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Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) are bright millisecond-duration radio transients that appear about 1000 times per day, all-sky, for a fluence threshold 5 Jy ms at 600 MHz. The FRB radio-emission physics and the compact objects involved in these events are subjects of intense and active debate. To better constrain source models, the Bustling Universe Radio Survey Telescope in Taiwan (BURSTT) is optimized to discover and localize a large sample of rare, high-fluence, and nearby FRBs. This population is the most amenable to multi-messenger and multi-wavelength follow-up, which allows a deeper understanding of source mechanisms. BURSTT will provide horizon-to-horizon sky coverage with a half power field-of-view (FoV) of ∼104deg2, a 400 MHz effective bandwidth between 300 and 800 MHz, and subarcsecond localization, which is made possible using outrigger stations that are hundreds to thousands of km from the main array. Initially, BURSTT will employ 256 antennas. After tests of various antenna designs and optimizing the system’s performance, we plan to expand to 2048 antennas. We estimate that BURSTT-256 will detect and localize ∼100 bright (≥100 Jy ms) FRBs per year. Another advantage of BURSTT’s large FoV and continuous operation will be its greatly enhanced monitoring of FRBs for repetition. The current lack of sensitive all-sky observations likely means that many repeating FRBs are currently cataloged as single-event FRBs.

The UFFO (Ultra-Fast Flash Observatory) Pathfinder is a space instrument onboard the Lomonosovsatellite scheduled to be launched in November 2011. It is designed for extremely fast observation of optical counterparts of Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs). It consists of two subsystems; i) UBAT (UFFO Burst Alert & Trigger Telescope) and ii) SMT (Slewing Mirror Telescope). This study is concerned with SMT opto-mechanical subsystem design and optical performance test. SMT is a F/11.4 Ritchey-Chretien type telescope benefited from compact design with a short optical tube assembly for the given focal length of 1,140 mm. SMT is designed to operate over a wide range of wavelength between 200 nm and 650 nm and has 17 arcmin FOV (Field of View), providing 4 arcsec in detector pixel resolution. The main detector is 256 x 256 ICCD (Intensified Charge-Coupled Device) of 22.2m in pixel size. This SMT design offers good imaging performance including 0.77 in MTF at Nyquist frequency of 22.52 /mm and 2.7 m in RMS spot radius. The primary (M1) and secondary (M2) mirror are hyperbolic surfaces and were manufactured within 1/50 waves (He-Ne, 632.8nm) in RMS surface error. After completion of the initial integration, the SMT opto-mechanical subsystem reached to the system wavefront error better than 1/10 waves in room temperature. We then tested the opto-mechanical performances under thermal cycling and vibration. In this study, we report the SMT subsystem design solution and integration together with thermal and vibration test results.

The critical electric field of quantum electrodynamics, called also the Schwinger field, is so strong that it produces electron-positron pairs from vacuum, converting the energy of light into matter. Since the dawn of quantum electrodynamics, there has been a dream on how to reach it on Earth. With the rise of laser technology this field has become feasible through the construction of extremely high power lasers or/and with the sophisticated use of nonlinear processes in relativistic plasmas. This is one of the most attractive motivations for extremely high power laser development, i.e. producing matter from vacuum by pure light in fundamental process of quantum electrodynamics in the nonperturbative regime. Recently it has been realized that a laser with intensity well below the Schwinger limit can create an avalanche of electron-positron pairs similar to a discharge before attaining the Schwinger field. It has also been realized that the Schwinger limit can be reached using an appropriate configuration of laser beams. In experiments on the collision of laser light and high intensity electromagnetic pulses generated by relativistic flying mirrors, with electron bunches produced by a conventional accelerator and with laser wake field accelerated electrons the studying of extreme field limits in the nonlinear interaction of electromagnetic waves is proposed. The regimes of dominant radiation reaction, which completely changes the electromagnetic wave-matter interaction, will be revealed. This will result in a new powerful source of high brightness gamma-rays. A possibility of the demonstration of the electronpositron pair creation in vacuum via multi-photon processes can be realized. This will allow modeling under terrestrial laboratory conditions neutron star magnetospheres, cosmological gamma ray bursts and the Leptonic Era of the Universe.

