arXiv subjects

Alexandre Deur

Publications and source records attributed to Alexandre Deur.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

On the Evidence for Violation of the Equivalence Principle in Disk Galaxies

We examine the claimed observations of a gravitational external field effect (EFE) reported in Chae et al. We show that observations suggestive of the EFE can be interpreted without violating Einstein's equivalence principle, namely from known correlations between morphology, environment and dynamics of galaxies. While Chae et al's analysis provides a valuable attempt at a clear test of Modified Newtonian Dynamics, an evidently important topic, a re-analysis of the observational data does not permit us to confidently assess the presence of an EFE or to distinguish this interpretation from that proposed in this article.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2025

High precision measurement of phi-nucleon cross section using a tensor polarized deuteron target

We propose to measure the $\phi$-nucleon cross section $\sigma_{\phi N}$ to solve the longstanding puzzle of whether $\sigma_{\phi N} \simeq 10$ mb, as extracted from photoproduction, or $\sim$30 mb, as obtained from nuclear rescattering. CLAS data demonstrated that even precision data for unpolarized $\phi$ photoproduction are insufficient to unambiguously extract $\sigma_{\phi N}$, allowing the possibilities of both $\sigma_{\phi N}$ values. However, as it often happens, the additional spin degrees of freedom afforded by a polarized target sufficiently constrains the theory to unambiguously provide $\sigma_{\phi N}$. This will be accomplished with a measurement of the tensor asymmetry $A_{zz}$ in coherent $\phi$ photoproduction from the deuteron, $\gamma + d \to \phi + d$. The same measurement in coherent $\rho$ photoproduction will allow us to understand the kinematic dependence of the photon longitudinal interaction length for this process, which is necessary to identify unambiguous signal for color transparency. This will be the first study of observables in photoproduction from tensor polarized deuterons. We will use the standard GlueX spectrometer, the Hall D Dynamic Nuclear Polarization (DNP) polarized target, and both a circularly and linearly polarized tagged photon beam. The ability to operate the target in a frozen spin mode and produce negative tensor-polarization will decrease the time needed to make the measurements by a factor of more than 2.5. We request 65 days of beam time which includes commissioning the tensor polarized target.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2025

Asymptotic gauge symmetry and UV extension of the nonperturbative coupling in holographic QCD

We extend our recent analytic study of the strong coupling $\alpha_{\rm eff}$ in the nonperturbative and near-perturbative regimes~\cite{deTeramond:2024ikl} by imposing rigorous renormalization-group results from asymptotically free gauge theories at $Q^2 \to \infty$. The asymptotic boundary conditions modify the scaling properties of $\alpha_{\rm eff}$ at large values of the momentum transfer $Q^2$, and lead to a scale-dependent confinement strength $\kappa(Q^2)$. This requires that both $\kappa(Q^2)$ and $\alpha_{\rm eff}\left(Q^2, \kappa(Q^2)\right)$ remain holomorphic in the complex $Q^2$ plane, except at the physical cuts associated with the heavy-quark thresholds and the singularity flow trajectory studied in~\cite{deTeramond:2024ikl}. For color $SU(3)$, a precise connection is found between the scaling exponent of $\kappa(Q^2)$ in the ultraviolet, the value of the infrared fixed point of the strong coupling, and the number of flavors in agreement with observations. The nonperturbative analytic model gives an accurate description of the strong coupling at all scales, up to the highest available data.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2025

Potential for Tensor Polarized Deuterons in Hall D at Jefferson Lab

Hall D at Jefferson lab is an ideal place to install a polarized deuteron target which can be ''tensor polarized", allowing the separation of the spin states $m=0,\pm1$ or the measurement of tensor asymmetries. The bremsstrahlung photon beam with 12 GeV endpoint provides very little heating or radiation damage compared to an electron beam, allowing the target to be run in frozen spin mode. Adiabatic fast passage spin manipulations can then be used to greatly enhance the population of the m=0 spin state of the deuteron. Coherent photoproduction of $\rho$ mesons from deuterium is sensitive to double-scattering at high momentum transfer and in the m=0 spin state an additional sensitivity at intermediate momentum transfer opens up. We propose a frozen spin target for Hall D and the measurement of $\rho$ photoproduced coherently from the deuteron as a flagship measurement.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2024

