title: Recombination of H3+ Ions in the Afterglow of a He-Ar-H2 Plasma

abstract:
  Recombination of H3+ with electrons was studied in a low temperature plasma
in helium. The plasma recombination rate is driven by two body, H3+ + e, and
three-body, H3+ + e + He, processes with the rate coefficients 7.5x10^{-8}cm3/s
and 2.8x10^{-25}cm6/s correspondingly at 260K. The two-body rate coefficient is
in excellent agreement with results from storage ring experiments and
theoretical calculations. We suggest that the three-body recombination involves
formation of highly excited Rydberg neutral H3 followed by an l- or m- changing
collision with He. Plasma electron spectroscopy indicates the presence of H3.


title: On ground fields of arithmetic hyperbolic reflection groups. III

abstract:
  This paper continues arXiv.org:math.AG/0609256, arXiv:0708.3991 and
arXiv:0710.0162 .
  Using authors's methods of 1980, 1981, some explicit finite sets of number
fields containing all ground fields of arithmetic hyperbolic reflection groups
in dimension at least 3 are defined, and explicit bounds of their degrees (over
Q) are obtained.
  Thus, now, explicit bound of degree of ground fields of arithmetic hyperbolic
reflection groups is known in all dimensions. Thus, now, we can, in principle,
obtain effective finite classification of arithmetic hyperbolic reflection
groups in all dimensions together.


title: Extended Higgs Models and a Transition to Exact Susy

abstract:
  String landscape ideas and the observation of a positive vacuum energy in the
current universe suggest that there could be a future transition to an exactly
supersymmetric world. Atomic and molecular binding in this susy background
probably require that electroweak symmetry breaking survives the transition.
Among several susy higgs models that have been discussed, one stands out in
this regard. Thus, the higgs structure that is revealed at the LHC could have
strong consequences for the type of bulk matter that may arise in a future susy
universe.


title:
Theory of input spike auto- and cross-correlations and their effect on
  the response of spiking neurons

abstract:
  Spike correlations between neurons are ubiquitous in the cortex, but their
role is at present not understood. Here we describe the firing response of a
leaky integrate-and-fire neuron (LIF) when it receives a temporarily correlated
input generated by presynaptic correlated neuronal populations. Input
correlations are characterized in terms of the firing rates, Fano factors,
correlation coefficients and correlation timescale of the neurons driving the
target neuron. We show that the sum of the presynaptic spike trains cannot be
well described by a Poisson process. Solutions of the output firing rate are
found in the limit of short and long correlation time scales.


title: The radio properties of optically obscured Spitzer sources

abstract:
  This paper analyses the radio properties of a subsample of optically obscured
(R>25.5) galaxies observed at 24um by the Spitzer Space Telescope within the
First Look Survey. 96 F[24um]>0.35 mJy objects out of 510 are found to have a
radio counterpart at 1.4 GHz, 610 MHz or at both frequencies respectively down
to ~40uJy and ~200uJy. IRAC photometry sets the majority of them in the
redshift interval z [1-3] and allows for a broad distinction between
AGN-dominated galaxies (~47% of the radio-identified sample) and systems
powered by intense star-formation (~13%), the remaining objects being
impossible to classify. The percentage of radio identifications is a strong
function of 24um flux. The radio number counts at both radio frequencies
suggest that the physical process(es) responsible for radio activity in these
objects have a common origin regardless of whether the source shows mid-IR
emission compatible with being an obscured AGN or a star-forming galaxy. We
also find that both candidate AGN and star-forming systems follow (although
with a large scatter) the relationship between 1.4 GHz and 24um fluxes reported
by Appleton et al. (2004) which identifies sources undergoing intense star
formation activity. On the other hand, the inferred radio spectral indices
alpha indicate that a large fraction of objects in our sample (~60% of all
galaxies with estimated alpha) may belong to the population of Ultra Steep
Spectrum (USS) Sources, typically 'frustrated' radio-loud AGN. We interpret our
findings as a strong indication for concurrent AGN and star-forming activity,
whereby the 1.4 GHz flux is of thermal origin, while that at 610 GHz mainly
stems from the nuclear source.


title:
Measurement of Upsilon Production for p+p and p+d Interactions at 800
  GeV

abstract:
  We report a high statistics measurement of Upsilon production with an 800
GeV/c proton beam on hydrogen and deuterium targets. The dominance of the
gluon-gluon fusion process for Upsilon production at this energy implies that
the cross section ratio, $\sigma (p + d \to \Upsilon) / 2\sigma (p + p\to
\Upsilon)$, is sensitive to the gluon content in the neutron relative to that
in the proton. Over the kinematic region 0 < x_F < 0.6, this ratio is found to
be consistent with unity, in striking contrast to the behavior of the Drell-Yan
cross section ratio $\sigma(p+d)_{DY}/2\sigma(p+p)_{DY}$. This result shows
that the gluon distributions in the proton and neutron are very similar. The
Upsilon production cross sections are also compared with the p+d and p+Cu cross
sections from earlier measurements.


title: Visual Observability of the Cassiopeia A Supernova

abstract:
  It is generally believed that the explosion which gave birth to the
Cassiopeia A supernova remmant resulted from core collapse of a
hydrogen-deficient star. A progenitor that has lost all its hydrogen envelope
and part of its helium envelope would lead to an explosion with the optical
properties of a Type Ic supernova. There is evidence, if not general agreement,
that Flamsteed observed the Cas A supernova as a sixth magnitude object in
August, 1680. If an explosion with a typical SNIc light curve at the position
and distance of Cas A attained maximum luminosity during the winter of
1679-1680, it would at that time have been poorly situated for visual
observation, as its upper culmination would have taken place during daylight,
while in August, between 170-200 days after peak luminosity, it would have been
a sixth magnitude star.


title: Hilbert Functions of Filtered Modules

abstract:
  In this presentation we shall deal with some aspects of the theory of Hilbert
functions of modules over local rings, and we intend to guide the reader along
one of the possible routes through the last three decades of progress in this
area of dynamic mathematical activity. Motivated by the ever increasing
interest in this field, our goal is to gather together many new developments of
this theory into one place, and to present them using a unifying approach which
gives self-contained and easier proofs. In this text we shall discuss many
results by different authors, following essentially the direction typified by
the pioneering work of J. Sally. Our personal view of the subject is most
visibly expressed by the presentation of Chapters 1 and 2 in which we discuss
the use of the superficial elements and related devices. Basic techniques will
be stressed with the aim of reproving recent results by using a more elementary
approach. Over the past few years several papers have appeared which extend
classical results on the theory of Hilbert functions to the case of filtered
modules. The extension of the theory to the case of general filtrations on a
module has one more important motivation. Namely, we have interesting
applications to the study of graded algebras which are not associated to a
filtration, in particular the Fiber cone and the Sally-module. We show here
that each of these algebras fits into certain short exact sequences, together
with algebras associated to filtrations. Hence one can study the Hilbert
function and the depth of these algebras with the aid of the know-how we got in
the case of a filtration.


title:
Ramsey degrees of finite ultrametric spaces, ultrametric Urysohn spaces
  and dynamics of their isometry groups

abstract:
  We study Ramsey-theoretic properties of several natural classes of finite
ultrametric spaces, describe the corresponding Urysohn spaces and compute a
dynamical invariant attached to their isometry groups.


title: Memory Effects in Spin Chain Channels for Information Transmission

abstract:
  We investigate the multiple use of a ferromagnetic spin chain for quantum and
classical communications without resetting. We find that the memory of the
state transmitted during the first use makes the spin chain a qualitatively
different quantum channel during the second transmission, for which we find the
relevant Kraus operators. We propose a parameter to quantify the amount of
memory in the channel and find that it influences the quality of the channel,
as reflected through fidelity and entanglement transmissible during the second
use. For certain evolution times, the memory allows the channel to exceed the
memoryless classical capacity (achieved by separable inputs) and in some cases
it can also enhance the quantum capacity.


title: 2D Multipartite Valence Bond States in Quantum Antiferromagnets

abstract:
  A quantum anti-ferromagnetic spin-1 model is characterised on a 2D lattice
with the following requirements: i) The Hamiltonian is made out of nearest
neighbour interactions. ii) It is homogeneous, translational and rotational
invariant. iii) The ground state is a real singlet state of SU(2) (non-chiral).
iv) It has a local spin-1 representation. Along the way to characterise the
system, connections with classical statistical mechanics and integrable models
are explored. Finally, the relevance of the model in the physics of low
dimensional anti-ferromagnetic Mott-Hubbard insulators is discussed.

categories: cond-mat.str-el cond-mat.stat-mech hep-th quant-ph


title:
A Search for Prompt Very High Energy Emission from Satellite-detected
  Gamma-ray Bursts using Milagro

abstract:
  Gamma-ray bursts (GRBs) have been detected up to GeV energies and are
predicted by many models to emit in the very high energy (VHE, > 100 GeV)
regime too. Detection of such emission would allow us to constrain GRB models.
Since its launch, in late 2004, the Swift satellite has been locating GRBs at a
rate of approximately 100 per year. The rapid localization and follow-up in
many wavelengths has revealed new and unexpected phenomena, such as delayed
emission in the form of bright X-ray flares. The Milagro gamma-ray observatory
is a wide field of view (2 sr) instrument employing a water Cherenkov detector
to continuously ($>$ 90% duty cycle) observe the overhead sky in the 100 GeV to
100 TeV energy range. Over 100 GRBs are known to have been in the field of view
of Milagro since January 2000, including 57 since the launch of Swift (through
May 2007). We discuss the results of the searches for prompt emission from
these bursts, as well as for delayed emission from the X-ray flares observed in
some of the Swift bursts.


title: The Red-Sequence Luminosity Function in Galaxy Clusters since z~1

abstract:
  We use a statistical sample of ~500 rich clusters taken from 72 square
degrees of the Red-Sequence Cluster Survey (RCS-1) to study the evolution of
~30,000 red-sequence galaxies in clusters over the redshift range 0.35<z<0.95.
We construct red-sequence luminosity functions (RSLFs) for a well-defined,
homogeneously selected, richness limited sample. The RSLF at higher redshifts
shows a deficit of faint red galaxies (to M_V=> -19.7) with their numbers
increasing towards the present epoch. This is consistent with the `down-sizing`
picture in which star-formation ended at earlier times for the most massive
(luminous) galaxies and more recently for less massive (fainter) galaxies. We
observe a richness dependence to the down-sizing effect in the sense that, at a
given redshift, the drop-off of faint red galaxies is greater for poorer (less
massive) clusters, suggesting that star-formation ended earlier for galaxies in
more massive clusters. The decrease in faint red-sequence galaxies is
accompanied by an increase in faint blue galaxies, implying that the process
responsible for this evolution of faint galaxies is the termination of
star-formation, possibly with little or no need for merging. At the bright end,
we also see an increase in the number of blue galaxies with increasing
redshift, suggesting that termination of star-formation in higher mass galaxies
may also be an important formation mechanism for higher mass ellipticals. By
comparing with a low-redshift Abell Cluster sample, we find that the
down-sizing trend seen within RCS-1 has continued to the local universe.


