Using 58 million $J/\psi$ and 14 million $\psi \mathrm{}\left(2S\right)\mathrm{}$ decays obtained by the BES II experiment, the branching fraction of $J/\overrightarrow{\psi }{\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{-}{\pi }^0$ is determined. The result is $(2.10\mathrm{}\pm 0.12)\times {10}^{-2},$ which is significantly higher than previous measurements.

Results are presented on $\psi \mathrm{}\left(2S\right)\mathrm{}$ and $J/\psi$ hadronic decays to $K_S^0{\mathrm{pK}}^{-}\mathrm{n̄}$ and $K_S^0\overline{p}{K}^{+}n$ final states from data samples of 14 million $\psi \mathrm{}\left(2S\right)\mathrm{}$ and 58 million $J/\psi$ events accumulated at the BES II detector. No $\Theta \mathrm{}\left(1540\right)\mathrm{}$ signal, the pentaquark candidate, is observed, and upper limits are set for $\mathcal{B}\left(\psi \mathrm{}\right(2S)\mathrm{}\to \Theta \overline{\Theta }\to K_S^0{\mathrm{pK}}^{-}\mathrm{n̄}{+K}_S^0\overline{p}{K}^{+}n)<0.84\mathrm{}\times {10}^{-5}$ and $\mathcal{B}(J/\overrightarrow{\psi }\Theta \overline{\Theta }\to K_S^0{\mathrm{pK}}^{-}\mathrm{n̄}{+K}_S^0\overline{p}{K}^{+}n)<\mathrm{}1.1\mathrm{}\times {10}^{-5}$ at the 90% confidence level. For single $\Theta \mathrm{}\left(1540\right)\mathrm{}$ production, the upper limits determined by our analysis are also on the order of ${10}^{-5}$ in both $\psi \mathrm{}\left(2S\right)\mathrm{}$ and $J/\psi$ decays.

We consider two types of “dimension bubbles,” which are viewed as 4D nontopological solitons that emerge from a 5D theory with a compact extra dimension. The size of the extra dimension varies rapidly within the domain wall of the soliton. We consider the cases of type I (II) bubbles where the size of the extra dimension inside the bubble is much larger (smaller) than outside. Type I bubbles with thin domain walls can be stabilized by the entrapment of various particle modes whose masses become much smaller inside than outside the bubble. This is demonstrated here for the cases of scalar bosons, fermions, and massive vector bosons, including both Kaluza-Klein zero modes and Kaluza-Klein excitation modes. Type II bubbles expel massive particle modes but both types can be stabilized by photons. Plasma filled bubbles containing a variety of massless or nearly massless radiation modes may exist as long-lived metastable states. Furthermore, in contrast to the case with a “gravitational bag,” the metric for a fluid-filled dimension bubble does not exhibit a naked singularity at the bubble’s center.

We investigate gravitational perturbations in a compact six-dimensional self-tuning brane model. We specifically look for analytic solutions to the perturbed Einstein equations that correspond in four dimensions to massless or approximately massless scalars coupled to matter on the brane. The presence of such modes with gravitational couplings would be phenomenologically unacceptable. The most general solution for all such modes is obtained, but it is found that they are all eliminated by the boundary conditions. Our main result is that to linear order in perturbation theory this model does not contain any light scalars. We speculate that this model does not self-tune.

