Charmed baryon decay to a strange baryon plus a pion using QCD sum rules

This is an extension of the prediction of strange baryon decays to the decays of charmed baryons using QCD sum rules. Using QCD sum rules, we estimate the decay [Formula: see text]. Although some weak decays of the [Formula: see text] have been measured, since it is difficult to measure [Formula: see text] our estimates should be useful for future experiments.

Searches for magnetic monopoles with IceCube

Particles that carry a magnetic monopole charge are proposed by various theories which go beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. The expected mass of magnetic monopoles varies depending on the theory describing its origin, generally the monopole mass far exceeds those which can be created at accelerators. Magnetic monopoles gain kinetic energy in large scale galactic magnetic fields and, depending on their mass, can obtain relativistic velocities. IceCube is a high energy neutrino detector using the clear ice at the South Pole as a detection medium. As monopoles pass through this ice they produce optical light by a variety of mechanisms. With increasing velocity, they produce light by catalysis of baryon decay, luminescence in the ice associated with electronic excitations, indirect and direct Cherenkov light from the monopole track, and Cherenkov light from cascades induced by pair creation and photonuclear reactions. By searching for this light, current best limits for the monopole flux over a broad range of velocities was achieved using the IceCube detector. A review of these magnetic monopole searches is presented.

COLLECTIVE BARYON DECAY AND GRAVITATIONAL COLLAPSE

While it is widely believed that the gravitational collapse of a sufficiently large mass will lead to a density singularity and an event horizon, we propose that this never happens when quantum effects are taken into account. In particular, we propose that when the conditions become ripe for the formation of a trapped surface, a quantum critical firewall sweeps over the collapsing body, transforming the nucleons in the collapsing matter into a lepton/photon gas together with droplets of a positive vacuum energy. This will happen regardless of the matter density at the time a trapped surface starts to form, and as a result, we predict that at least in all cases of gravitational collapse involving ordinary matter, a large fraction of the rest mass of the collapsing matter will be converted into a burst of neutrinos and γ-rays. We predict that the peak luminosity of these bursts is only weakly dependent on the mass of the collapsing object, and on the order of (ϵq/mPc2)1/4c5/G where ϵq is the mean energy of a nucleon parton and mP is the Planck mass. The duration of the bursts will depend on the mass of the collapsing object; in the case of stellar core collapse, we predict that the duration of both the neutrino and γ-ray bursts will be on the order of 10s.