arXiv subjects

John P. Ralston

Publications and source records attributed to John P. Ralston.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

CMB low multipole alignments across WMAP and \emph{Planck} data releases

The first observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) from NASA's \emph{Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe} (WMAP) led to finding `alignment' anomalies not expected from fluctuations in the isotropic cosmological model. We study the data of all 8 full-sky public releases since then to test for anomalous alignments and shapes of the first 60 multipoles, i.e., over the range $2\leq l \leq 61$. We use rotationally invariant and covariant statistics to test isotropy of all subsequent WMAP data releases, along with those from the ESA's \emph{Planck} mission. Anomalous alignments among the multipoles $l=1, 2, 3$ are very consistent and robust. More alignments are detected, some of them new, while significance is diluted by the large range of the search. Power entropy, a measure of the randomness of the multipoles, is consistently anomalous at about $2σ$ level or better across all data releases. It appears that the CMB is not as random as the cosmological principle predicts on large angular scales

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2024

Is Ball Lightning a Signal of Magnetic Monopoles?

While ball lighting is known to exist from thousands of observations, its properties have never been explained by known physics. The combined order of magnitude of power, size, time scale, and characteristic behavior of ball lightning have defeated every model. The failure of standard physics does not hinge on fine details, but on the breadth of qualitative features of the phenomenon itself. We consider the possibility that ball lighting may be a signal of physics beyond the Standard Model. The mass and energy scale of ball lightning is remarkably consistent with new physics scales of grand unified theories. We analyze a suggestion that monopole catalysis of baryon decays in air might explain ball lightning. Nothing can be done to make it consistent, including saturating interaction cross sections with unitarity bounds. However a high mass dyon partially decaying by neutralization of deeply bound electromagnetic energy explains several puzzles naturally. The study suggests new ways to search for dyons and monopoles. The organizational skills of ambitious experimental physics groups could lead to productive searches beyond the Standard Model that do not need a new particle accelerator.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

New opportunities at the photon energy frontier

Ultra-peripheral collisions (UPCs) involving heavy ions and protons are the energy frontier for photon-mediated interactions. UPC photons can be used for many purposes, including probing low-$x$ gluons via photoproduction of dijets and vector mesons, probes of beyond-standard-model processes, such as those enabled by light-by-light scattering, and studies of two-photon production of the Higgs.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Quantum Tomography Measures Entanglement in Collider Reactions

Entanglement in high energy and and nuclear reactions is receiving great attention. A proper description of these reactions uses density matrices, and the express of entanglement in terms of {\it separability}. Quantum tomography bypasses field-theoretic formalism to determine density matrices in terms of experimental observables. We review recent work applying quantum tomography to practical experimental data analysis. We discuss the relation between separability, as defined in quantum information science, and factorization, as defined in high energy physics. When factorization applies, it comes from using separable probes, which tomographically determine separable projections of entangled density matrices.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Alignments of parity even/odd-only multipoles in CMB

We compare the statistics of parity even and odd multipoles of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) sky from PLANCK full mission temperature measurements. An excess power in odd multipoles compared to even multipoles has previously been found on large angular scales. Motivated by this apparent parity asymmetry, we evaluate directional statistics associated with even compared to odd multipoles, along with their significances. Primary tools are the \emph{Power Tensor} and \emph{Alignment Tensor} statistics. We limit our analysis to the first sixty multipoles i.e., $l=[2,61]$. We find no evidence for statistically unusual alignments of even parity multipoles. More than one independent statistic finds evidence for alignments of anisotropy axes of odd multipoles, with a significance equivalent to $\sim 2 σ$ or more. The robustness of alignment axes is tested by making galactic cuts and varying the multipole range. Very interestingly, the region spanned by the (a)symmetry axes is found to broadly contain other parity (a)symmetry axes previously observed in the literature.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2017

Quantum tomography for collider physics: Illustrations with lepton pair production