title: Big Ramsey degrees and divisibility in classes of ultrametric spaces

abstract:
  Given a countable set S of positive reals, we study finite-dimensional
Ramsey-theoretic properties of the countable ultrametric Urysohn space with
distances in S.


title: A Criterion For Ergodicity of Non-uniformly hyperbolic Diffeomorphisms

abstract:
  In this work we exhibit a new criteria for ergodicity of diffeomorphisms
involving conditions on Lyapunov exponents and general position of some
invariant manifolds. On one hand we derive uniqueness of SRB-measures for
transitive surface diffeomorphisms. On the other hand, using recent results on
the existence of blenders we give a positive answer, in the $C^1$ topology, to
a conjecture of Pugh-Shub in the context of partially hyperbolic conservative
diffeomorphisms with two dimensional center bundle.


title: Deformed Quantum Cohomology and (0,2) Mirror Symmetry

abstract:
  We compute instanton corrections to correlators in the genus-zero topological
subsector of a (0,2) supersymmetric gauged linear sigma model with target space
P1xP1, whose left-moving fermions couple to a deformation of the tangent
bundle. We then deduce the theory's chiral ring from these correlators, which
reduces in the limit of zero deformation to the (2,2) ring. Finally, we compare
our results with the computations carried out by Adams et al.[ABS04] and Katz
and Sharpe[KS06]. We find immediate agreement with the latter and an
interesting puzzle in completely matching the chiral ring of the former.


title: Parametric internal waves in a compressible fluid

abstract:
  We describe the effect of vibration on a confined volume of fluid which is
density stratified due to its compressibility. We show that internal
gravity-acoustic waves can be parametrically destabilized by the vibration. The
resulting instability is similar to the classic Faraday instability of surface
waves, albeit modified by the compressible nature of the fluid. It may be
possible to observe experimentally near a gas-liquid critical point.


title: Patchy sticky hard spheres: analytical study and Monte Carlo simulations

abstract:
  We consider a fluid of hard spheres bearing one or two uniform circular
adhesive patches, distributed so as not to overlap. Two spheres interact via a
``sticky'' Baxter potential if the line joining the centers of the two spheres
intersects a patch on each sphere, and via a hard sphere potential otherwise.
We analyze the location of the fluid-fluid transition and of the percolation
line as a function of the size of the patch (the fractional coverage of the
sphere's surface) and of the number of patches within a virial expansion up to
third order and within the first two terms (C0 and C1) of a class of closures
Cn hinging on a density expansion of the direct correlation function. We find
that the locations of the two lines depend sensitively on both the total
adhesive coverage and its distribution. The treatment is almost fully
analytical within the chosen approximate theory. We test our findings by means
of specialized Monte Carlo (MC) simulations and find the main qualitative
features of the critical behaviour to be well captured in spite of the low
density perturbative nature of the closure. The introduction of anisotropic
attractions into a model suspension of spherical particles is a first step
towards a more realistic description of globular proteins in solution.


title: Overhang

abstract:
  How far off the edge of the table can we reach by stacking $n$ identical,
homogeneous, frictionless blocks of length 1? A classical solution achieves an
overhang of $1/2 H_n$, where $H_n ~ \ln n$ is the $n$th harmonic number. This
solution is widely believed to be optimal. We show, however, that it is, in
fact, exponentially far from optimality by constructing simple $n$-block stacks
that achieve an overhang of $c n^{1/3}$, for some constant $c>0$.


title:
Success and failure of programming environments - report on the design
  and use of a graphic abstract syntax tree editor

abstract:
  The STAPLE project investigated (at the end of the eighties), a persistent
architecture for functional programming. Work has been done in two directions:
the development of a programming environment for a functional language within a
persistent system and an experiment on transferring the expertise of functional
prototyping into industry. This paper is a report on the first activity. The
first section gives a general description of Absynte - the abstract syntax tree
editor developed within the Project. Following sections make an attempt at
measuring the effectiveness of such an editor and discuss the problems raised
by structured syntax editing - specially environments based on abstract syntax
trees.


title:
Stretching of the toroidal field and generation of magnetosonic waves in
  differentially rotating plasma

abstract:
  We evaluate the generation of magnetosonic waves in differentially rotating
magnetized plasma. Differential rotation leads to an increase of the azimuthal
field by winding up the poloidal field lines into the toroidal field lines. An
amplification of weak seed perturbations is considered in this time-dependent
background state. It is shown that seed perturbations can be amplified by
several orders of magnitude in a differentially rotating flow. The only
necessary condition for this amplification is the presence of a non-vanishing
component of the magnetic field in the direction of the angular velocity
gradient.


title: RH Sneutrino Condensate CDM and the Baryon-to-Dark Matter Ratio

abstract:
  The similarity of the observed mass densities of baryons and cold dark matter
may be a sign they have a related origin. The baryon-to-dark matter ratio can
be understood in the MSSM with right-handed (RH) neutrinos if CDM is due to a d
= 4 flat direction condensate of very weakly coupled RH sneutrino LSPs and the
baryon asymmetry is generated by Affleck-Dine leptogenesis along a d = 4
(H_{u}L)^2 flat direction. Observable signatures of the model include CDM and
baryon isocurvature perturbations and distinctive long-lived NLSP
phenomenology.


title:
Response to Nauenberg's "Critique of Quantum Enigma: Physics Encounters
  Consciousness"

abstract:
  Nauenberg's extended critique of Quantum Enigma rests on fundamental
misunderstandings.


title:
Application of multifractal wavelet analysis to spontaneous fermentation
  processes

abstract:
  An algorithm is presented here to get more detailed information, of mixed
culture type, based exclusively on the biomass concentration data for
fermentation processes. The analysis is performed with only the on-line
measurements of the redox potential being available. It is a two-step procedure
which includes an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) that relates the redox
potential to the biomass concentrations in the first step. Next, a multifractal
wavelet analysis is performed using the biomass estimates of the process. In
this context, our results show that the redox potential is a valuable indicator
of microorganism metabolic activity during the spontaneous fermentation. In
this paper, the detailed design of the multifractal wavelet analysis is
presented, as well as its direct experimental application at the laboratory
level


title: Global duality, signature calculus and the discrete logarithm problem

abstract:
  We study the discrete logarithm problem for the multiplicative group and for
elliptic curves over a finite field by using a lifting of the corresponding
object to an algebraic number field and global duality. We introduce the
\textit{signature} of a Dirichlet character (in the multiplicative group case)
or principal homogeneous space (in the elliptic curve case), which is a measure
of the ramification at certain places. We then develop \textit{signature
calculus}, which generalizes and refines the index calculus method. Finally, we
show the random polynomial time equivalence for these two cases between the
problem of computing signatures and the discrete logarithm problem.


title:
A systematic approach to the solution of the constraints of quantum
  gravity: The full theory

abstract:
  This is the third paper in a series outlining an algorithm to construct
finite states of quantum gravity in Ashtekar variables. In this paper we treat
the case of the Klein--Gordon field quantized with gravity on the same footing.
We address the full theory, outlining the solution to the constraints and the
construction of the corresponding wavefunction of the universe. The basic
method for the full theory is to expand the constraints relative to the
solution for the pure Kodama state and rewrite them in the form of a
generalized nonlinear group transformation of the CDJ matrix, viewed as a
nine-dimensional vector. We then outline a prescription for finding the fixed
point of the flow, and the corresponding generalized Kodama state for the full
theory is constructed. The final solution is expressed in an asymptotic series
in powers of model-specific matter inputs, suppressed by a small dimensionless
constant, relative to the pure Kodama state. We discuss this expansion from
different perspectives. Lastly, we explicitly show how the solution to the
quantized constraints establishes a wavefunction of the universe with a
predetermined semiclassical limit built in as a boundary condition on quantized
gravity in the full theory.


title:
Detection of nuclear magnetic resonance with an anisotropic
  magnetoresistive sensor

abstract:
  We report detection of nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) using an anisotropic
magnetoresistive (AMR) sensor. A ``remote-detection'' arrangement was used, in
which protons in flowing water were pre-polarized in the field of a
superconducting NMR magnet, adiabatically inverted, and subsequently detected
with an AMR sensor situated downstream from the magnet and the adiabatic
inverter. AMR sensing is well suited for NMR detection in microfluidic
``lab-on-a-chip'' applications.


title: New Worlds on the Horizon: Earth-Sized Planets Close to Other Stars

abstract:
  The search for habitable planets like Earth around other stars fulfils an
ancient imperative to understand our origins and place in the cosmos. The past
decade has seen the discovery of hundreds of planets, but nearly all are gas
giants like Jupiter and Saturn. Recent advances in instrumentation and new
missions are extending searches to planets the size of the Earth, but closer to
their host stars. There are several possible ways such planets could form, and
future observations will soon test those theories. Many of these planets we
discover may be quite unlike Earth in their surface temperature and
composition, but their study will nonetheless inform us about the process of
planet formation and the frequency of Earth-like planets around other stars.


title:
Rubidium and lead abundances in giant stars of the globular clusters M4
  and M5

abstract:
  We present measurements of the neutron-capture elements Rb and Pb for bright
giants in the globular clusters M4 and M5. The clusters are of similar
metallicity ([Fe/H] = -1.2) but M4 is decidedly s-process enriched relative to
M5: [Ba/Fe] = +0.6 for M4 but 0.0 for M5. The Rb and Pb abundances were derived
by comparing synthetic spectra with high-resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio
spectra obtained with MIKE on the Magellan telescope. Abundances of Y, Zr, La,
and Eu were also obtained. In M4, the mean abundances from 12 giants are
[Rb/Fe] = 0.39 +/- 0.02 (sigma = 0.07), [Rb/Zr] = 0.17 +/- 0.03 (sigma = 0.08),
and [Pb/Fe] = 0.30 +/- 0.02 (sigma = 0.07). In M5, the mean abundances from two
giants are [Rb/Fe] = 0.00 +/- 0.05 (sigma = 0.06), [Rb/Zr] = 0.08 +/- 0.08
(sigma = 0.11), and [Pb/Fe] = -0.35 +/- 0.02 (sigma = 0.04). Within the
measurement uncertainties, the abundance ratios [Rb/Fe], [Pb/Fe] and [Rb/X] for
X = Y, Zr, La are constant from star-to-star in each cluster and none of these
ratios are correlated with O or Na abundances. While M4 has a higher Rb
abundance than M5, the ratios [Rb/X] are similar in both clusters indicating
that the nature of the s-products are very similar for each cluster but the gas
from which M4's stars formed had a higher concentration of these products.


title: Dynamical Mutation of Dark Energy

abstract:
  We discuss the intriguing possibility that dark energy may change its
equation of state in situations where large dark energy fluctuations are
present. We show indications of this dynamical mutation in some generic models
of dark energy.


