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20,261 real negative results, null findings, and replication failures · Negative / Null Result Report. Search the index →

WASTE indexes published research — it does not host or republish full papers. Each entry is a metadata record compiled from open scholarly databases; the abstract is shown in full only where the paper is openly licensed, otherwise a short excerpt under fair use. Classifications are automated and approximate.

Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Development and Application of a Detection System for a Novel Class of Gravitational-Wave Transients

Soichiro Kuwahara, Kipp Cannon · 2023 · arXiv

We previously described the development of a detection system for a novel class of transient gravitational-wave sources taking the form of Cherenkov-like bursts. Here, we have applied the system to the data of the LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA O3 science run, and report a null result. The ad hoc waveform model is motivated by the conjectured emission of gravitational waves from a curvature source moving at super-luminal speed, and while there is no plausible natural or artificial source of such waves, we nevertheless use the null result to infer a tongue-in-cheek upper bound on the number density of near-E

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Non-SUSY Searches at the Tevatron

A. Boveia · 2009 · arXiv

I describe recent signature-based searches for anomalous physics processes using up to 2.9/fb of data from the CDF or D0 detectors at the Fermilab Tevatron. While each search conveys its sensitivity by interpreting a null result in terms of one or more specific exotic models, the searches are designed to be broadly sensitive to many models.

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Comment on "Is the nonlinear Meissner effect unobservable?"

Anand Bhattacharya, Igor Zutic, Oriol T. Valls et al. · 1998 · arXiv

In a recent Letter (Phys. Rev. Lett. 81, p.5640 (1998), cond-mat/9808249 v3), it was suggested that nonlocal effects may prevent observation of the nonlinear Meissner effect in YBCO. We argue that this claim is incorrect with regards to measurements of the nonlinear transverse magnetic moment, and that the most likely reason for a null result lies elsewhere.

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Axion detection by ring lasers

L. Cooper, G. E. Stedman · 1995 · arXiv

A ring-laser experiment, similar to the Canterbury ring laser, to detect axion- and {\sc qed}-induced vacuum birefringence is proposed. It uses a slowly modulated magnetic field and a novel polarization geometry. Both axion coupling and vacuum birefringence would modulate the Sagnac beat frequency. A null result could place sensitive bounds on the axion mass and on two-photon coupling.

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Michelson-Morley experiment within the quantum mechanics framework

D. L. Khokhlov · 2008 · arXiv

It is revisited the Michelson-Morley experiment within the quantum mechanics framework. One can define the wave function of photon in the whole space at a given moment of time. The phase difference between the source and receiver is a distance between the source and receiver at the time of reception hence it does not depend on the velocity of the frame. Then one can explain the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment within the quantum mechanics framework.

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

New conceptions on the light wave theory in a moving frame of reference

Daniel Lima Nascimento · 2013 · arXiv

A reanalisis of the effect of a moving frame of reference is done, showing that the null result of the Michelson-Morley's experimente of 1887 on the possibility of detecting the variation of the velocity of light with respect to a moving observer, na observer at the Earth, was already implied in these equations; thereforewith no need of new ad hoc hypotheses to explain it in the classical framework. In fact, it will be shown that behind those equations is hidden the fascinating phenomenon of the absolute motion.

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

An observational constraint on gravitational lensing by objects of mass 10^(9.5) - 10^(10.9) Mo

Pedro Augusto, Peter N. Wilkinson · 2000 · arXiv

A radio-based search for strong gravitational lensing, with image separations in the range 160-300 milliarcsec (mas), has yielded a null result for a sample of 1665 sources (Augusto, Wilkinson & Browne 1998) whose mean redshift is estimated to be ~1.3. The lensing rate for this previously-unexplored separation range, <1:555 at the 95% confidence level, is less than on arcsecond-scales - as expected from models of lensing galaxy populations. Lensing on 160-300 mas scales is expected to arise predominantly from spiral galaxies at a rate dependent on the disk-halo mass ratio and the evolving numb

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

The Status of MSSM Higgs Boson Searches at LEP

Andy Hocker · 1999 · arXiv

The most recently available results from searches conducted by the four LEP experiments at 189 GeV center-of-mass energy for Higgs bosons of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) are presented. No evidence for a signal has been observed, and the null result is used by the experiments, both individually and collectively, to exclude regions of the MSSM parameter space and to set lower limits on Higgs boson masses at 95% confidence level in constrained MSSM scenarios.

