Search for stimulated photon-photon scattering in vacuum
We have searched for stimulated photon scattering in vacuum at a center of mass photon energy of 0.8 eV. The QED contribution to this process is equivalent to four wave mixing in vacuum. No evidence for scattering was observed. The corresponding upper limit of the cross-section is .

title: Operation of the Cherenkov detector DIRC of BABAR at high luminosity
abstract: The DIRC (acronym for Detection of Internally Reflected Cherenkov (light)) is the ring imaging Cherenkov detector of the BABAR detector at the PEP-II ring of SLAC. It provides the identification of pions, kaons and protons for momenta up to 4 GeV/c with high efficiency. This is needed to reconstruct CP-violating B-decay final states and to provide B-meson flavour tagging for time dependent asymmetry measurements. The DIRC radiators consists of long rectangular bars made of synthetic fused silica and the photon detector is a water tank equipped with an array of 10.752 conventional photomultipliers. At the end of the year 2000 BABAR has recorded about 22 million B~B pairs reaching the design luminosity of L=3/spl middot/10/sup 33//cm/sup 2/s. The ability to keep the beam background level low at highest collision rates and the long term reliability of the DIRC components during continuous data taking are requirements of BABAR to accomplish its physics program.

title: Measurement of the CKM matrix element $|V_{ub}|$ with $B \to \rho e \nu$ decays

title: Improved Measurement of CP Violation in Neutral B Decays to c cs

title: Measurements of branching fractions and CP-violating asymmetries in B-meson decays to the charmless two-body states K0 pi+, anti-K0 K+, and K0 anti-K0

title: Branching fraction for $B^{+} \to \pi^0 \ell^{+} \nu$, measured in $\upsilon_{4S} \to B \bar{B}$ events tagged by $B^{-} \to D^0 \ell^{-}$ anti-v ($X$) decays

title: Spinons in conformal field theory
abstract: We study the su(2) conformal field theory in its spinon description, adapted to the yangian invariance. By evaluating the action of the yangian generators on the primary fields, we find a new connection between this conformal field theory and the Calogero-Sutherland model with su(2) spin. We use this connection to describe how the spinons are the quasi-particles spanning the irreducible yangian multiplet, and also to exhibit operators creating the N-spinon highest-weight vectors.

title: Scrutinizing the Cosmological Constant Problem and a possible resolution
abstract: We suggest a new perspective on the Cosmological Constant Problem by scrutinizing its standard formulation. In classical and quantum mechanics without gravity, there is no definition of the zero point of energy. Furthermore, the Casimir effect only measures how the vacuum energy {\it changes} as one varies a geometric modulus. This leads us to propose that the physical vacuum energy in a Friedman-Lema\^itre-Robertson-Walker expanding universe only depends on the time variation of the scale factor $a(t)$. Equivalently, requiring that empty Minkowski space is gravitationally stable is a principle that fixes the ambiguity in the zero point energy. On the other hand, if there is a meaningful bare cosmological constant, this prescription should be viewed as a fine-tuning. 
We describe two different choices of vacuum, one of which is consistent with the current universe consisting only of matter and vacuum energy. The resulting vacuum energy density $\rhovac$ is constant in time and approximately $k_c^2 H_0^2$, where $k_c$ is a momentum cut-off and $H_0$ is the current Hubble constant; for a cut-off close to the Planck scale, values of $\rhovac$ in agreement with astrophysical measurements are obtained. Another choice of vacuum is more relevant to the early universe consisting of only radiation and vacuum energy, and we suggest it as a possible model of inflation.

title: EXCHANGE ALGEBRA AND EXOTIC SUPERSYMMETRY IN THE CHIRAL POTTS MODEL
abstract: We obtain an exchange algebra for the Chiral Potts model, the elements of which are linear in the parameters defining the rapidity curve. This enables us to connect the Chiral Potts model to a Uq(GL(2)) algebra. On the other hand, looking at the model from the S-matrix point of view relates it to a ZZN generalisation of the supersymmetric algebra.

title: Non-local currents in 2D QFT: An alternative to the quantum inverse scattering method

title: On the Wess-Zumino-Witten models on the torus☆
abstract: We discuss the Ward identities of the Wess-Zumino-Witten models on Riemann surfaces and point out some ambiguities in the description of the zero modes of the currents. In the case of the torus, we show how to describe them and we write the Ward identities in such a way that they become complete. We examine in detail how the Ward identities are related to the Kubo-Martin-Schwinger condition. As an illustration of this formulation, we present a new proof of the Weyl-Kac character formula. The proof essentially relies on the mixed Virasoro × Kac-Moody Ward identities and explains the relation of the heat equation on the group manifold to the Weyl-Kac character formula.