Particle theory

Abstract:

Recently, a new framework for solving the hierarchy problem was proposed which does not rely on low energy supersymmetry or technicolor. The fundamental Planck mass is at a TeV and the observed weakness of gravity at long distances is due the existence of new sub-millimeter spatial dimensions. In this letter, we study how the properties of black holes are altered in these theories. Small black holes---with Schwarzschild radii smaller than the size of the new spatial dimensions---are quite different. They are bigger, colder, and longer-lived than a usual $(3+1)$-dimensional black hole of the same mass. Furthermore, they primarily decay into harmless bulk graviton modes rather than standard-model degrees of freedom. We discuss the interplay of our scenario with the holographic principle. Our results also have implications for the bounds on the spectrum of primordial black holes (PBHs) derived from the photo-dissociation of primordial nucleosynthesis products, distortion of the diffuse gamma-ray spectrum, overclosure of the universe, gravitational lensing, as well as the phenomenology of black hole production. For example, the bound on the spectral index of the primordial spectrum of density perturbations is relaxed from 1.25 to 1.45-1.60 depending on the epoch of the PBH formation. In these scenarios PBHs provide interesting dark matter candidates; for 6 extra dimensions MACHO candidates with mass $\sim 0.1M_\odot$ can arise. For 2 or 3 extra dimensions PBHs with mass $\sim 2000 M_\odot$ can occur and may act as both dark matter and seeds for early galaxy and QSO formation.

Abstract:

We investigate the topological structure of the vacuum in SU(3) lattice gauge theory. We use under-relaxed cooling to remove the high-frequency fluctuations and a variety of "filters" to identify the topological charges in the resulting smoothened field configurations. We find a densely packed vacuum with an average instanton size, in the continuum limit, of ρ̄∼0.5 fm. The density at large ρ decreases paidly as 1/ρ∼11. At small sizes we see some signs of a trend towards the asymptotic perturbative behavior of D(∝)ρ6. We find that an interesting polarization phenomenon occurs: the large topological charges tend to have, on the average, the same sign and are over-screened by the smaller charges which tend to have, again on the average, the opposite sign to the larger instantons. We also calculate the topological susceptibility, χt, for which we obtain a continuum value of χ1/4t∼187 MeV. We perform the calculations for various volumes, lattice spacings and numbers of cooling sweeps, so as to obtain some control over the associated systematic errors. The coupling range is 6.0≤β≤6.4 and the lattice volumes range from 163×48 to 323×64.