Related papers: How degeneracies can obscure interesting physics
We discuss avenues for diagnosing new physics hinted from lepton nonuniversality in rare $b$-decays, and physics implications.
This is a brief reminder, with extensions, from a different angle and for a less specialized audience, of my presentation at WGMP32 in July 2013, to which I refer for more details on the topics hinted at in the title, mainly deformation…
I discuss how supersymmetry affects various observables in B decays, and point out the interesting channels in the context of B factories.
Neutrino physics is one of the most important topics in particle physics and cosmology. Despite the many physical properties of neutrinos that are understood theoretically and experimentally, it is known that there are many unsolved…
In this survey on local additive invariants of real and complex definable singular germs we systematically present classical or more recent invariants of different nature as emerging from a tame degeneracy principle. For this goal, we…
We consider the claim that decoherence explains the emergence of classicality in quantum systems, and conclude that it does not. We show that, given a randomly chosen universe composed of a variety of subsystems, some of which are…
Causality is one of the most fundamental -- and yet elusive -- concepts in physics. From its intuitive role in everyday experience to its formal and often implicit role in scientific theories, causality has challenged philosophers and…
Anomalies drive scientific discovery -- they are associated with the cutting edge of the research frontier, and thus typically exploit data in the low signal-to-noise regime. In astronomy, the prevalence of systematics --- both "known…
We discuss a degeneracy between the geometry of the universe and the dark energy equation of state $w_{\rm X}$ which exists in the power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background. In particular, for the case with $w_{\rm X} < -1$, this…
Some conjectures and open problems in convex geometry are presented, and their physical origin, meaning, and importance, for quantum theory and generic statistical theories, are briefly discussed.
An odd deformation of a super Riemann surface $\mathcal S$ is a deformation of $\mathcal S$ by variables of odd parity. In this article we study the obstruction theory of these odd deformations $\mathcal X$ of $\mathcal S$. We view…
We study the systems of ordinary differential equations which are implicit with respect to the higher derivatives, appearing in the linear form, and their solutions near the singular points. The invertibility of the higher derivatives…
This paper shows that the mass-sheet degeneracy and other degeneracies in lensing have simple geometrical interpretations: they are mostly rescalings of the arrival-time surface. Different degeneracies appear in Local Group lensing and in…
Experiment plays a decisive role in physics. It is the single source of our understanding of nature. But, during the last century the main accent in theoretical physics has moved toward metaphysics. Some mathematicians/theoreticians try to…
Emergence (macro-level effects from micro-level causes) is at the heart of the conflict between reductionism and functionalism. How can there be autonomous higher level laws of nature (the functionalist claim) if everything can be reduced…
I explore whether it is possible to make sense of the quantum mechanical description of physical reality by taking the proper subject of physics to be correlation and only correlation, and by separating the problem of understanding the…
Neutrino oscillations appear to be a simple quantum mechanical phenomenon. However, a closer look at them reveals a number of subtle points and apparent paradoxes. Some of the basic issues of the theory of neutrino oscillations are still…
The universe we observe is homogeneous on super-horizon scales, leading to the ``cosmic homogeneity problem''. Inflation alleviates this problem but cannot solve it within the realm of conservative extrapolations of classical physics. A…
This article provides a popular, largely non-technical explanation of how large objects can behave classically while smaller objects behave quantum mechanically, based on the effect of the presence of cosmic expansion velocities in extended…
It has been experimentally demonstrated that quantum coherence can persist in macroscopic phenomena [J.R. Friedman et al.,Nature, 406 (2000) 43]. To face the challenge of this new fact, in this article QM in its standard form is assumed to…