantly improved with the unique scale choice ${\mu }^{*}=1.65\mathrm{GeV}$. Together with the ${\psi }^{\prime }$ feed-down contribution, the total cross section and momentum distribution can account for the recent experimental measurement by the Belle collaboration. The total cross section and momentum distribution are also found to be consistent with the experimental measurement in the previous study on $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to J/\psi gg$. However, the production angular distribution of $J/\psi$ production for either the $J/\psi c\overline{c}$ or the $J/\psi gg$ channel has a quite different shape in contrast with the new experimental data, although it fits with the experimental data when the two channels are added together. This situation is difficult to explain. To clarify the puzzle of $J/\psi$ polarization, further experimental measurements are strongly expected to testify our predictions on the momentum distribution for $J/\psi$ polarization. Our total cross section agrees with that given in the previous study of Zhang and Chao by using their renormalization scheme and input parameters.

The (nonstrange) vector and axial-vector spectral functions extracted from $\tau$ decay by the ALEPH Collaboration are confronted with QCD in the framework of a finite energy sum rule involving a polynomial kernel tuned to suppress the region beyond the kinematical end point where there is no longer data. This effectively allows for a QCD finite energy sum rule analysis to be performed beyond the region of the existing data. Results show excellent agreement between data and perturbative QCD in the remarkably wide energy range $s=3–10{\mathrm{GeV}}^2$, leaving room for a dimension $d=4$ vacuum condensate consistent with values in the literature. A hypothetical dimension $d=2$ term in the operator product expansion is found to be extremely small, consistent with zero. Fixed order and contour improved perturbation theory are used, with both leading to similar results within errors. Full consistency is found between vector and axial-vector channel results.

Starting from the classic work of Feynman on the $\lambda$ point of liquid helium, we show that his idea of universal action per particle at the Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) transition point is much more robust that it was known before. Using a simple “moving string model” for supercurrent and calculating the action, both semiclassically and numerically, we show that the critical action is the same for noninteracting and strongly interacting systems such as liquid ${}^4\mathrm{He}$. Inversely, one can obtain an accurate dependence of critical temperature on density: one important consequence is that high density (solid) He cannot be a BEC state of He atoms, with upper density accurately matching the observations. We then use this model for the deconfinement phase transition of QCD-like gauge theories, treated as BEC of (color-)magnetic monopoles. We start with a Feynman-like approach without interaction, estimating the monopole mass at $T_c$. Then we include the monopole’s Coulomb repulsion, and formulate a relation between the mass, density and coupling which should be fulfilled at the deconfinement point. We end up proposing various ways to test on the lattice whether it is indeed the BEC point for monopoles.

We report a measurement of the exclusive $B^{+}$ meson decay to the $D_s^{(*)-}{K}^{+}{\pi }^{+}$ final state using $657\times {10}^{6}B\overline{B}$ pairs collected at the ${\rm Y}(4S)$ resonance with the Belle detector at the KEKB asymmetric-energy $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ collider. We use $D_s^{*-}\to D_s^{-}\gamma$ and the $D_s^{-}\to \varphi {\pi }^{-}$, ${\overline{K}}^{*}(892{)}^0{K}^{-}$ and $K_S^0{K}^{-}$ decay modes for $D_s^{(*)}$ reconstruction and measure the following branching fractions: $\mathcal{B}(B^{+}\to D_s^{-}{K}^{+}{\pi }^{+})=({1.71}_{-0.07}^{+0.08}(\mathrm{stat}{)}_{-0.20}^{+0.20}(\mathrm{syst})\pm 0.15({\mathcal{B}}_{\mathrm{int}}))\times {10}^{-4}$ and $\mathcal{B}(B^{+}\to D_s^{*-}{K}^{+}{\pi }^{+})=({1.31}_{-0.12}^{+0.13}(\mathrm{stat}{)}_{-0.25}^{+0.25}(\mathrm{syst})\pm 0.12({\mathcal{B}}_{\mathrm{int}}))\times {10}^{-4}$. The uncertainties are due to statistics, experimental systematic errors, and uncertainties of intermediate branching fractions, respectively.

Using a sample of 58 million $J/\psi$ events collected with the BESII detector at the BEPC, more than 100 000 $J/\psi \to p\overline{p}{\pi }^0$ events are selected, and a detailed partial wave analysis is performed. The branching fraction is determined to be $\mathrm{Br}(J/\psi \to p\overline{p}{\pi }^0)=(1.33\pm 0.02\pm 0.11)\times {10}^{-3}$. A long-sought missing $N^{*}$, first observed in $J/\psi \to p\overline{n}{\pi }^{-}$, is observed in this decay too, with mass and width of ${2040}_{-4}^{+3}\pm 25\mathrm{MeV}/c^2$ and ${230}_{-8}^{+8}\pm 52\mathrm{MeV}/c^2$, respectively. Its spin-parity favors ${\frac{3}{2}}^{+}$. The masses, widths, and spin parities of other $N^{*}$ states are obtained as well.

We report the observation of the baryonic $B$-decay ${\overline{B}}^0\to {\Lambda }_c^{+}\overline{p}{K}^{-}{\pi }^{+}$, excluding contributions from the decay ${\overline{B}}^0\to {\Lambda }_c^{+}\overline{\Lambda }{K}^{-}$. Using a data sample of $467\times {10}^6$ $B\overline{B}$ pairs collected with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II storage ring at SLAC, the measured branching fraction is $(4.33\pm {0.82}_{\mathrm{stat}}\pm {0.33}_{\mathrm{syst}}\pm {1.13}_{{\Lambda }_c^{+}})\times {10}^{-5}$. In addition we find evidence for the resonant decay ${\overline{B}}^0\to {\Sigma }_c(2455{)}^{++}\overline{p}{K}^{-}$ and determine its branching fraction to be $(1.11\pm {0.30}_{\mathrm{stat}}\pm {0.09}_{\mathrm{syst}}\pm {0.29}_{{\Lambda }_c^{+}})\times {10}^{-5}$. The errors are statistical, systematic, and due to the uncertainty in the ${\Lambda }_c^{+}$ branching fraction. For the resonant decay ${\overline{B}}^0\to {\Lambda }_c^{+}\overline{p}{\overline{K}}^{*0}$ we obtain an upper limit of $2.42\times {10}^{-5}$ at 90% confidence level.

