15538906
Dynamical Electroweak Superconductivity from a Composite Little Higgs
I describe, from the bottom up, a sequence of natural effective field theories. Below a TeV we have the minimal standard model with a light Higgs, and an extra neutral scalar. In the 1-10 TeV region these scalars are part of a multiplet of pseudo Nambu-Goldstone Bosons. Interactions with additional TeV mass scalars, gauge bosons, and vector-like charge 2/3 quarks stabilize the Higgs mass squared parameter without finetuning. Electroweak superconductivity may be determined in this effective theory as a UV insensitive vacuum alignment problem. Above the 10 TeV scale we have strongly coupled new gauge interactions.
14203692
Dark energy from mass varying neutrinos
We show that mass varying neutrinos (MaVaNs) can behave as a negative pressure fluid which could be the origin of the cosmic acceleration. We derive a model independent relation between the neutrino mass and the equation of state parameter of the neutrino dark energy, which is applicable for general theories of mass varying particles. The neutrino mass depends on the local neutrino density and the observed neutrino mass can exceed the cosmological bound on a constant neutrino mass. We discuss microscopic realizations of the MaVaN acceleration scenario, which involve a sterile neutrino. We consider naturalness constraints for mass varying particles, and find that both eV cut-offs and eV mass particles are needed to avoid fine-tuning. In microscopic realizations of this scenario with a sterile neutrino, these considerations give the sterile neutrino a maximum mass today of order an eV, which could be detectable at MiniBooNE. Because the sterile neutrino was much heavier at earlier times, constraints from big bang nucleosynthesis on additional states are not problematic. We consider regions of high neutrino density and find that the most likely place today to find neutrino masses which are significantly different from the neutrino masses in our solar system is in a supernova. The possibility of different neutrino mass in different regions of the galaxy and the local group could be significant for Z-burst models of ultra-high energy cosmic rays. We also consider the cosmology of and the constraints on the 'acceleron', the scalar field which is responsible for the varying neutrino mass, and briefly discuss neutrino density dependent variations in other constants, such as the fine structure constant.
19576396
Short baseline neutrino oscillations and a new light gauge boson
12 pages, 4 figures.-- PACS number: 14.60.Pq.-- Submitted on 8 Nov 2007 (v1), last revised 21 Dec 2007 (this version, v3): References added, minor change to coupling constraints, expanded sections on astrophysical and cosmological constraints.-- Published in: Phys. Rev. D 77, 033001 (2008) (12 pages).-- Final full-text version of the paper available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.77.033001.
13301753
Dynamical supersymmetry breaking at low energies.
Conventional approaches to supersymmetric model building suffer from several naturalness problems: they do not explain the large hierarchy between the weak scale and the Planck mass, and they require fine-tuning to avoid large flavor-changing neutral currents and particle electric dipole moments. The existence of models with dynamical supersymmetry breaking, which can explain the hierarchy, has been known for some time, but efforts to build such models have suffered from unwanted axions and difficulties with asymptotic freedom. In this paper we describe an approach to model building with supersymmetry broken at comparatively low energies which solves these problems, and give a realistic example.
120299157
Operator analysis of proton decay in an SU(7) gut
Abstract An SU(7) model, with a surviving low-energy SU(4) × SU(3) × U(1) gauge symmetry, may reduce the number of low-energy effective four-fermion baryon number violating interactions from six to two. A simple argument, applicable to general SU ( N ), shows that the terms allowed by SU(4) × SU(3) × U(1) are the same as those allowed by SU(7).
122944590
CP violation and Fritzsch mass matrices
Abstract We discuss a form for the quark mass matrices which produces maximal weak but no string CP violation. The quark mass matrices are of the Fritzsch type, with all phases equal to multiples of 1 2 π . We show that these matrices can be produced in an SO(10) model with CP violated spontaneously at the GUT scale. The model successfully predicts the entire K-M matrix. Radiative corrections to θ , however, are several orders of magnitude too large in the model, and θ is naturally of O(10 −5 ).
15725335
A Resolution Requirement for Disk Simulations Modeling Collapse
The accurate simulation of collapsed objects requires that a huge range of spatial scales be well resolved if the result is not to be contaminated by numerically induced fragmentation. In this context, `insufficient resolution' means comparable to the local instability wavelength in the system. I define a minimum resolution criterion for simulations of disk systems, using the critical wavelength appropriate for disks.
16491613
VINE—A NUMERICAL CODE FOR SIMULATING ASTROPHYSICAL SYSTEMS USING PARTICLES. II. IMPLEMENTATION AND PERFORMANCE CHARACTERISTICS
We continue our presentation of VINE. In this paper, we begin with a description of relevant architectural properties of the serial and shared memory parallel computers on which VINE is intended to run, and describe their influences on the design of the code itself. We continue with a detailed description of a number of optimizations made to the layout of the particle data in memory and to our implementation of a binary tree used to access that data for use in gravitational force calculations and searches for SPH neighbor particles. We describe the modifications to the code necessary to obtain forces efficiently from special purpose ‘GRAPE’ hardware, the interfaces required to allow transparent substitution of those forces in the code instead of those obtained from the tree, and the modifications necessary to use both tree and GRAPE together as a fused GRAPE/tree combination. We conclude with an extensive series of performance tests, which demonstrate that the code can be run efficiently and without modification in serial on small workstations or in parallel using the OpenMP compiler directives on large scale, shared memory parallel machines. We analyze the effects of the code optimizations and estimate that they improve its overall performance by more than an order of magnitude over that obtained by many other tree codes. Scaled parallel performance of the gravity and SPH calculations, together the most costly components of most simulations, is nearly linear up to at least 120 processors on moderate sized test problems using the Origin 3000 architecture, and to the maximum machine sizes available to us on several other architectures. At similar accuracy, performance of VINE, used in GRAPE-tree mode, is approximately a factor two slower than that of VINE, used in host-only mode. Further optimizations of the GRAPE/host communications could improve the speed by as much as a factor of three, but have not yet been implemented in VINE. Finally, we find that although parallel performance on small problems may reach a plateau beyond which more processors bring no additional speedup, performance never decreases, a factor important for running large simulations on many processors with individual time steps, where only a small fraction of the total particles require updates at any given moment. Subject headings: methods: numerical — methods: N-body simulations
