Nonequilibrium relaxation in neutral BCS superconductors: Ginzburg-Landau approach with Landau damping in real time
We present a field-theoretical method to obtain consistently the equations of motion for small amplitude fluctuations of the order parameter directly in real time for a homogeneous, neutral BCS superconductor. This methodallows to study the nonequilibrium relaxation of the order parameter as an initial value problem. We obtain the Ward identities and the effective actions for small phase the amplitude fluctuations to one-loop order. Focusing on the long wavelength, low-frequency limit near the critical point, we obtain the time-dependent Ginzburg-Landau effective action to one-loop order, which is nonlocal as a consequence of Landau damping. The nonequilibrium relaxation of the phase and amplitude fluctuations is studied directly in real time. The long-wavelength phase fluctuation (Bogoliubov-Anderson-Goldstone mode) is overdamped by Landau damping and the relaxation time scale diverges at the critical point, revealing critical slowing down.

title: REAL-TIME NONEQUILIBRIUM DYNAMICS IN HOT QED PLASMAS
abstract: The quantum kinetics of photons in hot QED plasmas is studied directly in real time by implementing the dynamical renormalization group. In contrast to conventional approach, the dynamical renormalization group method consistently includes off-shell (energy non-conserving) effects and accounts for time-dependent collisional kernel. To lowest order we find that in the relaxation time approximation the semihard photon distribution function relaxes with a power law.

title: Dynamical electron mass in a strong magnetic field
abstract: Motivated by recent interest in understanding properties of strongly magnetized matter, we study the dynamical electron mass generated through approximate chiral symmetry breaking in QED in a strong magnetic field. We reliably calculate the dynamical electron mass by numerically solving the nonperturbative Schwinger-Dyson equations in a consistent truncation within the lowest Landau level approximation. It is shown that the generation of dynamical electron mass in a strong magnetic field is significantly enhanced by the perturbative electron mass that explicitly breaks chiral symmetry in the absence of a magnetic field.

title: Gauge dependence of the fermion quasiparticle poles in hot gauge theories
abstract: The gauge dependence of the complex fermion quasiparticle poles corresponding to soft collective excitations is studied in hot gauge theories at one-loop order and next-to-leading order in the high-temperature expansion, with a view towards going beyond the leading order hard thermal loops and resummations thereof. We find that for collective excitations of momenta k{approx}eT the dispersion relations are gauge independent, but the corresponding damping rates are gauge dependent. For k<<eT and in the k{yields}0 limit, both the dispersion relations and the damping rates are found to be gauge dependent. The gauge dependence of the position of the complex quasiparticle poles signals the need for resummation. Possible cancellation of the leading gauge dependence at two-loop order in the case of QED is briefly discussed.

title: Dynamical renormalization group approach to quantum kinetics in scalar and gauge theories
abstract: We derive quantum kinetic equations from a quantum field theory implementing a diagrammatic perturbative expansion improved by a resummation via the dynamical renormalization group. The method begins by obtaining the equation of motion of the distribution function in perturbation theory. The solution of this equation of motion reveals secular terms that grow in time, the dynamical renormalization group resums these secular terms in real time and leads directly to the quantum kinetic equation. This method allows to include consistently medium effects via resummations akin to hard thermal loops but away from equilibrium. A close relationship between this approach and the renormalization group in Euclidean field theory is established. In particular, coarse graining, stationary solutions, relaxation time approximation and relaxation rates have a natural parallel as irrelevant operators, fixed points, linearization and stability exponents in the Euclidean renormalization group, respectively. We used this method to study the relaxation in a cool gas of pions and sigma mesons in the O(4) chiral linear sigma model. We obtain in relaxation time approximation the pion and sigma meson relaxation rates. We also find that in large momentum limit emission and absorption of massless pions result in threshold infrared divergence in sigma meson relaxation rate and lead to a crossover behavior in relaxation. We then study the relaxation of charged quasiparticles in scalar electrodynamics (SQED). We begin with a gauge invariant description of the distribution function and implement the hard thermal loop resummation for longitudinal and transverse photons as well as for the scalars. While longitudinal, Debye screened photons lead to purely exponential relaxation, transverse photons, only dynamically screened by Landau damping lead to anomalous (non-exponential) relaxation, thus leading to a crossover between two different relaxational regimes. We emphasize that infrared divergent damping rates are indicative of non-exponential relaxation and the dynamical renormalization group reveals the correct relaxation directly in real time. Furthermore the relaxational time scales for charged quasiparticles are similar to those found in QCD in a self-consistent HTL resummation. Finally we also show that this method provides a natural framework to interpret and resolve the issue of pinch singularities out of equilibrium and establish a direct correspondence between pinch singularities and secular terms in time-dependent perturbation theory. We argue that this method is particularly well suited to study quantum kinetics and transport in gauge theories.

title: PROGRESS ON CHIRAL SYMMETRY BREAKING IN A STRONG MAGNETIC FIELD
abstract: The problem of chiral symmetry breaking in QED in a strong magnetic field is briefly reviewed. Recent progress on issues regarding the gauge fixing independence of the dynamically generated fermion mass is discussed.

