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M. Rho

Publications and source records attributed to M. Rho.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Kaon Condensation, Black Holes and Cosmological Natural Selection

It is argued that a well measured double neutron star binary in which the two neutron stars are more than 4% different from each other in mass or a massive neutron star with mass M > 2 M_sun would put in serious doubt or simply falsify the following chain of predictions: (1) nearly vanishing vector meson mass at chiral restoration, (2) kaon condensation at a density n ~ 3 n_0, (3) the Brown-Bethe maximum neutron star mass M_max ~ 1.5 M_sun and (4) Smolin's `Cosmological Natural Selection' hypothesis.

hep-ph

Study of Strangeness Condensation by Expanding About the Fixed Point of the Harada-Yamawaki Vector Manifestation

Building on, and extending, the result of a higher-order in-medium chiral perturbation theory combined with renormalization group arguments and a variety of observations of the vector manifestation of Harada-Yamawaki hidden local symmetry theory, we obtain a surprisingly simple description of kaon condensation by fluctuating around the "vector manifestation (VM)" fixed point identified to be the chiral restoration point. Our development establishes that strangeness condensation takes place at about 3 n_0 where n_0 is nuclear matter density. This result depends only on the renoramlization-group (RG) behavior of the vector interactions, other effects involved in fluctuating about the bare vacuum in so many previous calculations being "irrelevant" in the RG about the fixed point. Our results have major effects on the collapse of neutron stars into black holes.

hep-ph

The Problem of Mass: Mesonic Bound States Above Tc

By extending the Bielefeld LGS (Lattice Gauge Simulation) color singlet interaction, we find that the masses of pi, sigma, rho and a_1 excitations, 32 degrees of freedom in all, go to zero (in the chiral limit) as T -> T_c. This result indicates a smooth phase transition at T_c, at which from above the masses and couplings of mesons vanish `a la Brown-Rho scaling. We discuss that our scenario successfully explains the STAR (STAR Collaboration) rho^0/pi^- ratio in Au-Au peripheral collisions at RHIC.

hep-ph

Chemical Equilibration in Relativistic Heavy Ion Collisions

In the hadronic sector of relativistic heavy ion physics, the $ρ<=> 2π$ reaction is the strongest one, strong enough to equilibrate the $ρ$ with the pions throughout the region from chemical freezeout to thermal freezeout when free-particle interactions (with no medium-dependent effects) are employed. Above the chiral restoration temperature, only $ρ$'s and $π$'s are present, in that the chirally restored $A_1$ is equivalent to the $ρ$ and the mesons have an SU(4) symmetry, with no dependence on isospin and negligible dependence on spin. In the same sense the $σ$ and $π$ are "equivalent" scalars. Thus the chirally restored $ρ\leftrightarrows 2π$ exhaust the interspecies transitions. We evaluate this reaction at $T_c$ and find it to be much larger than below $T_c$, certainly strong enough to equilibrate the chirally restored mesons just above $T_c$. When emitted just below $T_c$ the mesons remain in equilibrium, at least in the chiral limit because of the Harada-Yamawaki "vector manifestation" that requires that mesonic coupling constants go to zero (in the chiral limit) as $T$ goes to $T_c$ from below. Our estimates in the chiral limit give deviations in some particle ratios from the standard scenario (of equilibrium in the hadronic sector just below $T_c$) of about double those indicated experimentally. This may be due to the neglect of explicit chiral symmetry breaking in our estimates. We also show that the instanton molecules present above $T_c$ are the giant multipole vibrations found by Asakawa, Hatsuda and Nakahara and of Wetzorke et al. in lattice gauge calculations. Thus, the matter formed by RHIC can equivalently be called: chirally restored mesons, instanton molecules, or giant collective vibrations. It is a strongly interacting liquid.

hep-ph

The Instanton Molecule Liquid and "Sticky Molasses" Above T_c

The main objective of this work is to explore the evolution in the structure of the quark-antiquark bound states in going down in the chirally restored phase from the so-called "zero binding points" T_zb to the QCD critical temperature T_c at which the Nambu-Goldstone and Wigner-Weyl modes meet. In doing this, we adopt the idea recently introduced by Shuryak and Zahed for charmed $\bar c c$, light-quark $\bar q q$ mesons $π, σ, ρ, A_1$ and gluons that at T_zb, the quark-antiquark scattering length goes through infinity at which conformal invariance is restored, thereby transforming the matter into a near perfect fluid behaving hydrodynamically, as found at RHIC. We show that the binding of these states is accomplished by the combination of (i) the color Coulomb interaction, (ii) the relativistic effects, and (iii) the interaction induced by the instanton-anti-instanton molecules. The spin-spin forces turned out to be small. While near T_zb all mesons are large-size nonrelativistic objects bound by Coulomb attraction, near T_c they get much more tightly bound, with many-body collective interactions becoming important and making the $σ$ and $π$ masses approach zero (in the chiral limit). The wave function at the origin grows strongly with binding, and the near-local four-Fermi interactions induced by the instanton molecules play an increasingly more important role as the temperature moves downward toward T_c.

