Search

Electrically charged particles can be created by the decay of strong enough electric fields, a phenomenon known as the Schwinger mechanism1. By electromagnetic duality, a sufficiently strong magnetic field would similarly produce magnetic monopoles, if they exist2. Magnetic monopoles are hypothetical fundamental particles that are predicted by several theories beyond the standard model3–7but have never been experimentally detected. Searching for the existence of magnetic monopoles via the Schwinger mechanism has not yet been attempted, but it is advantageous, owing to the possibility of calculating its rate through semi-classical techniques without perturbation theory, as well as that the production of the magnetic monopoles should be enhanced by their finite size8,9and strong coupling to photons2,10. Here we present a search for magnetic monopole production by the Schwinger mechanism in Pb–Pb heavy ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, producing the strongest known magnetic fields in the current Universe11. It was conducted by the MoEDAL experiment, whose trapping detectors were exposed to 0.235 per nanobarn, or approximately 1.8 × 109, of Pb–Pb collisions with 5.02-teraelectronvolt center-of-mass energy per collision in November 2018. A superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometer scanned the trapping detectors of MoEDAL for the presence of magnetic charge, which would induce a persistent current in the SQUID. Magnetic monopoles with integer Dirac charges of 1, 2 and 3 and masses up to 75 gigaelectronvolts per speed of light squared were excluded by the analysis at the 95% confidence level. This provides a lower mass limit for finite-size magnetic monopoles from a collider search and greatly extends previous mass bounds.

The cumulative amount of iodinated contrast medium necessary for endovascular repair (EVAR) planning, operative procedure, and subsequent follow-up is a threat for the onset of end-stage renal disease in patients with preoperative impaired kidney function. The purpose of this study was to describe a mini-invasive approach aimed to minimize the exposure of these patients to iodinated contrast medium and the subsequent risk of renal function worsening.

We describe nuclear effects in structure functions of nuclei in DIS by means of a multiplicative factor βA(x)which differentiates the structure function of the bound nucleons from that of the free nucleons. Our analysis determines that βA(x)establishes a relation between the quark-gluon dynamics expressed by the bound nucleon structure functions and the nuclear dynamics as described by the well-known semi-empirical Bethe-Weizsäcker mass formula. This relation corroborates a connection between the underlying quark-gluon dynamics and the phenomenological nuclear dynamics.

The decomplexification procedure allows one to show mathematically (stricto sensu) the equivalence (isomorphism) between the quantum dynamics of a system with a finite number of basis states and a classical dynamics system. This unique way of connecting different dynamics was used in the past to analyze the relationship between the well-known geometric phase present in the quantum evolution discovered by Berry and its generalizations, with their analogs, the Hannay phases, in the classical domain. In here, this analysis is carried out for several quantum hermitian and non-hermitian PT-symmetric Hamiltonians and compared with the Hannay phase analysis in their classical isomorphic equivalent systems. As the equivalence ends in the classical domain with oscillator dynamics, we exploit the analogy to propose resonant electric circuits coupled with a gyrator, to reproduce the geometric phase coming from the theoretical solutions, in simulated laboratory experiments.

Abstract:: The study of deeply virtual Compton scattering (DVCS) has shown that electromagnetic gauge invariance requires, to leading order, not only twist-two but additional twist-three contributions. We apply this analysis and, using the Ellis-Furmanski-Petronzio factorization scheme, compute the single- (electron) spin asymmetry arising in the collision of longitudinally polarized electrons with hadrons up to twist-3 accuracy. In order to simplify the kinematics we restrict the actual calculation to pions in the chiral limit. The process is described in terms of the generalized parton distribution functions which we obtain within a bag model framework.

The gluonic contributions to the conventional PCAC formulas due to flavor singlet axial anomaly have been instrumental in explaining the mass of the η′ and providing a plausible explanation for solving the spin crisis. We show that they also play an important role in the description of photo- and electroproduction of vector mesons at low energy and high momentum transfers. We calculate the contributions of this type to φ-meson electromagnetic production in a model, which contains also a soft pomeron, and find agreement with recent CLAS data.

