We analyze different scenarios for the hadron-quark phase transition occurring in beta-stable matter including hyperons in neutron stars. We use a Brueckner-Hartree-Fock approach including hyperons for the hadronic equation of state and a generalized MIT bag model for the quark part. We then point out in detail the differences between Maxwell and Gibbs phase transition constructions including the effects of surface tension and electromagnetic screening. We find only a small influence on the maximum neutron star mass, whereas the radius of the star and, in particular, its internal structure are more affected.

We perform a wavelet analysis of the temperature and polarization maps of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) delivered by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe experiment in search for a parity-violating signal. Such a signal could be seeded by new physics beyond the standard model, for which the Lorentz and $CPT$ symmetries may not hold. Under these circumstances, the linear polarization direction of a CMB photon may get rotated during its cosmological journey, a phenomenon also called cosmological birefringence. Recently, Feng et al. have analyzed a subset of the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and BOOMERanG 2003 angular power spectra of the CMB, deriving a constraint that mildly favors a nonzero rotation. By using wavelet transforms we set a tighter limit on the CMB photon rotation angle $\Delta \alpha =-2.5\pm 3.0$ ($\Delta \alpha =-2.5\pm 6.0$) at the one (two) $\sigma$ level, consistent with a null detection.

The ability to constrain dark energy from the evolution of galaxy cluster counts is limited by the imperfect knowledge of cluster redshifts. Ongoing and upcoming surveys will mostly rely on redshifts estimated from broadband photometry (photo-z’s). For a Gaussian distribution for the cluster photo-z errors and a high cluster yield cosmology defined by the WMAP 1 year results, the photo-z bias, and scatter needs to be known better than 0.003 and 0.03, respectively, in order not to degrade dark energy constrains by more than 10% for a survey with specifications similar to the South Pole Telescope. Smaller surveys and cosmologies with lower cluster yields produce weaker photo-z requirements, though relative to worse baseline constraints. Comparable photo-z requirements are necessary in order to employ self-calibration techniques when solving for dark energy and observable-mass parameters simultaneously. On the other hand, self-calibration in combination with external mass inferences helps reduce photo-z requirements and provides important consistency checks for future cluster surveys. In our fiducial model, training sets with spectroscopic redshifts for $\sim 5\%–15\%$ of the detected clusters are required in order to keep degradations in the dark energy equation of state lower than 20%.

I present an argument, based on the topology of the universe, why there are three generations of fermions. The argument implies a preferred unified gauge group of $SU(5)$, but with $SO(10)$ representations of the fermions. The breaking pattern $SU(5)\to SU(3)\times SU(2)\times U(1)$ is preferred over the pattern $SU(5)\to SU(4)\times U(1)$. On the basis of the argument one expects an asymmetry in the early universe microwave data, which might have been detected already.

We consider bulk antisymmetric tensor fields of various ranks in a Randall-Sundrum scenario. We show that, rank 2 onwards, the zero-modes of the projections of these fields on the $(3+1)$-dimensional visible brane become increasingly weaker as the rank of the tensor increases. All such tensor fields of rank 4 or more are absent from the dynamics in four dimensions. This leaves only the zero-mode graviton to have coupling $\sim 1/M_P$ with matter, thus explaining why the large-scale behavior of the universe is governed by gravity only. We have also computed the masses of the heavier modes up to rank 3, and have shown that they are relatively less likely to have detectable accelerator signals.

We propose a supersymmetric model of quark flavor symmetry based on $\mathrm{SU}(3{)}_{\mathrm{color}}\otimes \mathrm{SU}(3{)}_W\otimes \mathrm{U}(1{)}_X\otimes T^{\prime }$ where $T^{\prime }$ (binary tetrahedral group) is a discrete flavor symmetry group. The third (heavy) generation of quarks are assigned to singlet representation of $T^{\prime }$ while light quark generations are treated differently and assigned to doublet representation of $T^{\prime }$. The model generates masses for heavy quarks as in 3-3-1 case. The quark mass terms for the second generation are obtained when $T^{\prime }$ symmetry is broken at leading order and for first generation with small higher order corrections. The flavor-changing neutral current effects are suppressed at leading order for $3\to 2$ quark transitions due to $T^{\prime }$ breaking which is an attractive feature of the 3-3-1 $\otimes T^{\prime }$ model.

