15611510
Radiative and collisional jet energy loss in a quark-gluon plasma
We calculate radiative and collisional energy loss of hard partons traversing the quark- gluon plasma created at RHIC and compare the respective size of these contributions. We employ the AMY formalism for radiative energy loss and include additionally energy loss by elastic collisions. Our treatment of both processes is complete at leading order in the coupling, and accounts for the probabilistic nature of jet energy loss. We find that a solution of the Fokker-Planck equation for the probability density distributions of partons is necessary for a complete calculation of the nuclear modification factor RAA for pion production in heavy ion collisions. It is found that the magnitude of RAA is sensitive to the inclusion of both collisional and radiative energy loss, while the average energy is less affected by the addition of collisional contributions. We present a calculation of RAA for π0 at RHIC, combining our energy loss formalism with a relativistic (3+1)-dimensional hydrodynamic description of the thermalized medium.
119279378
Bjorken flow, plasma instabilities, and thermalization
A bstractAt asymptotically high energies, thermalization in heavy ion collisions can be described via weak-coupling QCD. We present a complete treatment of how thermalization proceeds, at the parametric weak-coupling level. We show that plasma instabilities dominate the dynamics, from immediately after the collision until well after the plasma becomes nearly in equilibrium. Initially they drive the system close to isotropy, but Bjorken expansion and increasing diluteness makes the system again become more anisotropic. At time $ \tau \sim {\alpha^{{\frac{{ - 12}}{5}}}}Q_s^{{ - 1}} $ the dynamics become dominated by a nearly-thermal bath; and at time $ \tau \sim {\alpha^{{\frac{{ - 5}}{2}}}}Q_s^{{ - 1}} $ the bath comes to dominate the energy density, completing thermalization. After this time there is a nearly isotropic and thermal Quark-Gluon Plasma.
10799212
Classical field dynamics of the electroweak phase transition
We investigate the thermodynamics and dynamics of the electroweak phase transition by modeling the infrared physics with classical Yang-Mills Higgs theory. We discuss the accuracy of this approach and conclude that, for quantities whose determination is dominated by the infrared, the classical method should be correct up to parametrically suppressed [i.e., O({alpha})] corrections. For a Higgs self-coupling which at the tree level corresponds to m{sub H}{approx_equal}50 GeV, we determine the jump in the order parameter to be {delta}{phi}=1.5gT, the surface tension to be {sigma}=0.07g{sup 4}T{sup 3}, and the friction coefficient on the moving bubble wall due to infrared bosons to be {eta}{equivalent_to}P/v{sub w}=0.03{plus_minus}0.004g{sup 6}T{sup 4}. We also investigate the response of the Chern-Simons number to a spatially uniform chemical potential and find that it falls off a short distance inside the bubble wall, both in equilibrium and below the equilibrium temperature. {copyright} {ital 1997} {ital The American Physical Society}
118416779
Next-to-leading order thermal photon production in a weakly coupled quark-gluon plasma
A bstractWe compute the next-to-leading order O(g) correction to the thermal photon production rate in a QCD plasma. The NLO contributions can be expressed in terms of gauge invariant condensates on the light cone, which are amenable to novel sum rules and Euclidean techniques. We expect these technologies to be generalizable to other NLO calculations. For the phenomenologically interesting value of αs = 0.3, the NLO correction represents a 20% increase and has a functional form similar to the LO result.
119023526
The phantom menaced: Constraints on low-energy effective ghosts
It has been suggested that a scalar field with negative kinetic energy, or ``ghost,'' could be the source of the observed late-time cosmological acceleration. Naively, such theories should be ruled out by the catastrophic quantum instability of the vacuum. We derive phenomenological bounds on the Lorentz-violating ultraviolet cutoff $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$ which must apply to low-energy effective theories of ghosts, in order to keep the instability at unobservable levels. Assuming only that ghosts interact at least gravitationally, we show that $\ensuremath{\Lambda}\ensuremath{\lesssim}3\mathrm{MeV}$ for consistency with the cosmic gamma ray background. We also show that theories of ghosts with a Lorentz-conserving cutoff are completely excluded.