title: Graphene-on-Sapphire and Graphene-on-Glass: Raman Spectroscopy Study

abstract:
  The room-temperature Raman signatures from graphene layers on sapphire and
glass substrates were compared with those from graphene on GaAs substrate and
on the standard Si/SiO2 substrate, which served as a reference. It was found
that while G peak of graphene on Si/SiO2 and GaAs is positioned at 1580 cm-1 it
is down-shifted by ~5 cm-1 for graphene-on-sapphire (GOS) and, in many cases,
splits into doublets for graphene-on-glass (GOG) with the central frequency
around 1580 cm-1. The obtained results are important for graphene
characterization and its proposed graphene applications in electronic devices.


title:
Using a complete spectroscopic survey to find red quasars and test the
  KX method

abstract:
  We present an investigation of quasar colour-redshift parameter space in
order to search for radio-quiet red quasars and to test the ability of a
variant of the KX quasar selection method to detect quasars over a full range
of colour without bias. This is achieved by combining IRIS2 imaging with the
complete Fornax Cluster Spectroscopic Survey to probe parameter space
unavailable to other surveys. We construct a new sample of 69 quasars with
measured bJ - K colours. We show that the colour distribution of these quasars
is significantly different from that of the Large Bright Quasar Survey's
quasars at a 99.9% confidence level. We find 11 of our sample of 69 quasars
have signifcantly red colours (bJ - K >= 3.5) and from this, we estimate the
red quasar fraction of the K <= 18.4 quasar population to be 31%, and robustly
constrain it to be at least 22%. We show that the KX method variant used here
is more effective than the UVX selection method, and has less colour bias than
optical colour-colour selection methods.


title:
Probing Non-Gaussianity In The Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropies:
  One Point Distribution Function

abstract:
  We analyze WMAP 3 year data using the one-point distribution functions to
probe the non-Gaussianity in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) Anisotropy
data. Computer simulations are performed to determine the uncertainties of the
results. We report the non-Gaussianity parameter f_NL is constrained to
26<f_NL<82 for Q-band, 12<f_NL<67 for V-band, 7<f_NL<64 for W-band and
23<f_NL<75 for Q+V+W combined data at 95% confidence level (CL).


title:
Vista, results of a model-independent search for new physics in 927
  pb^-1 at CDF

abstract:
  A global, model-independent search for high-pT exotic phenomena is presented
using 927 pb^-1 of CDF II data. The search algorithms employed in this analysis
are Vista and Sleuth. These proceedings focus on Vista, including a description
of the method and a summary of results.


title: A Silicon-Tungsten ECal with Integrated Electronics

abstract:
  We summarize recent R&D progress for a silicon-tungsten electromagnetic
calorimeter (ECal) with integrated electronics, designed to meet the ILC
physics requirements.


title: Star cluster life-times: dependence on mass, radius and environment

abstract:
  The dissolution time (t_dis) of clusters in a tidal field does not scale with
the ``classical'' expression for the relaxation time. First, the scaling with
N, and hence cluster mass, is shallower due to the finite escape time of stars.
Secondly, the cluster half-mass radius is of little importance. This is due to
a balance between the relative tidal field strength and internal relaxation,
which have an opposite effect on t_dis, but of similar magnitude. When external
perturbations, such as encounters with giant molecular clouds (GMC) are
important, t_dis for an individual cluster depends strongly on radius. The mean
dissolution time for a population of clusters, however, scales in the same way
with mass as for the tidal field, due to the weak dependence of radius on mass.
The environmental parameters that determine t_dis are the tidal field strength
and the density of molecular gas. We compare the empirically derived t_dis of
clusters in six galaxies to theoretical predictions and argue that encounters
with GMCs are the dominant destruction mechanism. Finally, we discuss a number
of pitfalls in the derivations of t_dis from observations, such as
incompleteness, with the cluster system of the SMC as particular example.


title: Surgery, Yamabe invariant, and Seiberg-Witten theory

abstract:
  By using the gluing formula of the Seiberg-Witten invariant, we compute the
Yamabe invariant Y(X) of 4-manifolds X obtained by performing surgeries along
points, circles or tori on compact Kaehler surfaces. For instance, if M is a
compact Kaehler surface of nonnegative Kodaira dimension, and N is a smooth
closed oriented 4-manifold with b_2^+(N)=0 and Y(N)>= 0, then we show that Y(M
# N)=Y(M).


title:
Characteristic foliation on the discriminantal hypersurface of a
  holomorphic Lagrangian fibration

abstract:
  We give a Kodaira-type classification of general singular fibers of a
holomorphic Lagrangian fibration in Fujiki's class $\mathcal C$. Our approach
is based on the study of the characteristic vector field of the discriminantal
hypersurface, which naturally arises from the defining equation of the
hypersurface via the symplectic form. As an application, we show that the
characteristic foliation of the discriminantal hypersurface has algebraic
leaves which are either rational curves or smooth elliptic curves.


title: Conversion Efficiencies of Heteronuclear Feshbach Molecules

abstract:
  We study the conversion efficiency of heteronuclear Feshbach molecules in
population imbalanced atomic gases formed by ramping the magnetic field
adiabatically. We extend the recent work [J. E. Williams et al., New J. Phys.,
8, 150 (2006)] on the theory of Feshbach molecule formations to various
combinations of quantum statistics of each atomic component. A simple
calculation for a harmonically trapped ideal gas is in good agreement with the
recent experiment [S. B. Papp and C. E. Wieman, Phys. Rev. Lett., 97, 180404
(2006)] without any fitting parameters. We also give the conversion efficiency
as an explicit function of initial peak phase space density of the majority
species for population imbalanced gases. In the low-density region where
Bose-Einstein condensation does not appear, the conversion efficiency is a
monotonic function of the initial peak phase space density, but independent of
statistics of a minority component. The quantum statistics of majority atoms
has a significant effect on the conversion efficiency. In addition,
Bose-Einstein condensation of an atomic component is the key element
determining the maximum conversion efficiency.


title:
Sleuth at CDF, a quasi-model-independent search for new electroweak
  scale physics

abstract:
  These proceedings describe Sleuth, a quasi-model-independent search strategy
targeting new electroweak scale physics, and its application to 927 pb^-1 of
CDF II data. Exclusive final states are analyzed for an excess of data beyond
the Standard Model prediction at large summed scalar transverse momentum. This
analysis of high-pT data represents one of the most encompassing searches so
far conducted for new physics at the energy frontier.


title: Connected sums with HP^n or CaP^2 and the Yamabe invariant

abstract:
  Let $M$ be a smooth closed $4k$-manifold whose Yamabe invariant $Y(M)$ is
nonpositive. We show that $$Y(M\sharp l \Bbb HP^k\sharp m \bar{\Bbb
HP^k})=Y(M),$$ where $l,m$ are nonnegative integers, and $\Bbb HP^k$ is the
quaternionic projective space. When $k=4$, we also have $$Y(M\sharp l
CaP^2\sharp m \bar{CaP^2})=Y(M),$$ where $CaP^2$ is the Cayley plane.


title: Aspects of QCD Vacuum Structure

abstract:
  The impact of dynamical fermions on the vacuum structure of QCD is explored.
Of particular interest is the topological charge correlator, $<q(x) q(0) >$,
where negative values at small $x$ reveal a sign-alternating layered structure
to the topological-charge density of the QCD vacuum. We consider large $28^3
\times 96$ lattices from the MILC collaboration, and develop a new gluonic
definition of the topological charge density, founded on a new over-improved
stout-link smearing algorithm. The algorithm reproduces established results
from the overlap formalism and is designed to preserve instantons. We examine
the extent to which instanton-like objects are found on the lattice. Finally,
we investigate the effects of dynamical sea-quark degrees of freedom on
topology and find that the magnitudes of the negative dip in the $<q(x)q(0)>$
correlator and the positive $<q(0)^2>$ contact term are both increased with the
introduction of dynamical fermion degrees of freedom. This is in accord with
expectations based on charge renormalization and the vanishing of the
topological susceptibility in the chiral limit.


title:
Magnetism and effect of anisotropy with one dimensional monatomic chain
  of cobalt by a Monte Carlo simulation

abstract:
  The magnetic properties of the one dimensional (1D) monatomic chain of Co
reported in a previous experimental work are investigated by a classical Monte
Carlo simulation based on the anisotropic Heisenberg model. In our simulation,
the effect of the on-site uniaxial anisotropy, Ku, on each individual Co atom
and the nearest neighbour exchange interaction, J, are accounted for. The
normalized coercivity HC(T)/HC(TCL) is found to show a universal behaviour,
HC(T)/HC(TCL) = h0(e^{TB/T}-e) in the temperature interval, TCL < T < TBCal,
arising from the thermal activation effect. In the above expression, h0 is a
constant, TBCal is the blocking temperature determined by the calculation, and
TCL is the temperature above which the classical Monte Carlo simulation gives a
good description on the investigated system. The present simulation has
reproduced the experimental features, including the temperature dependent
coercivity, HC(T), and the angular dependence of the remanent magnetization,
MR(phi,theta), upon the relative orientation (phi,theta) of the applied field
H. In addition, the calculation reveals that the ferromagnetic-like open
hysteresis loop is a result of a slow dynamical process at T < TBCal. The
dependence of the dynamical TBCal on the field sweeping rate R, the on-site
anisotropy constant Ku, and the number of atoms in the atomic chain, N, has
been investigated in detail.


title:
Flux Line Lattice Melting and the Formation of a Coherent Quasiparticle
  Bloch State in the Ultraclean URu$_2$Si$_2$ Superconductor

abstract:
  We find that in ultraclean heavy-fermion superconductor URu$_2$Si$_2$
($T_{c0}=1.45$ K) a distinct flux line lattice melting transition with
outstanding characters occurs well below the mean-field upper critical fields.
We show that a very small number of carriers with heavy mass in this system
results in exceptionally large thermal fluctuations even at subkelvin
temperatures, which are witnessed by a sizable region of the flux line liquid
phase. The uniqueness is further highlighted by an enhancement of the
quasiparticle mean free path below the melting transition, implying a possible
formation of a quasiparticle Bloch state in the periodic flux line lattice.


title: Direct Amplification of Sound By Light

abstract:
  A new device, the opto-acoustic parametric amplifier (OAPA), is introduced,
which is analogous to an optical parametric amplifier (OPA). The radiation
pressure reaction of light on the reflective surface of an acoustic resonator
provides nonlinearity similar to the Kerr effect in the OPA. The OAPA can be
tuned to operate in two regimes. In the positive gain regime, an acoustic
signal is directly amplified. In the negative gain regime, we show that the
acoustic resonator can be cooled to the quantum ground state.


