Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Jan 11, 2015
The holy grail of physics has been to merge each of its fundamental branches into a unified "... more The holy grail of physics has been to merge each of its fundamental branches into a unified "theory of everything" that would explain the functioning and existence of the universe. The last step toward this goal is to reconcile general relativity with the principles of quantum mechanics, a quest that has thus far eluded physicists. Will physics ever be able to develop an all-encompassing theory, or should we simply acknowledge that science will always have inherent limitations as to what can be known? Should new theories be validated solely on the basis of calculations that can never be empirically tested? Can we ever truly grasp the implications of modern physics when the basic laws of nature do not always operate according to our standard paradigms? These and other questions are discussed in this paper.
Scalar neutrinos and massive Dirac neutrinos in the mass range 2-20 GeV have been proposed as can... more Scalar neutrinos and massive Dirac neutrinos in the mass range 2-20 GeV have been proposed as candidates to provide the dark matter in the halo of our galaxy. If so, the particles are captured inthe Earth with an efficiency of 10-10 - 10-7. For Dirac neutrinos more massive than about 9 GeV and scalar neutrinos more massive than abour 12
Abstract We develop a manifestly, generally coordinate-covariant functional Schrödinger formalism... more Abstract We develop a manifestly, generally coordinate-covariant functional Schrödinger formalism. We study the usual problem of Hawking radiation in the Rindler coordinate system. The Hawking effect appears as a shift in the width of the ground-state wave ...
The nature of the dark matter in the Halo of our Galaxy remains a mystery. Arguments are presente... more The nature of the dark matter in the Halo of our Galaxy remains a mystery. Arguments are presented that the dark matter does not consist of ordinary stellar or substellar objects, i.e., the dark matter is not made of faint stars, brown dwarfs, white dwarfs, or neutron stars. In fact, faint stars and brown dwarfs constitute no more than a
Certain currently proposed weakly interacting elementary particles can have a high probability of... more Certain currently proposed weakly interacting elementary particles can have a high probability of solar capture if they make up the Galactic halo. Their present abundance in the Sun is here determined by balancing capture rates against annihilation rates. Both particle physics and cosmological considerations impose constraints on scattering and annihilation cross sections. In general, for the candidate particles here discussed
We examine the chemical abundance constraints on a population of white dwarfs in the halo of our ... more We examine the chemical abundance constraints on a population of white dwarfs in the halo of our Galaxy. We are motivated by microlensing experiments that have reported evidence for massive compact halo objects (MACHOs) in the halo of our Galaxy, with an estimated mass of 0.1-1 Msolar the only conventional dark astrophysical candidates for objects in this mass range are
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, Jan 11, 2015
The holy grail of physics has been to merge each of its fundamental branches into a unified "... more The holy grail of physics has been to merge each of its fundamental branches into a unified "theory of everything" that would explain the functioning and existence of the universe. The last step toward this goal is to reconcile general relativity with the principles of quantum mechanics, a quest that has thus far eluded physicists. Will physics ever be able to develop an all-encompassing theory, or should we simply acknowledge that science will always have inherent limitations as to what can be known? Should new theories be validated solely on the basis of calculations that can never be empirically tested? Can we ever truly grasp the implications of modern physics when the basic laws of nature do not always operate according to our standard paradigms? These and other questions are discussed in this paper.
Scalar neutrinos and massive Dirac neutrinos in the mass range 2-20 GeV have been proposed as can... more Scalar neutrinos and massive Dirac neutrinos in the mass range 2-20 GeV have been proposed as candidates to provide the dark matter in the halo of our galaxy. If so, the particles are captured inthe Earth with an efficiency of 10-10 - 10-7. For Dirac neutrinos more massive than about 9 GeV and scalar neutrinos more massive than abour 12
Abstract We develop a manifestly, generally coordinate-covariant functional Schrödinger formalism... more Abstract We develop a manifestly, generally coordinate-covariant functional Schrödinger formalism. We study the usual problem of Hawking radiation in the Rindler coordinate system. The Hawking effect appears as a shift in the width of the ground-state wave ...
The nature of the dark matter in the Halo of our Galaxy remains a mystery. Arguments are presente... more The nature of the dark matter in the Halo of our Galaxy remains a mystery. Arguments are presented that the dark matter does not consist of ordinary stellar or substellar objects, i.e., the dark matter is not made of faint stars, brown dwarfs, white dwarfs, or neutron stars. In fact, faint stars and brown dwarfs constitute no more than a
Certain currently proposed weakly interacting elementary particles can have a high probability of... more Certain currently proposed weakly interacting elementary particles can have a high probability of solar capture if they make up the Galactic halo. Their present abundance in the Sun is here determined by balancing capture rates against annihilation rates. Both particle physics and cosmological considerations impose constraints on scattering and annihilation cross sections. In general, for the candidate particles here discussed
We examine the chemical abundance constraints on a population of white dwarfs in the halo of our ... more We examine the chemical abundance constraints on a population of white dwarfs in the halo of our Galaxy. We are motivated by microlensing experiments that have reported evidence for massive compact halo objects (MACHOs) in the halo of our Galaxy, with an estimated mass of 0.1-1 Msolar the only conventional dark astrophysical candidates for objects in this mass range are
Uploads