Modern Physics Letters A

The joint U.S. and German SOFIA project to develop and operate a 2.5-meter infrared airborne telescope in a Boeing 747-SP is now in its final stages of development. Flying in the stratosphere, SOFIA allows observations through the infrared and submillimeter region, with an average transmission of ≳ 80%. SOFIA is characterized by a wide instrument complement ranging from broadband imagers, through moderate resolution spectrographs capable of resolving broad features due to dust and large molecules, to high resolution spectrometers suitable for kinematic studies of molecular and atomic gas lines at km/s resolution. This broad range in instruments will enable SOFIA to make unique contributions to a broad array of science topics. First science flights will begin in 2009 and the observatory is expected to operate for over 20 years. The sensitivity, characteristics, science instrument complement, and examples of first light science are discussed.

Black holes at the TeV scale are investigated in the extra large dimension scenario. We interpret the lightest black hole excitation as a singlet scalar field, and show how interaction terms can be appended to the standard model at the dimension five non-renormalizable level. Lepton family number violation is natural in this model. Muon magnetic moment, and neutrino masses are investigated. We also present a quantization scheme in n dimensions.

We propose an N = 2 twisted superspace formalism with a central charge in four dimensions by introducing a Dirac–Kähler twist. Using this formalism, we construct an off-shell twisted hypermultiplet action and find an explicit form of fermionic scalar, vector and tensor transformations. We construct an off-shell Donaldson–Witten theory coupled to the twisted hypermultiplet. We show that this action possesses N = 4 twisted supersymmetry at the on-shell level. It turns out that the four-dimensional Dirac–Kähler twist is equivalent to Marcus' twist.

We prove that, even at a low TeV scale, the canonical seesaw mechanism can be naturally implemented in the exact solution of a particular 3-3-1 gauge model, since a very small alteration ε in the parameter matrix of the Higgs sector is taken into account. Therefore, this new parameter can act as an appropriate mass source for neutrinos, while, due to the main parameter a, all the previously achieved results in the exact solution of the model are recovered. Moreover, this mathematical artifice does separate the boson mass spectrum from the neutrino mass issue, hence giving more flexibility in tuning the model. Possible phenomenological results and their implications — such as dark matter plausible candidates that can occur — are also briefly discussed.

't Hooft–Polykov magnetic monopole regularly realizes the Dirac magnetic monopole in terms of a two-rank tensor, the so-called 't Hooft tensor in 3D space. Based on the Chern kernel method, we propose the arbitrary rank 't Hooft tensors, which universally determine the quantized low energy boundaries of generalized Georgi–Glashow models under asymptotic conditions. Furthermore, the dual magnetic branes theory is built up in terms of ϕ-mapping theory.

In this paper we investigate the phase transition "Coulomb-confinement" in the Higgs model of Abelian scalar dyons – particles having both, electric e and magnetic g, charges. It is shown that by dual symmetry this theory is equivalent to scalar fields with the effective squared electric charge e*² = e²+g². But the Dirac relation distinguishes the electric and magnetic charges of dyons. The following phase transition couplings are obtained in the one-loop approximation: , and .