title:
Long-time limit for a class of quadratic infinite-dimensional dynamical
  systems inspired by models of viscoelastic fluids

abstract:
  We study a class of quadratic, infinite-dimensional dynamical systems,
inspired by models for viscoelastic fluids. We prove that these equations
define a semi-flow on the cone of positive, essentially bounded functions. As
time tends to infinity, the solutions tend to an equilibrium manifold in the
$L^2$-norm. Convergence to a particular function on the equilibrium manifold is
only proved under additional assumptions. We discuss several possible
generalizations.


title:
Effect of initial condition of inflation on power and angular power
  spectra in finite slow-roll inflation

abstract:
  The effect of the initial condition of inflation on the power spectra of
scalar and tensor perturbations is estimated assuming a slow-roll inflation
model. By defining a more general initial state in inflation particular
properties of the power spectrum such as oscillation can be revealed. The
behavior of the power spectrum is shown to exhibit a step-like variation with
respect to finite inflation length in cases of both radiation- and scalar
matter-dominated pre-inflation. The power spectrum is shown to oscillate in the
radiation-dominated case. The effects of such a power spectrum on the TT and TE
power spectra are examined for three typical slow-roll inflation models; a
small-field model, a large field model, and a hybrid model, considering both
pre-inflation models. It is found that the discrepancies between WMAP3 data and
the Lambda CDM model, such as suppression of the spectrum at l=2, may be
explained to a certain extent by the finite length of inflation for inflation
of close to 60 e-folds. The small-field inflation model with scalar
matter-dominated pre-inflation provides the best fit to the WMAP3 data among
the models considered. Relatively large changes in the angular TT power
spectrum occur in response to small changes in inflation length in the
radiation-dominated pre-inflation models, and half cases do not fit well with
the observed data. This behavior is considered to be attributable to the
oscillatory behavior of the power spectrum. The scalar matter-dominated case is
thus preferred to the radiation-dominated case of pre-inflation, independent of
the length of inflation.


title: Local Convexity Properties of j-metric Balls

abstract:
  This paper deals with local convexity properties of the j-metric. We consider
convexity and starlikeness of the j-metric balls in convex, starlike and
general subdomains of R^n.


title:
Characterizing arbitrarily slow convergence in the method of alternating
  projections

abstract:
  In 1997, Bauschke, Borwein, and Lewis have stated a trichotomy theorem that
characterizes when the convergence of the method of alternating projections can
be arbitrarily slow. However, there are two errors in their proof of this
theorem. In this note, we show that although one of the errors is critical, the
theorem itself is correct. We give a different proof that uses the
multiplicative form of the spectral theorem, and the theorem holds in any real
or complex Hilbert space, not just in a real Hilbert space.


title:
On Chern-Moser normal forms of strongly pseudoconvex hypersurfaces with
  high-dimensional stability group

abstract:
  We explicitly describe germs of strongly pseudoconvex non-spherical
real-analytic hypersurfaces $M$ at the origin in $\CC^{n+1}$ for which the
group of local CR-automorphisms preserving the origin has dimension $d_0(M)$
equal to either $n^2-2n+1$ with $n\ge 2$, or $n^2-2n$ with $n\ge 3$. The
description is given in terms of equations defining hypersurfaces near the
origin, written in the Chern-Moser normal form. These results are motivated by
the classification of locally homogeneous Levi non-degenerate hypersurfaces in
$\CC^3$ with $d_0(M)=1,2$ due to A. Loboda, and complement earlier joint work
by V. Ezhov and the author for the case $d_0(M)\ge n^2-2n+2$.


title: Entanglement of formation from optimal decomposition

abstract:
  We present a new method of analytically deriving the entanglement of
formation of the bipartite mixed state. The method realizes the optimal
decomposition families of states. Our method can lead to many new results
concerning entanglement of formation, its additivity and entanglement cost. We
illustrate it by investigating the two-qubit state, the separable state, the
maximally correlated state, the isotropic state and the Werner state.


title: Pion form factor from all-to-all propagators of overlap quarks

abstract:
  We report on our calculation of the pion electromagnetic form factor with
two-flavors of dynamical overlap quarks. Gauge configurations are generated
using the Iwasaki gauge action on a 16^3 \times 32 lattice at the lattice
spacing of 0.12fm with sea quark masses down to m_s/6, where m_s is the
physical strange quark mass. We describe our setup to measure the form factor
through all-to-all quark propagators and present preliminary results.


title:
First-principles prediction of coexistence of magnetism and
  ferroelectricity in rhombohedral Bi2FeTiO6

abstract:
  First principles calculations based on the density functional theory within
the local spin density approximation plus U(LSDA+U)scheme, show rhombohedral
Bi$_2$FeTiO$_6$ is a potential multiferroic in which the magnetism and
ferroelectricity coexist . A ferromagnetic configuration with magnetic moment
of 4 $\mu_B$ per formula unit have been reported with respect to the minimum
total energy. Spontaneous polarization of 27.3 $\mu$ C/cm$^2$, caused mainly by
the ferroelectric distortions of Ti, was evaluated using the berry phase
approach in the modern theory of polarization. The Bi-6s stereochemical
activity of long-pair and the `d$^0$-ness' criterion in off-centring of Ti were
coexisting in the predicted new system. In view of the oxidation state of
Bi$^{3+}$,Fe$^{2+}$,Ti$^{4+}$, and O$^{2-}$ from the orbital-resolved density
of states of the Bi-6p, Fe-3d,Ti-3d, and O-2p states,the valence state of
Bi$_2$FeTiO$_6$ in the rhombohedral phase was found to be
Bi$_2$$^{3+}$Fe$^{2+}$Ti$^{4+}$O$_6$.


title:
Characterization of the Microstructure of Zirconolite-Based
  Glass-Ceramics

abstract:
  December 1991 legislation in France has spurred research on enhanced
separation and conditioning or transmutation of long-lived radionuclides from
high level radioactive wastes (HLW). In this field, we have studied
zirconolite-based glass-ceramics in which the crystalline phase (zirconolite:
CaZrTi2O7) aimed to preferentially incorporate minor actinides is embedded in a
glassy calcium aluminosilicate matrix. At the laboratory scale, the
crystallization of the parent glass is carried out thanks to a two-step thermal
treatment: a nucleation stage followed by a growth stage. This paper presents
the evolution of the crystallization, followed by scanning electron microscopy
(SEM) and X-ray diffraction (XRD), with the temperature of the crystal growth
thermal treatment, in the range 950 degrees - 1350 degrees C.


abstract:
  In view of Kobayashi's hyperbolicity conjecture, Demailly-Semple jets of
orders 4 and 5 in dimension 2 are studied, some expectations about their
algebraic tameness being (dis)proved, after systematic, substantial, formal,
manual calculations.


title: Recent Progress in Effective Field Theory in the One-Nucleon Sector

abstract:
  Chiral perturbation theory (ChPT) is the effective field theory of the strong
interactions at low energies. We will address the issue of a consistent power
counting scheme in a manifestly Lorentz-invariant formulation of baryon ChPT.
As applications we show how the inclusion of vector and axial-vector mesons in
the calculation of the nucleon electromagnetic and axial form factors,
respectively, lead to an improved description of the empirical data. Finally,
we will outline a systematic implementation of the Delta(1232) resonance into
the effective field theory program.


title: Stability of Palatini-f(R) cosmology

abstract:
  The evolution of linear cosmological perturbations in modified theories of
gravity is investigated assuming the Palatini formalism. It has been discussed
about the stability problem in this model based on the equivalence between f(R)
gravity and the scalar tensor theory. However, we study this problem in the
physical frame where the matter is minimally coupled. In general, the stability
of the superhorizon metric evolution depends on models. We show that the
deviation from the superhorizon metric evolution is null for a specific choice
for the nonlinear Einstein-Hilbert action, $f(\hat{R}) \sim \hat{R}^{n}$, where
$n \neq 0,2,3$. Thus the stability of metric fluctuation is guaranteed in these
models. We also study the matter density fluctuation in the general gauge and
show the differential equations in super and sub-horizon scales.


title: A peculiar two point boundary value problem

abstract:
  In this paper we consider a one-dimensional diffusion equation on the
interval $[0,1]$ satisfying non-Feller boundary conditions. As a consequence,
the initial value Cauchy problem fails to preserve nonnegativity or
boundedness. Nonetheless, probability theory plays an interesting role in our
analysis and understanding of solutions to this equation.


title: Initial-Final Mass Relationship for Stars of Different Metallicities

abstract:
  Following Paczy\'{n}ski & Zi\'{o}lkowski (1968) and Han et al. (1994), we
assume that the envelope of an asymptotic giant branch (AGB) or a first giant
branch (FGB) star is lost when the binding energy of the envelope is equal to
zero ($\Delta W=0$) and the core mass of the AGB star or the FGB star at the
point ($\Delta W=0$) is taken as the final mass. Using this assumption, we
calculate the IFMRs for stars of different metallicities.We find that the IFMRs
depends strongly on the metallicity, i.e. $Z=0.0001, 0.0003, 0.001, 0.004,
0.01, 0.02, 0.03, 0.04, 0.05, 0.06, 0.08$ and 0.1. From $Z=0.04$, the final
mass of the stars with a given initial mass increases with increasing or
decreasing metallicity. The difference of the final mass due to the metallicity
may be up to 0.4 $M_{\odot}$. A linear fit of the initial-final mass
relationship in NGC 2099 (M37) shows a potential evidence of the effect of
metallicity on the IFMR. The IFMR for stars of $Z=0.02$ obtained in the paper
matches well with those inferred observationally in the Galaxy. For $Z\geq
0.02$, helium WDs are obtained from the stars of $M_{\rm i}\leq 1.0 M_{\odot}$
and this result is upheld by the discovery of numerous low-mass WDs in NGC 6791
which is a metal-rich old open cluster. Using the IFMR for stars of $Z=0.02$
obtained in the paper, we have reproduced the mass distribution of DA WDs in
Sloan DR4 except for some ultra-massive white dwarfs. The trend that the mean
mass of WDs decreases with effective temperature may originate from the
increase of the initial metallicities of stars. We predict that metal-rich
low-mass stars may become under-massive white dwarfs.


title: Differential Rotation in F Stars

abstract:
  Differential rotation can be detected in single line profiles of stars
rotating more rapidly than about $v \sin{i} = 10$ km s$^{-1}$ with the Fourier
transform technique. This allows to search for differential rotation in large
samples to look for correlations between differential rotation and other
stellar parameters. I analyze the fraction of differentially rotating stars as
a function of color, rotation, and activity in a large sample of F-type stars.
Color and rotation exhibit a correlation with differential rotation in the
sense that more stars are rotating differentially in the cooler, less rapidly
rotating stars. Effects of rotation and color, however, cannot be disentangled
in the underlying sample. No trend with activity is found.


