Muon Capture Constraints on Sterile Neutrino Properties

We show that ordinary and radiative muon capture impose stringent constraints on sterile neutrino properties. In particular, we consider a sterile neutrino with a mass between 40 to $80 {\rm MeV}$ that has a large mixing with the muon neutrino and decays predominantly into a photon and light neutrinos due to a large transition magnetic moment. Such a model was suggested as a possible resolution to the puzzle presented by the results of the LSND, KARMEN, and MiniBooNE experiments. We find that the scenario with the radiative decay to massless neutrinos is ruled out by measurements of the radiative muon capture rates at TRIUMF in the relevant mass range by a factor of a few in the squared mixing angle. These constraints are complementary to those imposed by the process of electromagnetic upscattering and de-excitation of beam neutrinos inside the neutrino detectors induced by a large transition magnetic moment. The latter provide stringent constraints on the size of the transitional magnetic moment between muon, electron neutrinos and $N$. We also show that further extension of the model with another massive neutrino in the final state of the radiative decay may be used to bypass the constraints derived in this work.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, revtex4-1. v2: updated to consider anisotropic sterile neutrino decay and a way of relaxing the RMC constraints by introducing another massive sterile neutrino; improved estimate of decay probability in targe

Proton Zemach radius from measurements of the hyperfine splitting of hydrogen and muonic hydrogen

While measurements of the hyperfine structure of hydrogen-like atoms are traditionally regarded as test of bound-state QED, we assume that theoretical QED predictions are accurate and discuss the information about the electromagnetic structure of protons that could be extracted from the experimental values of the ground state hyperfine splitting in hydrogen and muonic hydrogen. Using recent theoretical results on the proton polarizability effects and the experimental hydrogen hyperfine splitting we obtain for the Zemach radius of the proton the value 1.040(16) fm. We compare it to the various theoretical estimates the uncertainty of which is shown to be larger that 0.016 fm. This point of view gives quite convincing arguments in support of projects to measure the hyperfine splitting of muonic hydrogen.Comment: Submitted to Phys. Rev.

Jacobi Identity for Vertex Algebras in Higher Dimensions

Vertex algebras in higher dimensions provide an algebraic framework for investigating axiomatic quantum field theory with global conformal invariance. We develop further the theory of such vertex algebras by introducing formal calculus techniques and investigating the notion of polylocal fields. We derive a Jacobi identity which together with the vacuum axiom can be taken as an equivalent definition of vertex algebra.Comment: 35 pages, references adde

Supersymmetric vertex algebras

We define and study the structure of SUSY Lie conformal and vertex algebras. This leads to effective rules for computations with superfields.Comment: 71 page

A mathematical formalism for the Kondo effect in WZW branes

In this paper, we show how to adapt our rigorous mathematical formalism for closed/open conformal field theory so that it captures the known physical theory of branes in the WZW model. This includes a mathematically precise approach to the Kondo effect, which is an example of evolution of one conformally invariant boundary condition into another through boundary conditions which can break conformal invariance, and a proposed mathematical statement of the Kondo effect conjecture. We also review some of the known physical results on WZW boundary conditions from a mathematical perspective.Comment: Added explanations of the settings and main result

Constructing quantum vertex algebras

This is a sequel to \cite{li-qva}. In this paper, we focus on the construction of quantum vertex algebras over \C, whose notion was formulated in \cite{li-qva} with Etingof and Kazhdan's notion of quantum vertex operator algebra (over \C[[h]]) as one of the main motivations. As one of the main steps in constructing quantum vertex algebras, we prove that every countable-dimensional nonlocal (namely noncommutative) vertex algebra over \C, which either is irreducible or has a basis of PBW type, is nondegenerate in the sense of Etingof and Kazhdan. Using this result, we establish the nondegeneracy of better known vertex operator algebras and some nonlocal vertex algebras. We then construct a family of quantum vertex algebras closely related to Zamolodchikov-Faddeev algebras.Comment: 37 page

Precision Spectroscopy of Molecular Hydrogen Ions: Towards Frequency Metrology of Particle Masses

We describe the current status of high-precision ab initio calculations of the spectra of molecular hydrogen ions (H_2^+ and HD^+) and of two experiments for vibrational spectroscopy. The perspectives for a comparison between theory and experiment at a level of 1 ppb are considered.Comment: 26 pages, 13 figures, 1 table, to appear in "Precision Physics of Simple Atomic Systems", Lecture Notes in Physics, Springer, 200

Quantum Fluctuations of the Gravitational Field and Propagation of Light: a Heuristic Approach

Quantum gravity is quite elusive at the experimental level; thus a lot of interest has been raised by recent searches for quantum gravity effects in the propagation of light from distant sources, like gamma ray bursters and active galactic nuclei, and also in earth-based interferometers, like those used for gravitational wave detection. Here we describe a simple heuristic picture of the quantum fluctuations of the gravitational field that we have proposed recently, and show how to use it to estimate quantum gravity effects in interferometers.Comment: LaTeX2e, 8 pages, 2 eps figures: Talk presented at QED2000, 2nd Workshop on Frontier Tests of Quantum Electrodynamics and Physics of the Vacuum; included in conference proceeding

On the Rozansky-Witten weight systems

Ideas of Rozansky and Witten, as developed by Kapranov, show that a complex symplectic manifold X gives rise to Vassiliev weight systems. In this paper we study these weight systems by using D(X), the derived category of coherent sheaves on X. The main idea (stated here a little imprecisely) is that D(X) is the category of modules over the shifted tangent sheaf, which is a Lie algebra object in D(X); the weight systems then arise from this Lie algebra in a standard way. The other main results are a description of the symmetric algebra, universal enveloping algebra, and Duflo isomorphism in this context, and the fact that a slight modification of D(X) has the structure of a braided ribbon category, which gives another way to look at the associated invariants of links. Our original motivation for this work was to try to gain insight into the Jacobi diagram algebras used in Vassiliev theory by looking at them in a new light, but there are other potential applications, in particular to the rigorous construction of the (1+1+1)-dimensional Rozansky-Witten TQFT, and to hyperkaehler geometry