New Spin Structure Constraints on Hyperfine Splitting and Proton Size

The 1S hyperfine splitting in hydrogen is measured to an impressive ppt precision and will soon be measured to ppm precision in muonic hydrogen. The latter measurement will rely on theoretical predictions, which are limited by knowledge of the proton polarizability effect $\Delta_\text{pol}$. Data-driven evaluations of $\Delta_\text{pol}$ have long been in significant tension with baryon chiral perturbation theory. Here we present improved results for $\Delta_\text{pol}$ driven by new spin structure data, reducing the long-standing tension between theory and experiment and halving the dominating uncertainty in hyperfine splitting calculations.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2024

Poincar\'e invariance and the Unruh effect

In quantum field theory, the vacuum is popularly considered to be a complex medium populated with virtual particle + antiparticle pairs. To an observer experiencing uniform acceleration, it is generally held that these virtual particles become real, appearing as a gas at a temperature that grows with the acceleration. This is the Unruh effect. However, it has been shown that vacuum complexity is an artifact, produced by treating quantum field theory in a manner that does not manifestly enforce causality. Choosing a quantization approach that patently enforces causality, the quantum field theory vacuum is barren, bereft even of virtual particles. We show that acceleration has no effect on a trivial vacuum; hence, there is no Unruh effect in such a treatment of quantum field theory. Since the standard calculations suggesting an Unruh effect are formally consistent, insofar as they have been completed, there must be a cancelling contribution that is omitted in the usual analyses. We argue that it is the dynamical action of conventional Lorentz transformations on the structure of an Unruh detector.

physics.gen-ph↗

arXiv2024

Fully Relativistic Derivation of the Thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect

We present the first fully and inherently relativistic derivation of the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. This work uses the formalism historically used to compute radiation spectra emerging from inverse Thomson/Compton sources of x-ray radiation. Comparing our results to the traditional approach based on relativistically-corrected classical Kompaneets equation, we find small, but systematic differences. Most notable are the modest (< 10 %) differences in the crossover frequency where the spectral distortion due to the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect vanishes, and the energy increase of the distribution at high electron cloud temperatures.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2024

The strong coupling in the nonperturbative and near-perturbative regimes

We use analytic continuation to extend the gauge/gravity duality nonperturbative description of the strong force coupling into the transition, near-perturbative, regime where perturbative effects become important. By excluding the unphysical region in coupling space from the flow of singularities in the complex plane, we derive a specific relation between the scales relevant at large and short distances; this relation is uniquely fixed by requiring maximal analyticity. The unified effective coupling model gives an accurate description of the data in the nonperturbative and the near-perturbative regions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2023

Hubble Tension and Gravitational Self-Interaction

One of the most important problems vexing the $\Lambda$CDM cosmological model is the Hubble tension. It arises from the fact that measurements of the present value of the Hubble parameter performed with low-redshift quantities, e.g., the Type IA supernova, tend to yield larger values than measurements from quantities originating at high-redshift, e.g., fits of cosmic microwave background radiation. It is becoming likely that the discrepancy, currently standing at $5\sigma$, is not due to systematic errors in the measurements. Here we explore whether the self-interaction of gravitational fields in General Relativity, which are traditionally neglected when studying the evolution of the universe, can explain the tension. We find that with field self-interaction accounted for, both low- and high-redshift data are simultaneously well-fitted, thereby showing that gravitational self-interaction could explain the Hubble tension. Crucially, this is achieved without introducing additional parameters.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2022