We analyze the quantum process in which a cosmic string breaks in an anti–de Sitter (AdS) background, and a pair of charged or neutral black holes is produced at the ends of the strings. The energy to materialize and accelerate the pair comes from the string tension. In an AdS background this is the only study done on the process of production of a pair of correlated black holes with spherical topology. The acceleration A of the produced black holes is necessarily greater than $\sqrt{|\Lambda |/3\mathrm{}},$ where $\Lambda <0\mathrm{}$ is the cosmological constant. Only in this case can the virtual pair of black holes overcome the attractive background AdS potential well and become real. The instantons that describe this process are constructed through the analytical continuation of the AdS C metric. Then we explicitly compute the pair creation rate of the process, and we verify that (as occurs with pair creation in other backgrounds) the pair production of nonextreme black holes is enhanced relative to the pair creation of extreme black holes by a factor of $e^{{\mathcal{A}}_{\mathrm{bh}}/4\mathrm{}},$ where ${\mathcal{A}}_{\mathrm{bh}}$ is the black hole horizon area. We also conclude that the general behavior of the pair creation rate with the mass and acceleration of the black holes is similar in the AdS, flat and de Sitter cases, and our AdS results reduce to the ones of the flat case when $\overrightarrow{\Lambda }0.$

We treat the events determined by a quantum physical state in a noncommutative space-time, generalizing the analogous treatment in the usual Minkowski space-time based on positive-operator-valued measures (POVMs). We consider in detail the model proposed by Snyder in 1947 and calculate the POVMs defined on the real line that describe the measurement of a single coordinate. The approximate joint measurement of all the four space-time coordinates is described in terms of a generalized Wigner function. We derive lower bounds for the dispersion of the coordinate observables and discuss the covariance of the model under the Poincaré group. The unusual transformation law of the coordinates under space-time translations is interpreted as a failure of the absolute character of the concept of space-time coincidence. The model shows that a minimal length is compatible with Lorentz covariance.

When p-dimensional branes annihilate with antibranes in the early universe, as in brane-antibrane inflation, stable $\left(p-2\right)$-dimensional branes can appear in the final state. We reexamine the possibility that one of these $\left(p-2\right)$-branes could be our universe. In the low energy effective theory, the final state branes are cosmic string defects of the complex tachyon field which describes the instability of the initial state. We quantify the dynamics of formation of these vortices. This information is then used to estimate the production of massless gauge bosons on the final branes, due to their coupling to the time-dependent tachyon background, which would provide a mechanism for reheating after inflation. We improve upon previous estimates indicating that this can be an efficient reheating mechanism for observers on the brane.

Big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) and the cosmic microwave background (CMB) have a long history together in the standard cosmology. BBN accurately predicts the primordial light element abundances of deuterium, helium and lithium. The general concordance between the predicted and observed light element abundances provides a direct probe of the universal baryon density. Recent CMB anisotropy measurements, particularly the observations performed by the WMAP satellite, examine this concordance by independently measuring the cosmic baryon density. Key to this test of concordance is a quantitative understanding of the uncertainties in the BBN light element abundance predictions. These uncertainties are dominated by systematic errors in nuclear cross sections, however for helium-4 they are dominated by the uncertainties in the neutron lifetime and Newton’s G. We critically analyze the cross section data, producing representations that describe this data and its uncertainties, taking into account the correlations among data, and explicitly treating the systematic errors between data sets. The procedure transforming these representations into thermal rates and errors is discussed. Using these updated nuclear inputs, we compute the new BBN abundance predictions, and quantitatively examine their concordance with observations. Depending on what deuterium observations are adopted, one gets the following constraints on the baryon density: ${\Omega }_{\mathrm{B}}{h}^2=0.0229\mathrm{}\pm 0.0013$ or ${\Omega }_{\mathrm{B}}{h}^2{=0.0216\mathrm{}}_{-0.0021}^{+0.0020\mathrm{}}$ at 68% confidence, fixing $N_{\nu ,eff}=\mathrm{3.0.}\mathrm{}$ If we instead adopt the WMAP baryon density, we find the following deuterium-based constraints on the effective number of neutrinos during BBN: $N_{\nu ,eff}{=2.78\mathrm{}}_{-0.76}^{+0.87\mathrm{}}$ or $N_{\nu ,eff}{=3.65\mathrm{}}_{-1.30}^{+1.46\mathrm{}}$ at 68% confidence. Concerns over systematics in helium and lithium observations limit the confidence constraints based on this data provide. BBN theory uncertainties are dominated by the following nuclear reactions: ${d(d,n)\mathrm{}}^3\mathrm{He},$ $d(d,p)t,$ $d(p,\gamma {)}^3\mathrm{He},$ ${}^3\mathrm{He}(\alpha ,\gamma {)}^7\mathrm{Be}$ and ${}^3\mathrm{He}{\mathrm{}(d,p)\mathrm{}}^4\mathrm{He}.$ With new nuclear cross section data, light element abundance observations and the ever increasing resolution of the CMB anisotropy, tighter constraints can be placed on nuclear and particle astrophysics.