The structure of the quark propagator of QCD in a confining background is not known. We make an ansatz for it, as hinted by a particular mechanism for confinement, and analyze its implications in the meson and baryon correlators. We connect the various terms in the Källen-Lehmann representation of the quark propagator with appropriate combinations of hadron correlators, which may ultimately be calculated in lattice QCD. Furthermore, using the positivity of the path integral measure for vector like theories, we reanalyze some mass inequalities in our formalism. A curiosity of the analysis is that, the exotic components of the propagator (axial and tensor), produce terms in the hadron correlators which, if not vanishing in the gauge field integration, lead to violations of fundamental symmetries. The non observation of these violations implies restrictions in the space-time structure of the contributing gauge field configurations. In this way, lattice QCD can help us analyze the microscopic structure of the mechanisms for confinement.

Two dimensional massless quantum chromodynamics presents many features which resemble those of the true theory. In particular the spectrum consists of mesons and baryons arranged in flavour multiplets without parity doubling. We analyze the implications of chiral symmetry, which is not spontaneously broken in two dimensions, in the spectrum and in the quark condensate. We study how parity doubling, an awaited consequence of Coleman's theorem, is avoided due to the dimensionality of space-time and confinement. We prove that a chiral phase transition is not possible in the theory.

We prove that any physical (color-singlet) state can be expanded in terms of a basis constructed by direct product from baryonic and/or mesonic states. The proof is based on a group-theoretical representation method due to Hund. The application of the procedure to the color degrees of freedom leads to known results, which we generalize to more complex situations. The joint application of the method to the color and flavor degrees of freedom results in our initial statement. In this way one is able to give physical meaning to a mathematical procedure. The physics behind our calculation is intimately connected with the concepts of elementarity of constituents and the spinstatistics theorem. The hypothesis that leads to our result, is that physical states are color singlets and the antisymmetry of the total wave function.

We calculate observable effects due to antisymmetrization at the quark level for non-conventional nuclei built in terms of nucleons and deltas. Some of these systems represent scenarios with maximal Pauli blocking. We discuss implications in real nuclei. Finally we study delta production mechanisms in nuclei and make some conjectures about experiments where quark Pauli effects might show up.

We use a model for baryons that links the constituent structure to the deep inelastic (current) properties. The approach consists in a laboratory partonic description (based on a model of hadron structure), to which a low momentum scaleQ0 is adscribed, which is evolved to high momenta by means of the renormalization group. A generalization of the model by means of the hadronic quark cluster decomposition, provides a description of the structure functions of nuclei and is the starting point to study the effects that the antisymmetrization at the quark level has on the structure function of a model deuteron. The analysis contains conventional and high momentum partonic components. We next study quark Pauli blocking scenarios by including exotic delta nuclei in our analysis. By assuming that nuclei are composed of quasi-deuteron clusters, i.e., the deuteron parameters are density dependent, we analyze these effects on the structure functions of heavier nuclei.

We study the dynamics generated by local gauge invariance under a non-abelianSU(N) group for two nonrelativistic particles interacting through the effect of the group charges. We describe the local gauge invariant potential which contains the exchange of infinitely many gluons. We discuss the possible implications of our result.

We reanalyze the procedure used thus far for the study of collision processes in the Chiral Bag Model from the point of view of scattering theory. In the present formalism thein andout states are free waves with no memory of the cavity. This feature gives rise to an observable effect consisting in a peculiar momentum dependence of the scattering amplitudes, which differs from that of previous calculations. The new procedure however does not change the magnitude of the pion-baryon coupling constants.

We generate a two phase model for hadrons starting from a lagrangian density in terms of quarks and meson fields which extend over all space-time. Our procedure is based on the non-topological soliton approach of Friedberg and Lee. We then apply this scheme to study the coupling of gauge weak bosons, for which the surface is transparent, in a consistent manner.

A description of the baryonic spectrum of quantum chromodynamics in one-space-one-time dimensions for massless quarks is presented. The theory has been studied in the equivalent non-abelian bosonic representation, and four-point functions of the colored meson fields under the simplifying assumption of two colors have been calculated. The crucial role of the chiral sector in providing baryon number has been unveiled. Excited baryon states appear as pseudomesonic excitations on top of the massless baryons associated with the chiral fields.