64863479
Dynamics of Core Accretion
We perform 3-dimensional hydrodynamic simulations of gas flowing around a plan- etary core of mass Mpl=10Membedded in a near Keplerian background flow, using a modified shearing box approximation. We assume an ideal gas behavior following an equation of state with a fixed ratio of the specific heats, γ = 1.42, consistent with the conditions of a moderate temperature background disk with solar composition. No radiative heating or cooling is included in the models. We employ a nested grid hydrodynamic code implementing the 'Piecewise Parabolic Method' with as many as six fixed nested grids, providing spatial resolution on the finest grid comparable to the present day diameters of Neptune and Uranus. We find that a strongly dynamically active flow develops such that no static en- velope can form. The activity is not sensitive to plausible variations in the rotation curve of the underlying disk. It is sensitive to the thermodynamic treatment of the gas, as modeled by prescribed equations of state (either 'locally isothermal' or 'locally isentropic') and the temperature of the background disk material. The activity is also sensitive to the shape and depth of the core's gravitational potential, through its mass and gravitational softening coefficient. Each of these factors influence the magnitude and character of hydrodynamic feedback of the small scale flow on the background, and we conclude that accurate modeling of such feedback is critical to a complete understanding of the core accretion process. The varying flow pattern gives rise to large, irregular eruptions of matter from the region around the core which return matter to the background flow: mass in the envelope at one time may not be found in the envelope at any later time. No net mass accretion into the envelope is observed over the course of the simulation and none is expected, due to our neglect of cooling. Except in cases of very rapid cooling however, as defined by locally isothermal or isentropic treatments, any cooling that does affect the envelope material will have limited consequences for the dynamics, since the flow quickly carries cooled material out of the core's environment entirely. The angular momentum of material in the envelope, relative to the core, varies both in magnitude and in sign on time scales of days to months near the core and on time scales a few years at distances comparable to the Hill radius. The dynamical activity contrasts with the largely static behavior typically assumed within the framework of the core accretion model for Jovian planet formation. We show that material entering the dynamically active environment may suffer intense heating and cooling events the durations of which are as short as a few hours to a few days. Shorter durations are not observable in our work due to the limits of our resolution. Peak temperatures in these events range from T � 1000 K to as high as T � 3 4000 K, with densities ρ � 10 9 10 8 g/cm 3 . These time scales, densities and temperatures span a range consistent with those required for chondrule formation in the nebular shock model. We therefore propose that dynamical activity in the Jovian planet formation environment could be responsible for the production of chondrules and other annealed silicates in the solar nebula.
12208225
VINE—A NUMERICAL CODE FOR SIMULATING ASTROPHYSICAL SYSTEMS USING PARTICLES. I. DESCRIPTION OF THE PHYSICS AND THE NUMERICAL METHODS
We present a numerical code for simulating the evolution of astrophysical systems using particles to represent the underlying fluid flow. The code is written in Fortran 95 and is designed to be versatile, flexible and extensible, with modular options that can be selected either at the time the code is compiled or at run time through a text input file. We include a number of general purpose modules describing a variety of physical processes commonly required in the astrophysical community and we expect that the effort required to integrate additional or alternate modules into the code will small. In its simplest form the code can evolve the dynamical trajectories of a set of particles in two or three dimensions using a module which implements either a Leapfrog or Runge-Kutta-Fehlberg integrator, selected by the user at compile time. The user may choose to allow the integrator to evolve the system using individual timesteps for each particle or with a single, global time step for all. Particles may interact gravitationally as N-body particles, and all or any subset may also interact hydrodynamically, using the Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamic (SPH) method by selecting the SPH module. A third particle species can be included with a module to model massive point particles which may accrete nearby SPH or N-body particles. Such particles may be used to model, e.g., stars in a molecular cloud. Free boundary conditions are implemented by default, and a module may be selected to include periodic boundary conditions. We use a binary ‘Press’ tree to organize particles for rapid access in gravity and SPH calculations. Modules implementing an interface with special purpose ‘GRAPE’ hardware may also be selected to accelerate the gravity calculations. If available, forces obtained from the GRAPE coprocessors may be transparently substituted for those obtained from the tree, or both tree and GRAPE may be used as a combination GRAPE/tree code. The code may be run without modification on single processors or in parallel using OpenMP compiler directives on large scale, shared memory parallel machines. We present simulations of several test problems, including a merger simulation of two elliptical galaxies with 800000 particles. In comparison to the Gadget-2 code of Springel (2005), the gravitational force calculation, which is the most costly part of any simulation including self-gravity, is ∼ 4.6 − 4.9 times faster with VINE when tested on different snapshots of the elliptical galaxy merger simulation when run on an Itanium 2 processor in an SGI Altix. A full simulation of the same setup with 8 processors is a factor of 2.91 faster with VINE. The code is available to the public under the terms of the Gnu General Public License. Subject headings: methods: numerical — methods: N-body simulations — galaxies: interactions
17175349
Numerical requirements for simulations of self-gravitating and non-self-gravitating discs
We define three requirements for accurate simulations that attempt to model circumstellar discs and the formation of collapsed objects (e.g. planets) within them. First, we define a resolution requirement based on the wavelength for neutral stability of self-gravitating waves in the disc, where a Jeans analysis does not apply. For particle-based or grid-based simulations, this criterion takes the form, respectively, of a minimum number of particles per critical (‘Toomre’) mass or maximum value of a ‘Toomre number’, T=δx/λT, where the wavelength, λT, is the wavelength for neutral stability for waves in discs. The requirements are analogues of the conditions for cloud collapse simulations as discussed in Bate & Burkert and Truelove et al., where the required minimum resolution was shown to be twice the number of neighbours per Jeans mass or four–five times the local Jeans wavelength, λJ, for particle or grid simulations, respectively. 
 
