971110
Static potential and local color fields in unquenched three-dimensional lattice QCD
Abstract String breaking by dynamical quarks in (2+1)-d lattice QCD is demonstrated in this project, by measuring the static potential and the local color-electric field strength between a heavy quark and antiquark pair at large separations. Simulations are done for unquenched SU(2) color with two flavors of staggered quarks. An improved gluon action is used which allows simulations to be done on coarse lattices, providing an extremely efficient means to access the quark separations and propagation times at which string breaking occurs. The static quark potential is extracted using only Wilson loop operators and hence no valence quarks are present in the trial states. Results give unambiguous evidence for string breaking as the static quark potential completely saturates at twice the heavy-light meson mass at large separations. It is also shown that the local color-electric field strength between the quark pair tends toward vacuum values at large separations. Implications of these results for unquenched simulations of QCD in 4-d are drawn.
118337254
QCD TOPOLOGY AND LATTICE PERTURBATION THEORY FROM MONTE CARL0 SIMULATIONS WITH IMPROVED STAGGERED FERMIONS
The staggered quark formulation is one of many ways to include fermions on the lattice. Dynamical simulations are now routinely done with improved staggered quark actions which are more efficient than other popular formalisms. In this thesis two research works on improved staggered fermions are presented. A systematic study of the staggered Dirac operator's spectral properties is first presented. It is a long standing belief that staggered fermions do not feel gauge field topology because of the lack of zero eigenvalues of the operator at finite lattice spacing. The existence of fermionic zero modes in topological nontrivial background gauge fields is required by the Atiyah-Singer index theorem. In this study we observe that eigenmodes with very small eigenvalue and large chirality appear if improved staggered operators are used. These small eigenmodes can be identified as the "zero modes" associated with the topology of the gauge fields. We have also compared the distribution of the remaining nonchiral modes with the predictions of Random Matrix Theory. Satisfactory agreement is obtained. In the second project perturbative expansions of Wilson loops are computed in full QCD from Monte Carlo simulations with improved staggered fermions. This approach provides a much simpler alternative to diagrammatic perturbation theory, and has previously been shown to be successful in reproducing the perturbation series in pure gauge theory. This method is applied here for the first time to unquenched QCD. Twisted boundary conditions are used to eliminate effects of zero momentum modes and to suppress tunneling between the degenerate Z3 vaccua. A new simulation algorithm, the rational hybrid Monte Carlo algorithm, with no finite step size error is also employed. This is the first time this algorithm has been used in a numerical application. Results are in excellent agreement with analytic perturbation theory; this provides an important cross-check of the perturbation theory input to a recent determination of the strong coupling am(MZ) by the HPQCD collaboration.
119270486
Monopole–antimonopole pair dyons with critical electric charges
In this paper, we investigate some electrically charged magnetic solutions of the SU(2) Yang–Mills–Higgs field theory in the net-zero topological charge sector. We only examine the case when the Higgs field vanishes at two points along the z-axis and when the Higgs field vanishes along a ring with the z-axis as its symmetry axis. We study the possible electric charges the dyons can carry in relation to the electric–magnetic charge separations and calculate the finite total energy and magnet dipole moment of these dyons. These stationary dyon solutions do not satisfy the first-order Bogomol’nyi equations and are non-BPS solutions. They are axially symmetric saddle-point solutions and are characterized by the electric charge parameter, −1 < η < 1, which determines the net electric charges of these dyons. These dyon solutions are solved numerically when the magnetic charges are n = 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, and when the strength of the Higgs field potential is non-vanishing with λ = 1. When λ = 1, we found that the net electric charge approaches a finite critical value as η approaches ±1. Hence the electromagnetic charge separation, total energy and magnetic dipole moment of the dyon also approach a finite critical value.
15789506
DYONS OF ONE-HALF MONOPOLE CHARGE
We would like to present some exact SU(2) Yang–Mills–Higgs dyon solutions of one-half monopole charge. These static dyon solutions satisfy the first order Bogomol'nyi equations and are characterized by a parameter, m. They are axially symmetric. The gauge potentials and the electromagnetic fields possess a string singularity along the negative z-axis and hence they possess infinite energy density along the line singularity. However the net electric charges of these dyons which varies with the parameter m are finite.
