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E. D. Carlson

Publications and source records attributed to E. D. Carlson.

2 recordsLinked to original sources

SN 1987A Gamma-Ray Limits on the Conversion of Pseudoscalars

Pseudoscalar particles $ϕ$ usually couple electromagnetically by an interaction of the form $\frc14 g ϕF {\widetilde F}$, allowing them to convert to photons in the presence of magnetic fields. Notably, new low-mass pseudoscalars emitted from supernova (SN) 1987A would have been converted to $γ$-rays in the intervening magnetic field of the galaxy. Therefore, measurements by the Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) Gamma-Ray Spectrometer (GRS) can limit the inverse coupling constant to $g^{-1}>1{\times}10^{11}\,\rm GeV$, assuming the pseudoscalar is massless. This is an improvement over other astrophysical limits of a factor of about 2.5.

astro-ph

Could There Be Something Rather Than Nothing?

There is increasing evidence that the universe may have a small cosmological constant. We suggest a scheme for naturally generating a small cosmological constant. Our idea requires the presence of a discrete accidental symmetry which is spontaneously broken by vacuum expectation values of the fields, and explicitly broken by high dimensional operators in the Lagrangian.

hep-ph