Quantum tomography is a method to experimentally extract all that is observable about a quantum mechanical system. We introduce quantum tomography to collider physics with the illustration of the angular distribution of lepton pairs. The tomographic method bypasses much of the field-theoretic formalism to concentrate on what can be observed with experimental data, and how to characterize the data. We provide a practical, experimentally-driven guide to model-independent analysis using density matrices at every step. Comparison with traditional methods of analyzing angular correlations of inclusive reactions finds many advantages in the tomographic method, which include manifest Lorentz covariance, direct incorporation of positivity constraints, exhaustively complete polarization information, and new invariants free from frame conventions. For example, experimental data can determine the $entanglement$ $entropy$ of the production process, which is a model-independent invariant that measures the degree of coherence of the subprocess. We give reproducible numerical examples and provide a supplemental standalone computer code that implements the procedure. We also highlight a property of $complex$ $positivity$ that guarantees in a least-squares type fit that a local minimum of a $χ^{2}$ statistic will be a global minimum: There are no isolated local minima. This property with an automated implementation of positivity promises to mitigate issues relating to multiple minima and convention-dependence that have been problematic in previous work on angular distributions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

The Muon Experimental Anomalies Are Explained by a New Interaction Proportional to Charge

The "proton size puzzle" and the "muon anomalous moment problem" are incomplete descriptions of significant discrepancies of Standard Model calculations with experiments. What is particularly new is that the experiments and theory confront a new regime of ultra-precise physics where traditional piece-meal analysis methods fail to be self-consistent. At current levels of precision the proton size $r_{p}$, the Rydberg constant $R_{\infty}$, the fine structure constant $α$ and the electron mass (Compton wavelength $λ_{c}$) are inextricably coupled, so that the actual discrepancies might be almost anywhere, while merely {\it appearing} to be muon-derived through a historical order of assumptions. We have conducted a new global fit to all of the relevant data using the entire body of Standard Model theory. A conventional $χ^{2}$ statistic is used to fit all relevant fundamental constants with and without a generic "no-name" boson of undetermined spin that interacts universally with leptons and hadrons proportional to electric charge. The analysis discovers a new local minimum region of $χ^{2}$ where all of $r_{p}, \, R_{\infty}, \, α, \, λ_{e}$ have new values compared to previous work, while accommodating all of the data, unlike previous determinations. A new particle $X$, possibly related to the "dark photon" but more generally defined, is predicted to be observed in electron- and muon-based experiments.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

The Dirac Form Factor Predicts the Pauli Form Factor in the Endpoint Model

We compute the momentum-transfer dependence of the proton Pauli form factor $F_{2}$ in the endpoint overlap model. We find the model correctly reproduces the scaling of the ratio of $F_{2}$ with the Dirac Form factor $F_{1}$ observed at the Jefferson Laboratory. The calculation uses the leading-power, leading twist Dirac structure of the quark light-cone wave function, and the same endpoint dependence previously determined from the Dirac form factor $F_{1}$. There are no parameters and no adjustable functions in the endpoint model's prediction for $F_{2}$. The model's predicted ratio $F_{2}(Q^{2})/F_{1}(Q^{2})$ is quite insensitive to the endpoint wave function, which explains why the observed ratio scales like $1/Q$ down to rather low momentum transfers. The endpoint model appears to be the only comprehensive model consistent with all form factor information as well as reproducing fixed-angle proton-proton scattering at large momentum transfer. Any one of the processes is capable of predicting the others.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2014

Uncovering the Scaling Laws of Hard Exclusive Hadronic Processes in a Comprehensive Endpoint Model

We show that an endpoint overlap model can explain the scaling laws observed in exclusive hadronic reactions at large momentum transfer. The model assumes one of the valence quarks carries most of the hadron momentum. Hadron form factors and fixed angle scattering are related directly to the quark wave function, which can be directly extracted from experimental data. A universal linear endpoint behavior explains the proton electromagnetic form factor, proton-proton fixed angle scattering, and the t-dependence of proton-proton scattering at large s>>t. Endpoint constituent counting rules relate the number of quarks in a hadron to the power-law behavior. All proton reactions surveyed are consistent with three quarks participating. The model is applicable at laboratory energies and does not need assumptions of asymptotically-high energy regime. A rich phenomenology of lepton-hadron scattering and hadron-hadron scattering processes is found in remarkably simple relationships between diverse processes.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2014

Optimizing the Determination of the Neutrino Mixing Angle $θ_{13}$ from Reactor Data

