arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Shmuel Nussinov.
An early phase of theoretical high energy physics in Israel specifically that connected with Yuval Ne'eman and a small group of my classmates, myself, and several others who worked around him after his return to Israel on the "Eight-fold way" as seen by me is briefly described.
We consider Wimp annihilations into monochromatic and continuous $γ$'s and the angular distribution of the resulting gammas. We discuss how the WIMP density profile can be reconstructed from the angular dependence of the photon flux.
If Micro Black Holes (MBHs) can be produced at the LHC, they will decay very fast. We study hypothetical MBHs that do not decay; in particular, QCD effects on accretion by MBHs that are produced at rest. We explain why accretion of a nucleon by such MBHs is associated with pion emission. This pion emission results in a kick to the MBHs, such that their velocities are large enough to escape the Earth. Our study provides an extra assurance that MBHs which might be produced at the LHC are not dangerous.
We study classical and quantum phases in the adiabatic Born-Oppenheimer context. These include a classical astronomical case, the general dual description of the phases, a new "Paradox" connected to scattering Berry phase and its resolution and various elaboration of topological/geometrical/non-abelian phases.
We discuss a notion of gluon-glueball duality analogous to quark-hadron duality. We apply this idea to the radiative decay of heavy orthoquarkonium, $Q\bar Q \to γg g$, which has been used to search for glueballs. The duality is first introduced in two simplified contexts: (i) a hypothetical version of QCD without any light quarks and (ii) QCD in the large-$N_c$ limit. We then discuss how an approximate form of this duality could hold in real QCD, based on a hierarchy of time scales in the temporal evolution of the $gg$ subsystem in radiative orthoquarkonium decay. We apply this notion of gluon-glueball duality to suggest a method that could be useful in experimental searches for glueballs.
We propose a new class of R-parity violating extension of MSSM with type II seesaw mechanism for neutrino masses where an unstable gravitino is the dark matter of the Universe. It decays predominantly into three leptons final states, thereby providing a natural explanation of the positron excess but no antiproton excess in the PAMELA experiment. The model can explain neutrino masses without invoking any high scale physics while keeping the pre-existing baryon asymmetry of the universe in tact.
The search for extraterrestrial intelligence by looking for signals from advanced technological civilizations has been ongoing for some decades. We suggest that it could possibly be made more efficient by focusing on stars from which the solar system can be observed via mini-eclipsings of the Sun by transiting planets.
We reconsider the two different facets of $π$ and $K$ mesons as $q \bar q$ bound states and approximate Nambu-Goldstone bosons. We address several topics, including masses, mass splittings between $π$ and $ρ$ and between $K$ and $K^*$, meson wavefunctions, charge radii, and the $K-π$ wavefunction overlap.
An unstable gravitino with lifetime longer than $10^{26}$ sec or so has been proposed as a possible dark matter candidate in supergravity models with R-parity breaking. We find a natural realization of this idea in the minimal supersymmetric left-right models where left-right symmetry breaking scale in the few TeV range. It is known that in these models, R-parity must break in order to have parity breaking as required by low energy weak interactions. The sub-eV neutrino masses imply that R-parity breaking effects in this model must be highly suppressed. This in turn makes the gravitino LSP long lived enough, so that it becomes the dark matter of the Universe. It also allows detectable displaced vertices at the LHC from NLSP decays. We present a detailed analysis of the model and some aspects of its rich phenomenology.
Channeling of recoil ions in various crystals strongly depends on their direction. This, along with the WIMP wind due to the rotation of the galactic disc generates {\it daily} modulations of the channeling. Since channeling affect the characteristics of the WIMP induced recoil events these modulations may be observed in single crystal detectors and serve as a WIMP signature. We suggest in particular searching for such modulations in the DAMA scintillation data.