We study two-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=(2,2)$ $SU(N)$ super Yang-Mills theory on Euclidean two-torus using Sugino’s lattice regularization. We perform the Monte Carlo simulation for $N=2,3,4,5$ and then extrapolate the result to $N=\infty$. With the periodic boundary conditions for the fermions along both circles, we establish the existence of a bound state in which scalar fields clump around the origin, in spite of the existence of a classical flat direction. In this phase the global $({\mathbb{Z}}_N{)}^2$ symmetry turns out to be broken. We provide a simple explanation for this fact and discuss its physical implications.

Continuing work initiated in an earlier publication [Y. Torigoe, K. Hattori, and H. Asada, Phys. Rev. Lett. 102, 251101 (2009)], gravitational wave forms for a three-body system in Lagrange’s orbit are considered especially in an analytic method. First, we derive an expression of the three-body wave forms at the mass quadrupole, octupole, and current quadrupole orders. By using the expressions, we solve a gravitational-wave inverse problem of determining the source parameters to this particular configuration (three masses, a distance of the source to an observer, and the orbital inclination angle to the line of sight) through observations of the gravitational wave forms alone. For this purpose, the chirp mass to a three-body system in the particular configuration is expressed in terms of only the mass ratios by deleting initial angle positions. We discuss also whether and how a binary source can be distinguished from a three-body system in Lagrange’s orbit or others.

We construct asymptotically AdS black hole solutions, with a self-interacting bulk scalar field, in the context of 5D general relativity. As the observable universe is characterized by spatial flatness, we focus on solutions where the horizon of the black hole, and subsequently all 3D hypersurfaces for fixed radial coordinate, have zero spatial curvature. We examine two cases for the black hole scalar hair: (a) an exponential decaying scalar field profile and (b) an inverse power scalar field profile. The scalar black hole solutions we present in this paper are characterized by four functions $f(r)$, $a(r)$, $\varphi (r)$, and $V(\varphi (r))$. Only the functions $\varphi (r)$ and $a(r)$ are determined analytically, while the functions $f(r)$ and $V(\varphi (r))$ are expressed semianalytically by integral formulas in terms of $a(r)$. We present our numerical results and study in detail the characteristic properties of our solutions. We also note that the potential we obtain has a nonconvex form in agreement with the corresponding “no hair theorem” for AdS spacetimes.

Numerical simulations of the effect of a long-range scalar interaction (LRSI) acting only on nonbaryonic dark matter, with strength comparable to gravity, show patterns of disruption of satellites that can agree with what is seen in the Milky Way. This includes the symmetric Sagittarius (Sgr) stellar stream. The exception presented here to the Kesden and Kamionkowski demonstration that an LRSI tends to produce distinctly asymmetric streams follows if the LRSI is strong enough to separate the stars from the dark matter before tidal disruption of the stellar component, and if stars dominate the mass in the luminous part of the satellite. It requires that the Sgr galaxy now contains little dark matter, which may be consistent with the Sgr stellar velocity dispersion, for in the simulation the dispersion at pericenter exceeds virial. We present other examples of simulations in which a strong LRSI produces satellites with large mass-to-light ratio, as in Draco, or free streams of stars, which might be compared to “orphan” streams.

We consider an interacting pion gas in a stage of the system evolution where thermal but not chemical equilibrium has been reached, i.e., for temperatures between thermal and chemical freeze-out $T_{\mathrm{ther}}<T<T_{\mathrm{chem}}$ reached in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Approximate particle number conservation is implemented by a nonvanishing pion number chemical potential ${\mu }_{\pi }$ within a diagrammatic thermal field-theory approach, valid in principle for any bosonic field theory in this regime. The resulting Feynman rules are derived here and applied within the context of chiral perturbation theory to discuss thermodynamical quantities of interest for the pion gas such as the free energy, the quark condensate, and thermal self-energy. In particular, we derive the ${\mu }_{\pi }\ne 0$ generalization of Luscher and Gell-Mann–Oakes–Renner–type relations. We pay special attention to the comparison with the conventional kinetic theory approach in the dilute regime, which allows for a check of consistency of our approach. Several phenomenological applications are discussed, concerning chiral symmetry restoration, freeze-out conditions, and Bose-Einstein pion condensation.

We investigate the signals of supersymmetry in a scenario where only the third family squarks and sleptons can be produced at the Large Hadron Collider, in addition to the gluino, charginos, and neutralinos. The final states in such cases are marked by a multiplicity of top or bottom quarks. We study, in particular, the case when the top squark, bottom squark, and gluino masses are near the TeV scale due to which, the final state $t$’s and $b$’s are very energetic. We point out the difficulty in $b$ tagging and identifying energetic tops and suggest several event selection criteria which allow the signals to remain significantly above the standard model background. We show that such scenarios with gluino mass up to 2 TeV can be successfully probed at the Large Hadron Collider. Information on $\tan \beta$ can also be obtained by looking at associated Higgs production in the cascades of accompanying neutralinos. We also show that a combined analysis of event rates in the different channels and the effective mass distribution allows one to differentiate this scenario from the one where all three sfermion families are accessible.