Isoscalar spin-zero partners of the weak bosons and their radiative decays

Isoscalar spin-zero partners of the weak bosons, both color singlets and color octets, are discussed within the framework of composite models. It is suggested that the production and subsequent decay of these particles into the Z-boson and an energetic γ-ray or a gluon jet are the origin of the “exotic” events observed recently in $\text{p}\text{p}$ collisions at high energy.     

Search for light technimesons

The light neutral colour-singlet spin-zero bosons P⁰ and P³ expected in contemporary extended technicolour theories have some small induced flavour-changing couplings, even in monophagic theories where their couplings are mainly flavour-diagonal. Their non-observation in K⁺ decay means that $\text{m}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>P</mtext>}}\text{0,3 ? 350}\text{MeV}$, leading one to expect direct quark-lepton transitions mediating K_L0 → μe decay close to the present experimental upper limit. In the absence of some as yet unknown suppression mechanisms, eitherP⁰ and P³ should be observed in bottom decays with a branching ratio approaching 100% (which may already be experimentally excluded) and/or they should be observed in charm decays with branching ratios ? 1% and/or the decay K⁰_L → μe should be detected within an order of magnitude of the present upper limit.     

Baryon asymmetry and nucleon decay in supersymmetric guts

In a class of supersymmetric GUTs with a coloured Higgs sector of an intermediate mass, we study nucleon decay and the generation of baryon assymmetry. We find that: (a) a non-vanishing baryon asymmetry can be generated by the decay of coloured Higgs bosons and Higgs fermions into quarks and squarks; (b) nucleons decay at a rate 10^?31 yr^?1 preferably to $\text{μ}{}^{\mathrm{+}}\text{K}{}^0\text{,}\text{ν}{}_{\mathrm{\mu }}\text{K}{}^{\mathrm{+}}$ while decay involving dimension-five operators is kinematically excluded.     

Electroweak corrections to the fermionic decay width of the standard Higgs boson

The partial decay width of the standard model Higgs particle into a general species of fermions is given at the electroweak 1-loop level. The analytic formulae are applicable to light and heavy fermions. Numerical results are presented for Higgs decays intob andt quarks and into charged leptons. For not too heavy Higgs bosons the radiative corrections are of the order of a few per cent. In particular for Higgs bosons below theW ⁺ W ^– threshold the correction to the partial width intob quarks is very small and insensitive to the top mass. For every heavy Higgs bosons the 1-loop corrections increase the fermionic decay widths for all channels up to 15%.     

On the possibility of finding light uncolored supersymmetric partners at present and future machines

Supersymmetric models allow the possibility of finding new light $\text{spin}\text{-}\text{1}\text{2}$ fermions (m <m_w, and perhaps m < 10–15 GeV, charged or neutral) that are (apart from mixing effects) the supersymmetric partners of W, Z⁰, and Higgs bosons. We provide a detailed analysis of their expected properties, production mechanisms, and signatures, with emphasis on detection at e⁺e^- colliders. Although the charged, $\text{spin}\text{-}\text{1}\text{2}$ particles resemble sequential leptons, it turns out that their properties differ enough that they might have been missed in the standard searches with normal cuts, and they still might be found with m < 18 GeV. A neutral, $\text{spin}\text{-}\text{1}\text{2}$ particle with m below about 30 GeV could exist with a clear decay signature and be singly produced at detectable rates at present machines (picobarn cross sections).     

Speculations on a strongly interacting Higgs sector

Using the 1/N expansion, we argue that the O_2N Higgs-Goldstone model may be a good indicator of the behavior of the standard SU₂ ? U₁ electroweak model in the non-perturbative limit of a strongly interacting Higgs sector. We emphasize that there remains a physical scalar particle or resonance σ (Higgs remnant), whose mass (and width) will be set by the weak scale. However, its coupling to vector bosons is expected to be much stronger than the standard model Higgs of comparable mass. This provides evidence that there is an upper limit to the Higgs mass in the hundreds of GeV, regardless of whether naturalness constraints are imposed on the parameters of the effective lagrangian. We conclude with some comments about the possible relevance of this particle to the radiative events observed at the CERN $\text{p}\text{p}$ collider.     