We consider the ``second-class current'' decay $τ^-\toπ^-ην_τ$ from several points of view. We first focus on the decay rate as expected within standard weak interaction and QCD due to isospin violation. The decay contributions divide into $P$- and $S$-wave parts. The former can be reliably estimated using the $ρηπ$ coupling inferred from the rates and Dalitz-plot distributions of $η\to 3π$ decays. The somewhat larger $S$-wave part, which was previously computed using chiral perturbation theory, is estimated from a simple $\bar qq$ model. Both estimates of the $S$-wave part depend on whether the $a_0(980)$ scalar particle is a $\bar qq$ or some other (4-quark) state. Finally, we discuss genuinely new, non-$V-A$ scalar weak interactions. The $τ^-\toπ^-ην_τ$ decay provides information on this question, which nicely complements that from precision $β$ decay experiments. % In summary, we discuss the possible implications of putative values of the branching fraction ${\cal B}(τ^-\toπ^-ην_τ)$. In the case of larger values, in particular of the $S$-wave part, not only will detection of the decay be more likely and more reliable, its implications will be more far-reaching and interesting.
The Froissart bound limmits the asymptotic s->infinity behavior of crossections by (π/t_0) ln ^2 (s/{(s_0)} where t_0 is the lightest exchanged particle, or more generally the nearest ssingularity, in the t channel. We suggest that in comparing this bound with data at energies less than those of LHC, gluebaall masses raather than the small pion mass should be used for (t_0)^{1/2}.
We discuss the relic abundance of massive long lived colored particles with mass of the order of 1 TeV. We first examine the case where the massive colored particles have the standard color only. Next we consider the "Quirk Model" suggested by M. Luty, in which the colored particles transform under an additional non-abelian gauge group with a scale much smaller than the particles' mass. In both cases, the relic abundance is reduced via a "late" hadronic annihilation stage. In the second case the relic Quirks bind to ordinary quarks forming fractional charged objects and also anomalous heavy isotopes, and the bounds on the relic abundance become extremely severe. The force between Quirks, however, has a new confining part that manifests via macroscopic strings and the resulting efficient "very late" annihilations reduce the relic abundance to acceptable levels. The prospects of creating and detecting such particles at LHC and the fate of the particles created are discussed.
We discuss several aspects of astroparticle physics pertaining to a new model with MeV cold dark matter particles, which annihilate to electron-positron pairs in a manner yielding the correct CDM density required today, and explaining the enhanced electron-positron annihilation line from the center of the Galaxy. We note that the mass of the vector meson mediating the annihilations, should exceed the mass of CDM particle, and comment on possible enhancement due to CDM clustering, on the detectability of the new CDM, and on particle physics models incorporating this scenario.
We estimate the amount of antiprotons and positrons in cosmic rays due to neutralino annihilations in the galactic halo assuming that dark matter tends to cluster and that these clusters are not disturbed by tidal forces. We find that, assuming neutralinos annihilate mostly to gauge bosons, the amount of antiprotons should exceed the number seen at BESS, whereas the increase in positron flux is below the present detection threshold.
Cold atom traps and certain neutron star layers may contain fermions with separation much larger than the range of pair-wise potentials yet much shorter than the scattering length. Such systems can display {\em universal} characteristics independent of the details of the short range interactions. In particular, the energy per particle is a fraction $ξ$ of the Fermi energy of the free Fermion system. Our main result is that for space dimensions D smaller than two and larger than four a specific extension of this problem readily yields $ξ=1$ for all $D \le 2$ whereas $ξ$ is rigorously non-positive (and potentially vanishing) for all $ D \ge 4$. We discuss the D=3 case. A particular unjustified recipe suggests $ξ=1/2$ in D=3.
In a model with Lorentz invariance violation implemented through modified dispersion relations, we estimate the rate for the decay process gamma -> 3 gamma and find that it provides a relevant bound on Lorentz invariance violation.
We note the similarity between BEC (Bose-Einstein Condensates) formed of atoms between which we have long-range attraction (and shorter-range repulsions) and the field theoretic "Q balls". This allows us in particular to address the stability of various putative particle physics Q balls made of non-relativistic bosons using variational methods of many-body physics.