Applications and Imaging Techniques of a Si/CdTe Compton Gamma-Ray Camera
By using a new Compton camera consisting of a silicon double-sided strip detector (Si-DSD) and a CdTe doublesided strip detector (CdTe-DSD), originally developed for the ASTRO-H satellite mission, an experiment involving imaging radioisotopes was conducted to study their feasibility for hotspot monitoring. In addition to the hotspot imaging already provided by commercial imaging systems, identification of various radioisotopes is possible thanks to the good energy resolution obtained by the semiconductor detectors. Three radioisotopes of 133 Ba (356 keV), 22 Na (511 keV) and 137 Cs (662 keV) were individually imaged by applying event selection in the energy window and the gamma-ray images were correctly overlapped by an optical picture. Detection efficiency of 1.68 ×10 −4 (effective area: 1.7×10 −3 cm 2 ) and angular resolution of 3.8 degrees were obtained by stacking five detector modules for a 662 keV gamma ray. The higher detection efficiency required in specific use can be achieved by stacking more detector modules.

title: Discovery of recombining plasma in the supernova remnant 3C 391
abstract: Recent X-ray study of middle-aged supernova remnants (SNRs) reveals strong radiative recombination continua (RRCs) associated with overionized plasmas, of which the origin still remains uncertain. We report our discovery of an RRC in the middle-aged SNR 3C 391. If the X-ray spectrum is fitted with a two-temperature plasma model in collisional ionization equilibrium (CIE), residuals of Si XIV Ly alpha line at 2.006 keV, S XVI Ly alpha line at 2.623 keV and the edge of RRC of Si XIII at 2.666 keV are found. The X-ray spectrum is better described by a composite model consisting of a CIE plasma and a recombining plasma (RP). The abundance pattern suggests that the RP is associated to the ejecta from a core-collapse supernova with a progenitor star of 15 solar mass. There is no significant difference of the recombining plasma parameters between the southeast region and the northwest region surrounded by dense molecular clouds. We also find a hint of Fe I K alpha line at 6.4 keV (~2.4 sigma detection) from the southeast region of the SNR.

title: CONFORMAL ANOMALY OF STRING THEORY IN THE HARMONIC GAUGE
abstract: Considering the conformal anomaly in an effective action, the critical dimension of string theory can be determined in the harmonic gauge, in which it had been previously reported to be indefinite. In this gauge, there is no anomaly for the ghost number symmetry. This can be naturally understood in terms of the Faddeev-Popov conjugation in the theory.

title: Higher order corrections to the primordial gravitational wave spectrum and its impact on parameter estimates for inflation
abstract: We study the impact of the use of the power series expression for the primordial tensor spectrum on parameter estimation from future direct detection gravitational wave experiments. The spectrum approximated by the power series expansion may give large deviation from the true (fiducial) value when it is normalized at CMB scale because of the large separation between CMB and direct detection scales. We derive the coefficients of the higher order terms of the expansion up to the sixth order within the framework of the slow-roll approximation and investigate how well the inclusion of higher order terms improves the analytic prediction of the spectrum amplitude by comparing with numerical results. Using the power series expression, we consider future constraints on inflationary parameters expected from direct detection experiments of the inflationary gravitational wave background and show that the truncation of the higher order terms can lead to incorrect evaluation of the parameters. We present two example models; a quadratic chaotic inflation model and mixed inflaton and curvaton model with a quartic inflaton potential.

title: Search for Theta+ pentaquark in the p (pi-, K-) X reaction at J-PARC

title: Tachyon vacuum of bosonic open string field theory in marginally deformed backgrounds
abstract: We consider bosonic open string field theory in marginally deformed backgrounds, which is obtained by expanding the string field around identity-based solutions associated with marginal deformations. We find a new set of string fields that satisfies the KB calgebra, but the nilpotent kinetic operator is that of the theory expanded around the identity-based marginal solution. By use of these string fields, we construct the tachyon vacuum solution in marginally deformed backgrounds. The vacuum energy density is equivalent to that of the tachyon vacuum without marginal deformations. The gauge invariant overlap is changed according to the effect of marginal deformations, as expected from known results in conformal field theory (CFT). These results suggest that the vacuum energy is zero for the identity-based marginal solutions in the original theory.

title: Effects of Cosmic Strings on Free Streaming
abstract: We study the effect of free streaming in a universe with cosmic strings with time-varying tension as well as with constant tension. Although current cosmological observations suggest that fluctuation seeded by cosmic strings cannot be the primary source of cosmic density fluctuation, some contributions from them are still allowed. Since cosmic strings actively produce isocurvature fluctuation, the damping of small scale structure via free streaming by dark matter particles with large velocity dispersion at the epoch of radiation-matter equality is less efficient than that in models with conventional adiabatic fluctuation. We discuss its implications to the constraints on the properties of particles such as massive neutrinos and warm dark matter.