hep-ph

Nature of the Chiral Restoration Transition in QCD

As the chirally restored phase ends with T coming down to T_c, a phase resembling a mixed phase is realized, during which the hadrons (which are massless at T_c in the chiral limit) get their masses back out of their kinetic energy. The gluon condensation energy is fed into the system to keep the temperature (nearly) constant. Lattice results for the gluon condensation are matched by a Nambu-Jona-Lasinio calculation. The latter shows that below T_c the chiral symmetry is barely broken, so that with an about 6% drop in the scalar coupling G it is restored at T_c. Nearly half of the glue, which we call epoxy, is not melted at T_c.

hep-ph

Parameter-free effective field theory calculation for the solar proton-fusion and hep processes

Spurred by the recent complete determination of the weak currents in two-nucleon systems up to ${\cal O}(Q^3)$ in heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory, we carry out a parameter-free calculation of the threshold $S$-factors for the solar $pp$ (proton-fusion) and $hep$ processes in an effective field theory that {\it combines} the merits of the standard nuclear physics method and systematic chiral expansion. The power of the EFT adopted here is that one can correlate in a unified formalism the weak-current matrix elements of two-, three- and four-nucleon systems. Using the tritium $β$-decay rate as an input to fix the only unknown parameter in the theory, we can evaluate the threshold $S$ factors with drastically improved precision; the results are $S_{pp}(0) = 3.94\times(1 \pm 0.004) \times 10^{-25} {MeV-b}$ and $S_{hep}(0) = (8.6\pm 1.3)\times 10^{-20} {keV-b}$. The dependence of the calculated $S$-factors on the momentum cutoff parameter $Λ$ has been examined for a physically reasonable range of $Λ$. This dependence is found to be extremely small for the $pp$ process, and to be within acceptable levels for the $hep$ process, substantiating the consistency of our calculational scheme.

nucl-th

Atiyah-Manton Approach to Skyrmion Matter

We propose how to approach, and report on the first results in our effort for, describing nuclear matter starting from the solitonic picture of baryons which is supposed to represent QCD for large number of colors. For this purpose, the instanton-skyrmion connection of Atiyah and Manton is exploited to describe skyrmion matter. We first modify 't Hooft's multi-instanton solution so as to suitably incorporate proper dynamical variables into the skyrmion matter and then by taking these variables as variational parameters, we show that they cover a configuration space sufficient to adequately describe the ground state properties of nuclear matter starting from the skyrmion picture. Our results turn out to be comparable to those so far found in different numerical calculations, with our solution reaching stability at high density for a crystal structure and obtaining a comparable value for the energy per baryon at the minimum, thus setting the stage for the next step.

nucl-th

The Solar pp and hep Processes in Effective Field Theory

The strategy of modern effective field theory is exploited to pin down accurately the flux $S$ factors for the $pp$ and $hep$ processes in the Sun. The technique used is to combine the high accuracy established in few-nucleon systems of the "standard nuclear physics approach" (SNPA) and the systematic power counting of chiral perturbation theory (ChPT) into a consistent effective field theory framework. Using highly accurate wave functions obtained in the SNPA and working to \nlo3 in the chiral counting for the current, we make totally parameter-free and error-controlled predictions for the $pp$ and $hep$ processes in the Sun.

nucl-th

The Solar hep Process in Effective Field Theory

Using effective field theory, we calculate the S-factor for the hep process in a totally parameter-free formulation. The transition operators are organized according to chiral counting, and their matrix elements are evaluated using the realistic nuclear wave functions obtained in the correlated-hyperspherical-harmonics method. Terms of up to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order in heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory are considered. Fixing the only parameter in the theory by fitting the tritium β-decay rate, we predict the hep S-factor with accuracy better than \sim 20 %.

nucl-th

Parameter-Free Calculation of the Solar Proton Fusion Rate in Effective Field Theory

Spurred by the recent complete determination of the weak currents in two-nucleon systems up to ${\cal O}(Q^3)$ in heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory, we carry out a parameter-free calculation of the solar proton fusion rate in an effective field theory that combines the merits of the standard nuclear physics method and systematic chiral expansion. Using the tritium beta-decay rate as an input to fix the only unknown parameter in the effective Lagrangian, we can evaluate with drastically improved precision the ratio of the two-body contribution to the well established one-body contribution; the ratio is determined to be (0.86\pm 0.05) %. This result is essentially independent of the cutoff parameter for a wide range of its variation (500 MeV \le Λ\le 800 MeV), a feature that substantiates the consistency of the calculation.

