53708822
A MASS-DEPENDENT YIELD ORIGIN OF NEUTRON-CAPTURE ELEMENT ABUNDANCE DISTRIBUTIONS IN ULTRA-FAINT DWARFS
One way to constrain the nature of the high-redshift progenitors of the Milky Way (MW) is to look at the low-metallicity stellar populations of the different Galactic components today. For example, high-resolution spectroscopy of very metal poor (VMP) stars demonstrates remarkable agreement between the distribution of [Ti/Fe] in the stellar populations of the MW halo and ultra-faint dwarf (UFD) galaxies. In contrast, for the neutron-capture (nc) abundance ratio distributions [(Sr, Ba)/Fe], the peak of the small UFD sample (6 stars) exhibits a significant under-abundance relative to the VMP stars in the larger MW halo sample (~300 stars). We present a simple scenario that can simultaneously explain these similarities and differences by assuming: (1) that the MW VMP stars were predominately enriched by a prior generation of stars which possessed a higher total mass than the prior generation of stars that enriched the UFD VMP stars; and (2) a much stronger mass-dependent yield (MDY) for nc-elements than for the (known) MDY for Ti. Simple statistical tests demonstrate that conditions (1) and (2) are consistent with the observed abundance distributions, albeit without strong constraints on model parameters. A comparison of the broad constraints for these nc-MDY with those derived in the literature seems to rule out Ba production from low-mass supernovae (SNe) and affirms models that primarily generate yields from high-mass SNe. Our scenario can be confirmed by a relatively modest (factor of ~3-4) increase in the number of high-resolution spectra of VMP stars in UFDs.
118608523
MEASURING TRANSVERSE MOTIONS FOR NEARBY GALAXY CLUSTERS
Measuring the full three-dimensional motions of extragalactic objects in the universe presents a seemingly insurmountable challenge. In this Letter, we investigate the application of a technique to measure tangential motion that has previously only been applied nearby within the Local Group of galaxies, to clusters of galaxies far beyond its borders. We show that mapping the mean line-of-sight motion throughout a galaxy cluster could in principle be used to detect the perspective rotation induced by the projection of the cluster's tangential motion into the line of sight. The signal will be most prominent for clusters of the largest angular extent, most symmetric intrinsic velocity distribution and surveyed with the largest number of pointings possible. We investigate the feasibility of detecting this signal using three different approaches: measuring line-of-sight motions of individual cluster members, taking spectra of intracluster gas, and mapping distortions of the cosmic microwave background radiation. We conclude that future spectroscopic surveys of thousands of members of nearby galaxy clusters hold the most promise of measuring cluster tangential motions using this technique.
119843879
Ground-state energy of spin-1/2 fermions in the unitary limit
We present lattice results for the ground-state energy of a spin-(1/2) fermion system in the unitary limit, where the effective range of the interaction is zero and the scattering length is infinite. We compute the ground-state energy for a system of 6, 10, 14, 18, and 22 particles, with equal numbers of up and down spins in a periodic cube. We estimate that in the limit of large number of particles, the ground-state energy is 0.25(3) times the ground-state energy of the free Fermi system.
24505651
Dependence of the triple-alpha process on the fundamental constants of nature
We present an ab initio calculation of the quark mass dependence of the ground state energies of 4He , 8Be and 12C , and of the energy of the Hoyle state in 12C . These investigations are performed within the framework of lattice chiral Effective Field Theory. We address the sensitivity of the production rate of carbon and oxygen in red giant stars to the fundamental constants of nature by considering the impact of variations in the light quark masses and the electromagnetic fine-structure constant on the reaction rate of the triple-alpha process. As carbon and oxygen are essential to life as we know it, we also discuss the implications of our findings for an anthropic view of the Universe. We find strong evidence that the physics of the triple-alpha process is driven by alpha clustering, and that shifts in the fundamental parameters at the ≃ 2–3% level are unlikely to be detrimental to the development of life. Tolerance against much larger changes cannot be ruled out at present, given the relatively limited knowledge of the quark mass dependence of the two-nucleon S -wave scattering parameters. Lattice QCD is expected to provide refined estimates of the scattering parameters in the future.
119296383
Causality constraints for charged particles
In quantum systems with short-range interactions, causality imposes nontrivial constraints on low-energy scattering parameters. We investigate these causality constraints for systems where a long-range Coulomb potential is present in addition to a short-range interaction. The main result is an upper bound for the Coulomb-modified effective range parameter. We discuss the implications of this bound to the effective field theory for nuclear halo systems. In particular, we consider several examples of proton–nucleus and nucleus–nucleus scattering. For the bound-state regime, we find relations for the asymptotic normalization coefficients (ANCs) of nuclear halo states. As an application of these relations, we extract the ANCs of the excited 2+ and 1− states in 16O from α − 12C scattering data.
14615766
Fermions in spherical field theory
Abstract We derive the spherical field formalism for fermions. We find that the spherical field method is free from certain difficulties which complicate lattice calculations, such as fermion doubling, missing axial anomalies, and computational problems regarding internal fermion loops.
2109187
Lattice effective field theory calculations for A = 3, 4, 6, 12 nuclei.
We present lattice results for the ground state energies of tritium, helium-3, helium-4, lithium-6, and carbon-12 nuclei. Our analysis includes isospin breaking, Coulomb effects, and interactions up to next-to-next-to-leading order in chiral effective field theory.