Pensées sur la religion, par Blaise PASCAL.

Contient : « Récit de deux conférences ou entretiens particuliers, tenus les vendredy premier et mardy cinquième février 1647. » Affaire de Jacques Forton (frère St Ange, Capucin) ; cf. un art. de V. Cousin dans la Bibliothèque de l'École des Chartes, t. IV, p. 111 et suiv ; Correspondance de Pascal et du P. Étienne Noël, jésuite, sur la question du vide. — Copies, auxquelles sont joints deux opuscules imprimés : « Expériences nouvelles touchant le vuide,... par le sieur B. P. » [Pascal]. Paris, 1647, 32 pages, in-8°. — « Lettre de M. Pascal le fils, addressante à M. le premier Président de la Cour des aydes de Clermont-ferrand, sur le subjet de ce qui s'est passé en sa présence, dans le collège des Jésuites de Montferrand, aux thèses de philosophie qui luy ont esté dediées et qui ont esté soubstenuës le 25. juin 1651. » (S. l.), 16 pages, in-4° ; Note sur l'abbaye de Saint-Allyre de Clermont ; Protestations des Pères de l'Oratoire de la maison de S. Honoré, à Paris, de Clermont-Ferrand et de Riom au sujet de l'assemblée générale de la Congrégation (1746) ; Copies de pièces relatives à une prétendue rétractation de Pascal avant sa mort ; Copie de l'épitaphe de Pascal

Atomic parity nonconservation, neutron radii, and effective field theories of nuclei

Accurately calibrated effective field theories are used to compute atomic parity nonconserving (APNC) observables. Although accurately calibrated, these effective field theories predict a large spread in the neutron skin of heavy nuclei. Whereas the neutron skin is strongly correlated to numerous physical observables, in this contribution we focus on its impact on new physics through APNC observables. The addition of an isoscalar-isovector coupling constant to the effective Lagrangian generates a wide range of values for the neutron skin of heavy nuclei without compromising the success of the model in reproducing well-constrained nuclear observables. Earlier studies have suggested that the use of isotopic ratios of APNC observables may eliminate their sensitivity to atomic structure. This leaves nuclear structure uncertainties as the main impediment for identifying physics beyond the standard model. We establish that uncertainties in the neutron skin of heavy nuclei are at present too large to measure isotopic ratios to better than the 0.1% accuracy required to test the standard model. However, we argue that such uncertainties will be significantly reduced by the upcoming measurement of the neutron radius in 208^Pb at the Jefferson Laboratory.

Determination of anomalies in supersymmetric theories

We develop an efficient technique to compute anomalies in supersymmetric theories by combining the so-called nonlocal regularization method and superspace techniques. To illustrate the method we apply it to a four-dimensional toy model with potentially anomalous N=1 supersymmetry and prove explicitly that in this model all the candidate supersymmetry anomalies have vanishing coefficients at the one-loop level.

Gauge transformations in the Lagrangian and Hamilton formalisms of generally covariant theories

We study spacetime diffeomorphisms in the Hamiltonian and Lagrangian formalisms of generally covariant systems. We show that the gauge group for such a system is characterized by having generators which are projectable under the Legendre map. The gauge group is found to be much larger than the original group of spacetime diffeomorphisms, since its generators must depend on the lapse function and shift vector of the spacetime metric in a given coordinate patch. Our results are generalizations of earlier results by Salisbury and Sundermeyer. They arise in a natural way from using the requirement of equivalence between Lagrangian and Hamiltonian formulations of the system, and they are new in that the symmetries are realized on the full set of phase space variables. The generators are displayed explicitly and are applied to the relativistic string and to general relativity.