title:
Signatures of inflow motion in cores of massive star formation:
  Potential collapse candidates

abstract:
  Using the IRAM 30 m telescope, a mapping survey in optically thick and thin
lines was performed towards 46 high mass star-forming regions. The sample
includes UC H{\sc ii} precursors and UC H{\sc ii} regions. Seventeen sources
are found to show "blue profiles", the expected signature of collapsing cores.
The excess of sources with blue over red profiles ([$N_{\rm blue}$ -- $N_{\rm
red}$]/$N_{\rm total}$) is 29% in the HCO$^+$ $J$=1--0 line, with a probability
of 0.6% that this is caused by random fluctuations. UC H{\sc ii} regions show a
higher excess (58%) than UC H{\sc ii} precursors (17%), indicating that
material is still accreted after the onset of the UC H{\sc ii} phase. Similar
differences in the excess of blue profiles as a function of evolutionary state
are not observed in low mass star-forming regions. Thus, if confirmed for high
mass star-forming sites, this would point at a fundamental difference between
low- and high-mass star formation. Possible explanations are inadequate
thermalization, stronger influence of outflows in massive early cores, larger
gas reserves around massive stellar objects or different trigger mechanisms
between low- and high- mass star formation.


title:
On invisible plasma content in radio-loud AGNs: The case of TeV blazar
  Markarian 421

abstract:
  Invisible plasma content in blazar jets such as protons and/or thermal
electron-positron ($e^{\pm}$) pairs is explored through combined arguments of
dynamical and radiative processes. By comparing physical quantities required by
the internal shock model with those obtained through the observed broadband
spectra for Mrk 421, we obtain that the ratio of the Lorentz factors of a pair
of cold shells resides in about $2\sim 20$, which implies that the shocks are
at most mildly relativistic. Using the obtained Lorentz factors, the total mass
density $\rho$ in the shocked shells is investigated. The upper limit of $\rho$
is obtained from the condition that thermal bremsstrahlung emission should not
exceed the observed $\gamma$-ray luminosity, whilst the lower limit is
constrained from the condition that the energy density of non-thermal electrons
is smaller than that of the total plasma. Then we find $\rho$ is $10^2$-$10^3$
times heavier than that of non-thermal electrons for pure $e^{\pm}$ pairs,
while $10^2$-$10^6$ times heavier for pure electron-proton ($e/p$) content,
implying the existence of a large amount of invisible plasma. The origin of the
continuous blazar sequence is shortly discussed and we speculate that the total
mass density and/or the blending ratio of $e^{\pm}$ pairs and $e/p$ plasma
could be new key quantities for the origin of the sequence.


title:
Tracing non-equilibrium plasma dynamics on the attosecond timescale in
  small clusters

abstract:
  It is shown that the energy absorption of a rare-gas cluster from a
vacuum-ultraviolet (VUV) pulse can be traced with time-delayed
extreme-ultraviolet (XUV) attosecond probe pulses by measuring the kinetic
energy of the electrons detached by the probe pulse. By means of this scheme we
demonstrate, that for pump pulses as short as one femtosecond, the charging of
the cluster proceeds during the formation of an electronic nano-plasma inside
the cluster. Using moderate harmonics for the VUV and high harmonics for the
XUV pulse from the same near-infrared laser source, this scheme with well
defined time delays between pump and probe pulses should be experimentally
realizable. Going to even shorter pulse durations we predict that pump and
probe pulses of about 250 attoseconds can induce and monitor non-equilibrium
dynamics of the nano-plasma.


title:
Intraday pattern in bid-ask spreads and its power-law relaxation for
  Chinese A-share stocks

abstract:
  We use high-frequency data of 1364 Chinese A-share stocks traded on the
Shanghai Stock Exchange and Shenzhen Stock Exchange to investigate the intraday
patterns in the bid-ask spreads. The daily periodicity in the spread time
series is confirmed by Lomb analysis and the intraday bid-ask spreads are found
to exhibit $L$-shaped pattern with idiosyncratic fine structure. The intraday
spread of individual stocks relaxes as a power law within the first hour of the
continuous double auction from 9:30AM to 10:30AM with exponents
$\beta_{\rm{SHSE}}=0.19\pm0.069$ for the Shanghai market and
$\beta_{\rm{SZSE}}=0.18\pm0.067$ for the Shenzhen market. The power-law
relaxation exponent $\beta$ of individual stocks is roughly normally
distributed. There is evidence showing that the accumulation of information
widening the spread is an endogenous process.


title:
Double quantum dot as a probe of nonequilibrium charge fluctuations at
  the quantum point contact

abstract:
  Absorption of energy quanta generated by quantum point contact results in the
inelastic current through the double quantum dot placed nearby. In contrast to
a single quantum dot, the inelastic current through the double quantum dot is
sensitive to the energy dependence of the quantum point contact transmission,
which can explain the experimentally observed features. We calculate the
inelastic current as a function of microscopic parameters of the circuit.


title: Probing the Origin of the Large-angle CMB Anomalies

abstract:
  It has been argued that the large-angle cosmic microwave background
anisotropy has anomalies at 3-sigma level. We review various proposed ideas to
explain the origin of the anomalies and discuss how we can constrain the
proposed models using future observational data.


title:
Large deviations and adiabatic transitions for dynamical systems and
  Markov processes in fully coupled averaging

abstract:
  The work treats systems combining slow and fast motions depending on each
other where fast motions are perturbations of families of either dynamical
systems or Markov processes with freezed slow variable. In the first case we
consider hyperbolic dynamical systems and in the second case we deal with
random evolutions which are combinations of diffusions and continuous time
Markov chains. We study first large deviations of the slow motion from the
averaged one and then use these results together with some Markov property type
arguments in order to describe very long time behavior of the slow motion such
as its transitions between attractors of the averaged system.


title: Quasi-exactly solvable quasinormal modes

abstract:
  We consider quasinormal modes with complex energies from the point of view of
the theory of quasi-exactly solvable (QES) models. We demonstrate that it is
possible to find new potentials which admit exactly solvable or QES quasinormal
modes by suitable complexification of parameters defining the QES potentials.
Particularly, we obtain one QES and four exactly solvable potentials out of the
five one-dimensional QES systems based on the $sl(2)$ algebra.


title:
Physical implementation of topologically decoherence-protected
  superconducting qubits

abstract:
  We propose a scenario to physically implement a kind of topologically
decoherence-protected qubit using superconducting devices coupled to a
micro-wave cavity mode with unconventional geometric operations. It is shown
that the two needed interactions for selective devices, which are required for
implementing such protected qubits, as well as single-qubit gates, can be
achieved by using the external magnetic flux. The easy combination of
individual addressing with the many-device setup proposed in the system
presents a distinct merit in comparison with the implementation of
topologically protected qubits in a trapped-ion system.


title: Triplet Leptogenesis in Left-Right Symmetric Seesaw Models

abstract:
  We discuss scalar triplet leptogenesis in a specific left-right symmetric
seesaw model. We show that the Majorana phases that are present in the model
can be effectively used to saturate the existing upper limit on the
CP-asymmetry of the triplets. We solve the relevant Boltzmann equations and
analyze the viability of triplet leptogenesis. It is known for this kind of
scenario that the efficiency of leptogenesis is maximal if there exists a
hierarchy between the branching ratios of the triplet decays into leptons and
Higgs particles. We show that triplet leptogenesis typically favors branching
ratios with not too strong hierarchies, since maximal efficiency can only be
obtained at the expense of suppressed CP-asymmetries.


title:
Precise predictions for MSSM Higgs-boson production in bottom-quark
  fusion

abstract:
  The main production mechanism for supersymmetric Higgs particles at hadron
colliders crucially depends on the size of their Yukawa couplings to bottom
quarks. For sufficiently large tan(beta) the total cross section for some of
the neutral Higgs bosons in the MSSM is dominated by bottom-quark fusion. After
an introduction to bottom-associated Higgs production, we discuss the complete
O(alpha) electroweak and O(alpha_s) strong corrections for the bb-fusion
channel in the MSSM. Choosing proper renormalization and input-parameter
schemes, an improved Born approximation, constructed from previously known
results, can absorb the bulk of the corrections so that the remaining
non-universal corrections are typically of the order of a few per cent.
Numerical results are discussed for the SPS benchmark scenarios.


title: Modified Lattice Landau Gauge

abstract:
  We propose a modified lattice Landau gauge based on stereographically
projecting the link variables on the circle S^1 -> R for compact U(1) or the
3-sphere S^3 -> R^3 for SU(2) before imposing the Landau gauge condition. This
can reduce the number of Gribov copies exponentially and solves the Gribov
problem in compact U(1) where it is a lattice artifact. Applied to the maximal
Abelian subgroup this might be just enough to avoid the perfect cancellation
amongst the Gribov copies in a lattice BRST formulation for SU(N), and thus to
avoid the Neuberger 0/0 problem. The continuum limit of the Landau gauge
remains unchanged.


title: The Kontsevich weight of a wheel with spokes pointing outward

abstract:
  This is a companion note to ``Hochschild cohomology and Atiyah classes'' by
Damien Calaque and the author. Using elementary methods we compute the
Kontsevich weight of a wheel with spokes pointing outward. The result is in
terms of modified Bernouilli numbers. The same result had been obtained earlier
by Torossian (unpublished) and also recently by Thomas Willmacher using more
advanced methods.


title:
Nonet symmetry in \eta, \eta^{\prime} and B\to K\eta,K\eta^{\prime}
  decays

abstract:
  The nonet symmetry scheme seems to describe rather well the masses and
$\eta-\eta^{\prime}$ mixing angle of the ground state pseudo-scalar mesons. It
is expected that nonet symmetry should also be valid for the matrix elements of
the pseudo-scalar densitty operators which play an important role in charmless
two-body B decays with $\eta$ or $\eta^{\prime}$ in the final state. Starting
from the divergences of the SU(3) octet and singlet axial vector currents, we
show that nonet symmetry for the pseudo-scalar mass term implies nonet symmetry
for the pseudo-scalar density operators. In this nonet symmetry scheme, we find
that the branching ratio $B\to PP,PV$, with $\eta$ in the final state agrees
well with data, while those with $\eta'$ are underestimated, but by increasing
the $B\to \eta'$ form factor by $40-50%$, one could explain the tree-dominated
$B^{-}\to \pi^{-}\eta'$ and $B^{-}\to \rho^{-}\eta'$ measured branching ratios.
With this increased form factor and with only a moderate annihilation
contribution, we are able to obtain $62\times 10^{-6}$ for the
penguin-dominated $B^{-}\to K^{-}\eta'$ branching ratios, quite close to the
measured value. This supports the predicted value for the $B\to \eta'$ form
factor in PQCD and light-cone sum rules approach. A possible increase by 15% of
$<0|\bar{s} i\gamma_5 s|s\bar{s}>$ for $\eta_{0} $ would bring the predicted
$B^{-}\to K^{-}\eta'$ branching ratio to $69.375\times 10^{-6}$, very close to
experiment.