50 Years of Quantum Chromodynamics

This paper presents a comprehensive review of both the theory and experimental successes of Quantum Chromodynamics, starting with its emergence as a well defined theory in 1972-73 and following developments and results up to the present day. Topics include a review of the earliest theoretical and experimental foundations; the fundamental constants of QCD; an introductory discussion of lattice QCD, the only known method for obtaining exact predictions from QCD; methods for approximating QCD, with special focus on effective field theories; QCD under extreme conditions; measurements and predictions of meson and baryon states; a special discussion of the structure of the nucleon; techniques for study of QCD at high energy, including treatment of jets and showers; measurements at colliders; weak decays and quark mixing; and a section on the future, which discusses new experimental facilities or upgrades currently funded. The paper is intended to provide a broad background for Ph.D. students and postdocs starting their career. Some contributions include personal accounts of how the ideas or experiments were developed.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

New Analysis of Dark Matter in Elliptical Galaxies

We investigate a correlation between the dark matter content of elliptical galaxies and their ellipticity that was initially reported in 2014. We use new determinations of dark matter and ellipticities that are posterior to that time. Our data set consists of 237 elliptical galaxies passing a strict set of criteria. We find a relation between the mass-to-light ratio and ellipticity that is well fit by M/L = (14.1 \pm 5.4)?, which agrees with the result reported in 2014.

astro-ph.GA↗

arXiv2022

The Heavy Photon Search Experiment

The Heavy Photon Search (HPS) experiment is designed to search for a new vector boson $A^\prime$ in the mass range of 20 MeV/$c^2$ to 220 MeV/$c^2$ that kinetically mixes with the Standard Model photon with couplings $\epsilon^2 >10^{-10}$. In addition to the general importance of exploring light, weakly coupled physics that is difficult to probe with high-energy colliders, a prime motivation for this search is the possibility that sub-GeV thermal relics constitute dark matter, a scenario that requires a new comparably light mediator, where models with a hidden $U(1)$ gauge symmetry, a "dark", "hidden sector", or "heavy" photon, are particularly attractive. HPS searches for visible signatures of these heavy photons, taking advantage of their small coupling to electric charge to produce them via a process analogous to bremsstrahlung in a fixed target and detect their subsequent decay to $\mathrm{e}^+ \mathrm{e}^-$ pairs in a compact spectrometer. In addition to searching for $\mathrm{e}^+ \mathrm{e}^-$ resonances atop large QED backgrounds, HPS has the ability to precisely measure decay lengths, resulting in unique sensitivity to dark photons, as well as other long-lived new physics. After completion of the experiment and operation of engineering runs in 2015 and 2016 at the JLab CEBAF, physics runs in 2019 and 2021 have provided datasets that are now being analyzed to search for dark photons and other new phenomena.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2022

Results on spin sum rules and polarizabilities at low $Q^2$

We report on recently published experimental results on spin sum rules, and particularly on the generalized spin polarizabilities $\gamma_0(Q^2)$ (for both the proton and neutron) and $\delta_\mathrm{LT}(Q^2)$ (for the neutron). The data were taken at Jefferson Lab in Hall A by experiment E97110 (neutron) and in Hall B by experiments E03006 and E05111 (proton and deuteron, respectively). The experiments covered the very low $Q^2$ domain, down to $Q^2 \simeq 0.02$ GeV$^2$. This is well into the domain where Chiral Effective Field Theory ($\chi$EFT) predictions should be valid. Some measured observables agree with the state-of-the-art $\chi$EFT predictions but others are in tension, including $\delta_\mathrm{LT}^n(Q^2)$ which $\chi$EFT prediction was expected to be robust. This suggests that $\chi$EFT does not yet consistently describe nucleon spin observables, even at the very low $Q^2$ covered by the experiments.

nucl-ex↗

arXiv2022

Towards a single scale-dependent Pomeron in holographic light-front QCD

The Pomeron Regge trajectory underlies the dynamics dependence of hadronic total cross sections and diffractive reactions at high energies. The physics of the Pomeron is closely related to the gluon distribution function and the gluon gravitational form factor of the target hadron. In this article we examine the scale dependence of the nonperturbative gluon distribution in the nucleon and the pion which was derived in a previous article [Phys. Rev. D 104, 114005 (2021)] in the framework of holographic light-front QCD and the Veneziano model. We argue that the QCD evolution of the gluon distribution function $g(x,\mu)$ to large $\mu^2$ leads to a single scale-dependent Pomeron. The resulting Pomeron trajectory $\alpha_P(t, \mu)$ not only depends on the momentum transfer squared $t$, but also on the physical scale $\mu$ of the amplitude, such as the virtuality $Q^2$ of the interacting photon in inclusive diffractive electroproduction. This can explain not only the $Q^2$ evolution of the proton structure function $F_2(x,Q^2)$ at small $x$, but also the observed energy and $Q^2$ dependence of high energy diffractive processes involving virtual photons up to LHC energies.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Single-pion contribution to the Gerasimov--Drell--Hearn sum rule and related integrals

