Search results for "Observable"
showing 10 items of 634 documents
Convective Excitation of Inertial Modes in Binary Neutron Star Mergers
2018
We present the first very long-term simulations (extending up to ~140 ms after merger) of binary neutron star mergers with piecewise polytropic equations of state and in full general relativity. Our simulations reveal that at a time of 30-50 ms after merger, parts of the star become convectively unstable, which triggers the excitation of inertial modes. The excited inertial modes are sustained up to several tens of milliseconds and are potentially observable by the planned third-generation gravitational-wave detectors at frequencies of a few kilohertz. Since inertial modes depend on the rotation rate of the star and they are triggered by a convective instability in the postmerger remnant, t…
Impeded Dark Matter
2016
We consider dark matter models in which the mass splitting between the dark matter particles and their annihilation products is tiny. Compared to the previously proposed Forbidden Dark Matter scenario, the mass splittings we consider are much smaller, and are allowed to be either positive or negative. To emphasize this modification, we dub our scenario "Impeded Dark Matter". We demonstrate that Impeded Dark Matter can be easily realized without requiring tuning of model parameters. For negative mass splitting, we demonstrate that the annihilation cross-section for Impeded Dark Matter depends linearly on the dark matter velocity or may even be kinematically forbidden, making this scenario al…
On the observability of T Tauri accretion shocks in the X-ray band
2010
Context. High resolution X-ray observations of classical T Tauri stars (CTTSs) show a soft X-ray excess due to high density plasma (n_e=10^11-10^13 cm^-3). This emission has been attributed to shock-heated accreting material impacting onto the stellar surface. Aims. We investigate the observability of the shock-heated accreting material in the X-ray band as a function of the accretion stream properties (velocity, density, and metal abundance) in the case of plasma-beta<<1 in the post-shock zone. Methods. We use a 1-D hydrodynamic model describing the impact of an accretion stream onto the chromosphere, including the effects of radiative cooling, gravity and thermal conduction. We expl…
Scalar contributions to b→c(u)τν transitions
2017
Abstract We perform a comprehensive analysis of scalar contributions in b → c τ ν transitions including the latest measurements of R ( D ( ⁎ ) ) , the q 2 differential distributions in B → D ( ⁎ ) τ ν , the τ polarization asymmetry for B → D ⁎ τ ν , and the bound derived from the total width of the B c meson. We find that scalar contributions with the simultaneous presence of both left- and right-handed couplings to quarks can explain the available data, specifically R ( D ( ⁎ ) ) together with the measured differential distributions. However, the constraints from the total B c width present a slight tension with the current data on B → D ⁎ τ ν in this scenario, preferring smaller values fo…
Galactic rotation curves in hybrid metric-Palatini gravity
2013
Generally, the dynamics of test particles around galaxies, as well as the corresponding mass deficit, is explained by postulating the existence of a hypothetical dark matter. In fact, the behavior of the rotation curves shows the existence of a constant velocity region, near the baryonic matter distribution, followed by a quick decay at large distances. In this work, we consider the possibility that the behavior of the rotational velocities of test particles gravitating around galaxies can be explained within the framework of the recently proposed hybrid metric-Palatini gravitational theory. The latter is constructed by modifying the metric Einstein-Hilbert action with an f(R) term in the P…
Efficient resummation of high post-Newtonian contributions to the binding energy
2021
A factorisation property of Feynman diagrams in the context the Effective Field Theory approach to the compact binary problem has been recently employed to efficiently determine the static sector of the potential at fifth post-Newtonian (5PN) order. We extend this procedure to the case of non-static diagrams and we use it to fix, by means of elementary algebraic manipulations, the value of more than one thousand diagrams at 5PN order, that is a substantial fraction of the diagrams needed to fully determine the dynamics at 5PN. This procedure addresses the redundancy problem that plagues the computation of the binding energy with respect to more "efficient" observables like the scattering an…
Jet quenching in the strongly-interacting quark–gluon plasma
2009
We propose a hybrid model for medium-induced parton energy loss, in which the hard scales in the process are treated perturbatively, while the soft scales which involve strong coupling dynamics are modeled by AdS/CFT calculations. After fitting a single parameter on R_AA for central Au+Au collisions, we are able to predict different observables like R_AA and I_AA as a function of centrality and reaction plane. We obtain a consistent picture of how jet quenching is modified if the quark-gluon plasma is strongly interacting, and we provide quantitative predictions.
U(N) tools for loop quantum gravity: the return of the spinor
2011
We explore the classical setting for the U(N) framework for SU(2) intertwiners for loop quantum gravity (LQG) and describe the corresponding phase space in terms of spinors with appropriate constraints. We show how its quantization leads back to the standard Hilbert space of intertwiner states defined as holomorphic functionals. We then explain how to glue these intertwiners states in order to construct spin network states as wave-functions on the spinor phase space. In particular, we translate the usual loop gravity holonomy observables to our classical framework. Finally, we propose how to derive our phase space structure from an action principle which induces non-trivial dynamics for the…
Massive neutrinos and cosmology
2006
The present experimental results on neutrino flavour oscillations provide evidence for non-zero neutrino masses, but give no hint on their absolute mass scale, which is the target of beta decay and neutrinoless double-beta decay experiments. Crucial complementary information on neutrino masses can be obtained from the analysis of data on cosmological observables, such as the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background or the distribution of large-scale structure. In this review we describe in detail how free-streaming massive neutrinos affect the evolution of cosmological perturbations. We summarize the current bounds on the sum of neutrino masses that can be derived from various combin…
Composite operators in asymptotic safety
2017
We study the role of composite operators in the Asymptotic Safety program for quantum gravity. By including in the effective average action an explicit dependence on new sources we are able to keep track of operators which do not belong to the exact theory space and/or are normally discarded in a truncation. Typical examples are geometric operators such as volumes, lengths, or geodesic distances. We show that this set-up allows to investigate the scaling properties of various interesting operators via a suitable exact renormalization group equation. We test our framework in several settings, including Quantum Einstein Gravity, the conformally reduced Einstein-Hilbert truncation, and two dim…