The technical breakthroughs of multiple detectors developed by Daya Bay and RENO collaborations have gotten great attention. Yet the optimal determination of neutrino mixing parameters from reactor data depends on the statistical method and demands equal attention. We find that a straightforward method using a minimal parameters will generally outperform a multi-parameter method by delivering more reliable values with sharper resolution. We review standard confidence levels and statistical penalties for models using extra parameters, and apply those rules to our analysis. We find that the methods used in recent work of the Daya Bay and RENO collaborations have several undesirable properties. The existing work also uses non-standard measures of significance which we are unable to explain. A central element of the current methods consists of variationally fitting many more parameters than data points. As a result the experimental resolution of $\sin ^{2}(2θ_{13})$ is degraded. The results also become extremely sensitive to certain model parameters that can be adjusted arbitrarily. The number of parameters to include in evaluating significance is an important issue that has generally been overlooked. The measures of significance applied previously would be consistent if and only if all parameters but one were considered to have no physical relevance for the experiment's hypothesis test. Simpler, more transparent methods can improve the determination of the mixing angle $θ_{13}$ from reactor data, and exploit the advantages from superb hardware technique of the experiments. We anticipate that future experimental analysis will fully exploit those advantages.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

A Redshift Dependent Color-Luminosity Relation in Type 1a Supernovae

Type 1a supernova magnitudes are used to fit cosmological parameters under the assumption the model will fit the observed redshift dependence. We test this assumption with the Union 2.1 compilation of 580 sources. Several independent tests find the existing model fails to account for a significant correlation of supernova color and redshift. The correlation of magnitude residuals relative to the $ΛCDM$ model and $color \times redshift$ has a significance equivalent to 13 standard deviations, as evaluated by randomly shuffling the data. Extending the existing $B-V$ color correction to a relation linear in redshift improves the goodness of fit $χ^{2}$ by more than 50 units, an equivalent 7-$σ$ significance, while adding only one parameter. The $color-redshift$ correlation is quite robust, cannot be attributed to outliers, and passes several tests of consistency. We review previous hints of redshift dependence in color parameters found in bin-by-bin fits interpreted as parameter bias. We show that neither the bias nor the change $Δχ^{2}$ of our study can be explained by those effects. The previously known relation that bluer supernovae have larger absolute luminosity tends to empirically flatten out with increasing redshift. The best-fit cosmological dark energy density parameter is revised from $ Ω_Λ =0.71 \pm 0.02$ to $ Ω_Λ = 0.74 \pm 0.02$ assuming a flat universe. One possible physical interpretation is that supernovae or their environments evolve significantly with increasing redshift.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2012

The Need to Fairly Confront Spin-1 for the New Higgs-like Particle

Spin-1 was ruled out early in LHC reports of a new particle with mass near 125 GeV. Actually the spin-1 possibility was dismissed on false premises, and remains open. Model-independent classification based on Lorentz invariance permits nearly two dozen independent amplitudes for spin-1 to two vector particles, of which two remain with on-shell photons. The Landau-Yang theorems are inadequate to eliminate spin-1. Theoretical prejudice to close the gaps is unreliable, and a fair consideration based on experiment is needed. A spin-1 field can produce the resonance structure observed in invariant mass distributions, and also produce the same angular distribution of photons and $ZZ$ decays as spin-0. However spin-0 cannot produce the variety of distributions made by spin-1. The Higgs-like pattern of decay also cannot rule out spin-1 without more analysis. Upcoming data will add information, which should be analyzed giving spin-1 full and unbiased consideration that has not appeared before.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Where and How to find $susy$: The auxiliary field interpretation of supersymmetry

The {\it gauge hierarchy problem} found in perturbation theory is one of the main attractions for supersymmetry. Yet the quantum mechanical coupling of a low energy system to a high energy one invariably leads to {\it perturbative instability}, which is not a valid signal of dynamical inconsistency. We show by examples how perturbation theory with widely separated scales gives false results. We also identify the flaw in perturbative fine-tuning arguments. Non-perturbative features of random subsystems maintain and preserve the hierarchy in which they are embedded. After reviewing the likelihood the hierarchy problem is a perturbative fiction, we suggest a new interpretation of $susy$ as practical auxiliary fields. Their function is much like Feynman's gauge ghosts, developed in perturbation theory to repair illnesses of perturbation theory. $susy$ will be found useful when it is considered a tool of applied mathematics and data-fitting. We propose that $susy$ data fits should be customized to the particular experimental situations they are suited to improve, without dilution from the needless assumption that $susy$ must describe universal new physics. It is likely that $susy$ will soon be discovered a useful part of data analysis and diagnostics towards improving the understanding of the Standard Model, and possibly towards discovering what may constitute new physics after all.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Quantum Theory without Planck's Constant

