119090745
Do LEP results suggest that quarks have integer electric charges
We argue that recent results from two-photon processes at LEP are better explained by quarks possessing integer electric charges.
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.
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.
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).
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.
55409487
Errors in Estimating Omega_Lambda due to the Fluid Approximation
The matter content of the Universe is strongly inhomogeneous on small scales. Motivated by this fact, we consider a model of the Universe that has regularly spaced discrete masses, rather than a continuous fluid. The optical properties of such space-times can differ considerably from the continuous fluid case, even if the 'average' dynamics are the same. We show that these differences have consequences for cosmological parameter estimation, and that fitting to recent supernovae observations gives a correction to the inferred value of Omega_Lambda of ~10%.
18618688
An estimate of \Omega_m without priors
Using mean relative peculiar velocity measurements for pairs of galaxies, we estimate the cosmological density parameter $\Omega_m$ and the amplitude of density fluctuations $\sigma_8$. Our results suggest that our statistic is a robust and reproducible measure of the mean pairwise velocity and thereby the $\Omega_m$ parameter. We get $\Omega_m = 0.30^{+0.17}_{-0.07}$ and $\sigma_8 = 1.13^{+0.22}_{-0.23}$. These estimates do not depend on prior assumptions on the adiabaticity of the initial density fluctuations, the ionization history, or the values of other cosmological parameters.
118480062
Landau-Ginzburg Chern-Simons model with Ue(1)xUg(1) Gauge Symmetry and Internal Pseudo-Photons
In this article it is studied, at variational level, a mathematical setup given by the Landau-Ginzburg Chern-Simons model for anyons in 2+1-dimensions within the framework of dimensional reduced Ue(1)xUg(1) extended electromagnetism with both vector gauge fields (photons) and pseudo-vector gauge fields (pseudo-photons) such that both magnetic and electric vortexes coexist in the planar system. This model exhibits explicit planar P and T discrete symmetries being the Hall conductivity consistently a tensor and the Dirac quantization on the electric and magnetic coupling constants is equivalent to the quantization of magnetic flux. It is also discussed a thickening to 4-dimensions of the model with explicit 4-dimensional P violation which allows either for electric and magnetic charge separation, either for the Meissner effect. Although mathematically consistent, the electromagnetic field content for this model does not coincide with the standard Hall effect being present an extra orthogonal electric and longitudinal magnetic fields.
17674016
Fast and reliable MCMC for cosmological parameter estimation
Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) techniques are now widely us ed for cosmological parameter estimation. Chains are generated to sample the post rior probability distribution obtained following the Bayesian approach. An important issue i how to optimize the efficiency of such sampling and how to diagnose whether a finite-length c hain has adequately sampled the underlying posterior probability distribution. We sho w how the power spectrum of a single such finite chain may be used as a convergence diagnostic by me ans of a fitting function, and discuss strategies for optimizing the distribution for the proposed steps. The methods developed are applied to current CMB and LSS data interpreted usin g both a pure adiabatic cosmological model and a mixed adiabatic/isocurvature cosmol ogical model including possible correlations between modes. For the latter application, be cause of the increased dimensionality and the presence of degeneracies, the need for tuning M CMC methods for maximum efficiency becomes particularly acute.
119497739
Conservative estimates of the mass of the neutrino from cosmology
A range of experimental results point to the existence of a massive neutrino. The recent high precision measurements of the cosmic microwave background and the large scale surveys of galaxies can be used to place an upper bound on this mass. In this paper we perform a thorough analysis of all assumptions that go into obtaining a credible limit on . In particular we explore the impact of extending parameter space beyond the current standard cosmological model, the importance of priors and the uncertainties due to biasing in large scale structure. We find that the mass constraints are independent of the choice of parametrization as well as the inclusion of spatial curvature. The results of including the possibility of dark energy and tensor perturbations are shown to depend critically on the datasets used. The difference between an upper bound of 2.2 eV, assuming generic initial conditions, and an upper bound of 0.63 eV, assuming adiabaticity and a galaxy bias of 1, demonstrate the dependence of such a constraint on the assumptions in the analysis.