Virtual effects of Higgs particles

The possibility of observing Higgs particles through virtual effects is considered in detail for a general gauge theory. The effect of charged Higgs particles on low-energy weak interaction processes, like muon decay, tau decay, nuclear beta decay, pion decay, and some higher-order processes is analyzed. The effect of flavor-changing neutral Higgs particles on rare decay modes of the muon and kaon, μe conversion, K^o-$\text{K}$^o and D^o-$\text{D}$^o mixing is also studied. We discuss constraints on possible extensions of the Weinberg-Salam model and experiments sensitive to their Higgs particles. In particular, we analyze the neutral Higgs which couple to fermions in the minimal SU(2)_L×SU(2)_R×U(1) model and find that they probably have mass greater than 100 GeV.     

Strangephilic Higgs bosons in the MSSM

We suggest a new CPX-derived scenario for the search for strangephilic MSSM Higgs bosons at the Tevatron and the LHC, in which all neutral and charged Higgs bosons decay predominantly into pairs of strange quarks and into a strange and a charm quark, respectively. The proposed scenario is realized within a particular region of the MSSM parameter space and requires large values of tan?β, where threshold radiative corrections are significant to render the effective strange-quark Yukawa coupling dominant. Experimental searches for neutral Higgs bosons based on the identification of b-quark jets or τ leptons may miss a strangephilic Higgs boson and its existence could be inferred indirectly by searching for hadronically decaying charged Higgs bosons. Potential strategies and experimental challenges to search for strangephilic Higgs bosons at the Tevatron and the LHC are discussed.     

The effective W approximation

We generalize the effective photon approximation to include the massive W^± and Z gauge bosons of the Weinberg-Salam model. The W^± and Z bosons are treated as partons in the proton and we present predictions for the structure functions of both transversely and longitudinally polarized W's and Z's. Our results are valid only at high energies, (√s ? 20 TeV), and greatly simplify calculations involving vector bosons in the intermediate state of a scattering process. As examples, we use our treatment of the W and Z as partons to calculate hadronic production of heavy Higgs bosons from WW scattering and also to compute the associated production of a heavy charge $\text{2}\text{3}$ and charge $\text{?}\text{1}\text{3}$ quark from W-gluon scattering.     

Sequential decay in physical representation

Working in a physical representation, we discuss the problem of sequential decay of a discrete 3-level system interacting with boson fields. In such a representation, energy levels are sharp and collision processes conserve the energy. Nevertheless, 2-boson processes induce a broadening of the lines around $\text{(Ω}{}_2\text{? Ω}{}_1\text{), (Ω}{}_1\text{? Ω}{}_0\text{)}$; both lines have the same width and are truncated at (Ω₂ ? Ω₀). In contradistinction, Weisskopf-Wigner's idea of broad energy levels leads, in general, to lines with different widths and no upper limit.At t = 0, the distributions of bare and physical bosons are different; they become identical at t = ∞. The main difference between the two representations lies in the dynamics. Any bare boson can be emitted. In a 2-level model, only resonant physical bosons can be emitted; in a 3-level model, non resonant physical bosons can be emitted only with energy lower than (Ω₂ ? Ω₀); all other bosons must have been brought through the excitation mechanism.     

Associated production of heavy Higgs boson with top quarks

Associated production of a heavy Higgs boson (m_H > 100 GeV) with top quarks at Juratron energies is studied. It is natural to differentiate between the “light” (2m_t < m_H < 2m_W) and “heavy” (m_H > 2m_W) Higgs search. It is assumed that the mass value of the top quarks is in the interval m_t ≈ 30–80 GeV. m_W is the W-boson mass. If m_H < 2m_W a dangerous background is given by the QCD production of four top quarks. We have calculated the cross sections for both the Higgs production and the background reaction. The disappointing result found is that the background is overwhelmingly large. However the Higgs search in this mass region is not hopeless. The associated production of the Higgs boson with a W-boson may have a clear experimental signature, its background given by the reaction $\text{p}\text{+}\text{p}\text{→}\text{W}\text{+}\text{t}\text{+}\text{t}$ might be suppressed. The difficulty with this mechanism is that the rate is rather low. If m_H > 2m_W the background is different and its contribution is expected to be small. The associated production of a Higgs boson with a pair of top quarks might be a useful method in the Higgs search in this case.     

