118380375
Thermal nature of de Sitter spacetime and spontaneous excitation of atoms
We consider, in de Sitter spacetime, both freely falling and static two-level atoms in interaction with a conformally coupled massless scalar field in the de Sitter-invariant vacuum, and separately calculate the contributions of vacuum fluctuations and radiation reaction to the atom's spontaneous excitation rate. We find that spontaneous excitations occur even for the freely falling atom as if there is a thermal bath of radiation at the Gibbons-Hawking temperature and we thus recover, in a different physical context, the results of Gibbons and Hawking that reveals the thermal nature of de Sitter spacetime. Similarly, for the case of the static atom, our results show that the atom also perceives a thermal bath which now arises as a result of the intrinsic thermal nature of de Sitter spacetime and the Unruh effect associated with the inherent acceleration of the atom.
119090796
Fulling–Davies–Unruh effect and spontaneous excitation of an accelerated atom interacting with a quantum scalar field
Abstract We investigate, from the point of view of a coaccelerated frame, the spontaneous excitation of a uniformly accelerated two-level atom interacting with a scalar field in a thermal state at a finite temperature T and show that the same spontaneous excitation rate for the uniformly accelerated atom in the Minkowski vacuum obtained in the inertial frame can only be recovered in the coaccelerated frame assuming a thermal bath at the Fulling–Davies–Unruh temperature T FDU = a / 2 π for what appears to be the Minkowski vacuum to the inertial observer. Our discussion provides another example of a physical process different from those examined before in the literature to better understand the Fulling–Davies–Unruh effect.
115459673
LIGHTCONE FLUCTUATIONS AND EXTRA DIMENSIONS
118525095
Lamb shift for static atoms outside a Schwarzschild black hole
We study, by separately calculating the contributions of vacuum fluctuations and radiation reaction to the atomic energy level shift, the Lamb shift of a static two-level atom interacting with real massless scalar fields in the Boulware, Unruh, and Hartle-Hawking vacuums outside a Schwarzschild black hole. We find that in the Boulware vacuum, the Lamb shift gets a correction arising as a result of the backscattering of vacuum field modes off the space-time curvature, which is reminiscent of the correction to the Lamb shift induced by the presence of cavities. However, when the Unruh and Hartle-Hawking vacua are concerned, our results show that the Lamb shift behaves as if the atom were irradiated by a thermal radiation or immersed in a thermal bath at the Hawking temperature, depending on whether the scalar field is in the Unruh or the Hartle-Hawking vacuum. Remarkably, the thermal radiation is always backscattered by the space-time geometry.
120986058
Quantum thermal aspects of uniformly accelerating charged black holes
119124346
Unruh effect and entanglement generation for accelerated atoms near a reflecting boundary
We study, in the framework of open systems, the entanglement generation of two independent uniformly accelerated atoms in interaction with the vacuum fluctuations of massless scalar fields subjected to a reflecting plane boundary. We demonstrate that, with the presence of the boundary, the accelerated atoms exhibit distinct features from static ones in a thermal bath at the corresponding Unruh temperature in terms of the entanglement creation at the neighborhood of the initial time. In this sense, accelerated atoms in vacuum do not necessarily have to behave as if they were static in a thermal bath at the Unruh temperature.
67849491
Constraints on Dark Matter from Colliders
We show that colliders can impose strong constraints on models of dark matter, in particular, when the dark matter is light. We analyze models where the dark matter is a fermion or scalar interacting with quarks and/or gluons through an effective theory containing higher dimensional operators which represent heavier states that have been integrated out of the effective field theory. We determine bounds from existing Tevatron searches for monojets as well as expected LHC reaches for a discovery. We find that colliders can provide information which is complementary or in some cases even superior to experiments searching for direct detection of dark matter through its scattering with nuclei. In particular, both the Tevatron and the LHC can outperform spin-dependent searches by an order of magnitude or better over much of the parameter space, and if the dark matter couples mainly to gluons, the LHC can place bounds superior to any spin-independent search.
118968256
Determination of the HQET parameters from the B ---> X(s) gamma decay
We combine the resummations for radiative corrections and for the heavy quark expansion to study the inclusive radiative decay $B \to X_s\gamma$. The infrared renormalon ambiguity is also taken into account. Including both theoretical and experimental uncertainties, we determine the allowed domain for the HQET parameters ${\bar \Lambda}$ and $\lambda_1$ centered at ${\bar \Lambda}=0.65$ GeV and $\lambda_1=-0.71$ GeV$^2$.
122878082
Induced Topological Terms, Hidden Local Symmetry, and Anyon Superconductivity
We show how the topological Chern-Simons term in three dimensions and the θ-term, in four dimensions can be dynamically generated due to quantum fluctuations in Nambu-Jona-Lasinio models. These results give a vivid demonstration of hidden local symmetry at work. The fluctuation-induced Chern-Simons term provides a natural way to incorporate fractional statistics and thus a more direct connection with anyon superconductivity. Possible phenomenological implications of this approach in particle physics are also discussed.
120346822
NOETHER CHARGES, BLACK HOLES AND THE IMMIRZI PARAMETER
We have shown that terms in the action which won't contribute to local equation of motions do contribute to globally conversed physical quantities in classical theories of gravity due to general coordinate covariance. This observation allows one to determining the Immirzi parameter in the Ashtekar variable formulation of gravitational theories even at classical level. Applying Wald's Noether charge approach and identifying the entropy on black hole horizon as the Noether charge for translation, one can demonstrate explicitly that the Immirzi parameter does make its contributions through the boundary term. Our results also shed lights in connecting the Immirzi paramter to quasi-normal modes of black holes.
118352399
The Origin of the Immirzi Parameter in Loop Quantum Gravity