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Comparison of dynamical and equilibrium surface spin-reorientations: Inferences on the nature of the phase transitions in the presence of dipole interactions

G. He, R. Belanger, P. H. Hguyen et al. · 2018 · arXiv

The influence of long-range dipole interactions on two dimensional magnetism has been studied extensively in the spin-reorientation transition of ferromagnetic ultrathin films. Although there is a great deal of experimental information on the perpendicular domain phase that is stabilized by dipole interactions, the transitions to or from the domain phase are subtle and difficult to characterize experimentally. Magnetic susceptibility measurements show no divergence in the vicinity of the spin-reorientation transition as a function of thickness -- a null result that is difficult to interpret wi

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Proton spin content from skyrmions

G. Kaelbermann, J. M. Eisenberg, Andreas Schaefer · 1994 · arXiv

It is well known that in lowest order the skyrmion model of the nucleon gives vanishing spin content. With new data indicating a proton spin content $ΔΣ= 0.22\pm 0.14,$ it is an increasing challenge to find ways in which the skyrmion can move away from the null result. We show here that a particular term in the skyrmion lagrangian in SU(3) involving six derivatives of the field can, with plausible parameters, yield a spin content consistent with present experiment.

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Angular Dependence of the Nonlinear Transverse Magnetic Moment of YBCO in the Meissner state

Anand Bhattacharya, Igor Zutic, Oriol T. Valls et al. · 1998 · arXiv

The angular dependence of the nonlinear transverse magnetic moment of untwinned high-quality single crystals of optimally doped YBCO have been studied at a temperature of 2.5K using a low frequency AC technique. The absence of any signature at angular period 2π/4is analyzed in light of the numerical predictions of such a signal for a pure d-wave order parameter with line nodes. Implications of this null result for the existence of a non-zero gap at all angles on the Fermi surface are discussed.

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Search for Large Extra Dimensions in the Production of Jets and Missing Transverse Energy in $p\bar{p}$ Collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 1.96 TeV

CDF Collaboration · 2006 · arXiv

We present the results of a search for new physics in the jets plus missing transverse energy data sample collected from 368 pb^{-1} of ppbar collisions at sqrt{s}=1.96 TeV recorded by the Collider Detector at Fermilab. We compare the number of events observed in the data with a data-based estimate of the Standard Model backgrounds contributing to this signature. We observe no significant excess of events, and we interpret this null result in terms of lower limits on the fundamental Planck scale for a large extra dimensions scenario.

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

A causal approach to first-order optical equivalency of inertial systems, by means of a beam-pointing test-experiment based on speed-induced deflection of light

G. Sardin · 2004 · arXiv

Within the framework of test-experiments, an original pointing set-up based on speed-induced deflection of a light-beam and using a high-resolution opto-electronic array as a position detector, is proposed. The device would provide a new way to ratify the first order optical equivalency of inertial systems and to sound its causal groundwork. The type of test provided applies to any device using beams, but here it has been adapted for an up-dated check-up of Michelson's experiment and to bear out the interpretation derived from its null result. Rather than searching for a speed-induced phase-sh

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Condensation temperature trends among stars with planets

Guillermo Gonzalez · 2005 · arXiv

Results from detailed spectroscopic analyses of stars hosting massive planets are employed to search for trends between abundances and condensation temperatures. The elements C, S, Na, Mg, Al, Ca, Sc, Ti, V, Cr, Mn, Fe, Ni and Zn are included in the analysis of 64 stars with planets and 33 comparison stars. No significant trends are evident in the data. This null result suggests that accretion of rocky material onto the photospheres of stars with planets is not the primary explanation for their high metallicities. However, the differences between the solar photospheric and meteoritic abundance

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

An Elusive Vector Dark Matter

Chuan-Ren Chen, Yu-Kuang Chu, Ho-Chin Tsai · 2014 · arXiv

Even though the sensitivity of direct dark matter search experiments reach the level about $10^{-45}~{\rm cm}^2$, there is no confident signal of dark matter been observed. We point out that, if dark matter is a vector boson, the null result in direct dark matter search experiments may due to the destructive effects in dark-matter-nucleon elastic scattering. We illustrate the scenario using a modified Higgs portal model that includes exotic quarks. The significant cancellation can occur for certain mass gap between heavy quark and dark matter. As a result, the spin-independent dark-matter-nucl

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

The origins of length contraction: I. The FitzGerald-Lorentz deformation hypothesis

Harvey R Brown · 2001 · arXiv

One of the widespread confusions concerning the history of the 1887 Michelson-Morley experiment has to do with the initial explanation of this celebrated null result due independently to FitzGerald and Lorentz. In neither case was a strict, longitudinal length contraction hypothesis invoked, as is commonly supposed. Lorentz postulated, particularly in 1895, any one of a certain family of possible deformation effects for rigid bodies in motion, including purely transverse alteration, and expansion as well as contraction; FitzGerald may well have had the same family in mind. A careful analysis o

