No Arabic abstract
We analyze the critical phenomena in the theory of strong interactions at high temperatures starting from first principles. The model is based on the dual Yang-Mills theory with scalar degrees of freedom - the dilatons. The latter are produced due to the spontaneous breaking of an approximate scale symmetry. The phase transitions are considered in systems where the field conjugate to the order parameter has the (critical) chiral end mode. The hiral end point (ChEP) is a distinct singular feature existence of which is dictated by the chiral dynamics. The physical approach the effective ChEP is studied via the influence fluctuations of two-body Bose-Einstein correlation function for observed particles to which the chiral end mode couples.
Shaping axi-symmetric planetary nebulae is easier if a companion interacts with a primary at the top of the asymptotic giant branch. To determine the impact of binarity on planetary nebula formation and shaping, we need to determine the central star of planetary nebula binary fraction and period distribution. The short-period binary fraction has been known to be 10-15% from a survey of ~100 central stars for photometric variability indicative of irradiation effects, ellipsoidal variability or eclipses. This survey technique is known to be biased against binaries with long periods and this fact is used to explain why the periods of all the binaries discovered by this survey are smaller than 3 days. In this paper we assess the status of knowledge of binary central stars discovered because of irradiation effects. We determine that, for average parameters, this technique should be biased against periods longer than 1-2 weeks, so it is surprising that no binaries were found with periods longer than 3 days. Even more puzzling is the fact that 9 out of 12 of the irradiated binaries, have periods smaller than one day, a fact that is starkly at odds with post-common envelope predictions. We suggest that either all common envelope models tend to overestimate post-common envelope periods or that this binary survey might have suffered from additional, unquantified biases. If the latter hypothesis is true, the currently-known short-period binary fraction is put in serious doubt. We also introduce a new survey for binary-related variability, which will enable us to better quantify biases and determine an independent value for the short period binary fraction.
We calculate Bayes factors to quantify how the feasibility of the constrained minimal supersymmetric standard model (CMSSM) has changed in the light of a series of observations. This is done in the Bayesian spirit where probability reflects a degree of belief in a proposition and Bayes theorem tells us how to update it after acquiring new information. Our experimental baseline is the approximate knowledge that was available before LEP, and our comparison model is the Standard Model with a simple dark matter candidate. To quantify the amount by which experiments have altered our relative belief in the CMSSM since the baseline data we compute the Bayes factors that arise from learning in sequence the LEP Higgs constraints, the XENON100 dark matter constraints, the 2011 LHC supersymmetry search results, and the early 2012 LHC Higgs search results. We find that LEP and the LHC strongly shatter our trust in the CMSSM (with $M_0$ and $M_{1/2}$ below 2 TeV), reducing its posterior odds by a factor of approximately two orders of magnitude. This reduction is largely due to substantial Occam factors induced by the LEP and LHC Higgs searches.
We present updated values for the mass-mixing parameters relevant to neutrino oscillations, with particular attention to emerging hints in favor of theta_13>0. We also discuss the status of absolute neutrino mass observables, and a possible approach to constrain theoretical uncertainties in neutrinoless double beta decay. Desiderata for all these issues are also briefly mentioned.
At the critical end point in QCD phase diagram, the scalar, vector and entropy susceptibilities are known to diverge. The dynamic origin of this divergence is identified within the chiral effective models as softening of a hydrodynamic mode of the particle-hole--type motion, which is a consequence of the conservation law of the baryon number and the energy.
This paper has been withdrawn by the authors, due to its incompleteness.