18843095
Classical sphaleron rate on fine lattices
We measure the sphaleron rate for hot, classical Yang-Mills theory on the lattice, in order to study its dependence on lattice spacing. By using a topological definition of Chern-Simons number and going to extremely fine lattices [up to $\ensuremath{\beta}=32,$ or lattice spacing ${a=1/(8g}^{2}T)]$ we demonstrate nontrivial scaling. The topological susceptibility, converted to physical units, falls with lattice spacing on fine lattices in a way which is consistent with linear dependence on a (the Arnold-Son-Yaffe scaling relation) and is difficult to reconcile with a nonzero continuum limit. We also explain some unusual behavior of the rate in small volumes, reported by Ambj\o{}rn and Krasnitz.
121998351
Geometry of the string equations
The string equations of hermitian and unitary matrix models of 2D gravity are flatness conditions. These flatness conditions may be interpreted as the consistency conditions for isomonodromic deformation of an equation with an irregular singularity. In particular, the partition function of the matrix model is shown to be the tau function for isomonodromic deformation. The physical parameters defining the string equation are interpreted as moduli of meromorphic gauge fields, and the compatibility conditions can be interpreted as defining a “quantum” analog of a Riemann surface. In the latter interpretation, the equations may be viewed as compatibility conditions for transport on “quantum moduli space” of correlation functions in a theory of free fermions. We discuss how the free fermion field theory may be deduced directly from the matrix model integral. As an application of our formalism we discuss some properties of the BMP solutions of the string equations. We also mention briefly a possible connection to twistor theory.
14083232
Wall crossing in local Calabi Yau manifolds
We study the BPS states of a D6-brane wrapping the conifold and bound to collections of D2 and D0 branes. We find that in addition to the complexified Kahler parameter of the rigid sphere it is necessary to introduce an extra real parameter to describe BPS partition functions and marginal stability walls. The supergravity approach to BPS state-counting gives a simple derivation of results of Szendroi concerning Donaldson-Thomas theory on the noncommutative conifold. This example also illustrates some interesting limitations on the supergravity approach to BPS state-counting and wall-crossing.
18011375
Counting higher genus curves in a Calabi-Yau manifold
We explicitly evaluate the low energy coupling Fg in a d = 4, N = 2 compactification of the heterotic string. The holomorphic piece of this expression provides the information not encoded in the holomorphic anomaly equations, and we find that it is given by an elementary polylogarithm with index 3 - 2g, thus generalizing in a natural way the known results for g = 0, 1. The heterotic model has a dual Calabi-Yau compactification of the type 11 string. We compare the answer with the general form expected from curve-counting formulae and find good agreement. As a corollary of this comparison we predict some numbers of higher genus curves in a specific Calabi-Yau, and extract some intersection numbers on the moduli space of genus-g Riemann surfaces.
9605613
Integrating over the Coulomb branch in N = 2 gauge theory
Abstract We review the relation of certain integrals over the Coulomb phase of d = 4, N = 2 SO (3) supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory with Donaldson-Witten theory. We describe a new way to write an important contact term in the theory and show how the integrals generalize to higher rank gauge groups.
14378311
D-branes and K-theory in 2D topological field theory
This expository paper describes sewing conditions in two-dimensional open/closed topological field theory. We include a description of the G-equivariant case, where G is a finite group. We determine the category of boundary conditions in the case that the closed string algebra is semisimple. In this case we find that sewing constraints – the most primitive form of worldsheet locality – already imply that D-branes are (G-twisted) vector bundles on spacetime. We comment on extensions to cochain-valued theories and various applications. Finally, we give uniform proofs of all relevant sewing theorems using Morse theory.