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

IR and Optical Observations of GRB 030115

Allyn Dullighan, George Ricker, Nathaniel Butler et al. · 2004 · arXiv

We present an upper limit on the brightness of the afterglow of the long GRB 030115 measured from Infrared (IR) images taken with the Magellan Classic Cam instrument of Ks > 22 at 6.2 days after the burst. We also present measurments of the host galaxy of GRB 030115 from archival optical and IR HST images taken with the Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Near Infrared Camera and Multi Object Spectrometer 25+ days after the burst. GRB 030115 is classified as an Optically Dark Burst, as its afterglow was found in the J, H, and K IR bands after a null result was reported in the optical. This is

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Electrical detection of the spin polarization due to charge flow in the surface state of the topological insulator Bi_1.5 Sb_0.5 Te_1.7 Se_1.3

Yuichiro Ando, Takahiro Hamasaki, Takayuki Kurokawa et al. · 2014 · arXiv

We detected the spin polarization due to charge flow in the spin non-degenerate surface state of a three dimensional topological insulator by means of an all-electrical method. The charge current in the bulk-insulating topological insulator Bi1.5Sb0.5Te1.7Se1.3 (BSTS) was injected/extracted through a ferromagnetic electrode made of Ni80Fe20, and an unusual current-direction-dependent magnetoresistance gives evidence for the appearance of spin polarization which leads to a spin-dependent resistance at the BSTS/Ni80Fe20 interface. In contrast, our control experiment on Bi2Se3 gave null result. T

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Limits on the cosmological abundance of supermassive compact objects from a millilensing search in gamma-ray burst data

Robert J. Nemiroff, Gabriela F. Marani, Jay P. Norris et al. · 2001 · arXiv

A new search for the gravitational lens effects of a significant cosmological density of supermassive compact objects (SCOs) on gamma-ray bursts has yielded a null result. We inspected the timing data of 774 BATSE-triggered GRBs for evidence of millilensing: repeated peaks similar in light-curve shape and spectra. Our null detection leads us to conclude that, in all candidate universes simulated, $Ω_{SCO} < 0.1$ is favored for $10^5 < M_{SCO}/M_{\odot} < 10^9$, while in some universes and mass ranges the density limits are as much as 10 times lower. Therefore, a cosmologically significant popu

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

A New Brown Dwarf Desert? A Scarcity of Wide Ultracool Binaries

Peter R. Allen, David W. Koerner, Michael W. McElwain et al. · 2006 · arXiv

We present the results of a deep-imaging search for wide companions to low-mass stars and brown dwarfs using NSFCam on IRTF. We searched a sample of 132 M7-L8 dwarfs to magnitude limits of $J \sim 20.5$ and $K \sim 18.5$, corresponding to secondary-primary mass ratios of $\sim 0.5$. No companions were found with separations between $2{\arcsec}$ to $31{\arcsec}$ ($\sim$40 AU to $\sim$1000 AU). This null result implies a wide companion frequency below 2.3% at the 95% confidence level within the sensitivity limits of the survey. Preliminary modeling efforts indicate that we could have detected 85

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Results of the Search for Strange Quark Matter and Q-balls with the SLIM Experiment

S. Cecchini, M. Cozzi, D. Di Ferdinando et al. · 2008 · arXiv

The SLIM experiment at the Chacaltaya high altitude laboratory was sensitive to nuclearites and Q-balls, which could be present in the cosmic radiation as possible Dark Matter components. It was sensitive also to strangelets, i.e. small lumps of Strange Quark Matter predicted at such altitudes by various phenomenological models. The analysis of 427 m^2 of Nuclear Track Detectors exposed for 4.22 years showed no candidate event. New upper limits on the flux of downgoing nuclearites and Q-balls at the 90% C.L. were established. The null result also restricts models for strangelets propagation th

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Hunting for Axionlike Dark Matter by Searching for an Oscillating Neutron Electric Dipole Moment

N. J. Ayres · 2018 · arXiv

We report on a search for ultra-low-mass axion-like dark matter by analysing the ratio of the spin-precession frequencies of stored ultracold neutrons and $^{199}$Hg atoms for an axion-induced oscillating electric dipole moment of the neutron and an axion-wind spin-precession effect. No signal consistent with dark matter is observed for the axion mass range $10^{-24}~\textrm{eV} \le m_a \le 10^{-17}~\textrm{eV}$. Our null result sets the first laboratory constraints on the coupling of axion dark matter to gluons, which improve on astrophysical limits by up to 3 orders of magnitude, and also im

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Search for the lepton flavor violating $τ$ $\to$ 3$μ$ decay in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13 TeV

CMS Collaboration · 2023 · arXiv

A search for the lepton flavor violating $τ$ $\to$ 3$μ$ decay is performed using proton-proton collision events at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC in 2017-2018, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 97.7 fb$^{-1}$. Tau leptons produced in both heavy-flavor hadron and W boson decays are exploited in the analysis. No evidence for the decay is observed. The results of this search are combined with an earlier null result based on data collected in 2016 to obtain a total integrated luminosity of 131 fb$^{-1}$. The observed (expected) upper limits