We construct a model of direct gauge mediation of metastable supersymmetry breaking by simply deforming the Intriligator, Seiberg, and Shih model in terms of a dual meson superpotential mass term. No extra matter field is introduced. The deformation explicitly breaks a $U(1{)}_R$ symmetry and pseudomoduli have a nonzero VEV at one-loop. Our metastable supersymmetry breaking vacuum turns out to be sufficiently long-lived. By gauging a subgroup of flavor symmetry, our model can directly couple to the standard model, which leads to nonvanishing gaugino mass generation. It is also shown that our model can evade the Landau pole problem. We show the parameters in the supersymmetry breaking sector are phenomenologically constrained.

We compute the ratio ${\Lambda }_L/{\Lambda }_{\overline{MS}}$, where the scale parameter ${\Lambda }_L$ is associated with a lattice formulation of QCD. We consider a 3-parameter family of gluon actions, which are most frequently used for $\mathcal{O}(a)$ improvement à la Symanzik. The gluon action is put together with standard discretizations for fermions (Wilson/clover, overlap), to provide ${\Lambda }_L$ for several possible combinations of fermion and gluon actions. We employ the background field technique in order to calculate the 1PI 2-point function of the background field; this leads to the coupling constant renormalization function, $Z_g$, at 1-loop level. Our results are obtained for an extensive range of values for the Symanzik coefficients.

The two-body hadronic decays of $B$ mesons into pseudoscalar and axial-vector mesons are studied within the framework of QCD factorization. The light cone distribution amplitudes (LCDAs) for ${}^{3}P_1$ and ${}^{1}P_1$ axial-vector mesons have been evaluated using the QCD sum rule method. Owing to the $G$-parity, the chiral-even two-parton light cone distribution amplitudes of the ${}^{3}P_1$ (${}^{1}P_1$) mesons are symmetric (antisymmetric) under the exchange of quark and antiquark momentum fractions in the SU(3) limit. For chiral-odd LCDAs, it is the other way around. The main results are the following: (i) The predicted rates for $a_1^{\pm }(1260){\pi }^{\mp }$, $b_1^{\pm }(1235){\pi }^{\mp }$, $b_1^0(1235){\pi }^{-}$, $a_1^{+}{K}^{-}$, and $b_1^{+}{K}^{-}$ modes are in good agreement with the data. However, the naively expected ratios $\mathcal{B}(B^{-}\to a_1^0{\pi }^{-})/\mathcal{B}({\overline{B}}^0\to a_1^{+}{\pi }^{-})\lesssim 1$, $\mathcal{B}(B^{-}\to a_1^{-}{\pi }^0)/\mathcal{B}({\overline{B}}^0\to a_1^{-}{\pi }^{+})\sim \frac{1}{2}$, and $\mathcal{B}(B^{-}\to b_1^0{K}^{-})/\mathcal{B}({\overline{B}}^0\to b_1^{+}{K}^{-})\sim \frac{1}{2}$ are not borne out by experiment. This should be clarified by the improved measurements of these decays. (ii) Since the $\overline{B}\to b_{1}K$ decays receive sizable annihilation contributions, their rates are sensitive to the interference between penguin and annihilation terms. The measurement of $\mathcal{B}({\overline{B}}^0\to b_1^{+}{K}^{-})$ implies a destructive interference which in turn indicates that the form factors for $B\to b_1$ and $B\to a_1$ transitions are of opposite signs. (iii) Sizable power corrections such as weak annihilation are needed to account for the observed rates of the penguin-dominated modes $K_1^{-}(1270){\pi }^{+}$ and $K_1^{-}(1400){\pi }^{+}$. (iv) The decays $B\to K_1\overline{K}$ with $K_1=K_1(1270)$, $K_1(1400)$ are in general quite suppressed, of order ${10}^{-7}–{10}^{-8}$, except for ${\overline{B}}^0\to {\overline{K}}_1^0(1270)K^0$ which can have a branching ratio of order $2.3\times {10}^{-6}$. The decay modes $K_1^{-}{K}^{+}$ and $K_1^{+}{K}^{-}$ are of particular interest as they proceed only through weak annihilation. (v) The mixing-induced parameter $S$ is predicted to be negative in the decays $B^0\to a_1^{\pm }{\pi }^{\mp }$, while it is positive experimentally. This may call for a larger unitarity angle $\gamma \gtrsim 80°$. (vi) Branching ratios for the decays $B\to f_1\pi$, $f_{1}K$, $h_1\pi$ and $h_{1}K$ with $f_1=f_1(1285)$, $f_1(1420)$ and $h_1=h_1(1170)$, $h_1(1380)$ are generally of order ${10}^{-6}$ except for the color-suppressed modes $f_1{\pi }^0$ and $h_1{\pi }^0$ which are suppressed by 1 to 2 orders of magnitude. Measurements of the ratios $\mathcal{B}(B^{-}\to h_1(1380){\pi }^{-})/\mathcal{B}(B^{-}\to h_1(1170){\pi }^{-})$ and $\mathcal{B}(\overline{B}\to f_1(1420)\overline{K})/\mathcal{B}(\overline{B}\to f_1(1285)\overline{K})$ will help determine the mixing angles ${\theta }_{{}^{1}P_1}$ and ${\theta }_{{}^{3}P_1}$, respectively.

