Low-lying even parity meson resonances and spin-flavor symmetry

A study is presented of the $s-$wave meson-meson interactions involving members of the $\rho-$nonet and of the $\pi-$octet. The starting point is an SU(6) spin-flavor extension of the SU(3) flavor Weinberg-Tomozawa Lagrangian. SU(6) symmetry breaking terms are then included to account for the physical meson masses and decay constants, while preserving partial conservation of the axial current in the light pseudoscalar sector. Next, the $T-$matrix amplitudes are obtained by solving the Bethe Salpeter equation in coupled-channel with the kernel built from the above interactions. The poles found on the first and second Riemann sheets of the amplitudes are identified with their possible Particle Data Group (PDG) counterparts. It is shown that most of the low-lying even parity PDG meson resonances, specially in the $J^P=0^+$ and $1^+$ sectors, can be classified according to multiplets of the spin-flavor symmetry group SU(6). The $f_0(1500)$, $f_1(1420)$ and some $0^+(2^{++})$ resonances cannot be accommodated within this SU(6) scheme and thus they would be clear candidates to be glueballs or hybrids. Finally, we predict the existence of five exotic resonances ($I \ge 3/2$ and/or $|Y|=2$) with masses in the range 1.4--1.6 GeV, which would complete the $27_1$, $10_3$, and $10_3^*$ multiplets of SU(3)$\otimes$SU(2).Comment: 43 pages, 2 figures, 61 tables. Improved discussion of Section II. To appear in Physical Review

Crossing of Phantom Divide in F(R)F(R) Gravity

An explicit model of $F(R)$ gravity with realizing a crossing of the phantom divide is reconstructed. In particular, it is shown that the Big Rip singularity may appear in the reconstructed model of $F(R)$ gravity. Such a Big Rip singularity could be avoided by adding $R^2$ term or non-singular viable $F(R)$ theory to the model because phantom behavior becomes transient.Comment: 9 pages, 1 figure, to be published in the proceedings of the International Workshop on Dark Matter, Dark Energy and Matter-antimatter Asymmetry in Special Issue of Modern Physics Letters A, Department of Physics, National Tsing Hua University, Hsinchu, Taiwan, 20th - 21st November, 200

A Scanning Transmission X-ray Microscopy Study of Cubic and Orthorhombic C₃A and Their Hydration Products in the Presence of Gypsum.

This paper shows the microstructural differences and phase characterization of pure phases and hydrated products of the cubic and orthorhombic (Na-doped) polymorphs of tricalcium aluminate (C₃A), which are commonly found in traditional Portland cements. Pure, anhydrous samples were characterized using scanning transmission X-ray microscopy (STXM), X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) and X-ray diffraction (XRD) and demonstrated differences in the chemical and mineralogical composition as well as the morphology on a micro/nano-scale. C₃A/gypsum blends with mass ratios of 0.2 and 1.9 were hydrated using a water/C₃A ratio of 1.2, and the products obtained after three days were assessed using STXM. The hydration process and subsequent formation of calcium sulfate in the C₃A/gypsum systems were identified through the changes in the LIII edge fine structure for Calcium. The results also show greater Ca LII binding energies between hydrated samples with different gypsum contents. Conversely, the hydrated samples from the cubic and orthorhombic C₃A at the same amount of gypsum exhibited strong morphological differences but similar chemical environments

Hybrid expansions for local structural relaxations

A model is constructed in which pair potentials are combined with the cluster expansion method in order to better describe the energetics of structurally relaxed substitutional alloys. The effect of structural relaxations away from the ideal crystal positions, and the effect of ordering is described by interatomic-distance dependent pair potentials, while more subtle configurational aspects associated with correlations of three- and more sites are described purely within the cluster expansion formalism. Implementation of such a hybrid expansion in the context of the cluster variation method or Monte Carlo method gives improved ability to model phase stability in alloys from first-principles.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figur