Supersymmetry alone does not guarantee stable neutral dark matter. Stability, mass ordering, production history and annihilation dynamics must be specified; conserved R-parity supplies one common stability mechanism.
Surface density of a disk Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-06
Surface-fed growth of an accreting sphere 2026-10-18
For a sphere with constant mass density collecting mass at rate per unit surface area, and give . If it falls through stationary material under constant gravitational acceleration without drag, its velocity satisfies . With , an integrating factor gives .
At radius outside a spherical mass , the Newtonian relative-acceleration tensor has eigenvalues with . It compresses free fall separations tangentially and stretches them radially. The displayed time scale is the inverse square root of the curvature scale controlling this tidal evolution. An ideal circular orbit at that radius has period , providing a second physical interpretation. For Earth's surface it is about seconds, while the corresponding ideal low-orbit period is about minutes. A uniform gravitational acceleration does not determine this relative motion; spatial variation of the field does.
Suspended sediment 2026-10-31
Suspended sediment is particulate material carried within a fluid rather than solely along the bed. Its concentration balance includes advection, erosion into suspension and deposition from suspension. For water depth and suspended mass concentration , the conservative balance reduces using water continuity to .
Symmetry protection of a small mass 2026-10-07
A small mass is technically protected when its vanishing restores a symmetry that restricts the corresponding quantum corrections. Gauge protection of a vector mass, chiral protection of a fermion mass, and supersymmetry protection of scalar masses use different symmetry constraints. This is a radiative-stability statement, not a proof that all small numerical parameters require such protection.
Synchronous circular orbit 2026-10-14
A satellite remaining above a fixed point of a uniformly rotating spherical planet must have a prograde equatorial circular Kepler orbit with angular speed . Balancing gravitational acceleration and centripetal acceleration gives the displayed radius and speed . The satellite's own mass cancels. A physically realizable external orbit additionally requires this radius to exceed the planet's radius.
System of units 2026-10-13
Tabletop mass coupled to a hanging mass 2026-10-24
A tabletop mass joined through a hole by a massless inextensible string of length to a hanging mass has radial inertia and conserved angular momentum . The radial energy is , with . Its effective potential diverges at the hole for and has a unique minimum at . Since , small radial oscillations at fixed have squared angular frequency .
Tachyon Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-18
A negative squared mass in a relativistic field spectrum signals instability of the background about which the field is expanded. The bosonic string mass spectrum contains such an unexcited state.
Tadpole diagram 2026-09-24
Tadpole subtraction Created 2026-10-05 Updated 2026-10-14
A linear counterterm can be chosen so that the renormalized one-point function, or equivalently the chosen vacuum expectation value, is zero. This cancels attached tadpole diagrams in the perturbative expansion about that vacuum. In a massive six-dimensional cubic scalar field theory, the one-loop proper tadpole is ; without subtraction the stationary background shifts by at one-loop order. One must specify this convention when comparing reducible exchange diagrams or mass corrections.
For an axisymmetric planar lamina of total mass , let be its moment of inertia about the central axis normal to its plane. The perpendicular axis theorem and rotational symmetry give about central diameters. An in-plane tangent line a perpendicular distance from a parallel central diameter therefore has moment of inertia by the parallel axis theorem. An axis normal to the lamina through the same rim point instead has ; specifying the point without the axis direction is insufficient.
Tau hadronic polarimetry 2026-10-25
The visible angular distribution and laboratory energy in carry information about the parent's spin. For fixed hadronic invariant mass, . A spin-zero recoil has analyzing coefficient . For a spin-one recoil coupled through the V-A interaction, longitudinal and transverse partial rates have weights and opposite slopes, giving . Thus the harder-helicity ordering can reverse when the recoil mass exceeds . A mean invariant mass without spin-dependent spectral weights cannot fix the sign for a mixed sample.
Tau-neutrino charged-current threshold 2026-10-25
For a nearly massless incident tau neutrino and stationary target of mass , the initial Mandelstam variables give . At threshold the final tau lepton and the lightest allowed recoil system have no relative momentum, so . This proves the formula. A free neutron recoil channel gives approximately ; an electron target has a different recoil and a threshold near .