title:
Inverted Hybrid Inflation as a solution to gravitino problems in Gravity
  Mediation

abstract:
  It was recently found that the decay of inflaton and the SUSY breaking field
produces many gravitinos in the gravity mediation scenario. These discoveries
led to an exclusion of many inflation models such as chaotic, (smooth) hybrid,
topological and new inflation models. Under these circumstances we searched for
a successful inflation model and found that the ``inverted'' hybrid inflation
models can solve the gravitino overproduction problem by their distinctive
shape of the potential. Furthermore, we found that this inflation model
simultaneously can explain the observed baryon asymmetry through the
non-thermal leptogenesis and is consistent with the WMAP results, that is,
$n_s=0.951^{+0.015}_{-0.019}$ and the negligible tensor to scalar ratio.


title: Exchange Reactions with Dick Dalitz

abstract:
  An account is given of the close collaboration of Dick Dalitz with the
European K- Collaboration over many decades in many aspects of hypernuclear
physics. In particular, emphasis is given to the topics of double hypernuclei
and the discovery and resolution of p-wave Lambda strangeness exchange states.


title: Single Production of Doubly Charged Higgsinos at linear e-e- colliders

abstract:
  Several extended supersymmetric models, motivated by either grand
unification, or by neutrino mass generation, predict light doubly charged
higgsinos. We study the production of a single doubly charged higgsino and its
decay channels at the International Linear Collider (ILC) operating in the e-e-
mode. We analyze the production cross section for e-e- -->
tilde{Delta}^{--}_{L,R} chi^0_1 as a function of different kinematic variables,
followed by the decay, through several channels, of the doubly charged higgsino
into a final state of two leptons plus missing energy. We include the standard
model background and discuss how kinematic cuts could be used effectively to
limit this background. Single production of these exotics could provide a
spectacular signal for a new underlying symmetry and for physics beyond the
minimal supersymmetric standard model.


title:
Low Scale Leptogenesis and Dark Matter Candidates in an Extended Seesaw
  Model

abstract:
  We consider a variant of seesaw mechanism by introducing extra singlet
neutrinos and singlet scalar boson, and show how low scale leptogenesis is
successfully realized in this scenario. We examine if the newly introduced
neutral particles, either singlet Majorana neutrino or singlet scalar boson,
can be a candidate for dark matter. We also discuss the implications of the
dark matter detection through the scattering off the nucleus of the detecting
material on our scenarios for dark matter. In addition, we study the
implications for the search of invisible Higgs decay at LHC, which may serve as
a probe of our scenario for dark matter.


title:
Finite volume spectrum of N=1 superminimal models perturbed by
  $\Phi_{13}$

abstract:
  We describe an extension of the nonlinear integral equation (NLIE) tehnique
to N=1 superminimal models perturbed by $\Phi_{13}$. Along the way, we also
complete our previous studies of the finite volume spectrum of the N=1
supersymmetric sine-Gordon model by considering the attractive regime and more
specifically, breather states.


title: H.E.S.S. Galactic Plane Survey unveils a Milagro Hotspot

abstract:
  We report here on a new VHE source, HESS J1908+063, disovered during the
extended H.E.S.S. survey of the Galactic plane and which coincides with the
recently reported MILAGRO unidentied source MGRO J1908+06. The position,
extension and spectrum measurements of the HESS source are presented and
compared to those of MGRO J1908+06. Possible counterparts at other wavelenghts
are discussed. For the first time one of the low-lattitude MILAGRO sources is
confirmed.


title: The Variable Hierarchy for the Games mu-Calculus

abstract:
  Parity games are combinatorial representations of closed Boolean mu-terms. By
adding to them draw positions, they have been organized by Arnold and one of
the authors into a mu-calculus. As done by Berwanger et al. for the
propositional modal mu-calculus, it is possible to classify parity games into
levels of a hierarchy according to the number of fixed-point variables. We ask
whether this hierarchy collapses w.r.t. the standard interpretation of the
games mu-calculus into the class of all complete lattices. We answer this
question negatively by providing, for each n >= 1, a parity game Gn with these
properties: it unravels to a mu-term built up with n fixed-point variables, it
is semantically equivalent to no game with strictly less than n-2 fixed-point
variables.


title: Magnetoplasmons excitations in graphene for filling factors $\nu \leq 6$

abstract:
  In the frame of the Hartree-Fock approximation, the dispersion of
magnetoplasmons in Graphene is derived for all types of transitions for filling
factors $\nu\leq 6$. The optical conductivity components of the magnetoplasmon
curves are calculated. It is shown that the electron-electron interactions lead
to a strong re-normalization of the apparent Fermi velocity of Graphene which
is different for different types of transitions.


title:
Spontaneous emission spectrum of a two-level atom in a very high Q
  cavity

abstract:
  In this paper we consider an initially excited two-level system coupled to a
monomode cavity, and compute exact expressions for the spectra spontaneously
emitted by each system in the general case where they have arbitrary linewidths
and frequencies. Our method is based on the fact that this problem has an
easily solvable classical counterpart, which provides a clear interpretation of
the evidenced phenomena. We show that if the cavity linewidth is much lower
than the atomic linewidth, photons are emitted at the cavity frequency, even if
the atom and the cavity are strongly detuned. We also study the links between
the spontaneous emission spectra and the fluorescence spectra emitted when the
atom is driven by a classical field of tunable frequency.


title:
Soft-gluon resummation for Higgs differential distributions at the Large
  Hadron Collider

abstract:
  We study the transverse-momentum (q_T) and rapidity (y) distributions of the
Higgs boson in perturbative QCD, including the most advanced theoretical
information presently available: fixed-order perturbation theory at
Next-to-Leading Order (NLO) in the large-q_T region (q_T ~ M_H, being M_H the
Higgs mass), and soft-gluon resummation at the Next-to-Next-to-Leading
Logarithmic accuracy (NNLL) in the small-q_T region (q_T << M_H). We present
numerical results for the doubly-differential (q_T and y) cross section for the
production of a Standard Model Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC).


title:
Centrality dependence of some characteristics of relativistic nuclear
  interactions and percolation cluster formation

abstract:
  Some of the centrality experiments indicate regime change and saturation in
the behaviour of characteristics of the secondary particles produced in
relativistic nuclear interactions. We discuss that the responsible mechanism to
explain the phenomena could be the percolation cluster formation and we expect
appearance of deconfinement in the cluster.


title: The Nicolas and Robin inequalities with sums of two squares

abstract:
  In 1984, G. Robin proved that the Riemann hypothesis is true if and only if
the Robin inequality $\sigma(n)<e^\gamma n\log\log n$ holds for every integer
$n>5040$, where $\sigma(n)$ is the sum of divisors function, and $\gamma$ is
the Euler-Mascheroni constant. We exhibit a broad class of subsets $\cS$ of the
natural numbers such that the Robin inequality holds for all but finitely many
$n\in\cS$. As a special case, we determine the finitely many numbers of the
form $n=a^2+b^2$ that do not satisfy the Robin inequality. In fact, we prove
our assertions with the Nicolas inequality $n/\phi(n)<e^{\gamma}\log \log n$;
since $\sigma(n)/n<n/\phi(n)$ for $n>1$ our results for the Robin inequality
follow at once.


title: A variational principle for hardening elastoplasticity

abstract:
  We present a variational principle governing the quasistatic evolution of a
linearized elastoplastic material. In case of linear hardening, the novel
characterization allows to recover and partly extend some known results and
proves itself to be especially well-suited for discussing general approximation
and convergence issues. In particular, the variational principle is exploited
in order to prove in a novel setting the convergence of time and space-time
discretizations as well as to provide some possible a posteriori error control.


title: Low angular momentum accretion flow model of Sgr A* activity

abstract:
  Sgr A* is a source of strongly variable emission in several energy bands. It
is generally agreed that this emission comes from the material surrounding the
black hole which is either falling in or flowing out. The activity must be
driven by accretion but the character of accretion flow in this object is an
open question. We suggest that the inflow is dominated by the relatively low
angular momentum material originating in one of the nearby group of stars. Such
material flows in directly towards the black hole up to the distance of order
of ten Schwarzschild radii or less, where it hits the angular momentum barrier
which leads naturally to a flow variability. We study both the analytical and
the numerical solutions for the flow dynamics, and we analyze the radiation
spectra in both cases using the Monte Carlo code to simulate the synchrotron,
bremsstrahlung and the Compton scattering. Our model roughly reproduces the
broad band spectrum of Sgr A* and its variability if we allow for a small
fraction of energy to be converted to non-thermal population of electrons. It
is also consistent (for a range of viewing angles) with the strong constraints
on the amount of circumnuclear material imposed by the measurements of the
Faraday rotation.


title: Helac-Phegas: a generator for all parton level processes

abstract:
  The updated version of the Helac-Phegas event generator is presented. The
matrix elements are calculated through Dyson-Schwinger recursive equations.
Helac-Phegas generates parton-level events with all necessary information, in
the most recent Les Houches Accord format, for the study of any process within
the Standard Model in hadron and lepton colliders.


title: The anomaly in the cosmic-ray positron spectrum

abstract:
  A recent analysis of cosmic-ray data from a space borne experiment by the AMS
collaboration supports the observation of an excess in the cosmic-ray positron
spectrum by previous balloon experiments. The combination of the various
experimental data establishes a deviation from the expected background with a
significance of more than four standard deviations. The observed change in the
spectral index cannot be explained without introducing a new source of
positrons. When interpreted within the MSSM a consistent description of the
antiproton spectrum, the diffuse gamma-ray flux and the positron fraction is
obtained which is compatible with all other experimental data, including recent
WMAP data.


title: (g-2)_mu and supersymmetry: status and prospects

abstract:
  The experimental determination of the muon magnetic moment and its
theoretical prediction within the Standard Model and the MSSM are reviewed. A 3
sigma deviation between experiment and Standard Model prediction has been
established, and supersymmetry could provide a natural explation of this
deviation. Possible future improvements and the case for a new experiment are
discussed.


title: Tackling the SUSY flavour & CP problem - SUGRA versus SU(3)

abstract:
  We comment on the power of the 'standard' solutions to the SUSY flavour and
CP problem based on supergravity and its derivates like mSUGRA in comparison to
the flavour symmetry approach. It is argued that flavour symmetries, and SU(3)
in particular, can not only mimic the situation in supergravity frameworks in
this respect, but sometimes do even better providing at the same time a further
link between the soft and Yukawa sectors, that could be testable at future
experimental facilities.


title:
Control of recollision wave packets for molecular orbital tomography
  using short laser pulses

abstract:
  The tomographic imaging of arbitrary molecular orbitals via high-order
harmonic generation requires that electrons recollide from one direction only.
Within a semi-classical model, we show that extremely short phase-stabilized
laser pulses offer control over the momentum distribution of the returning
electrons. By adjusting the carrier-envelope phase, recollisions can be forced
to occur from mainly one side, while retaining a broad energy spectrum. The
signatures of the semi-classical distributions are observed in harmonic spectra
obtained by numerical solution of the time-dependent Schr\"{o}dinger equation.


