We present a hadronic model of activity for galactic $\gamma$-ray-loud binaries, in which the multi-TeV neutrino flux from the source can be much higher and/or harder than the detected TeV $\gamma$-ray flux. This is related to the fact that most neutrinos are produced in proton-proton interactions close to the bright massive star, in a region optically thick for the TeV $\gamma$ rays. Considering the specific example of LS $\mathrm{I}+61°$ 303, we derive upper bounds for neutrino fluxes from various proton injection spectra compatible with the observed multiwavelength spectrum. At this upper level of neutrino emission, we demonstrate that ICECUBE will not only detect this source at $5\sigma$ C.L. after one year of operation, but, after three years of exposure, will also collect a sample marginally sufficient to constrain the spectral characteristics of the neutrino signal, directly related to the underlying source acceleration mechanisms.

We investigate the weak nonleptonic decays of ${\Lambda }_c^{+}$, ${\Xi }_c^{+}$, and ${\Xi }_c^0$ into the octet baryons ($J^P=1/2^{+}$) and axial-vector mesons ($J^P=1^{+}$) employing the factorization scheme and predict their branching ratios and asymmetry parameters.

The possibility to observe new bottomonium states with $J^{PC}=1^{--}$ in the region 10.7–11.1 GeV is discussed. The analysis of the dielectron widths shows that the $(n+1){}^{3}S_1$ and $n{}^{3}D_1$ states ($n\ge 3$) may be mixed with a rather large mixing angle, $\theta \approx 30°$, and this effect provides the correct values of ${\Gamma }_{ee}({\rm Y}(10580))$ and ${\Gamma }_{ee}({\rm Y}(11020))$. On the other hand, the $S-D$ mixing gives rise to an increase by 2 orders of magnitude of the dielectron widths of the mixed $\widetilde{{\rm Y}}(n{}^{3}D_1)$ resonances ($n=3$, 4, 5), which originate from pure $D$-wave states. The value ${\Gamma }_{ee}(\widetilde{{\rm Y}}(3D))={0.095}_{-0.025}^{+0.028}\mathrm{keV}$ is obtained, being only $\sim 3$ times smaller than the dielectron width of ${\rm Y}(10580)$, while ${\Gamma }_{ee}(\widetilde{{\rm Y}}(5D))\sim 135\mathrm{eV}$ appears to be close to ${\Gamma }_{ee}({\rm Y}(11020))$ and therefore this resonance may become manifest in the $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ experiments. The mass differences between $M(nD)$ and $M((n+1)S)$ ($n=4$, 5) are shown to be rather small, $50\pm 10\mathrm{MeV}$.

We compute the finite renormalization of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix induced by gluino-squark diagrams in the minimal supersymmetric standard model with nonminimal sources of flavor violation. Subsequently we derive bounds on the flavor-off-diagonal elements of the squark mass matrices by requiring that the radiative corrections to the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa elements do not exceed the experimental values. Our constraints on the associated dimensionless quantities ${\delta }_{ij}^{dLR}$, $j>i$, are stronger than the bounds from flavor-changing neutral current (FCNC) processes if the gluino and squarks are heavier than 500 GeV. Our bound on $|{\delta }_{12}^{uLR}|$ is stronger than the FCNC bound from $D-\overline{D}$ mixing for superpartner masses above 900 GeV. We further find a useful bound on $|{\delta }_{13}^{uLR}|$, for which no FCNC constraint is known. Our results imply that it is still possible to generate all observed flavor violation from the soft supersymmetry-breaking terms without conflicting with present-day data on FCNC processes. We suggest that a flavor symmetry renders the Yukawa sector flavor-diagonal and the trilinear supersymmetry-breaking terms are the spurion fields breaking this flavor symmetry. We further derive the dominant supersymmetric radiative corrections to the couplings of charged-Higgs bosons and charginos to quarks and squarks.