Phenomenological amplitudes obtained in partial-wave analyses (PWA) of single-pion photoproduction are used to evaluate the contribution of this process to the Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn (GDH), Baldin and Gell-Mann-Goldberger-Thirring (GGT) sum rules, by integrating up to 2 GeV in photon energy. Our study confirms that the single-pion contribution to all these sum rules converges even before the highest considered photon energy, but the levels of saturation are very different in the three cases. Single-pion production almost saturates the GDH sum rule for the proton, while a large fraction is missing in the neutron case. The Baldin integrals for the proton and the neutron are both saturated to about four fifths of the predicted total strength. For the GGT sum rule, the wide variability in predictions precludes any definitive statement.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2021

Effect of gravitational field self-interaction on large structure formation

We check whether General Relativity's field self-interaction alleviates the need for dark matter to explain the universe's large structure formation. We found that self-interaction accelerates sufficiently the growth of structures so that they can reach their presently observed density. No free parameters, dark components or modifications of the known laws of nature were required. This result adds to the other natural explanations provided by the same approach to the, $inter~alia$, flat rotation curves of galaxies, supernovae observations suggestive of dark energy, and dynamics of galaxy clusters, thereby reinforcing its credibility as an alternative to the dark universe model.

physics.gen-ph↗

arXiv2021

Gluon matter distribution in the proton and pion from extended holographic light-front QCD

The holographic light-front QCD framework provides a unified nonperturbative description of the hadron mass spectrum, form factors and quark distributions. In this article we extend holographic QCD in order to describe the gluonic distribution in both the proton and pion from the coupling of the metric fluctuations induced by the spin-two Pomeron with the energy momentum tensor in anti--de Sitter space, together with constraints imposed by the Veneziano model{\color{blue},} without additional free parameters. The gluonic and quark distributions are shown to have significantly different effective QCD scales.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Strange Hadron Spectroscopy with Secondary KL Beam in Hall D

We propose to create a secondary beam of neutral kaons in Hall D at Jefferson Lab to be used with the GlueX experimental setup for strange hadron spectroscopy. The superior CEBAF electron beam will enable a flux on the order of $1\times 10^4~K_L/sec$, which exceeds the flux of that previously attained at SLAC by three orders of magnitude. The use of a deuteron target will provide first measurements ever with neutral kaons on neutrons. The experiment will measure both differential cross sections and self-analyzed polarizations of the produced $\Lambda$, $\Sigma$, $\Xi$, and $\Omega$ hyperons using the GlueX detector at the Jefferson Lab Hall D. The measurements will span CM $\cos\theta$ from $-0.95$ to 0.95 in the range W = 1490 MeV to 2500 MeV. The new data will significantly constrain the partial wave analyses and reduce model-dependent uncertainties in the extraction of the properties and pole positions of the strange hyperon resonances, and establish the orbitally excited multiplets in the spectra of the $\Xi$ and $\Omega$ hyperons. Comparison with the corresponding multiplets in the spectra of the charm and bottom hyperons will provide insight into he accuracy of QCD-based calculations over a large range of masses. The proposed facility will have a defining impact in the strange meson sector through measurements of the final state $K\pi$ system up to 2 GeV invariant mass. This will allow the determination of pole positions and widths of all relevant $K^\ast(K\pi)$ $S$-,$P$-,$D$-,$F$-, and $G$-wave resonances, settle the question of the existence or nonexistence of scalar meson $\kappa/K_0^\ast(700)$ and improve the constrains on their pole parameters. Subsequently improving our knowledge of the low-lying scalar nonet in general.

nucl-ex↗