A numerical analysis for the Meissner mass in the simplest gluonic phase (the minimal cylindrical gluonic phase II) is performed in the framework of the gauged Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with cold two-flavor quark matter. We derive Meissner mass formulae without using the numerical second derivative. It is revealed that the gapless mode yields a characterized contribution to the Meissner mass. We also find that there are large and positive contributions from the tree gluon potential term to the transverse modes of gluons. It is shown that the simplest gluonic phase resolves the chromomagnetic instability in a rather wide region.

Using $281{\mathrm{pb}}^{-1}$ of $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ collisions recorded at the $\psi (3770)$ resonance with the CLEO-c detector at CESR (Cornell Electron Storage Ring), we determine absolute hadronic branching fractions of charged and neutral $D$ mesons using a double tag technique. Among measurements for three $D^0$ and six $D^{+}$ modes, we obtain reference branching fractions $\mathcal{B}(D^0\to K^{-}{\pi }^{+})=(3.891\pm 0.035\pm 0.059\pm 0.035)\%$ and $\mathcal{B}(D^{+}\to K^{-}{\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{+})=(9.14\pm 0.10\pm 0.16\pm 0.07)\%$, where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second is all systematic errors other than final-state radiation (FSR), and the third is the systematic uncertainty due to FSR. We include FSR in these branching fractions by allowing for additional unobserved photons in the final state. Using an independent determination of the integrated luminosity, we also extract the cross sections $\sigma (e^{+}{e}^{-}\to D^0{\overline{D}}^0)=(3.66\pm 0.03\pm 0.06)\mathrm{nb}$ and $\sigma (e^{+}{e}^{-}\to D^{+}{D}^{-})=(2.91\pm 0.03\pm 0.05)\mathrm{nb}$ at a center-of-mass energy, $E_{\mathrm{cm}}=3774\pm 1\mathrm{MeV}$.

A search for charmonium and other new states is performed in a study of exclusive initial-state-radiation production of $D\overline{D}$ events from electron-positron annihilations at a center-of-mass energy of 10.58 GeV. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of $384{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$ and was recorded by the BABAR experiment at the PEP-II storage ring. The $D\overline{D}$ mass spectrum shows clear evidence of the $\psi (3770)$ plus other structures near 3.9, 4.1, and $4.4\mathrm{GeV}/c^2$. No evidence for $Y(4260)\to D\overline{D}$ is observed, leading to an upper limit of $\mathcal{B}(Y(4260)\to D\overline{D})/\mathcal{B}(Y(4260)\to J/\psi {\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{-})<1.0$ at 90% confidence level.

