Large power spectrum and primordial black holes in the effective theory of inflation

We study the generation of a large power spectrum, necessary for primordial black hole formation, within the effective theory of single-field inflation. The mechanisms we consider include a transition into a ghost-inflation-like phase and scenarios where an exponentially growing mode is temporarily turned on. In the cases we discuss, the enhancement in the power spectrum results from either a swift change in some effective coupling or a modification of the dispersion relation for the perturbations, while the background evolution remains unchanged and approximately de Sitter throughout inflation. The robustness of the results is guaranteed thanks to a weakly broken galileon symmetry, which protects the effective couplings against large quantum corrections. We discuss how the enhancement of the power spectrum is related to the energy scale of the operators with weakly broken galileon invariance, and study the limits imposed by strong coupling and the validity of the perturbative expansion.

HERMES – a GUI-based software tool for pre-processing of X-ray absorption spectroscopy data from laboratory Rowland circle spectrometers

HERMES, a graphical user interface software tool, is presented, for pre-processing X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) data from laboratory Rowland circle spectrometers, to meet the data handling needs of a growing community of practice. HERMES enables laboratory XAS data to be displayed for quality assessment, merging of data sets, polynomial fitting of smoothly varying data, and correction of data to the true energy scale and for dead-time and leakage effects. The software is written in Java 15 programming language, and runs on major computer operating systems, with graphics implementation using the JFreeChart toolkit. HERMES is freely available and distributed under an open source licence.

Inflation and dark matter after spontaneous Planck scale generation by hidden chiral symmetry breaking

Dynamical chiral symmetry breaking in a QCD-like hidden sector is used to generate the Planck mass and the electroweak scale including the heavy right-handed neutrino mass. A real scalar field transmits the energy scale of the hidden sector to the visible sectors, playing besides a role of inflaton in the early Universe while realizing a Higgs-inflation-like model. Our dark matter candidates are hidden pions that raise due to dynamical chiral symmetry breaking. They are produced from the decay of inflaton. Unfortunately, it will be impossible to directly detect them, because they are super heavy (109 ∼ 12 GeV), and moreover the interaction with the visible sector is extremely suppressed.

Confinement and Pseudoscalar Glueball Spectrum in the 2 + 1D QCD-Like Theory from the Non-Susy D2 Brane

We study two important properties of 2+1D QCD, namely confinement and Pseudoscalar glueball spectrum, using holographic approach. The confined state of the bounded quark-antiquark pair occurs in the self-coupling dominated nonperturbative regime, where the free gluons form the bound states, known as glueballs. The gauge theory corresponding to low energy decoupled geometry of isotropic non-supersymmetric D2 brane, which is again similar to the 2+1D YM theory, has been taken into account but in this case the coupling constant is found to vary with the energy scale. At BPS limit, this theory reduces to supersymmetric YM theory. We have considered NG action of a test string and calculate the potential of such confined state located on the boundary. The QCD flux tube tension for large quark-antiquark separation is observed to be a monotonically increasing function of running coupling. The mass spectrum of Pseudoscalar glueball is evaluated numerically from the fluctuations of the axion in the gravity theory using WKB approximation. This produces the mass to be related to the string tension and the levels of the first three energy states. The various results that we obtained quite match with those previously studied through the lattice approach.

Problem of energy scale in rigid triaxial rotor model

The problem of mismatching of the level energies, in the ground band and the [Formula: see text]-band of triaxially deformed atomic nuclei, as predicted in the rigid triaxial rotor (RTR) approximation of Davydov and Filippov (DF) model, with experiment, is well known. Here, we illustrate the solutions suggested in the literature, and the deviations observed in the converted energy values, from the experiment. We analyze the source of problem of this mismatch with experiment. This enables a physical picture of the DF (or RTR) model spectra. Our analysis will help in understanding the merits and the limitation of the RTR model in this respect.

