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Maurizio Giannotti

Publications and source records attributed to Maurizio Giannotti.

84 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

Stellar Evolution Bounds on the ALP-Photon Coupling: new Results and Perspectives

Stellar evolution considerations are of fundamental importance in our understanding of the axion/ALP-photon coupling, g_{aγ}. Helium burning stars are the best laboratories to study this coupling. Here, we will review the bounds from massive and low mass helium burning stars, and present a new analysis of the bound from the horizontal branch stars. The analysis provides the strongest bound to date on g_{aγ} in a wide mass range.

astro-ph.HE↗

Constraining the Axion-Photon Coupling with Massive Stars

We point out that stars in the mass window ~ 8-12 Msun can serve as sensitive probes of the axion-photon interaction, g_{Aγγ}. Specifically, for these stars axion energy losses from the helium-burning core would shorten and eventually eliminate the blue loop phase of the evolution. This would contradict observational data, since the blue loops are required, e.g., to account for the existence of Cepheid stars. Using the MESA stellar evolution code, modified to include the extra cooling, we conservatively find g_{Aγγ} <~ 0.8 * 10^{-10} GeV^{-1}, which compares favorably with the existing bounds.

hep-ph↗

MESAFace, a graphical interface to analyze the MESA output

MESA (Modules for Experiments in Stellar Astrophysics) has become very popular among astrophysicists as a powerful and reliable code to simulate stellar evolution. Analyzing the output data thoroughly may, however, present some challenges and be rather time-consuming. Here we describe MESAFace, a graphical and dynamical interface which provides an intuitive, efficient and quick way to analyze the MESA output.

astro-ph.SR↗

New constraints for heavy axion-like particles from supernovae

We derive new constraints on the coupling of heavy pseudoscalar (axion-like) particles to photons, based on the gamma ray flux expected from the decay of these particles into photons. After being produced in the supernova core, these heavy axion-like particles would escape and a fraction of them would decay into photons before reaching the Earth. We have calculated the expected flux on Earth of these photons from the supernovae SN 1987A and Cassiopeia A and compared our results to data from the Fermi Large Area Telescope. This analysis provides strong constraints on the parameter space for axion-like particles. For a particle mass of 100 MeV, we find that the Peccei-Quinn constant, f_a, must be greater than about 10^{15} GeV. Alternatively, for fa=10^{12} GeV, we exclude the mass region between approximately 100 eV and 1 GeV.

astro-ph.HE↗

Vector Bosons in the Randall-Sundrum 2 and Lykken-Randall models and unparticles

Unparticle behavior is shown to be realized in the Randall-Sundrum 2 (RS 2) and the Lykken-Randall (LR) brane scenarios when brane-localized Standard Model currents are coupled to a massive vector field living in the five-dimensional warped background of the RS 2 model. By the AdS/CFT dictionary these backgrounds exhibit certain properties of the unparticle CFT at large N_c and strong 't Hooft coupling. Within the RS 2 model we also examine and contrast in detail the scalar and vector position-space correlators at intermediate and large distances. Unitarity of brane-to-brane scattering amplitudes is seen to imply a necessary and sufficient condition on the positivity of the bulk mass, which leads to the well-known unitarity bound on vector operators in a CFT.

hep-th↗

On the RS2 realization of unparticles

To facilitate the study of the unparticle scenario it is very desirable to have a treatable model realizing it in four dimensions. Motivated by the general idea of the AdS/CFT correspondence, we consider a simple construction: the Randall-Sundrum 2 (single brane) setup with the Standard Model fields on the brane and a massive vector field in the warped bulk. We show that in this model the known properties of vector unparticles -- the nontrivial phase of the CFT propagator, the necessity and dominance of contact interactions, the unitarity constraint on the conformal dimension of the operator, and the tensor structure dictated by conformal symmetry -- follow by simple inspection of the brane-to-brane propagator. The phase has a physical interpretation as controlling the rate of escape of unparticles into the extra dimension. Requiring the correct sign for the imaginary part of the longitudinal polarization of the propagator, we obtain the unitarity condition m_5^2 >= 0, which, unlike in the scalar case, is unchanged from flat space. This condition results in the unitarity bound d_V >= 3, or, more generally, d_V >= D-1 for a vector unparticle in D-dimensional space. It is instructive to consider the RS 2 propagator in (Euclidean) position space: at large distances it behaves as a pure CFT propagator, while at short distances it turns into the 5d flat space propagator. The latter is softer than the former, thus regulating the would-be divergences of the spectral integral and turning the "contact" terms seen at low energies into finite-range interactions. Upon Fourier transforming to momentum space, one finds that at low momenta the CFT piece is subdominant to the "contact" interactions.

