37247936
Degravitation of the cosmological constant and graviton width
We study the possibility of decoupling gravity from the vacuum energy. This is effectively equivalent to promoting Newton's constant to a high-pass filter that degravitates sources of characteristic wavelength larger than a certain macroscopic (super) horizon scale L. We study the underlying physics and the consistency of this phenomenon. In particular, the absence of ghosts, already at the linear level, implies that in any such theory the graviton should either have a mass 1/L, or be a resonance of similar width. This has profound physical implications for the degravitation idea.
39970498
Difficulty of detecting minihalos via gamma rays from dark matter annihilation.
Analytical calculations and recent numerical experiments have shown that a sizable amount of the mass of our Galaxy is in a form of clumpy, virialized substructures that, according to Diemand et al., can be as light as 10(-6)M(.). In this work we estimate the gamma-ray flux expected from dark matter annihilation occurring within these minihalos, under the hypothesis that the bulk of dark matter is composed by neutralinos. We generate mock sky maps showing the angular distribution of the expected gamma-ray signal. We compare them with the sensitivities of satellite-borne experiments such as GLAST and find that a possible detection of minihalos is indeed very challenging.
119207510
Consistency of relevant cosmological deformations on all scales
Using cosmological perturbation theory we show that the most relevant deformation of gravity is consistent at the linear level. In particular, we prove the absence of unitarity violating negative norm states in the weak coupling regime from sub- to super-Hubble scales. This demonstrates that the recently proposed classical self-protection mechanism of deformed gravity extends to the entire kinematical domain.
209999169
Black Hole Production in Large Extra Dimensions at the Tevatron: New Limit on the Fundamental Scale of Gravity
119280123
Brane Induced Gravity: From a No-Go to a No-Ghost Theorem
Numerous claims in the literature suggest that gravity induced on a higher co-dimensional surface violates unitarity in the weak coupling regime. However, it remained unclear, why a conserved source localized on this surface and giving rise to an induced gravity term at low energies would absorb and emit the associated ghost, given a consistent source-free theory. In this article it is shown that the appearance of the induced Einstein Hilbert term does not threaten the unitarity of the theory. The physics arguments behind this statement are presented in a semi-covariant language, but the detailed proof is given using Dirac's constraint analysis. It is shown that the would-be ghost highlighted in previous works is non-dynamical and therefore not associated with a state in the Hilbert space. As a result of these investigations, brane induced gravity goes without a ghost, opening an exciting window of opportunity for consistent deformations of gravity at the largest observable distances.
119430795
The Casimir effect in the presence of compactified universal extra dimensions
Abstract The Casimir force in a system consisting of two parallel conducting plates in the presence of compactified universal extra dimensions (UXD) is analyzed. The Casimir force with UXDs differs from the force obtained without extra dimensions. A new power law for the Casimir force is derived. By comparison to experimental data the size R of the universal extra dimensions can be restricted to R ⩽10 nm for one extra dimension.
121183473
Observation of rotating nuclear molecules and determination of their lifetimes
Long-living rotating nuclear molecules (or “dinuclear systems”) have been observed at the velocity filter SHIP at GSI in reactions of 64Ni + 207Pb at Coulomb barrier energies. The rotation was directly revealed by the velocity spectra of deep inelastic target-like transfer products which are formed during the lifetime of the nuclear molecule and emitted after its breakup. The corresponding rotation angles were about 180 degree pointing to long nuclear interaction times or lifetimes of the system, respectively. We deduced the lifetimes from the lines in the velocity spectra originating from two different rotation angles. Further, the unambiguous correlation of a certain transfer product with its individual velocity spectrum allowed us to study the lifetimes as a function of the number of transferred protons.
122536153
Formation of superheavy elements in cold fusion reactions
The process of the synthesis of superheavy elements ~SHEs! is not yet understood completely. In the presented work we make an attempt to describe the cold fusion reactions of the type X1(Pb,Bi)→SHE 11n at subbarrier energies. The process of the formation of SHEs is subdivided into three steps. ~1! The capture of two spherical nuclei and the formation of a common shape of the two touching nuclei. Low-energy surface vibrations and transfer of few nucleons are taken into account in the first step of the reaction. ~2! The formation of a spherical or near spherical compound nucleus. ~3! The survival of the excited compound nucleus due to evaporation of neutrons and g-ray emission in competition with fission. A lowering of the fission barrier was taken into account, which arises from a reduction of shell effects at increasing excitation energy of the compound nucleus. The following reactions were analyzed in detail: (Fe, Ni, Zn, Ge)1Pb, (Ti, Cr, Fe, Co, Ni, Cu, Zn, Ga, Ge, As, Se)1Pb, (Fe, Ni, Zn, Ge) 1Pb, and (Ti, Cr, Fe, Ni, Zn, Ge)1Bi. The presented model describes well the available experimental cross-section data and allows for predicting cross-section values for the synthesis of so-far unknown heavier elements.
126108113
Search of the decay of the heaviest isotopes of element 112
43354809
Kaon effective mass and energy from a novel chiral SU(3)-symmetric Lagrangian
A new chiral SU(3) Lagrangian is proposed to describe the properties of kaons and antikaons in the nuclear medium, the ground state of dense matter, and the kaon-nuclear interactions consistently. The saturation properties of nuclear matter are reproduced as well as the results of Dirac-Br\"uckner theory. Our numerical results show that the kaon effective mass might be changed only moderately in the nuclear medium due to highly nonlinear density effects. After taking into account the coupling between the omega meson and the kaon, we obtain similar results for the effective kaon and antikaon energies as calculated in the one-boson-exchange model while in our model the parameters of the kaon-nuclear interactions are constrained by the SU(3) chiral symmetry.
201093324
Proton Radioactivity