What can the braking indices tell us about pulsars ’ nature ?
As a result of observational difficulties, braking indices of only six rotation-powered pulsars are obtained with certainty, all of which are remarkably smaller than the value (n = 3) expected for pure magnetodipole radiation model. This is still a real fundamental question not being well answered after nearly forty years of the discovery of pulsar. The main problem is that we are shamefully not sure about the dominant mechanisms that result in pulsars’ spin-down. Based on the previous works, the braking index is re-examined, with a conclusion of suggesting a constant gap potential drop for pulsars with magnetospheric activities. New constrains on model parameters from observed braking indices are presented.

title: PSR B1257+12: a quark star with planets?
abstract: A recent observation has shown that PSR B1257+12 could have quite small X‐ray emitting area, only about 2000 m2, which is more than three orders smaller than the canonical polar cap size. We suggest here that PSR B1257+12 could be a low‐mass quark star with radius of R≃0.6 km and mass of M≃3×10−4 M⊙. Such a low‐mass quark star system may form in an accretion induced collapse process or a collision process of two quark stars.

title: H-cluster stars
abstract: The study of dense matter at ultra-high density has a very long history, which is meaningful for us to understand not only cosmic events in extreme circumstances but also fundamental laws of physics. It is well known that the state of cold matter at supra-nuclear density depends on the non-perturbative nature of quantum chromo-dynamics (QCD) and is essential for modeling pulsars. A so-called H-cluster matter is proposed in this paper as the nature of dense matter in reality. 
In compact stars at only a few nuclear densities but low temperature, quarks could be interacting strongly with each other there. That might render quarks grouped in clusters, although the hypothetical quark-clusters in cold dense matter has not been confirmed due to the lack of both theoretical and experimental evidence. Motivated by recent lattice QCD simulations of the H-dibaryons (with structure uuddss), we are therefore considering here a possible kind of quark-clusters, H-clusters, that could emerge inside compact stars during their initial cooling, as the dominant components inside (the degree of freedom could then be H-clusters there).Taking into account the in-medium stiffening effect, we find that at baryon densities of compact stars $H$-cluster matter could be more stable than nuclear matter. We also find that for the H-cluster matter with lattice structure, the equation of state could be so stiff that it would seem to be "superluminal" in most dense region. However, the real sound speed for H-cluster matter is in fact hard to calculate, so at this stage we do not put constraints on our model from the usual requirment of causality.

title: The Extremely Long-period X-Ray Source in a Young Supernova Remnant: A Thorne-Żytkow Object Descendant?
abstract: The origin of the 6.67 hr period X-ray source, 1E161348-5055, in the young supernova remnant RCW 103 is puzzling. We propose that it may be the descendant of a Thorne-Żytkow Object (TŻO). A TŻO may at its formation have a rapidly spinning neutron star as a core and a slowly rotating envelope. We found that the core could be braked quickly to an extremely long spin period by the coupling between its magnetic field and the envelope, and that the envelope could be disrupted by some powerful bursts or exhausted via stellar wind. If the envelope is disrupted after the core has spun down, the core will become an extremely long-period compact object, with a slow proper motion speed, surrounded by a supernova-remnant-like shell. These features all agree with the observations of 1E161348-5055. TŻOs are expected to have produced extraordinarily high abundances of lithium and rapid proton process elements that would remain in the remnants and could be used to test this scenario.

title: The state of cold quark matter: a model-independent view
abstract: From a model-independent point of view, we address the possibility that quark clustering could occur in cold quark matter at realistic baryon densities because of the likely strong coupling between quarks in compact stars.