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Limits on the cosmological abundance of supermassive compact objects from a search for multiple imaging in compact radio sources

P. N. Wilkinson, D. R. Henstock, I. W. A. Browne et al. · 2001 · arXiv

Using Very Long Baseline Interferometry we have searched a sample of 300 compact radio sources for examples of multiple imaging produced by gravitational lensing; no multiple images were found with separations in the angular range 1.5--50 milliarcsec. This null result allows us to place a limit on the cosmological abundance of intergalactic supermassive compact objects in the mass range $\sim 10^{6}$ to $\sim 10^{8}$M$_{\odot}$; such objects cannot make up more than $\sim 1%$ of the closure density (95% confidence). A uniformly distributed population of supermassive black holes forming soon af

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Leggett-Garg tests of macrorealism: checks for non-invasiveness and generalizations to higher-order correlators

J. J. Halliwell · 2019 · arXiv

In the tests for macrorealism proposed by Leggett and Garg, the temporal correlation functions of a dichotomic variable Q must be measured in a non-invasive way to rule out alternative classical explanations of Leggett-Garg inequality violations. Ideal negative measurements, in which a null result is argued to be a non-invasive determination of the system's state, are often used. From a quantum-mechanical perspective, such a measurement collapses the wave function and will therefore typically be found to be invasive under any experimental check. Here, a simple modified ideal negative measureme

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Probing Dark Energy Inhomogeneities with Supernovae

Michael Blomqvist, Edvard Mortsell, Serena Nobili · 2008 · arXiv

We discuss the possibility to identify anisotropic and/or inhomogeneous cosmological models using type Ia supernova data. A search for correlations in current type Ia peak magnitudes over a large range of angular scales yields a null result. However, the same analysis limited to supernovae at low redshift, shows a feeble anticorrelation at the two sigma level at angular scales of about 40 degrees. Upcoming data from, e.g., the SNLS (Supernova Legacy Survey) and the SDSS-II (SDSS: Sloan Digital Sky Survey) supernova searches will improve our limits on the size of - or possibly detect - possible

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

The conceptualization of time and the constancy of the speed of light

Vasco Guerra, Rodrigo de Abreu · 2005 · arXiv

In this work we show that the null result of the Michelson-Morley experiment in vacuum is deeply connected with the notion of time. It can be deduced without any mathematics only from the assumption that all good clocks can be used to measure time with the same results, independently of the machinery involved in their manufacturing. A second important assumption, intrinsic to the very notion of time, is that clocks measure time in the same way in different frames, i.e., the notion of time is the same in all inertial frames. Under this assumption, we point out that the "postulate" of constancy

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Two-Higgs doublet solution to the LSND, MiniBooNE and muon $g-2$ anomalies

Waleed Abdallah, Raj Gandhi, Samiran Roy · 2020 · arXiv

We show that one of the simplest extensions of the Standard Model, the addition of a second Higgs doublet, when combined with a dark sector singlet scalar, allows us to: $i)$ explain the long-standing anomalies in the Liquid Scintillator Neutrino Detector (LSND) and MiniBooNE (MB) while maintaining compatibility with the null result from KARMEN, $ii)$ obtain, in the process, a portal to the dark sector, and $iii)$ comfortably account for the observed value of the muon $g-2$. Three singlet neutrinos allow for an understanding of observed neutrino mass-squared differences via a Type I seesaw, wi

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessPhysics

Disks in the sky: A reassessment of the WMAP "cold spot"

Ray Zhang, Dragan Huterer · 2009 · arXiv

We reassess the evidence that WMAP temperature maps contain a statistically significant "cold spot" by repeating the analysis using simple circular top-hat (disk) weights, as well as Gaussian weights of varying width. Contrary to previous results that used Spherical Mexican Hat Wavelets, we find no significant signal at any scale when we compare the coldest spot from our sky to ones from simulated Gaussian random, isotropic maps. We trace this apparent discrepancy to the fact that WMAP cold spot's temperature profile just happens to favor the particular profile given by the wavelet. Since rand

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Negative / Null Result ReportOpen accessComputer Science

Gyromagnetic Factors and Atomic Clock Constraints on the Variation of Fundamental Constants

Feng Luo, Keith A. Olive, Jean-Philippe Uzan · 2011 · arXiv

We consider the effect of the coupled variations of fundamental constants on the nucleon magnetic moment. The nucleon g-factor enters into the interpretation of the measurements of variations in the fine-structure constant, alpha, in both the laboratory (through atomic clock measurements) and in astrophysical systems (e.g. through measurements of the 21 cm transitions). A null result can be translated into a limit on the variation of a set of fundamental constants, that is usually reduced to alpha. However, in specific models, particularly unification models, changes in alpha are always accomp

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