Technical hierarchy problem 2026-10-07
The technical hierarchy problem asks why a small mass scale, once chosen, remains stable under quantum corrections from much larger scales. A symmetry can protect this radiative stability without explaining the numerical origin of the scale separation. For a fundamental scalar mass, heavy thresholds often give additive corrections proportional to the heavy mass squared; supersymmetric cancellation of quadratic divergences supplies one protection mechanism when supersymmetry breaking is sufficiently soft.
Temperature Created 2026-09-24 Updated 2026-10-18
Temperature labels thermal equilibrium: two internally equilibrated bodies have the same temperature when contact permitting only heat exchange produces no net heat transfer. The zeroth law of thermodynamics makes the comparison transitive. If bodies A and B separately reach thermal equilibrium with the same thermometer without appreciably disturbing either body, they agree with each other. This is what lets a gas thermometer compare a metal block with water, despite their different internal energies and heat capacities. Insulation alone makes no such comparison: it can prevent heat transfer between bodies at different temperatures. [ref]
1.1 Temperature and Thermal Equilibrium. Ling, Moebs and Sanny, University Physics Volume 2, section 1.1: temperature and the zeroth law
The zeroth law of thermodynamics establishes equality comparisons, but does not choose a numerical scale. Thermodynamic temperature supplies an absolute scale consistent with Carnot's theorem and entropy. For a simple compressible system at thermodynamic equilibrium with fixed particle number and composition,Here is internal energy, is entropy, and is volume; the second equality assumes the derivative can be inverted. Temperature is a thermodynamic conjugate variable to entropy and belongs to the intensive and extensive thermodynamic quantities as an intensive quantity. Its partial derivative tells us how much internal energy must change per unit change of entropy under the stated constraints. More general systems require their other mechanical and material variables to be held fixed too. [ref]
For an infinitesimal quantity of heat transferred from A to B, with no work or matter exchange, the equilibrium entropy changes giveFor ordinary positive temperatures, spontaneous heat transfer from increases total entropy; thermal equilibrium has . This comparison uses changes in entropy, rather than the total internal energy contained in either body. A small hot object can have less internal energy than a large cool one. See entropy maximization under thermal contact for the equilibrium criterion and negative temperature for the special case of bounded energy spectra.
Express absolute thermodynamic temperature in kelvin, and a Celsius reading in degree Celsius:The offset is exact: corresponds to , and to . Their absolute temperature ratio is ; dividing their Celsius readings gives a different number. Thus gas thermometer pressure ratios and Carnot's theorem require thermodynamic temperature. The modern SI definition of the kelvin fixes the Boltzmann constant ; a reference bath realizes or transfers the scale rather than defining that constant.[ref]
The International System of Units (SI), ninth edition, SI Brochure. section 2.3.1: kelvin and Celsius temperature
Temperature is not universally the mean kinetic energy of a particle. In a classical, nonrelativistic ideal gas at thermal equilibrium, the equipartition theorem gives the mean translational kinetic energy relative to the gas's bulk motion:Here is particle mass, its velocity, and the mean flow velocity. In this regime, different particle masses at the same temperature have equal mean translational kinetic energies but different characteristic speeds. A moving gas can also carry bulk kinetic energy without being hotter in its rest frame. Internal molecular modes and quantum statistics require further care; the equipartition theorem has classical assumptions, whereas the equilibrium entropy definition applies more widely. [ref]
https://davidtong.org/teaching/statistical-physics/statmechhtml/S2#S2.SS2.SSS1. Tong, Statistical Physics, section 2.2.1: classical equipartition and its limits
Tensioned-sheet acoustic impedance 2026-10-07
A sheet of mass per area and elastic-sheet tension backed by an identical outgoing fluid half-space presents the stated surface acoustic impedance to the other half-space, using upward sheet velocity . The fluid term is its normal acoustic impedance; the remaining term is structural. Infinite elastic-sheet tension suppresses every fixed nonzero spatial wavenumber, but not , whereas infinite mass suppresses even spatially uniform motion. A massless untensioned sheet between identical fluids is transparent.
Tensor-power reduction of PBR overlap 2026-10-06
If two pure quantum states overlap by , their -copy states have overlap . Each block spans an effective qubit, with orthonormal basis and . Applying the two-block PBR exclusion measurement for zero and plus uses independently prepared copies. A common single-copy ontic overlap of positive mass remains positive under this finite tensor power.