We reinvestigate the photoproduction of the exotic pentaquark baryon ${\Theta }^{+}(1540,1/2^{+})$ from the $\gamma N\to \overline{K}{\Theta }^{+}$ reaction process within the effective Lagrangian approach, taking into account new theoretical information on the $KN\Theta$ and $K^{*}N\Theta$ coupling strengths from the chiral-quark-soliton model ($\chi \mathrm{QSM}$). We also consider the crossing-symmetric hadronic form factor, satisfying the on-shell condition as well. Because of the sizable vector and tensor couplings for the vector kaon, $g_{K^{*}N\Theta }$ and $f_{K^{*}N\Theta }$, which are almost the same with the vector coupling $g_{KN\Theta }\approx 0.8$ for the pseudoscalar kaon, the $K^{*}$-exchange contribution plays a critical role in the photon-beam asymmetries.

In this paper the spin-dependent singlet and nonsinglet structure functions have been obtained by solving Dokshitzer, Gribov, Lipatov, Altarelli, Parisi evolution equations in leading order and next to leading order in the small $x$ limit. Here we have used Taylor series expansion and then the method of characteristics to solve the evolution equations. We have also calculated $t$ and $x$ evolutions of deuteron structure functions, and the results are compared with the SLAC E-143 Collaboration data.

Using a model calculation of dihadron fragmentation functions, we fit the spin asymmetry recently extracted by HERMES for the semi-inclusive pion pair production in deep-inelastic scattering on a transversely polarized proton target. By evolving the obtained dihadron fragmentation functions, we make predictions for the correlation of the angular distributions of two pion pairs produced in electron-positron annihilations at BELLE kinematics. Our study shows that the combination of two-hadron inclusive deep-inelastic scattering and electron-positron annihilation measurements can provide a valid alternative to Collins effect for the extraction of the quark transversity distribution in the nucleon.

Using the requirement of Möbius invariance of $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills amplitudes in the Regge limit, we restore the explicit form of the conformal next-to-leading-order Balitsky-Fadin-Kuraev-Lipatov (BFKL) kernel out of the eigenvalues known from the forward next-to-leading-order BFKL result.

A number of spacetime fields in string theory (notably the metric, dilaton, bosonic and type 0 bulk closed-string tachyon, and bosonic open-string tachyon) have the following property: whenever the spacetime field configuration factorizes in an appropriate sense, the matter sector of the world-sheet theory factorizes into a tensor product of two decoupled theories. Since the beta functions for such a product theory necessarily also factorize, this property strongly constrains the form of the spacetime action encoding those beta functions. We show that this constraint alone—without needing actually to compute any of the beta functions—is sufficient to fix the form of the two-derivative action for the metric-dilaton system, as well as the potential for the bosonic open-string tachyon. We also show that no action consistent with this constraint exists for the closed-string tachyon coupled to the metric and dilaton.

We update Monte Carlo simulations of the three-dimensional $\mathrm{SU}(3)+\mathrm{\text{adjoint}}$ Higgs theory, by extrapolating carefully to the infinite volume and continuum limits, in order to estimate the contribution of the infrared modes to the pressure of hot QCD. The sum of infrared contributions beyond the known 4-loop order turns out to be a smooth function, of a reasonable magnitude and specific sign. Unfortunately, adding this function to the known 4-loop terms does not improve the match to four-dimensional lattice data, in spite of the fact that other quantities, such as correlation lengths, spatial string tension, or quark number susceptibilities, work well within the same setup. We outline possible ways to reduce the mismatch.

The dynamics of a vortex string, which describes the Nambu-Goldstone modes of the spontaneous breakdown of the target space $D=4$, $N=1$ supersymmetry and internal $U(1{)}_R$ symmetry to the world sheet $\mathrm{ISO}(1,1)$ symmetry, is constructed by using the approach of nonlinear realization. The resulting action describing the low energy oscillations of the string into the covolume (super)space is found to have an invariant synthesis form of the Akulov-Volkov and Nambu-Goto actions. Its dual scalar field action is obtained by means of introducing two vectorial Lagrangian multipliers into the action of the string.