title: Isospectral orbifolds with different maximal isotropy orders

abstract:
  We construct pairs of compact Riemannian orbifolds which are isospectral for
the Laplace operator on functions such that the maximal isotropy order of
singular points in one of the orbifolds is higher than in the other. In one
type of examples, isospectrality arises from a version of the famous Sunada
theorem which also implies isospectrality on $p$-forms; here the orbifolds are
quotients of certain compact normal homogeneous spaces. In another type of
examples, the orbifolds are quotients of Euclidean $\R^3$ and are shown to be
isospectral on functions using dimension formulas for the eigenspaces. In the
latter type of examples the orbifolds are not isospectral on 1-forms. Along the
way we also give several additional examples of isospectral orbifolds which do
not have maximal isotropy groups of different size but other interesting
properties.


title:
Astrophysical Condition on the attolensing as a possible probe for a
  modified gravity theory

abstract:
  We investigate the wave effect in the gravitational lensing by a black hole
with very tiny mass less than 10^-19 solar mass, which is called attolensing,
motivated by a recent report that the lensing signature might be a possible
probe of a modified gravity theory in the braneworld scenario. We focus on the
finite source size effect and the effect of the relative motion of the source
to the lens, which are influential to the wave effect in the attolensing.
Astrophysical condition that the lensed interference signature can be a probe
of the modified gravity theory is demonstrated. The interference signature in
the microlensing system is also discussed.


title:
Integrability of geodesic flows and isospectrality of Riemannian
  manifolds

abstract:
  We construct a pair of compact, eight-dimensional, two-step Riemannian
nilmanifolds $M$ and $M'$ which are isospectral for the Laplace operator on
functions and such that $M$ has completely integrable geodesic flow in the
sense of Liouville, while $M'$ has not. Moreover, for both manifolds we analyze
the structure of the submanifolds of the unit tangent bundle given by to
maximal continuous families of closed geodesics with generic velocity fields.
The structure of these submanifolds turns out to reflect the above
(non)integrability properties. On the other hand, their dimension is larger
than that of the Lagrangian tori in $M$, indicating a degeneracy which might
explain the fact that the wave invariants do not distinguish an integrable from
a nonintegrable system here. Finally, we show that for $M$, the invariant
eight-dimensional tori which are foliated by closed geodesics are dense in the
unit tangent bundle, and that both $M$ and $M'$ satisfy the so-called Clean
Intersection Hypothesis.


title: Primordial magnetic fields and nonlinear electrodynamics

abstract:
  The creation of large scale magnetic fields is studied in an inflationary
universe where electrodynamics is assumed to be nonlinear. After inflation ends
electrodynamics becomes linear and thus the description of reheating and the
subsequent radiation dominated stage are unaltered. The nonlinear regime of
electrodynamics is described by lagrangians having a power law dependence on
one of the invariants of the electromagnetic field. It is found that there is a
range of parameters for which primordial magnetic fields of cosmologically
interesting strengths can be created.


title: Optical afterglows of gamma-ray bursts: a bimodal distribution?"

abstract:
  The luminosities of the optical afterglows of Gamma Ray Bursts, 12 hours
(rest frame time) after the trigger, show a surprising clustering, with a
minority of events being at a significant smaller luminosity. If real, this
dichotomy would be a crucial clue to understand the nature of optically dark
afterglows, i.e. bursts that are detected in the X-ray band, but not in the
optical. We investigate this issue by studying bursts of the pre-Swift era,
both detected and undetected in the optical. The limiting magnitudes of the
undetected ones are used to construct the probability that a generic bursts is
observed down to a given magnitude limit. Then, by simulating a large number of
bursts with pre-assigned characteristics, we can compare the properties of the
observed optical luminosity distribution with the simulated one. Our results
suggest that the hints of bimodality present in the observed distribution
reflects a real bimodality: either the optical luminosity distributions of
bursts is intrinsically bimodal, or there exists a population of bursts with a
quite significant grey absorption, i.e. wavelength independent extinction. This
population of intrinsically weak or grey-absorbed events can be associated to
dark bursts.


title:
Discovery of 18 Jupiter mass RV companion orbiting the brown dwarf
  candidate ChaHa8

abstract:
  We report the discovery of a 16-20 Jupiter mass radial velocity companion
around the very young (3 Myr) brown dwarf candidate ChaHa8. Based on
high-resolution echelle spectra of ChaHa8 taken between 2000 and 2007 with UVES
at the VLT, a companion was detected through RV variability with a
semi-amplitude of 1.6 km/s. A Kepler fit to the data yields an orbital period
of the companion of 1590 days and an eccentricity of e=0.49. A companion
minimum mass M2sin i between 16 and 20 Jupiter masses is derived when using
model-dependent mass estimates for the primary. The mass ratio M2/M1 might be
as small as 0.2 and, with a probability of 87%, it is less than 0.4. ChaHa8
harbors most certainly the lowest mass companion detected so far in a close (~1
AU) orbit around a brown dwarf or very low-mass star. From the uncertainty in
the orbit solution, it cannot completely be ruled out that the companion has a
mass in the planetary regime. Its discovery is in any case an important step
towards RV planet detections around BDs. Further, ChaHa8 is the fourth known
spectroscopic brown dwarf or very low-mass binary system with an RV orbit
solution and the second known very young one.


title: Stability and leptogenesis in left-right symmetric seesaw models

abstract:
  In left-right symmetric seesaw models an eight-fold degeneracy among the
right-handed neutrino mass matrices is known to exist. We use stability and
viability of leptogenesis as criteria in order to discriminate among the
degenerate solutions and to partially lift the eight-fold degeneracy.


title:
Ab initio molecular and solid state studies of Fe$^{II}$ spin cross-over
  system [Fe(btz)$_2$(NCS)$_2$

abstract:
  Ab initio computations within the density functional theory are reported for
the spin cross-over complex, [Fe(btz)$_{2}$(NCS)$_{2}$], where 3d$^6$ Fe$^{II}$
is characterized by High Spin (HS t$_{2g}^4$, e$_g^2$) and Low Spin (LS
t$_{2g}^6$, e$_g^0$) states. Results of infra red and Raman spectra for the
isolated molecule are complemented for the crystalline solid with a full
account of the electronic band structure properties: the density of states
assessing the crystal field effects and the chemical bonding assigning a
specific role to the Fe-N interaction within the coordination sphere of
Fe$^{II}$.


title:
Study of the electron trigger efficiency of the CMS Experiment using
  test beam data

abstract:
  A study of the electron identification and selection efficiency of the L1
Trigger algorithm has been performed using the combined ECAL/HCAL test beam
data. A detailed discussion of the electron isolation and its impact on the
selection efficiency is presented. The L1 electron algorithm is studied for
different beam energies and the results indicate that efficiencies of 98% or
more can be achieved for electrons with energies between 15 and 100 GeV. The
fraction of charged hadrons with energies from 3 up to 100 GeV rejected by the
L1 electron trigger algorithm is estimated to be larger than 93%.


title:
Pion and $\rho$-meson form factors using four-point functions in N$_F$=2
  QCD

abstract:
  Hadron wave functions and form factors can be extracted using four-point
correlators. Stochastic techniques are used to estimate the all to all
propagators, which are required for the exact calculation of four-point
functions. We apply the so called one-end trick to evaluate meson four-point
functions. We demonstrate the effectiveness of the technique in the case of the
pion and the $\rho$-meson where we extract their charge distribution, as well
as the form factors.


title: QCD on the Cell Broadband Engine

abstract:
  We evaluate IBM's Enhanced Cell Broadband Engine (BE) as a possible building
block of a new generation of lattice QCD machines. The Enhanced Cell BE will
provide full support of double-precision floating-point arithmetics, including
IEEE-compliant rounding. We have developed a performance model and applied it
to relevant lattice QCD kernels. The performance estimates are supported by
micro- and application-benchmarks that have been obtained on currently
available Cell BE-based computers, such as IBM QS20 blades and PlayStation 3.
The results are encouraging and show that this processor is an interesting
option for lattice QCD applications. For a massively parallel machine on the
basis of the Cell BE, an application-optimized network needs to be developed.


title: Observe matter falling into a black hole

abstract:
  It has been well known that in the point of view of a distant observer, all
in-falling matter to a black hole (BH) will be eventually stalled and "frozen"
just outside the event horizon of the BH, although an in-falling observer will
see the matter falling straight through the event horizon. Thus in this "frozen
star" scenario, as distant observers, we could never observe matter falling
into a BH, neither could we see any "real" BH other than primordial ones, since
all other BHs are believed to be formed by matter falling towards singularity.
Here we first obtain the exact solution for a pressureless mass shell around a
pre-existing BH. The metrics inside and interior to the shell are all different
from the Schwarzschild metric of the enclosed mass. The metric interior to the
shell can be transformed to the Schwarzschild metric for a slower clock which
is dependent of the location and mass of the shell. Another result is that
there does not exist a singularity nor event horizon in the shell. Therefore
the "frozen star" scenario is incorrect. We also show that for all practical
astrophysical settings the in-falling time recorded by an external observer is
sufficiently short that future astrophysical instruments may be able to follow
the whole process of matter falling into BHs. The distant observer could not
distinguish between a "real" BH and a "frozen star", until two such objects
merge together. It has been proposed that electromagnetic waves will be
produced when two "frozen stars" merge together, but not true when two "real"
bare BHs merge together. However gravitational waves will be produced in both
cases. Thus our solution is testable by future high sensitivity astronomical
observations.


title: Determining QCD Low-Energy Couplings from lattice simulations

abstract:
  Different strategies for the computation of QCD low-energy couplings by
matching lattice QCD with the chiral effective theory are reviewed. After
recalling the main features of the chiral effective theory in the epsilon- and
p- regimes, the current status of the determination of leading order (Sigma, F)
and next-to-leading order (l_i, L_i) low-energy constants is summarised,
focusing in particular on recent results obtained with N_f=2 and N_f=2+1
simulations.


title: Magnetization of Color-Flavor Locked Matter

abstract:
  We show that the magnetization in color-flavor locked superconductors can be
so strong that homogeneous quark matter becomes metastable for a wide range of
magnetic field values. This indicates that magnetic domains or other type of
magnetic inhomogeneities can be present in the quark cores of magnetars.


title:
The structure of verbal sequences analyzed with unsupervised learning
  techniques

abstract:
  Data mining allows the exploration of sequences of phenomena, whereas one
usually tends to focus on isolated phenomena or on the relation between two
phenomena. It offers invaluable tools for theoretical analyses and exploration
of the structure of sentences, texts, dialogues, and speech. We report here the
results of an attempt at using it for inspecting sequences of verbs from French
accounts of road accidents. This analysis comes from an original approach of
unsupervised training allowing the discovery of the structure of sequential
data. The entries of the analyzer were only made of the verbs appearing in the
sentences. It provided a classification of the links between two successive
verbs into four distinct clusters, allowing thus text segmentation. We give
here an interpretation of these clusters by applying a statistical analysis to
independent semantic annotations.


