International Journal of Modern Physics A

The cosmological gamma-ray burst (GRB) phenomenon is reviewed. The broad observational facts and empirical phenomenological relations of the GRB prompt emission and afterglow are outlined. A well-tested, successful fireball shock model is introduced in a pedagogical manner. Several important uncertainties in the current understanding of the phenomenon are reviewed, and prospects of how future experiments and extensive observational and theoretical efforts may address these problems are discussed.

The various phase spaces involved in the dynamics of parametrized nonrelativistic Hamiltonian systems are displayed by using Crnkovic and Witten's covariant canonical formalism. It is also pointed out that in Dirac's canonical formalism there exists a freedom in the choice of the symplectic structure on the extended phase space and in the choice of the equations that define the constraint surface with the only restriction that these two choices combine in such a way that any pair (of these two choices) generates the same gauge transformation. The consequence of this freedom on the algebra of observables is also discussed.

We present new analytical self-similar solutions describing a collapse of a massless scalar field in scalar–tensor theories. The solutions exhibit a type of critical behavior. The black hole mass for the near critical evolution is analytically obtained for several scalar–tensor theories and the critical exponent is calculated. Within the framework of the analytical models we consider it is found that the black hole mass law for some scalar–tensor theories is of the form M_BH=f(p-p_cr)(p-p_cr)^γ which is slightly different from the general relativistic law M_BH=const (p-p_cr)^γ. The explicit form of the function f depends on the particular scalar–tensor theory.

In this paper we examine T-violating triple-product correlations (TP's) in B→V₁V₂ decays. TP's are excellent probes of physics beyond the standard model (SM) for two reasons: (i) within the SM, most TP's are expected to be tiny, and (ii) unlike direct CP asymmetries, TP's are not suppressed by the small strong phases which are expected in B decays. TP's are obtained via the angular analysis of B→V₁V₂. In a general analysis based on factorization, we demonstrate that the most promising decays for measuring TP's in the SM involve excited final-state vector mesons, and we provide estimates of such TP's. We find that there are only a handful of decays in which large TP's are possible, and the size of these TP's depends strongly on the size of nonfactorizable effects. We show that TP's which vanish in the SM can be very large in models with new physics. The measurement of a nonzero TP asymmetry in a decay where none is expected would specifically point to new physics involving large couplings to the right-handed b-quark.

We present some explicit computations checking a particular form of gradient formula for a boundary beta function in two-dimensional quantum field theory on a disk. The form of the potential function and metric that we consider were introduced in Refs. 16 and 18 in the context of background independent open string field theory. We check the gradient formula to the third order in perturbation theory around a fixed point. Special consideration is given to situations when resonant terms are present exhibiting logarithmic divergences and universal nonlinearities in beta functions. The gradient formula is found to work to the given order.

Motivated by the existence of bi-Hamiltonian classical systems and the correspondence principle, in this paper we analyze the problem of finding Hermitian scalar products which turn a given flow on a Hilbert space into a unitary one. We show how different invariant Hermitian scalar products give rise to different descriptions of a quantumsystem in the Ehrenfest and Heisenberg picture.