Using our new numerical-relativity code SACRA, long-term simulations for inspiral and merger of black hole (BH)-neutron star (NS) binaries are performed, focusing particularly on gravitational waveforms. As the initial conditions, BH-NS binaries in a quasiequilibrium state are prepared in a modified version of the moving-puncture approach. The BH is modeled by a nonspinning moving puncture and, for the NS, a polytropic equation of state with $\Gamma =2$ and the irrotational velocity field are employed. The mass ratio of the BH to the NS, $Q=M_{\mathrm{BH}}/M_{\mathrm{NS}}$, is chosen in the range between 1.5 and 5. The compactness of the NS, defined by $\mathcal{C}=G{M}_{\mathrm{NS}}/c^2{R}_{\mathrm{NS}}$, is chosen to be between 0.145 and 0.178. For a large value of $Q$ for which the NS is not tidally disrupted and is simply swallowed by the BH, gravitational waves are characterized by inspiral, merger and ringdown waveforms. In this case, the waveforms are qualitatively the same as that from BH-BH binaries. For a sufficiently small value of $Q\lesssim 2$, the NS may be tidally disrupted before it is swallowed by the BH. In this case, the amplitude of the merger and ringdown waveforms is very low, and thus, gravitational waves are characterized by the inspiral waveform and subsequent quick damping. The difference in the merger and ringdown waveforms is clearly reflected in the spectrum shape and in the “cutoff” frequency above which the spectrum amplitude steeply decreases. When a NS is not tidally disrupted (e.g., for $Q=5$), kick velocity, induced by asymmetric gravitational-wave emission, agrees approximately with that derived for the merger of BH-BH binaries, whereas for the case when the tidal disruption occurs, the kick velocity is significantly suppressed.

In this paper we show that the covariant dynamical equations of quantum vortices in type II superconductors may be brought into the same form as the classical equations written in 3-vector forms and can then be interpreted by using the familiar language of physics. This result is attained by introducing the physically measurable quantities by means of the corresponding standard relative quantities as defined by Cattaneo and by using his operator of transverse derivation, partial or covariant, with respect to the $x^4$ lines. The standard equations thus obtained have a tensorial character and are covariant under the sole changes of coordinates leaving invariant the $x^4$ lines, i.e. changes of coordinates internal to the physical system of reference S associated with the coordinates ($x^i$). Expressions of the electric and magnetic fields induced inside a type II superconductor at rest in a curved space-time are obtained. The generation of these fields is influenced not only by the presence of a gravitational field but also by the presence of vortices. Comparison is made with the results predicted by the method of anholonomic frames.

We show that a coupling between chameleonlike scalar fields and photons induces linear and circular polarization in the light from astrophysical sources. In this context chameleonlike scalar fields include those of the Olive-Pospelov (OP) model, which describes a varying fine structure constant. We determine the form of this polarization numerically and give analytic expressions in two useful limits. By comparing the predicted signal with current observations we are able to improve the constraints on the chameleon-photon coupling and the coupling in the OP model by over 2 orders of magnitude. It is argued that, if observed, the distinctive form of the chameleon induced circular polarization would represent a smoking gun for the presence of a chameleon. We also report a tentative statistical detection of a chameleonlike scalar field from observations of starlight polarization in our galaxy.

We show that entanglement can be used to detect spacetime curvature. Quantum fields in the Minkowski vacuum are entangled with respect to local field modes. This entanglement can be swapped to spatially separated quantum systems using standard local couplings. A single, inertial field detector in the exponentially expanding (de Sitter) vacuum responds as if it were bathed in thermal radiation in a Minkowski universe. We show that using two inertial detectors, interactions with the field in the thermal case will entangle certain detector pairs that would not become entangled in the corresponding de Sitter case. The two universes can thus be distinguished by their entangling power.

We study the evolution of maximally symmetric $p$-branes with a $S_{p-i}\otimes {\mathbb{R}}^i$ topology in flat expanding or collapsing homogeneous and isotropic universes with $N+1$ dimensions (with $N\ge 3$, $p<N$, $0\le i<p$). We find the corresponding equations of motion and compute new analytical solutions for the trajectories in phase space. For a constant Hubble parameter $H$ and $i=0$ we show that all initially static solutions with a physical radius below a certain critical value $r_c^0$ are periodic while those with a larger initial radius become frozen in comoving coordinates at late times. We find a stationary solution with constant velocity and physical radius $r_c$ and compute the root mean square velocity of the periodic $p$-brane solutions and the corresponding (average) equation of state of the $p$-brane gas. We also investigate the $p$-brane dynamics for $H\ne \mathrm{\text{constant}}$ in models where the evolution of the universe is driven by a perfect fluid with constant equation of state parameter $w={\mathcal{P}}_p/{\rho }_p$ and show that a critical radius $r_c$ can still be defined for $-1\le w<w_c$ with $w_c=(2-N)/N$. We further show that for $w\sim w_c$ the critical radius is given approximately by $r_{c}H\propto (w_c-w{)}^{{\gamma }_c}$ with ${\gamma }_c=-1/2$ ($r_{c}H\to \infty$ when $w\to w_c$). Finally, we discuss the impact that the large-scale dynamics of the universe can have on the macroscopic evolution of very small loops.

The electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB) sector of the standard model can be far richer and more interesting than the usual single scalar doublet model. We explore scenarios where the EWSB sector is nearly scale invariant and consequently gives rise to a light $CP$ even scalar particle. The one-doublet SM is in that category, as are many other models with either weakly or strongly coupled sectors that trigger EWSB. We study the couplings of the light scalar to the SM particles that can arise from the explicit breaking of scale invariance focusing on the possible differences with the minimal SM. The couplings of the light scalar to light fermions, as well as to the massless gauge bosons, can be significantly enhanced. We find possible new discovery channels due to the decays of the conformal scalar into $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ and ${\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$ pairs as well as new production channels via light quark annihilation.

We investigate the electroweak precision constraints on the recently proposed Lee-Wick standard model at tree level. We analyze low-energy, $Z$-pole (LEP1/SLC) and LEP2 data separately. We derive the exact tree-level low-energy and $Z$-pole effective Lagrangians from both the auxiliary field and higher derivative formulation of the theory. For the LEP2 data we use the fact that the Lee-Wick standard model belongs to the class of models that assumes a so-called “universal” form which can be described by seven oblique parameters at leading order in $m_W^2/M_{1,2}^2$. At tree level we find that $Y=-m_W^2/M_1^2$ and $W=-m_W^2/M_2^2$, where the negative sign is due to the presence of the negative norm states. All other oblique parameters $(\widehat{S},X)$ and $(\widehat{T},\widehat{U},V)$ are found to be zero. In the addendum we show how our results differ from previous investigations, where contact terms, which are found to be of leading order, have been neglected. The LEP1/SLC constraints are slightly stronger than LEP2 and much stronger than the low-energy ones. The LEP1/SLC results exclude gauge boson masses of $M_1\simeq M_2\sim 3\mathrm{TeV}$ at the 99% confidence level. Somewhat lower masses are possible when one of the masses assumes a large value. Loop corrections to the electroweak observables are suppressed by the standard $\sim 1/(4\pi {)}^2$ factor and are therefore not expected to change the constraints on $M1$ and $M_2$. This assertion is most transparent from the higher derivative formulation of the theory.

In the deconfinement phase of quenched $SU(2)$ Yang-Mills theory the spectrum and localization properties of the eigenmodes of the overlap Dirac operator with antiperiodic boundary conditions are strongly dependent on the sign of the average Polyakov loop, $⟨L⟩$. For $⟨L⟩>0$ a gap appears with only a few, highly localized topological zero and near-zero modes separated from the rest of the spectrum. Instead of a gap, for $⟨L⟩<0$ a high spectral density of relatively delocalized near-zero modes is observed. In an ensemble of positive $⟨L⟩$, the same difference of the spectrum appears under a change of fermionic boundary conditions. We argue that this effect and other properties of near-zero modes can be explained through the asymmetric properties and the different abundance of dyons and antidyons—topological objects also known to appear, however, in a symmetric form, in the confinement phase at $T<T_c$ as constituents of calorons with maximally nontrivial holonomy.

Highly excited states for isospin $\frac{1}{2}$ baryons are calculated for the first time using lattice QCD with two flavors of dynamical quarks. Anisotropic lattices are used with two pion masses, $m_{\pi }=416(36)\mathrm{MeV}$ and 578(29) MeV. The lowest four energies are reported in each of the six irreducible representations of the octahedral group at each pion mass. The lattices used have dimensions ${24}^3\times 64$, spatial lattice spacing $a_s\approx 0.11\mathrm{fm}$, and temporal lattice spacing $a_t=\frac{1}{3}{a}_s$. Clear evidence is found for a $\frac{5^{-}}{2}$ state in the pattern of negative-parity excited states. This agrees with the pattern of physical states and spin $\frac{5}{2}$ has been realized for the first time on the lattice.