We improve the algorithm of Kosowsky, Milosavljevic, and Jimenez for computing power spectra of the cosmic microwave background. The present algorithm computes not only the temperature power spectrum but also the E- and B-mode polarization and the temperature-polarization cross power spectra, providing the accuracy required for current cosmological parameter estimation. Both unlensed and lensed (with non-linear evolution) power spectra are provided up to $\mathcal{l}=3000\mathrm{}$ for temperature and polarization signals. We refine the optimum set of cosmological parameters for computing the power spectra as perturbations around a fiducial model, leading to an accuracy better than 0.5% for the temperature power spectrum throughout the region of parameter space within the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropic Probe’s first-year $3\sigma$ confidence region. This accuracy is comparable to the difference between the widely used CMBFAST code of Seljak and Zaldarriaga and Boltzmann codes. Our algorithm (CMBWARP) makes possible a full exploration of the likelihood region for eight cosmological parameters in about one hour on a laptop computer. We provide the code to compute power spectra as well as the Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm for cosmological parameters estimation at http://www.physics.upenn.edu/∼raulj/CMBwarp.

The photon emissivity from the bremsstrahlung process $e^{-}{e}^{-}\to e^{-}{e}^{-}\gamma$ occurring in the electrosphere at the bare surface of a strange quark star is calculated. For surface temperatures $T<\mathrm{}{10}^9\mathrm{K},$ the photon flux exceeds that of $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ pairs that are produced via the Schwinger mechanism in the presence of a strong electric field that binds electrons to the surface of the quark star. The average energy of photons emitted from the bremsstrahlung process can be around 0.5 MeV, which is comparable to that in $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ pair annihilation. The observation of this distinctive photon spectrum would constitute an unmistakable signature of a strange quark star and shed light on color superconductivity at stellar densities.

Top-down models assume that the still unexplained ultrahigh energy cosmic rays (UHECR’s) are the decay products of superheavy particles. Such particles may have been produced by one of the post-inflationary reheating mechanisms and may account for a fraction of the cold dark matter. In this paper, we assess the phenomenological applicability of the simplest instant preheating framework not to describe a reheating process, but as a mechanism to generate relic supermassive particles as possible sources of UHECR’s. We use cosmic ray flux and cold dark matter observational data to constrain the parameters of the model.

The oscillating gravitational field of an oscillaton of finite mass M causes it to lose energy by emitting classical scalar field waves, but at a rate that is nonperturbatively tiny for small $\mu \equiv GMm/ħc,$ where m is the scalar field mass: $dM/dt\approx -3797{437.776(c}^3/G\left){\mu }^{-2}{e}^{-39.433795197/\mu }\right[1+O\left(\mu \right)].$ Oscillatons also decay by the quantum process of the annihilation of scalarons into gravitons, which is only perturbatively small in $\mu ,$ giving by itself $dM/dt\approx -0.008513223{935(m}^2{c}^2/ħ\left){\mu }^5\right[1+O\left({\mu }^2\right)].$ Thus the quantum decay is faster than the classical one for $\mu \lesssim 39.4338/\left[\ln \right(ħ{c/Gm}^2)+7\mathrm{}\ln (1/\mu )+19.9160\mathrm{}].$ The time for an oscillaton to decay away completely into free scalarons and gravitons is $t_{\mathrm{decay}}\sim 2{ħ}^6{c}^3{/G}^5{m}^{11}\sim {10}^{324}\mathrm{yr}(1\mathrm{}\mathrm{meV}{/mc}^2{)}^{11}.$ Oscillatons of more than one real scalar field of the same mass generically asymptotically approach a static-geometry $U\left(1\right)\mathrm{}$ boson star configuration with $\mu ={\mu }_0,$ at the rate ${d(GM/c}^3)/dt\approx [(C/{\mu }^4{)e}^{-\alpha /\mu }{+Q(m/m}_{\mathrm{Pl}}{)}^2{\mu }^3]\left({\mu }^2-{\mu }_0^2\right),$ with ${\mu }_0$ depending on the magnitudes and relative phases of the oscillating fields, and with the same constants C, $\alpha ,$ and Q given numerically above for the single-field case that is equivalent to ${\mu }_0=0.\mathrm{}$