 
 
We apply our criterion to particle simulations of disc evolution and find that in order to prevent numerically induced fragmentation of the disc, the Toomre mass must be resolved by a minimum of six times the average number of neighbour particles used. We investigate the origin of the apparent discrepancy between the number of particles required by the cloud and disc fragmentation criteria and find that it is due largely to ambiguities in the definition of the Jeans mass, as used by different authors. We reconcile the various definitions, and when an identical definition of the Jeans mass is used, the condition that J≲ 1/4 in the Truelove condition is equivalent to requiring about 10–12 times the average number of neighbour particles per Jeans mass in a smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulation, reducing the difference between simulations of discs and clouds to about two. While the numbers of particles per critical mass are similar for both the Jeans and Toomre formalisms, the Toomre requirement is more restrictive than the Jeans requirement when the local value of the Toomre stability parameter Q falls below about one half. 
 
 
 
Second, we require that particle-based simulations with self-gravity use a variable gravitational softening, in order to avoid inducing fragmentation by an inappropriate choice of softening length. We show that using a fixed gravitational softening length for all particles can lead either to artificial suppression or enhancement of structure (including fragmentation) in a given disc, or both in different locations of the same disc, depending on the value chosen for the softening length. Unphysical behaviour can occur whether or not the system is properly resolved by the new Toomre criterion. 
 
 
 
Third, we require that three-dimensional SPH simulations resolve the vertical structure with at least ∼4 particle smoothing lengths per scaleheight at the disc mid-plane, a value which implies a substantially larger number per vertical column because the disc itself extends over many scaleheights. We suggest that a similar criterion applies to grid-based simulations. We demonstrate that failure to meet this criterion leads to underestimates in the mid-plane density of up to 30–50 per cent at resolutions common in the literature. As a direct consequence, gas pressures will be dramatically underestimated and simulations of self-gravitating systems may artificially and erroneously inflate the likelihood of fragmentation. We outline an additional condition on the vertical resolution in simulations that include radiative transfer in order to ensure a correct description of the cooling, specifically that the temperature structure near the disc photosphere must be well resolved. As an example, we demonstrate that for an isentropic vertical structure, the criterion translates into resolution comparable to H/20 near the disc photosphere, to avoid serious errors in transfer rates of thermal energy in and out of the disc. 
 
 
 
Finally, we discuss results in the literature that purport to form collapsed objects and conclude that many are likely to have violated one or more of our criteria, and have therefore made incorrect conclusions regarding the likelihood for fragmentation and planet formation.