hep-th↗

The Trace Anomaly and Massless Scalar Degrees of Freedom in Gravity

The trace anomaly of quantum fields in electromagnetic or gravitational backgrounds implies the existence of massless scalar poles in physical amplitudes involving the stress-energy tensor. Considering first the axial anomaly and using QED as an example, we compute the full one-loop triangle amplitude of the fermionic stress tensor with two current vertices, , and exhibit the scalar pole in this amplitude associated with the trace anomaly, in the limit of zero electron mass m -> 0. To emphasize the infrared aspect of the anomaly, we use a dispersive approach and show that this amplitude and the existence of the massless scalar pole is determined completely by its ultraviolet finite terms, together with the requirements of Poincare invariance of the vacuum, Bose symmetry under interchange of J^a and J^b, and vector current and stress tensor conservation. We derive a sum rule for the appropriate positive spectral function corresponding to the discontinuity of the triangle amplitude, showing that it becomes proportional to delta function of k^2, and therefore contains a massless scalar intermediate state in the conformal limit of zero electron mass. The effective action corresponding to the trace of the triangle amplitude can be expressed in local form by the introduction of two scalar auxiliary fields which satisfy massless wave equations. These massless scalar degrees of freedom couple to classical sources, contribute to gravitational scattering processes, and can have long range gravitational effects.

hep-th↗

The Impact of Neutrino Magnetic Moments on the Evolution of Massive Stars

We explore the sensitivity of massive stars to neutrino magnetic moments. We find that the additional cooling due to the neutrino magnetic moments bring about qualitative changes to the structure and evolution of stars in the mass window 7 Msun < M < 18 Msun, rather than simply changing the time scales for the burning. We describe some of the consequences of this modified evolution: the shifts in the threshold masses for creating core-collapse supernovae and oxygen-neon-magnesium white dwarfs and the appearance of a new type of supernova in which a partial carbon-oxygen core explodes within a massive star. The resulting sensitivity to the magnetic moment is at the level of (2-4) * 10^{-11} μ_B.

astro-ph↗

Electromagnetic effects in Kl3 decays

We study the radiative corrections to all Kl3 decay modes to leading non-trivial order in the chiral effective field theory, working with a fully inclusive prescription on real photon emission. We present new results for Kmu3 modes and update previous results on Ke3 modes. Our analysis provides important theoretical input for the extraction of the CKM element Vus from Kl3 decays.

hep-ph↗

Extra dimensions, orthopositronium decay, and stellar cooling

In a class of extra dimensional models with a warped metric and a single brane the photon can be localized on the brane by gravity only. An intriguing feature of these models is the possibility of the photon escaping into the extra dimensions. The search for this effect has motivated the present round of precision orthopositronium decay experiments. We point out that in this framework a photon in plasma should be metastable. We consider the astrophysical consequences of this observation, in particular, what it implies for the plasmon decay rate in globular cluster stars and for the core-collapse supernova cooling rate. The resulting bounds on the model parameter exceed the possible reach of orthopositronium experiments by many orders of magnitude.

hep-ph↗

Primordial Magnetic Fields and the Peccei-Quinn Scale

A strong primordial magnetic field can induce a relaxation of the present bound on the PQ-constant. We show that, considering the present limits on primordial magnetic fields, a value for the PQ-constant very close to the GUT scale is not excluded. This result naturally opens the possibility for the axion to be defined in the context of the GUT theories.

astro-ph↗

Strong CP problem and mirror world: the Weinberg Wilczek axion revisited

A new possibility for solving the strong CP-problem is suggested,which assumes that apart of the ordinary world of observable particles described by standard model, there exits a mirror sector of particles and two sectors share the same Peccei-Quinn symmetry realized {\it a là} Weinberg-Wilczek model. The mirror gauge group is completely analogous to that of the standard model for ordinary particles but having somewhat larger electroweak scale,which in turn implies the infrared scale $Λ'$ of the mirror strong interactions has to be larger than the ordinary QCD scale $Λ$. In this way, the axion mass and interaction constants are actually determined by mirror sector scales $v'$ and $Λ'$, while the $θ$ terms are simultaneously cancelled in both sectors due to mirror symmetry. The experimental and astrophysical limits on such an axion is discussed. An interesting parameter window is found where $f_a \sim {\rm few}\times 10^4$ GeV whereas the axion mass is $\sim 1$ MeV.

hep-ph↗