118461139
Dimension six FCNC operators and top production at the LHC
In this work we calculate the effects of the electroweak flavour changing neutral currents dimension six effective operators on single top production at the LHC. These results are then combined with previous ones we have obtained for the strong sector. This allow us, for the first time, to perform a combined analysis of flavour changing neutral currents in top production with all contributing dimension six operators. Finally, we study the feasibility of their observation and characterization both at the Tevatron and at the LHC.
118589050
Avoiding Death by Vacuum
The two-Higgs doublet model (2HDM) can have two electroweak breaking, CP-conserving, minima. The possibility arises that the minimum which corresponds to the known elementary particle spectrum is metastable, a possibility we call the panic vacuum. We present analytical bounds on the parameters of the softly broken Peccei-Quinn 2HDM which are necessary and sufficient conditions to avoid this possibility. We also show that, for this particular model, the current LHC data already tell us that we are necessarily in the global minimum of the theory, regardless of any cosmological considerations about the lifetime of the false vacua.
119493491
One-loop stau masses in the effective potential approach
We calculate the one-loop contributions to the tau slepton masses in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model in the effective potential approach. For the majority of parameter space under study, those corrections are shown to elevate the value of the lightest stau mass.
118483060
Can we build a sensible theory with broken charge and colour symmetries
Charge and colour symmetries are broken using the vevs of scalar fields, but it is shown the theory possesses a photon-like massless particle and electroweak interactions almost identical to those of the Standard Model. We consider experimental signatures of this theory.
18964730
Probing wrong-sign Yukawa couplings at the LHC and a future linear collider
We consider the two-Higgs-doublet model as a framework in which to evaluate the viability of scenarios in which the sign of the coupling of the observed Higgs boson to down-type fermions (in particular, b-quark pairs) is opposite to that of the Standard Model (SM), while at the same time all other tree-level couplings are close to the SM values. We show that, whereas such a scenario is consistent with current LHC observations, both future running at the LHC and a future e +e − linear collider could determine the sign of the Higgs coupling to b-quark pairs. Discrimination is possible for two reasons. First, the interference between the b-quark and the t-quark loop contributions to the ggh coupling changes sign. Second, the charged-Higgs loop contribution to the γγh coupling is large and fairly constant up to the largest charged-Higgs mass allowed by tree-level unitarity bounds when the b-quark Yukawa coupling has the opposite sign from that of the SM (the change in sign of the interference terms between the b-quark loop and the W and t loops having negligible impact).
119180593
Metastability bounds on the two Higgs doublet model
A bstractIn the two Higgs doublet model, there is the possibility that the vacuum where the universe resides in is metastable. We present the tree-level bounds on the scalar potential parameters which have to be obeyed to prevent that situation. Analytical expressions for those bounds are shown for the most used potential, that with a softly broken Z2 symmetry. The impact of those bounds on the model’s phenomenology is discussed in detail, as well as the importance of the current LHC results in determining whether the vacuum we live in is or is not stable. We demonstrate how the vacuum stability bounds can be obtained for the most generic CP-conserving potential, and provide a simple method to implement them.
16319433
The trispectrum of the cosmic microwave background on subdegree angular scales: an analysis of the BOOMERanG data
The trispectrum of the cosmic microwave background can be used to assess the level of non-Gaussianity on cosmological scales. It probes the fourth-order moment, as a function of angular scale, of the probability distribution function of fluctuations and has been shown to be sensitive to primordial non-Gaussianity, secondary anisotropies (such as the Ostriker–Vishniac effect) and systematic effects (such as astrophysical foregrounds). In this paper we develop a formalism for estimating the trispectrum from high-resolution sky maps that incorporates the impact of finite sky coverage. This leads to a series of operations applied to the data set to minimize the effects of contamination due to the Gaussian component and correlations between estimates at different scales. To illustrate the effect of the estimation process, we apply our procedure to the BOOMERanG data set and show that it is consistent with Gaussianity. This work presents the first estimation of the cosmic microwave background trispectrum on subdegree scales.
119273767
Dark matter, modified gravity, and the mass of the neutrino
It has been suggested that Einstein's theory of general relativity can be modified to accommodate mismatches between the gravitational field and luminous matter on a wide range of scales. Covariant theories of modified gravity generically predict the existence of extra degrees of freedom which may be interpreted as dark matter. We study a subclass of these theories where the overall energy density in these extra degrees of freedom is subdominant relative to the baryon density. We find that, although all theories we consider favor the presence of massive neutrinos, it is generally not possible to establish a lower limit on the neutrino mass. For a few very specific cases (such as a flat universe with a cosmological constant), we find a conservative lower bound on the neutrinos mass of m{sub {nu}}>0.31 eV.
16724611
A Bayesian Estimate of the Skewness of the Cosmic Microwave Background
We propose a formalism for estimating the skewness and angular power spectrum of a general cosmic microwave background data set. We use the Edgeworth expansion to define a non-Gaussian likelihood function that takes into account the anisotropic nature of the noise and the incompleteness of the sky coverage. The formalism is then applied to estimate the skewness of the publicly available 4 yr COBE Differential Microwave Radiometer (DMR) data. We find that the data is consistent with a Gaussian skewness, and with isotropy. Inclusion of non-Gaussian degrees of freedom has essentially no effect on estimates of the power spectrum, if each Cl is regarded as a separate parameter or if the angular power spectrum is parametrized in terms of an amplitude (Q) and spectral index (n). Fixing the value of the angular power spectrum at its maximum-likelihood estimate, the best-fit skewness is S = 6.5 ± 6.0 × 104 μK3; marginalizing over Q, the estimate of the skewness is S = 6.5 ± 8.4 × 104 μK3, and marginalizing over n one has S = 6.5 ± 8.5 × 104 μK3.
16906939
Effect of Pions in Cosmic Rays
The effects of pions for vacuum polarization in background magnetic fields are considered. The effects of quark condensates is also briefly addresses. Although these effects are out of the measurement accuracy of laboratory experiments they may be relevant for gamma‐ray burst propagation. In particular, for emissions from the center of the galaxy, we show that the mixing between the neutral pion and photons results in a deviation of the gamma‐ray spectrum from the standard power‐law in the TeV range.
54177748
Fast route to nonlinear clustering statistics in modified gravity theories
We propose a simple and computationally fast method for performing $N$-body simulations for a large class of modified gravity theories with a screening mechanism such as chameleons, symmetrons, and Galileons. By combining the linear Klein\char21{}Gordon equation with a screening factor, calculated from analytical solutions of spherical symmetric configurations, we obtain a modified field equation of which the solution is exact in the linear regime while at the same time taking screening into account on nonlinear scales. The resulting modified field equation remains linear and can be solved just as quickly as the Poisson equation without any of the convergence problems that can arise when solving the full equation. We test our method with $N$-body simulations and find that it compares remarkably well with full simulations well into the nonlinear regime.