We perform a one-loop analysis of the $\rho$ parameter in the littlest Higgs model, including the logarithmically enhanced contributions from both fermion and scalar loops. We find that the one-loop contributions are comparable to the tree level corrections in some regions of parameter space. The fermion loop contribution dominates in the low cutoff scale f region. On the other hand, the scalar loop contribution dominates in the high cutoff scale f region and it grows with the cutoff scale f. This in turn implies an upper bound on the cutoff scale. A low cutoff scale is allowed for a non-zero triplet vacuum expectation value. Constraints on various other parameters in the model are also discussed. The role of triplet scalars in constructing a consistent renormalization scheme is emphasized.

We present a calculable supersymmetric theory of a composite “fat” Higgs boson. Electroweak symmetry is broken dynamically through a new gauge interaction that becomes strong at an intermediate scale. The Higgs boson mass can easily be 200–450 GeV along with the superpartner masses, solving the supersymmetric little hierarchy problem. We explicitly verify that the model is consistent with precision electroweak data without fine-tuning. Gauge coupling unification can be maintained despite the inherently strong dynamics involved in electroweak symmetry breaking. Supersymmetrizing the standard model therefore does not imply a light Higgs boson mass, contrary to the lore in the literature. The Higgs sector of the minimal fat Higgs model has a mass spectrum that is distinctly different from that of the minimal supersymmetric standard model.

The use of APE smearing or other blocking techniques in lattice fermion actions can provide many advantages. There are many variants of these fat link actions in lattice QCD currently, such as flat link irrelevant clover (FLIC) fermions. The FLIC fermion formalism makes use of the APE blocking technique in combination with a projection of the blocked links back into the special unitary group. This reunitarization is often performed using an iterative maximization of a gauge invariant measure. This technique is not differentiable with respect to the gauge field and thus prevents the use of standard Hybrid Monte Carlo simulation algorithms. The use of an alternative projection technique circumvents this difficulty and allows the simulation of dynamical fat link fermions with standard HMC and its variants. The necessary equations of motion for FLIC fermions are derived, and some initial simulation results are presented. The technique is more general however, and is straightforwardly applicable to other smearing techniques or fat link actions.

Using $J/\overrightarrow{\psi }{\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$ decays from a sample of approximately $4\times {10}^6$ $\psi \mathrm{}\left(2S\right)\mathrm{}$ events collected with the BESI detector, the branching fractions of $\psi \mathrm{}\left(2S\right)\mathrm{}\to \eta J/\psi ,$ ${\pi }^0{\pi }^{0}J/\psi ,$ and anything $J/\psi$ normalized to that of $\psi \mathrm{}\left(2S\right)\mathrm{}\to {\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{-}J/\psi$ are measured. The results are $B\left(\psi \mathrm{}\right(2S)\mathrm{}\to \eta J/\psi )/B\left(\psi \mathrm{}\right(2S)\mathrm{}\to {\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{-}J/\psi )=0.098\mathrm{}\pm 0.005\pm 0.010,$ $B\left(\psi \mathrm{}\right(2S)\mathrm{}\to {\pi }^0{\pi }^{0}J/\psi )/B\left(\psi \mathrm{}\right(2S)\mathrm{}\to {\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{-}J/\psi )=0.570\mathrm{}\pm 0.009\pm 0.026,$ and $B\left(\psi \mathrm{}\right(2S)\mathrm{}\to \mathrm{anything}J/\psi )/B\left(\psi \mathrm{}\right(2S)\mathrm{}\to {\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{-}J/\psi )=1.867\mathrm{}\pm 0.026\pm \mathrm{0.055.}$