The well-known hierarchy between the Planck scale () and the TeV scale, namely a ratio of between the two, is coincidentally repeated in a inverted order between the TeV scale and the dark energy scale at implied by the observations. We argue that this is not a numerical coincidence. The same brane-world setups to address the first hierarchy problem may also in principle address this second hierarchy issue. Specifically, we consider supersymmetry in the bulk and its breaking on the brane and resort to the Casimir energy induced by the bulk graviton-gravitino mass-shift on the brane as the dark energy. For the ADD model we found that our notion is sensible only if the number of extra dimension . We extend our study to the Randall-Sundrum model. Invoking the chirality-flip on the boundaries for SUSY-breaking, the zero-mode gravitino contribution to the Casimir energy does give rise to the double hierarchy. Unfortunately since the higher Kaluza-Klein modes acquire relative mass-shifts at the TeV level, the zero-mode contribution to Casimir energy is overshadowed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We argue that, when the gravity effect is included, the generalized uncertainty principle (CUP) may prevent black holes from total evaporation in a similar way that the standard uncertainty principle prevents the hydrogen atom from total collapse. Specifically we invoke the GUP to obtain a modified Hawking temperature, which indicates that there should exist non-radiating remnants (BHR) of about Planck mass. BHRs are an attractive candidate for cold dark matter. We investigate an alternative cosmology in which primordial BHRs are the primary source of dark matter. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In the current standard viewpoint small black holes are believed to emit black body radiation at the Hawking temperature, at least until they approach Planck size, after which their fate is open to conjecture. A cogent argument against the existence of remnants is that, since no evident quantum number prevents it, black holes should radiate completely away to photons and other ordinary stable particles and vacuum, like any unstable quantum system. Here we argue the contrary, that the generalized uncertainty principle may prevent their total evaporation in exactly the same way that the uncertainty principle prevents the hydrogen atom from total collapse: the collapse is prevented, not by symmetry, but by dynamics, as a minimum size and mass are approached.

The Lortz dynamo with helical symmetry is re-examined. It is shown that by imposing appropriate boundary conditions the set of possible solutions can be broken down into various classes characterized by the behavior of the mean magnetic field. It is found that, as the cylindrical radius, s, tends to zero, ∼ 0(sj), ∼ const + 0(sj-i), where j>5. It is proved that the azimuthal wavenumber associated with the j=5 class is necessarily equal to 2. The existence of at least one cylindrical surface inside which the dynamo is self-sustained is demonstrated. A new simple explicit solution is obtained. The topology the magnetic field is studied and three-dimensional pictures of the magnetic field lines are exhibited. Finally, a criterion for reversal of the magnetic field as a function of radius is ohtained and is applied to our solution.

Inflationary cosmology predicts the generation of both density perturbation and relic gravitons. Tests of these predictions, especially the relic gravitons, will be crucial to the verification of inflation. Efforts have been made to distinguish different inflation models using observed anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background radiation. However, the fact that both scalar and tensor modes contribute to the Sachs-Wolfe effect renders such determination difficult. We point out that, mediated by the primordial magnetic field, the relic gravitons can resonantly convert into photons at the same frequencies. Measurement of the spectrum of these long wavelength EM waves can help to determine the power law index directly, which will distinguish different inflationary models. This opens up a new window for another glance at “gravity's rainbow”.

The well-known hierarchy between the Planck scale () and the TeV scale, namely a ratio of between the two, is coincidentally repeated in a inverted order between the TeV scale and the dark energy scale at implied by the observations. We argue that this is not a numerical coincidence. The same brane-world setups to address the first hierarchy problem may also in principle address this second hierarchy issue. Specifically, we consider supersymmetry in the bulk and its breaking on the brane and resort to the Casimir energy induced by the bulk graviton-gravitino mass-shift on the brane as the dark energy. For the ADD model we found that our notion is sensible only if the number of extra dimension . We extend our study to the Randall-Sundrum model. Invoking the chirality-flip on the boundaries for SUSY-breaking, the zero-mode gravitino contribution to the Casimir energy does give rise to the double hierarchy. Unfortunately since the higher Kaluza-Klein modes acquire relative mass-shifts at the TeV level, the zero-mode contribution to Casimir energy is overshadowed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Abstract: We propose a new method to identify flavors of ultra high energy cosmic neutrinos. Energy loss of leptons in matter provides important informations for the detection of neutrinos originated from high energy astrophysical sources. 50 years ago, Askaryan proposed to detect Cherenkov signals by radio wave from the negative charge excess of particle showers. The theory of Cherenkov pulses with Fraunhofer approximation was widely studied in the past two decades. However, at high energies or for high density materials, electromagnetic shower should be elongated due to the Landau-Pomeranchuck-Migdal (LPM) effect. As such the standard Fraunhofer approximation ceases to be valid when the distance between the shower and the detector becomes comparable with the shower length. We have performed Monte Carlo simulations recently to investigate this regime based on the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method, and modified time domain integration method. In this work, we adopt the deduced relationship between the radio signal and the cascade development profile to investigate its implication to lepton signatures. Our method provides a straightforward technique to identify the neutrino flavor through the detected Cherenkov signals. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

We consider the production of primordial micro black holes (MBH) remnants in the early Universe. These objects induce the Universe to be in a matter-dominated era before the onset of inflation. Effects of such an epoch on the CMB power spectrum are discussed and computed both analytically and numerically. By comparison with the latest observational data from the WMAP collaboration, we find that our model appears to explain the quadrupole anomaly of the CMB power spectrum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]