Planck's constant was introduced as a fundamental scale in the early history of quantum mechanics. We find a modern approach where Planck's constant is absent: it is unobservable except as a constant of human convention. Despite long reference to experiment, review shows that Planck's constant cannot be obtained from the data of Ryberg, Davisson and Germer, Compton, or that used by Planck himself. In the new approach Planck's constant is tied to macroscopic conventions of Newtonian origin, which are dispensable. The precision of other fundamental constants is substantially improved by eliminating Planck's constant. The electron mass is determined about 67 times more precisely, and the unit of electric charge determined 139 times more precisely. Improvement in the experimental value of the fine structure constant allows new types of experiment to be compared towards finding "new physics." The long-standing goal of eliminating reliance on the artifact known as the International Prototype Kilogram can be accomplished to assist progress in fundamental physics.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Analysis Tools for Discovering Strong Parity Violation at Hadron Colliders

Several arguments suggest parity violation may be observable in high energy strong interactions. We introduce new analysis tools for describing the azimuthal dependence of multi-particle distributions, or "azimuthal flow." Analysis uses the representations of the orthogonal group O(2) and dihedral groups $D_{N}$ necessary to define parity correctly in two dimensions. Classification finds that collective angles used in event-by-event statistics represent inequivalent tensor observables that cannot generally be represented by a single "reaction plane". Many new parity-violating observables exist that have never been measured, while many new parity-conserving observables formerly lumped together are now distinguished. We use the concept of "event shape sorting" to suggest separating right- and left-handed events, and we discuss the effects of transverse and longitudinal spin. The analysis tools are statistically robust, and can be applied equally to low or high multiplicity events at the Tevatron, $RHIC$ or $RHIC\, Spin$, and the $LHC$.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

Question Isotropy

The "cosmological principle" was set up early without realizing its implications for the horizon problem, and almost entirely without support from observational data. Consistent signals of anisotropy have been found in data on electromagnetic propagation, polarizations of QSOs and $CMB$ temperature maps. The axis of Virgo is found again and again in signals breaking isotropy, from independent observables in independent energy regimes. There are no satisfactory explanations of these effects in conventional astrophysics. Axion-photon mixing and propagation in axion condensates are capable of encompassing the data.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2010

Evidence for Observation of Virtual Radio Cherenkov Fields

We present evidence for observation of virtual electromagnetic fields in the radio domain from experiment T926 at the Fermilab Meson Test Beam Facility. Relativistic protons with 120 GeV energy traversed a sealed electromagnetic cavity and were observed in the radio regime of 200MHz-GHz. Closely related to ordinary Cherenkov radiation, which we also measured, the virtual fields require no acceleration for their existence. The experiment is also the first observation of fields from hadronic showers, an independent and new confirmation of coherent radio emission from ultra-relativistic particles. Conditions of very low signal to noise were overcome by a novel and unbiased filtering strategy that exploits exhaustive studies of correlations in the noise backgrounds. Linear scaling of the signal region with the number of beam particles provides evidence of coherence. Extrapolation to measurement of the field of a single relativistic proton charge is consistent within errors. Our study also illustrates new data processing methods that may be applied broadly in conditions of extremely low signal to noise.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2010

One Model Explains DAMA/LIBRA, CoGENT, CDMS, and XENON

Many experiments seek dark matter by detecting relatively low energy nuclear recoils. Yet since events from ordinary physics with energies in the 1-100 KeV range are commonplace, all claims of signals or their absence hinge on exhaustive calibrations and background rejection. We document many curious and consistent discrepancies between the backgrounds which neutrons can produce versus the picture of neutrons and claims of neutron calibration found in dark matter literature. Much of the actual physics of neutrons is either under-recognized or under-reported, opening up new interpretations of current data. All signals seen so far, including those presented tentatively such as CoGENT, or the bold claims and time dependence of DAMA/LIBRA, appear to be consistent with neutron-induced backgrounds. At the same time it is the burden of proof of experimental groups to support their claims no possible background could matter, not ours. The existing hypotheses about backgrounds stated by experiments, accepted at face value and as published, make possible a variety of neutron-induced events to be registered as dark matter signals.

hep-ph↗