Related papers: Baryon Number Violating Transitions in String Back…
One of the most pernicious theoretical systematics facing upcoming gravitational lensing surveys is the uncertainty introduced by the effects of baryons on the power spectrum of the convergence field. One method that has been proposed to…
If the Universe underwent a cosmic phase transition, it may have left behind a network of cosmic strings. When these strings arise from the breaking of a gauge symmetry, their decay produces a significant stochastic background of…
We have constructed an equation of state which smoothly interpolates between an excluded volume hadron resonance gas at low energy density to a plasma of quarks and gluons at high energy density. This crossover equation of state agrees very…
We show that stable local cosmic strings are a generic prediction of supersymmetric models where supersymmetry is broken at scales within a few orders of magnitude of the weak scale and is fed down to the observable sector by gauge…
We discuss the unification of gauge couplings within the framework of a wide class of realistic free-fermionic string models which have appeared in the literature, including the flipped SU(5), SO(6)xSO(4), and various SU(3)xSU(2)xU(1)…
We show that the carrier ''antibinding'' observed recently in semiconductor quantum dots, i.e., the fact that the ground state energy of two electron-hole pairs goes above twice the ground-state energy of one pair, can entirely be assigned…
This is the second of a series of three papers treating light baryon resonances up to 3 GeV within a relativistically covariant quark model based on the three-fermion Bethe-Salpeter equation with instantaneous two- and three-body forces. In…
The problem of an open string in background $B$-field is discussed. Using the discretized model in details we show that the system is influenced by infinite number of second class constraints. We interpret the allowed Fourier modes as the…
Stringy effects on vacuum transitions are shown to include surprisingly large decay rates through very high potential barriers. This simple, yet counter-intuitive result will drastically modify the measure on the landscape of string vacua.
The interpretation of the apparent unification of gauge couplings within supersymmetric theories depends on uncertainties induced through heavy particle thresholds. While in standard grand unified theories these effects can be estimated…
We consider massless string scattering amplitudes in a limit where the number of external particles becomes very large, while the energy of each particle remains small. Using the growth of the volume of the relevant moduli space, and by…
We use boundary string field theory to study open string tachyon condensation on a three-sphere closed string background. We consider the closed string background described by $SU(2)_k$ WZW model in the limit of large $k$. We compute the…
Rare processes in laboratory and within astrophysical environments can be highly sensitive probes of baryon-number violating interactions at the TeV scale. We demonstrate the power of neutron stars to constrain baryon number violation by…
Dark energy constraints have forced viable alternatives that differ substantially from a cosmological constant Lambda to have an equation of state w that evolves across the phantom divide set by Lambda. Naively, crossing this divide makes…
We derive new bounds on hidden sector gauge bosons which could produce new energy loss mechanisms in supernovae, enlarging the excluded region in mass-coupling space by a significant factor compared to earlier estimates. Both considerations…
The classical transitions between topologically distinct vacua in a SU(2)-Higgs model, using a Higgs field of mass approximately 120 GeV, is examined to probe the crossover region between the symmetric and broken phase. For the volumes…
We analyze the quantum transport equations for supersymmetric electroweak baryogenesis including previously neglected bottom and tau Yukawa interactions and show that they imply the presence of a previously unrecognized dependence of the…
In most models of dark energy the structure formation stops when the accelerated expansion begins. In contrast, we show that the coupling of dark energy to dark matter may induce the growth of perturbations even in the accelerated regime.…
We argue that the charge fractionalization in quarks has a hidden topological character related to a broken ${\cal Z}_2$ symmetry between integer-charged bare quarks and leptons. The mechanism is a tunneling process occurring in time…
I review at a non-technical level the use of the gauge-string duality to study aspects of heavy ion collisions, with special emphasis on the trailing string calculation of heavy quark energy loss. I include some brief speculations on how…