We present measurements of the process $p\overline{p}\to WZ+X\to {\ell }^{\prime }{\nu }_{{\ell }^{\prime }}\ell \overline{\ell }$ at $\sqrt{s}=1.96\mathrm{TeV}$, where $\ell$ and ${\ell }^{\prime }$ are electrons or muons. Using $1{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$ of data from the D0 experiment, we observe 13 candidates with an expected background of $4.5\pm 0.6$ events and measure a cross section $\sigma (WZ)={2.7}_{-1.3}^{+1.7}\mathrm{pb}$. From the number of observed events and the $Z$ boson transverse momentum distribution, we limit the trilinear $WWZ$ gauge couplings to $-0.17\le {\lambda }_Z\le 0.21(\Delta {\kappa }_Z=0)$ at the 95% C.L. for a form factor scale $\Lambda =2\mathrm{TeV}$. Further, assuming that $\Delta g_1^Z=\Delta {\kappa }_Z$, we find $-0.12\le \Delta {\kappa }_Z\le 0.29({\lambda }_Z=0)$ at the 95% C.L. These are the most restrictive limits on the $WWZ$ couplings available to date.

In this brief report, we discuss the Seiberg-Witten maps up to the second order in the noncommutative parameter $\theta$. They add to the recently published solutions in [A. Alboteanu, T. Ohl, and R. Rückl, Phys. Rev. D 76, 105018 (2007).]. Expressions for the vector, fermion, and Higgs fields are given explicitly.

An inflationary single field model with a nontrivial kinetic term for the inflaton is discussed. It is shown that it is possible to have large primordial non-Gaussianities and large tensor-to-scalar ratio in a simple concrete model with just a scalar field and a generalized kinetic term for the inflaton field. This is potentially interesting in the prospect of new forthcoming observations.

We construct a supersymmetric version of the critical nonrelativistic bosonic string theory [B. S. Kim, Phys. Rev. D 76, 106007 (2007).] with its manifest global symmetry. We introduce the anticommuting $bc$ conformal field theory (CFT) which is the super partner of the $\beta \gamma$ CFT. The conformal weights of the $b$ and $c$ fields are both $1/2$. The action of the fermionic sector can be transformed into that of the relativistic superstring theory. We explicitly quantize the theory with manifest $SO(8)$ symmetry and find that the spectrum is similar to that of type IIB superstring theory. There is one notable difference: the fermions are nonchiral. We further consider noncritical generalizations of the supersymmetric theory using the superspace formulation. There is an infinite range of possible string theories similar to the supercritical string theories. We comment on the connection between the critical nonrelativistic string theory and the lightlike linear dilaton theory.

We present the potential energy due to flux and gaugino condensation in heterotic M theory compactifications with antibranes in the vacuum. For reasons which we explain in detail, the contributions to the potential due to flux are not modified from those in supersymmetric contexts. The discussion of gaugino condensation is, however, changed by the presence of antibranes. We show how a careful microscopic analysis of the system allows us to use standard results in supersymmetric gauge theory in describing such effects—despite the explicit supersymmetry breaking which is present. Not surprisingly, the significant effect of antibranes on the threshold corrections to the gauge kinetic functions greatly alters the potential energy terms arising from gaugino condensation.

We study the signal for the detection of quasistable supersymmetric particle produced in interactions of cosmogenic neutrinos. We consider energy loss of high-energy staus due to photonuclear and weak interactions. We show that there are optimal nadir angles for which the stau signal is a factor of several hundred larger than muons. We discuss how one could potentially eliminate muon background by considering the energy loss of muons in the detector. We also show results for the showers produced by weak interactions of staus that reach the detector.

In the functional integral formulation of real-time thermal field theory, a time-dependent canonical transformation of the integration variables can remove the chemical potential from the action. The transformation eliminates the chemical potential from the differential equation satisfied by the propagator, but the chemical potential appears in the transformed boundary conditions and the final result for the perturbative Green’s functions is unchanged.