nucl-th

The Gluon Spin in the Chiral Bag Model

We study the gluon polarization contribution at the quark model renormalization scale to the proton spin, $Γ$, in the chiral bag model. It is evaluated by taking the expectation value of the forward matrix element of a local gluon operator in the axial gauge $A^+=0$. It is shown that the confining boundary condition for the color electric field plays an important role. When a solution satisfying the boundary condition for the color electric field, which is not the conventionally used but which we favor, is used, the $Γ$ has a positive value for {\it all} bag radii and its magnitude is comparable to the quark spin polarization. This results in a significant reduction in the relative fraction of the proton spin carried by the quark spin, which is consistent with the small flavor singlet axial current measured in the EMC experiments.

hep-ph

Effective Field Theory Approach To \vec{n} + \vec{p} -> d + γAt Threshold

Previously, in an effective field theory formulated by us, we have carried out parameter-free calculations of a large number of low-energy two-nucleon properties. An experiment at the Institut Laue-Langevin is currently measuring spin-dependent effects in the polarized np capture process \vec{n}+\vec{p} -> d +γat threshold. Noting that spin-dependent observables for this reaction are sensitive to terms of chiral orders higher than hitherto studied, we extend our effective theory approach to this process and make parameter-free predictions on the spin-dependent observables.

nucl-th

Medium Dependence of the Vector-Meson Mass: Dynamical and/or Brown-Rho Scaling?

We discuss the similarities and differences for the theories of Rapp, Wambach and collaborators (called R/W in short) and those based on Brown-Rho scaling (called B/R), as applied to reproduce the dileptons measured by the CERES collaboration in the CERN experiments. In both theories the large number of dileptons at invariant masses $\sim$~$m_ρ/2$ are shown to be chiefly produced by a density-dependent $ρ$-meson mass. In R/W the medium dependence is dynamically calculated using hadronic variables defined in the matter-free vacuum. In B/R scaling it follows from movement towards chiral symmetry restoration due to medium-induced vacuum change, and is described in terms of constituent (or quasiparticle) quarks. We argue that the R/W description should be reliable up to densities somewhat beyond nuclear density, where hadrons are the effective variables. At higher density there should be a crossover to constituent quarks as effective variables scaling according to B/R. In the crossover region, the two descriptions must be ``dual''.

nucl-th

Effective kaon mass in dense baryonic matter: role of correlations

We evaluate the effective kaon mass in dense nuclear matter. Pauli blocking and nucleon-nucleon short-range correlations are incorporated. The effects of short-range correlations are shown to be moderate and figure importantly only at densities larger than 2 times normal nuclear density. We discuss the relations between the present results and the results obtained in next-to-next-to-leading order chiral perturbation theory (${{\cal O} (Q^3)}$, where $Q$ is the characteristic small energy-momentum scale probed). We also discuss mean-field aspects, with some remarks on the relation between the short-range correlations and the four-Fermi contact terms in the chiral effective Lagrangian.

nucl-th

A Mean Field Theory of the Chiral Phase Transition

The recent discussions by Kocić and Kogut on the nature of the chiral phase transition are reviewed. The mean-field nature of the transition suggested by these authors is supported in random matrix theory by Verbaarschot and Jackson which reproduces many aspects of QCD lattice simulations. In this paper, we point out physical arguments that favor a mean-field transition, not only for zero density and high temperature, but also for finite density. We show, using the Gross-Neveu model in 3 spatial dimensions in mean-field approximation, how the phase transition is constructed. In order to reproduce the lowering of the $ρ=0$, $T=0$ vacuum evaluated in lattice calculations, we introduce {nucleons} rather than constituent quarks in negative energy states, down to a momentum cut-off of $Λ$. We also discuss Brown-Rho scaling of the hadron masses in relation to the QCD phase transition, and how this scaling affects the CERES and HELIOS-3 dilepton experiments.

nucl-th

From Kaon-Nuclear Interactions to Kaon Condensation

An effective chiral Lagrangian in heavy-fermion formalism whose parameters are constrained by kaon-nucleon and kaon-nuclear interactions next to the leading order in chiral expansion is used to describe kaon condensation in dense ``neutron star" matter. The critical density is found to be robust with respect to the parameters of the chiral Lagrangian and comes out to be $ρ_c\sim (3 - 4)ρ_0$. Once kaon condensation sets in, the system is no longer composed of neutron matter but of nuclear matter. Possible consequences on stellar collapse with the formation of compact ``nuclear stars" or light-mass black holes are pointed out.

hep-ph