18491679
Galaxy Number Counts and Implications for Strong Lensing
We compare galaxy number counts in Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) fields containing moderate-redshift (0.2 <z <1.0) strong gravitational lenses with those in two control samples: (1) the first square degree of the COSMOS survey, comprising 259 ACS fields and (2) 20 ‘pure-parallel’ fields randomly located on the sky. Through a Bayesian analysis we determine the expectation values (μ0) and confidence levels of the underlying number counts for a range of apertures and magnitude bins. Our analysis has produced the following results: (i) we infer that our control samples are not consistent, with the number counts in the COSMOS sample being significantly higher than in the pure-parallel sample for 21 ≤F814W≤ 23. This result matches those found in previous analyses of COSMOS data using different techniques. (ii) We find that small-sized apertures, centred on strong lenses, are overdense compared with randomly placed apertures in the control samples, even compared to the COSMOS sample. Correcting for the local clustering of elliptical galaxies, based on the average two-point correlation function, reduces this overdensity to the 1-2σ level. Thus, the overdensity of galaxies seen along a typical line of sight to a lens can be explained mostly by the natural clustering of galaxies, rather than being due to lenses lying along otherwise biased lines of sight. However, a larger sample of lenses is needed to see if the remaining bias persists when the lens-field uncertainties are smaller. (iii) There is considerable scatter in the lines of sight to individual lens systems, but quantities that are linearly dependent on the external convergence (e.g. H0) should become unbiased if the extra galaxies that cause the bias can be accounted for in the lens models either through direct modelling or via an informed prior on the external convergence. The number counts can be used to set such an informed prior.
119230920
Reheating the Universe in Braneworld Cosmological Models with bulk-brane energy transfer
The emergence of the cosmological composition (the reheating era) after the inflationary period is analyzed in the framework of the braneworld models, in which our Universe is a three-brane embedded in a five-dimensional bulk, by assuming the possibility of the brane-bulk energy exchange. The inflaton field is assumed to decay into normal matter only, while the dark matter is injected into the brane from the bulk. To describe the reheating process we adopt a phenomenological approach, by describing the decay of the inflaton field by a friction term proportional to the energy density of the field. After the radiation dominated epoch the model reduces to the standard four dimensional cosmological model. The modified field equations are analyzed analytically and numerically in both the extra-dimensions dominate reheating phase (when the quadratic terms in energy density dominate the dynamics), and in the general case. The evolution profiles of the matter, of the scalar field and of the scale factor of the universe are obtained for different values of the parameters of the model, and of the equations of state of the normal and dark matter, respectively. The equation describing the time evolution of the ratio of the energy density of the dark and of the normal matter is also obtained. The ratio depends on the rate of the energy flow between the bulk and the brane. The observational constraint of an approximately constant ratio of the dark and of the baryonic matter requires that the dark matter must be non-relativistic (cold). The model predicts a reheating temperature of the order of 3 × 10 6 GeV, a brane tension of the order of 10 25 GeV 4 , and the obtained composition of the universe is consistent with the observational data.
118548606
Monopole-Antimonopole Pair Dyons
Monopole‐antimonopole pair dyons are presented. The dyons possess opposite magnetic charge but carry the same electric charge. These stationary dyons possess finite energy. However they do not satisfy the first order Bogomol’nyi equations and are non‐BPS solutions. They are axially symmetric and are characterized by a parameter, −1⩽η⩽1 which determines the net electric charges of these dyons. These dyon solutions are solved numerically when the magnetic charge of the dipoles are n = ±1, ±2 for both vanishing and non‐vanishing strength of the Higgs field potential. When λ = 0, the dipole separation, total energy and net electric charge of the dyons increase exponentially fast to infinity when η approaches ±1. However, when λ = 1, all these three quantities approach finite critical values as η approaches ±1.