title: New primordial-magnetic-field limit from the latest LIGO S5 data
abstract: Since the energy momentum tensor of a magnetic field always contains a spin-2 component in its anisotropic stress, stochastic primordial magnetic field (PMF) in the early universe must generate stochastic gravitational-wave (GW) background. This process will greatly affect the relic gravitational wave (RGW), which is one of the major scientific goals of the laser interferometer GW detections. Recently, the fifth science (S5) run of laser interferometer gravitational-wave observatory (LIGO) gave a latest upper limit Omega(GW) < 6.9 x 10(-6) on the RGW background. Utilizing this upper limit, we derive new PMF limits: for a scale of galactic cluster lambda = 1 Mpc, the amplitude of PMF, that produced by the electroweak phase transition, has to be weaker than B(lambda) <= 4 x 10(-7) G; for a scale of supercluster lambda = 100 Mpc, the amplitude of PMF has to be weaker than B(lambda) <= 9 x 10(-11) G. In this manner, GW observation has potential to make interesting contributions to the study of primordial magnetic field.

title: Periodicities in Solar Coronal Mass Ejections
abstract: Mid-term quasi-periodicities in solar coronal mass ejections (CMEs) during the mostrecent solar maximum cycle 23 are reported here for the ﬁrst time using the four-year data (February 5, 1999 to February 10, 2003) of the Large Angle SpectrometricCoronagraph (LASCO) onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). Inparallel, mid-term quasi-periodicities in solar X-ray ﬂares (class >M5.0) from theGeosynchronous Operational Environment Satellites (GOES) and in daily averages ofAp index for geomagnetic disturbances from the World Data Center (WDC) at theInternationalAssociation for Geomagnetism andAeronomy (IAGA)are alsoexaminedfor the same four-year time span. By Fourier power spectral analyses, the CME dataappears to contain signiﬁcant power peaks at periods of ∼ 358 ± 38, ∼ 272 ± 26,∼ 196±13 days and so forth, while except for the ∼ 259±24-day period, X-ray solarﬂares of class >∼ M5.0 show the familiar Rieger-type quasi-periods at ∼ 157 ± 11,∼ 122± 5, ∼ 98±3 days and shorter ones until ∼ 34±0.5 days. In the data of dailyaverages of Ap index, the two signiﬁcant peaks at periods ∼ 273±26 and ∼ 187±12days (the latter is most prominent) could imply that CMEs (periods at ∼ 272±26and∼ 196 ± 13 days) may be proportionally correlated with quasi-periodic geomagneticstorm disturbances; at the speculative level, the ∼ 138 ± 6-day period might implythat X-ray ﬂares of class >∼ M5.0 (period at ∼ 157±11 days) may drive certain typesof geomagnetic disturbances; and the ∼ 28±0.2-day periodicity is most likely causedby recurrent high-speed solar winds at the Earth’s magnetosphere. For the same threedata sets, we further perform Morlet wavelet analysis to derive period-time contoursand identify wavelet power peaks and timescales at the 99 percent conﬁdence level forcomparisons. Several conceptual aspects of possible equatorially trapped Rossby-typewaves at and beneath the solar photosphere are discussed. space weather — Sun: activities — corona — coronalmass ejections — magnetic ﬁelds

title: A new analytical method for testing quantum entanglement in P→VV decay
abstract: As the basic criterion of the validity of quantum mechanics, Bell's inequality has aroused wide theoretical and experimental interest. With the accumulation of an increasing number of events in high-energy physics, it is tempting to test Bell's inequality directly in particle physics. In this paper, we choose the P → VV decay to reveal entanglement between daughter particles. On the basis of quantum mechanics predictions in the literature, we present a statistical method that can fully utilize the data available. A Monte Carlo simulation was carried to study the effects of detector geometry, detector efficiency and momentum resolution.

title: Measurement of the top quark forward-backward production asymmetry and its dependence on event kinematic properties
abstract: We present new measurements of the inclusive forward-backward ttbar production asymmetry, AFB, and its dependence on several properties of the ttbar system. The measurements are performed with the full Tevatron data set recorded with the CDF II detector during ppbar collisions at sqrt(s) = 1.96 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9.4 fb^(-1). We measure the asymmetry using the rapidity difference Delta-y=y_(t)-y_(tbar). Parton-level results are derived, yielding an inclusive asymmetry of 0.164+/-0.047 (stat + syst). We observe a linear dependence of AFB on the top-quark pair mass M(ttbar) and the rapidity difference |Delta-y| at detector and parton levels. Assuming the standard model, the probabilities to observe the measured values or larger for the detector-level dependencies are 7.4*10^(-3) and 2.2*10^(-3) for M(ttbar) and |Delta-y| respectively. Lastly, we study the dependence of the asymmetry on the transverse momentum of the ttbar system at the detector level. These results are consistent with previous lower-precision measurements and provide additional quantification of the functional dependencies of the asymmetry.

title: A mechanism for the formation of knots, kinks and discontinuous events in the plasma tail of comets