A measurement of the mean electronic excitation energy of liquid xenon

Detectors using liquid xenon as target are widely deployed in rare event searches. Conclusions on the interacting particle rely on a precise reconstruction of the deposited energy which requires calibrations of the energy scale of the detector by means of radioactive sources. However, a microscopic calibration, i.e. the translation from the number of excitation quanta into deposited energy, also necessitates good knowledge of the energy required to produce single scintillation photons or ionisation electrons in liquid xenon. The sum of these excitation quanta is directly proportional to the deposited energy in the target. The proportionality constant is the mean excitation energy and is commonly known as W-value. Here we present a measurement of the W-value with electronic recoil interactions in a small dual-phase xenon time projection chamber with a hybrid (photomultiplier tube and silicon photomultipliers) photosensor configuration. Our result is based on calibrations at $$\mathcal {O}(1{-}10\,{\hbox {keV}})$$ O ( 1 - 10 keV ) with internal $${^{37}\hbox {Ar}}$$ 37 Ar and $${^{83\text {m}}\hbox {Kr}}$$ 83 m Kr sources and single electron events. We obtain a value of $$W={11.5}{} \, ^{+0.2}_{-0.3} \, \mathrm {(syst.)} \, \hbox {eV}$$ W = 11.5 - 0.3 + 0.2 ( syst . ) eV , with negligible statistical uncertainty, which is lower than previously measured at these energies. If further confirmed, our result will be relevant for modelling the absolute response of liquid xenon detectors to particle interactions.

Electromagnetic shower reconstruction and energy validation with Michel electrons and π0 samples for the deep-learning-based analyses in MicroBooNE

This article presents the reconstruction of the electromagnetic activity from electrons and photons (showers) used in the MicroBooNE deep learning-based low energy electron search. The reconstruction algorithm uses a combination of traditional and deep learning-based techniques to estimate shower energies. We validate these predictions using two νμ-sourced data samples: charged/neutral current interactions with final state neutral pions and charged current interactions in which the muon stops and decays within the detector producing a Michel electron. Both the neutral pion sample and Michel electron sample demonstrate agreement between data and simulation. Further, the absolute shower energy scale is shown to be consistent with the relevant physical constant of each sample: the neutral pion mass peak and the Michel energy cutoff.

On pion mass and decay constant from theory

We calculate the pion mass from Goldstone modes in the Higgs mechanism related to the neutron decay. The Goldstone pion modes acquire mass by a vacuum misalignment of the Higgs field. The size of the misalignment is controlled by the ratio between the electronic and the nucleonic energy scales. The nucleonic energy scale is involved in the neutron to proton transformation and the electronic scale is involved in the related creation of the electronic state in the course of the electroweak neutron decay. The respective scales influence the mapping of the intrinsic configuration spaces used in our description. The configuration spaces are the Lie groups U(3) for the nucleonic sector and U(2) for the electronic sector. These spaces are both compact and lead to periodic potentials in the Hamiltonians in coordinate space. The periodicity and strengths of these potentials control the vacuum misalignment and leads to a pion mass of 135.2(1.5) MeV with an uncertainty mainly from the fine structure coupling at pionic energies. The pion decay constant 92 MeV results from comparing the fourth order self-coupling in an effective pion field theory with the corresponding fourth order term in the Higgs potential. We suggest analogies with the Goldberger-Treiman relation.

Doping limits in p-type oxide semiconductors

The ability to dope a semiconductor depends on whether the Fermi level can be moved into its valence or conduction bands, on an energy scale referred to the vacuum level. For oxides, there are various suitable n-type oxide semiconductors, but there is a marked absence of similarly suitable p-type oxides. This problem is of interest not only for thin-film transistors for displays, or solar cell electrodes, but also for back-end-of-line devices for the semiconductor industry. This has led to a wide-ranging search for p-type oxides using high-throughput calculations. We note that some proposed p-type metal oxides have cation s-like lone pair states. The defect energies of some of these oxides were calculated in detail. The example SnTa2O6 is of interest, but others have structures more closely based on perovskite structure and are found to have more n-type than p-type character. Graphic abstract