Relation between early life socioeconomic position and all cause mortality in two generations. A longitudinal study of Danish men born in 1953 and their parents

Objective: To examine (1) the relation between parental socioeconomic position and all cause mortality in two generations, (2) the relative importance of mother’s educational status and father’s occupational status on offspring mortality, and (3) the effect of factors in the family environment on these relations. Design: A longitudinal study with record linkage to the Civil Registration System. The data were analysed using Cox regression models. Setting: Copenhagen, Denmark. Subjects: 2890 men born in 1953, whose mothers were interviewed regarding family social background in 1968. The vital status of this population and their parents was ascertained from April 1968 to January 2002. Main outcome measures: All cause mortality in study participants, their mothers, and fathers. Results: A similar pattern of relations was found between parental social position and all cause mortality in adult life in the three triads of father, mother, and offspring constituted of the cohort of men born in 1953, their parents, and grandparents. The educational status of mothers showed no independent effect on total mortality when father’s occupational social class was included in the model in either of the triads. Low material wealth was the indicator that remained significantly associated with adult all cause mortality in a model also including parental social position and the intellectual climate of the family in 1968. In the men born in 1953 the influence of material wealth was strongest for deaths later in adult life. Conclusion: Father’s occupational social class is associated with adult mortality in all members of the mother-father-offspring triad. Material wealth seems to be an explanatory factor for this association

Neutrino Physics

The basic concepts of neutrino physics are presented at a level appropriate for integration into elementary courses on quantum mechanics and/or modern physics.Comment: Prepared for the American Journal of Physics; 50 pages; 11 figures (10 included); late

Chiral Symmetry and the Parity-Violating NNπNN\pi Yukawa Coupling

We construct the complete SU(2) parity-violating (PV) $\pi, N, \Delta$ interaction Lagrangian with one derivative, and calculate the chiral corrections to the PV Yukawa $NN\pi$ coupling constant $h_\pi$ through ${\cal O}(1/\Lambda_\chi^3)$ in the leading order of heavy baryon expansion. We discuss the relationship between the renormalized \hpi, the measured value of \hpi, and the corresponding quantity calculated microscopically from the Standard Model four-quark PV interaction.Comment: RevTex, 26 pages + 5 PS figure

Extracting Electric Polarizabilities from Lattice QCD

Charged and neutral, pion and kaon electric polarizabilities are extracted from lattice QCD using an ensemble of anisotropic gauge configurations with dynamical clover fermions. We utilize classical background fields to access the polarizabilities from two-point correlation functions. Uniform background fields are achieved by quantizing the electric field strength with the proper treatment of boundary flux. These external fields, however, are implemented only in the valence quark sector. A novel method to extract charge particle polarizabilities is successfully demonstrated for the first time.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures, a few clarifications added, published versio

Relativistic corrections to the Pionium Lifetime

Next to leading order contributions to the pionium lifetime are considered within non-relativistic effective field theory. A more precise determination of the coupling constants is then needed in order to be consistent with the relativistic pion-pion scattering amplitude which can be obtained from chiral perturbation theory. The relativistic correction is found to be 4.1% and corresponds simply to a more accurate value for the non-relativistic decay momentum.Comment: 5 pages, Latex. Includes corrections based on a more precise matching to the pion-pion scattering amplitude from chiral perturbation theor

Subleading corrections to parity-violating pion photoproduction

We compute the photon asymmetry Bγ for near threshold parity-violating (PV) pion photoproduction through subleading order. We show that subleading contributions involve a new combination of PV couplings not included in previous analyses of hadronic PV. We argue that existing constraints on the leading order contribution to Bγ—obtained from the PV γ-decay of 18F—suggest that the impact of the subleading contributions may be more significant than expected from naturalness arguments

Resonances in radiative hyperon decays

The importance of resonances for the radiative hyperon decays is examined in the framework of chiral perturbation theory. Low lying baryon resonances are included into the effective theory and tree contributions to these decays are calculated. We find significant contributions to both the parity-conserving and parity-violating decay amplitudes and a large negative value for the asymmetry parameter in polarized Sigma^+ -> p gamma is found, in agreement with the experimental result alpha(p Sigma^+) = -0.76 +/- 0.08.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figure

Polaron Effective Mass, Band Distortion, and Self-Trapping in the Holstein Molecular Crystal Model

We present polaron effective masses and selected polaron band structures of the Holstein molecular crystal model in 1-D as computed by the Global-Local variational method over a wide range of parameters. These results are augmented and supported by leading orders of both weak- and strong-coupling perturbation theory. The description of the polaron effective mass and polaron band distortion that emerges from this work is comprehensive, spanning weak, intermediate, and strong electron-phonon coupling, and non-adiabatic, weakly adiabatic, and strongly adiabatic regimes. Using the effective mass as the primary criterion, the self-trapping transition is precisely defined and located. Using related band-shape criteria at the Brillouin zone edge, the onset of band narrowing is also precisely defined and located. These two lines divide the polaron parameter space into three regimes of distinct polaron structure, essentially constituting a polaron phase diagram. Though the self-trapping transition is thusly shown to be a broad and smooth phenomenon at finite parameter values, consistency with notion of self-trapping as a critical phenomenon in the adiabatic limit is demonstrated. Generalizations to higher dimensions are considered, and resolutions of apparent conflicts with well-known expectations of adiabatic theory are suggested.Comment: 28 pages, 15 figure