title:
Enhanced visibility of graphene: effect of one-dimensional photonic
  crystal

abstract:
  We investigate theoretically the light reflectance of a graphene layer
prepared on the top of one-dimensional Si/SiO2 photonic crystal (1DPC). It is
shown that the visibility of the graphene layers is enhanced greatly when 1DPC
is added, and the visibility can be tuned by changing the incident angle and
light wavelengths. This phenomenon is caused by the absorption of the graphene
layer and the enhanced reflectance of the 1DPC.


title: PARNI for importance sampling and density estimation

abstract:
  We present an aid for importance sampling in Monte Carlo integration, which
is of the general-purpose type in the sense that it in principle deals with any
quadratically integrable integrand on a unit hyper-cube of arbitrary dimension.
In contrast to most existing systems of this type, it does not ask for the
integrand as an input variable, but provides a number of routines which can be
plugged into a given Monte Carlo program in order to improve its efficiency "on
the fly" while running. Due to the nature of its design, it can also be used
for density estimation, i.e., for the analysis of data points coming from an
external source.


title:
Statistical substantiation of introduction of the distributions
  containing lifetime as thermodynamic parameter

abstract:
  By means of an inequality of the information and parametrization of family of
distributions of the probabilities, supposing an effective estimation,
introduction of the distributions containing time of the first achievement of a
level as internal thermodynamic parameter ground.


title:
Transient Crossing of Phantom divide line $w_{\Lambda}=-1$ under
  Gauss-Bonnet interaction

abstract:
  Smooth double crossing of the phantom barrier $w_{\Lambda} = -1$ has been
found possible in cosmological model with Gauss-Bonnet-scalar interaction, in
the presence of background cold dark matter. Such crossing has been observed to
be a sufficiently late time phenomena and independent of the sign of
Gauss-Bonnet-scalar interaction. The luminosity distance versus redshift curve
shows a perfect fit with the $\Lambda CDM$ model up to $z=3.5$.


title: Reionization: Characteristic Scales, Topology and Observability

abstract:
  Recently the numerical simulations of the process of reionization of the
universe at z>6 have made a qualitative leap forward, reaching sufficient sizes
and dynamic range to determine the characteristic scales of this process. This
allowed making the first realistic predictions for a variety of observational
signatures. We discuss recent results from large-scale radiative transfer and
structure formation simulations on the observability of high-redshift Ly-alpha
sources. We also briefly discuss the dependence of the characteristic scales
and topology of the ionized and neutral patches on the reionization parameters.


title: EG And: FUSE and HST/STIS Monitoring of an Eclipsing Symbiotic Binary

abstract:
  We present highlights and an overview of 20 FUSE and HST/STIS observations of
the bright symbiotic binary EG And. The main motivation behind this work is to
obtain spatially-resolved information on an evolved giant star in order to
understand the mass-loss processes at work in these objects. The system
consists of a low-luminosity white dwarf and a mass-losing, non-dusty M2 giant.
The ultraviolet observations follow the white dwarf continuum through periodic
gradual occultations by the wind and chromosphere of the giant, providing a
unique diagnosis of the circumstellar gas in absorption. Unocculted spectra
display high ionization features, such as the OVI resonance doublet which is
present as a variable (hourly time-scales), broad wind profile, which diagnose
the hot gas close to the dwarf component. Spectra observed at stages of partial
occultation display a host of low-ionization, narrow, absorption lines, with
transitions observed from lower energy levels up to ~5eV above ground. This
absorption is due to chromospheric/wind material, with most lines due to
transitions of SiII, PII, NI, FeII and NiII, as well as heavily damped HI Lyman
series features. No molecular features are observed in the wind acceleration
region despite the sensitivity of FUSE to molecular hydrogen. From analysis of
the ultraviolet dataset, as well as optical data, we find that the dwarf
radiation does not dominate the wind acceleration region of the giant, and that
observed thermal and dynamic wind properties are most likely representative of
isolated red giants.


title:
Quasi-Hermitian supersymmetric extensions of a non-Hermitian oscillator
  Hamiltonian and of its generalizations

abstract:
  A harmonic oscillator Hamiltonian augmented by a non-Hermitian \pt-symmetric
part and its su(1,1) generalizations, for which a family of positive-definite
metric operators was recently constructed, are re-examined in a supersymmetric
context. Quasi-Hermitian supersymmetric extensions of such Hamiltonians are
proposed by enlarging su(1,1) to a ${\rm su}(1,1/1) \sim {\rm osp}(2/2, \R)$
superalgebra. This allows the construction of new non-Hermitian Hamiltonians
related by similarity to Hermitian ones. Some examples of them are reviewed.


title: Two positivity conjectures for Kerov polynomials

abstract:
  Kerov polynomials express the normalized characters of irreducible
representations of the symmetric group, evaluated on a cycle, as polynomials in
the free cumulants of the associated Young diagram. We present two positivity
conjectures for their coefficients. The latter are stronger than the positivity
conjecture of Kerov-Biane, recently proved by Feray.


title: Superfluid turbulence and pulsar glitch statistics

abstract:
  Experimental evidence is reviewed for the existence of superfluid turbulence
in a differentially rotating, spherical shell at high Reynolds numbers
($\Rey\gsim 10^3$), such as the outer core of a neutron star. It is shown that
torque variability increases with $\Rey$, suggesting that glitch activity in
radio pulsars may be a function of $\Rey$ as well. The $\Rey$ distribution of
the 67 glitching radio pulsars with characteristic ages $\tau_c \leq 10^6$ {\rm
yr} is constructed from radio timing data and cooling curves and compared with
the $\Rey$ distribution of all 348 known pulsars with $\tau_c \leq 10^6$ {\rm
yr}. The two distributions are different, with a Kolmogorov-Smirnov probability
$\geq 1 - 3.9 \times 10^{-3}$. The conclusion holds for (modified) Urca and
nonstandard cooling, and for Newtonian and superfluid viscosities.


title:
Localization of elastic deformation in strongly anisotropic, porous,
  linear materials with periodic microstructures: exact solutions and dilute
  expansions

abstract:
  Exact solutions are derived for the problem of a two-dimensional, infinitely
anisotropic, linear-elastic medium containing a periodic lattice of voids. The
matrix material possesses either one infinitely soft, or one infinitely hard
loading direction, which induces localized (singular) field configurations. The
effective elastic moduli are computed as functions of the porosity in each
case. Their dilute expansions feature half-integer powers of the porosity,
which can be correlated to the localized field patterns. Statistical
characterizations of the fields, such as their first moments and their
histograms are provided, with particular emphasis on the singularities of the
latter. The behavior of the system near the void close packing fraction is also
investigated. The results of this work shed light on corresponding results for
strongly nonlinear porous media, which have been obtained recently by means of
the ``second-order'' homogenization method, and where the dilute estimates also
exhibit fractional powers of the porosity.


title:
Multiple point principle as a mechanism for the suppression of FCNC and
  CP--violation phenomena in the 2HDM

abstract:
  We argue that multiple point principle (MPP) can be used to ensure CP
conservation and the absence of flavour changing neutral currents within the
two Higgs doublet model (2HDM). We also discuss Higgs phenomenology in the MPP
inspired 2HDM.


title: Indirect Searches for Dark Matter with AMS-02

abstract:
  AMS-02 is a multi-purpose spectrometer with superconducting magnet, and is
designed for 3 years of data taking aboard the International Space Station. Its
high performance regarding particle identification and energy measurement will
allow performing indirect searches for dark matter (DM) in different channels
simultaneously: gamma rays, positrons and antiprotons. AMS-02 sensitivity to
those signals are presented and --provided the positron excess is due to DM
signal-- it is shown that it allows to probe new physics models in detail. Its
high sensitivity could even be a unique opportunity to reach the Majorana
nature of the DM particle through final state polarization effects.


title:
The average kinetic energy density of Cooper pairs above $T_c$ in ${\rm
  YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-x}}$, ${\rm Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_{8+\delta}}$, and ${\rm Nb}$

abstract:
  We have obtained isofield curves for the square root of the average kinetic
energy density of the superconducting state for three single crystals of
underdoped $YBa_2Cu_3O_{7-x}$, an optimally doped single crystal of
$Bi_2Sr_2CaCu_2O_{8+\delta}$, and Nb. These curves, determined from isofield
magnetization versus temperature measurements and the virial theorem of
superconductivity, probe the order parameter amplitude near the upper critical
field. The striking differences between the Nb and the high-$T_c$ curves
clearly indicate for the latter cases the presence of a unique superconducting
condensate below and above $T_c$.


title:
On the uniqueness for the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation with
  a strong angular singularity

abstract:
  We prove an inequality on the Wasserstein distance with quadratic cost
between two solutions of the spatially homogeneous Boltzmann equation without
angular cutoff, from which we deduce some uniqueness results. In particular, we
obtain a local (in time) well-posedness result in the case of (possibly very)
soft potentials. A global well-posedeness result is shown for all regularized
hard and soft potentials without angular cutoff. Our uniqueness result seems to
be the first one applying to a strong angular singularity, except in the
special case of Maxwell molecules.
  Our proof relies on the ideas of Tanaka: we give a probabilistic
interpretation of the Boltzmann equation in terms of a stochastic process. Then
we show how to couple two such processes started with two different initial
conditions, in such a way that they almost surely remain close to each other.


title:
The Luminosity Function of X-ray Selected Active Galactic Nuclei:
  Evolution of Supermassive Black Holes at High Redshift

abstract:
  We present a measure of the hard (2-8 keV) X-ray luminosity function (XLF) of
Active Galactic Nuclei up to z~5. At high redshifts, the wide area coverage of
the Chandra Multiwavength Project is crucial to detect rare and luminous (Lx >
10^44 erg s^-1) AGN. The inclusion of samples from deeper published surveys,
such as the Chandra Deep Fields, allows us to span the lower Lx range of the
XLF. Our sample is selected from both the hard (z < 3; f(2-8 keV) > 6.3x10^-16
erg cm^-2 s^-1) and soft (z > 3; f(0.5-2.0 keV) > 1.0x10^-16 erg cm^-2 s^-1)
energy band detections. Within our optical magnitude limits (r',i' < 24), we
achieve an adequate level of completeness (>50%) regarding X-ray source
identification (i.e., redshift). We find that the luminosity function is
similar to that found in previous X-ray surveys up to z~3 with an evolution
dependent upon both luminosity and redshift. At z > 3, there is a significant
decline in the numbers of AGN with an evolution rate similar to that found by
studies of optically-selected QSOs. Based on our XLF, we assess the resolved
fraction of the Cosmic X-ray Background, the cumulative mass density of
Supermassive Black Holes (SMBHs), and the comparison of the mean accretion rate
onto SMBHs and the star formation history of galaxies as a function of
redshift. A coevolution scenario up to z~2 is plausible though at higher
redshifts the accretion rate onto SMBHs drops more rapidly. Finally, we
highlight the need for better statistics of high redshift AGN at z > 3, which
is achievable with the upcoming Chandra surveys.