We present a measurement of the longitudinal spin cross section asymmetry for deep-inelastic muon-nucleon interactions with two high transverse momentum hadrons in the final state. Two methods of event classification are used to increase the contribution of the photon-gluon fusion process to above 30%. The most effective one, based on a neural network approach, provides the asymmetries $A_p^{\mathcal{l}\overrightarrow{N}\mathcal{l}\mathrm{hhX}}=0.030\mathrm{}\pm 0.057\left(\mathrm{stat}\right)\pm 0.010\left(\mathrm{syst}\right)$ and $A_d^{\mathcal{l}\overrightarrow{N}\mathcal{l}\mathrm{hhX}}=0.070\mathrm{}\pm 0.076\left(\mathrm{stat}\right)\pm 0.010\left(\mathrm{syst}\right).\mathrm{}$ From these values we derive an averaged gluon polarization $\Delta G/G=-0.20\pm 0.28\left(\mathrm{stat}\right)\pm 0.10\left(\mathrm{syst}\right)$ at an average fraction of nucleon momentum carried by gluons $〈\eta 〉=\mathrm{0.07.}\mathrm{}$

We study the decays $B^{+}\to {\eta }_c{K}^{+}$ and $B^0\to {\eta }_c{K}^0,$ where the ${\eta }_c$ is reconstructed in the $K_S^0{K}^{\pm }{\pi }^{\mp }$ and $K^{+}{K}^{-}{\pi }^0$ decay modes. Results are based on a sample of 86 million $B\overline{B}$ pairs collected with the BABAR detector at the SLAC $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ B Factory. We measure the product of branching fractions $\mathcal{B}{(B}^{+}\to {\eta }_c{K}^{+})\times \mathcal{B}({\eta }_c\to K\overline{K}\pi )=(7.40\mathrm{}\pm 0.50\pm 0.70)\times {10}^{-5}$ and $\mathcal{B}{(B}^0\to {\eta }_c{K}^0)\times \mathcal{B}({\eta }_c\to K\overline{K}\pi )=(6.48\mathrm{}\pm 0.85\pm 0.71)\times {10}^{-5},$ where the first error is statistical and the second is systematic. In addition, we search for $\overrightarrow{B}{\eta }_{c}K$ events with ${\eta }_c\to {2(K}^{+}{K}^{-})$ and ${\eta }_c\to \phi \phi$ and determine the ${\eta }_c$ decay branching fraction ratios $\mathcal{B}({\eta }_c\to {2(K}^{+}{K}^{-}))/\mathcal{B}({\eta }_c\to K\overline{K}\pi )=(2.3\mathrm{}\pm 0.7\pm 0.6)\times {10}^{-2}$ and $\mathcal{B}({\eta }_c\to \phi \phi )/\mathcal{B}({\eta }_c\to K\overline{K}\pi )=(5.5\mathrm{}\pm 1.4\pm 0.5)\times {10}^{-2}.$

It is shown that the gauge theory of relativistic 3-branes can be formulated in a conformally invariant way if the embedding space is six dimensional. The implementation of conformal invariance requires the use of a modified measure, independent of the metric in the action. Brane-world scenarios without the need of a cosmological constant in 6D are constructed. Thus, no “old” cosmological constant problem appears at this level.