title: Are AXPs/SGRs magnetars?
abstract: Anomalous X-ray Pulsars and Soft Gamma-Ray Repeaters have been generally recognized as neutron stars with super strong magnetic fields, namely "magnetars". The "magnetars" manifest that the luminosity in X-ray band are larger than the rotational energy loss rate, i.e. $L_{X}>\dot {E}_{\rm rot}$, and then the radiation energy is coming from the energy of magnetic field. Here it is argued that magnetars may not really exist. Some X-ray and radio observational results are contradicted with the magnetar model. 
(1) The X-ray luminosity of PSR J1852+0040 is much larger than the rotational energy loss rate ($L_{X}/\dot {E}_{\rm rot}\simeq 18)$, but the magnetic field is just $3.1\times 10^{11}$ G. Does this X-ray radiation energy come from the magnetic field? 
(2) In contrast to the above, the magnetic fields of radio pulsars J1847-0130 and PSR J1718-3718 are higher than that of AXP 1E 2259+586, why is the radiation energy of those two radio pulsars still coming from rotational energy? Furthermore, the magnetic field of the newly discovered SGR 0418+5729 with the lowest magnetic field is 3.0 e13 G, lower than the critical magnetic field $B_{\rm C}=4.414$ e13 G) (Esposito et al. 2010). 
(3) Some "magnetars" also emit normal transient radio pulses, what is the essential difference between radio pulsars and the "magnetars"? 
The observational fact arguments will be presented at first, then we discuss in what situation the conventional method to obtain magnetic field could not be correct.

title: Search for gauge mediated SUSY breaking topologies at $S^(1/2)$ similar to 189-GeV
abstract: Searches for topologies characteristic of Gauge Mediated SUSY Breaking models (GMSB) are performed by analysing 173.6 \(\mathrm{pb}^{-1}\) of data collected at \(\sqrt s\) = 188.6 GeV with the ALEPH detector. These topologies include acoplanar photons, non-pointing single photon, acoplanar leptons, large impact parameter leptons, detached slepton decay vertices, heavy stable charged sleptons and four leptons plus missing energy final states. No evidence for these new phenomena is observed and limits on production cross sections and sparticle masses are derived. A scan of a minimal GMSB parameter space is performed and model dependent lower limits of about 45 GeV/\(c^2\) on the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle (NLSP) mass and of about 9 TeV on the mass scale parameter \(\Lambda\) are derived, independently of the NLSP lifetime.

title: Measurement of the charged particle multiplicity distribution in hadronic Z decays
abstract: The charged particle multiplicity distribution of hadronic Z decays was measured on the peak of the Z resonance using the ALEPH detector at LEP. Using a model independent unfolding procedure the distribution was found to have a mean 〈n〉=20.85±0.24 and a dispersion D=6.34±0.12. Comparison with lower energy data supports the KNO scaling hypothesis in the energy range GeV. At GeV the shape of the multiplicity distribution is well described by a log-normal distribution, as predicted from a cascading model for multi-particle production. The same model also successfully describes the energy dependence of the mean and width of the multiplicity distribution. A next-to-leading order QCD prediction in the framework of the modified leading-log approximation and local parton-hadron duality is found to fit the energy dependence of the mean but not the width of the charged multiplicity distribution, indicating that the width of the multiplicity distribution is a sensitive probe for higher order QCD or non-perturbative effects.

title: Expression of interest to the Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory by the L* Collaboration

title: Search for charginos nearly mass degenerate with the lightest neutralino in e(+)e(-) collisions at centre-of-mass energies up to 209 GeV
abstract: A search for charginos nearly mass degenerate with the lightest neutralino is performed with the data collected by the ALEPH detector at LEP, at centre-of-mass energies between 189 and 209 GeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 628 pb(-1). The analysis is based on the detection of isolated and energetic initial state radiation photons, produced in association with chargino pairs whose decay products have little visible energy. The number of candidate events observed is in agreement with that expected from Standard Model background sources. These results are combined with those of other direct searches for charginos, and a lower limit of 88 GeV/c(2) at 95% confidence level is derived for the chargino mass in the case of heavy sfermions, irrespective of the chargino-neutralino mass difference.

title: Effect of asymmetric strange–antistrange sea to the NuTeV anomaly
abstract: We calculate the strange quark and antiquark distributions of the nucleon by using the effective chiral quark model, and find that the strange–antistrange asymmetry can bring a contribution of about 60–100% to the NuTeV deviation of sin 2 θ w from the standard value measured in other electroweak processes. The results are insensitive to different inputs. The light-flavor quark asymmetry of d ¯ – u ¯ is also investigated and found to be consistent with the experimental measurements. Therefore the chiral quark model provides a successful picture to understand the NuTeV anomaly, as well as the light-flavor quark asymmetry and the proton spin problem in previous studies.