It is shown that in five dimensional Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet theories exact vacuum solutions with non-vanishing torsion can be constructed. Some possible observational effects related to neutrino oscillations are pointed out. In the theory of continuum media (in which suitable defects can be described by localized non vanishing torsion) ”the gravitational intuition” is a rather useful tool to des...

We review and clarify the cancellation conditions for gauge anomalies which occur when N = 1, D = 4 supergravity is coupled to a Kähler non-linear sigma-model with gauged isometries and Fayet-Iliopoulos couplings. For a flat sigma-model target space and vanishing Fayet-Iliopoulos couplings, consistency requires just the conventional anomaly cancellation conditions. A consistent model with non-v...

Let L(E/Q, s) be the L-function of an elliptic curve E defined over the rational field Q. We examine the vanishing and non-vanishing of the central values L(E, 1, χ) of the twisted L-function as χ ranges over Dirichlet characters of given order.

An example of homogeneous space which has no metric but has a connection with non–vanishing curvature suggests that " spacetime " should be not defined as a pair (M, g), a manifold plus a metric, but as a pair (M, Γ) — a differentiable manifold plus a connection. The general theory of homogeneous spaces ensures the existence of a certain well–defined connection independently of the existence of...

I discuss the results of a recent quenched lattice calculation of the two independent form factors parametrizing the semileptonic decays between heavy-light pseudoscalar mesons. The differential decay rate of the process B → Dℓν has been calculated at non vanishing momentum transfer both in the case of the light leptons ℓ = e, µ and in the case of a non vanishing lepton mass ℓ = τ.