Chargino decays in the complex MSSM: a full one-loop analysis

We evaluate two-body decay modes of charginos in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model with complex parameters (cMSSM). Assuming heavy scalar quarks we take into account all decay channels involving charginos, neutralinos, (scalar) leptons, Higgs bosons and Standard Model gauge bosons. The evaluation of the decay widths is based on a full one-loop calculation including hard and soft QED radiation. Special attention is paid to decays involving the Lightest Supersymmetric Particle (LSP), i.e. the lightest neutralino, or a neutral or charged Higgs boson. The higher-order corrections of the chargino decay widths involving the LSP can easily reach a level of about ±10%, while the corrections to the decays to Higgs bosons are slightly smaller, translating into corrections of similar size in the respective branching ratios. These corrections are important for the correct interpretation of LSP and Higgs production at the LHC and at a future linear e ⁺ e ⁻ collider. The results will be implemented into the Fortran code FeynHiggs.     

Decays of the Weinberg-Salam Higgs particle in models with two Higgs doublets

In a class of extended Higgs structures containing two Higgs doublets, the decays of the Weinberg-Salam Higgs particle might be significantly different from those in the standard model because it has large branching ratios to decay into light Higgs bosons. We discuss the decays of the Weinberg-Salam Higgs particle with mass range from 7 GeV up to 1 TeV.     

A search for monojet events produced by virtual Z0 bosons in e+e− annihalation at petra

A search was performed for the associated production of two different Higgs bosons via a virtual Z⁰ in e⁺e^? annihilation (e⁺e^? → h₁⁰h₂⁰) using the JADE detector at PETRA. This was motivated by the interpretation of the monojet events observed at the CERN p$\text{p}$ collider as anomalous Z⁰ decays into two neutral Higgs bosons (h₁⁰ and h₂⁰), where h₁⁰ is stable and escapes detection while h₂⁰ decays into hadrons. Single- or di-jet events with large momentum imbalance are then expected at PETRA energies. No evidence for such events was found in our data; this excludes h₂⁰ masses in the range of 1 to 21 GeV with 95% CL, if the branching fraction for Z⁰ → h₁⁰h₂⁰ is a larger than one half that for $\text{Z}{}^0\text{→ v}{}_{\mathrm{\mu }}\text{v}{}_{\mathrm{\mu }}$. The possibility that the monojets could originate from supersymmetric higgsino production from Z⁰ decay is also examined.     

Radial and Regge excitations in unified,grand unified and subconstituent models

Necessary group theoretic conditions for all elementary gauge bosons and fermions of an arbitrary renormalizable gauge theory to lie on Regge trajectories are reviewed. It is then argued that in properly unified gauge theories all particles of a given spin lie on Regge trajectories. This then implied that a properly unified gauge theory has no local U(1) factor groups, and no massive fermion singlets. A consideration of the general pattern of Regge and radial recurrences to be expected in quantum field theories suggests that the presence or absence of spin $\text{3}\text{2}$ quarks and/or leptons in the TeV region will provide crucial clues to enable one to distinguish between various classes of unified, grand unified, and subconstituent models. The correct interpretation of such excited fermions will require correlation with the Higgs boson mass and possible radial and Regge excitations of the weak vector bosons.     

Two Higgs Doublet Model and model independent interpretation of neutral Higgs boson searches

Searches for the neutral Higgs bosons and are used to obtain limits on the Type II Two Higgs Doublet Model (2HDM(II)) with no CP–violation in the Higgs sector and no additional particles besides the five Higgs bosons. The analysis combines approximately 170 pb of data collected with the OPAL detector at GeV with previous runs at and GeV. The searches are sensitive to the and decay modes of the Higgs bosons. For the first time, the 2HDM(II) parameter space is explored in a detailed scan, and new flavour independent analyses are applied to examine regions in which the neutral Higgs bosons decay predominantly into light quarks or gluons. Model–independent limits are also given. Received: 11 July 2000 / Published online: 21 December 2000     

Consequences of a gut sector in minimal N = 1 supergravity models with radiative SU(2) × U(1) breaking

It is shown that incorporation of a GUT sector in N = 1 supergravity models with radiative SU(2) × U(1) breaking can drastically modify the corresponding low energy phenomenology. The ratio of Higgs VEVs $\text{ω ≡}\text{〈}\text{H}\text{〉}\text{〈}\text{H}\text{〉}$ might be much larger than 1, even for small top quark masses (m_t = O(40 GeV)). Scenarios of this type necessarily imply large squark and slepton masses $\text{m}{}_{\mathrm{<mtext>q</mtext><mtext>,\; </mtext><mtext>?</mtext>}}\text{? 150}\text{GeV}$, whereas light gluinos can easily be accomodated. Furthermore the upper bound on the mass of the light neutral Higgs becomes as large as M_Z and its coupling to down-type quarks and leptons might exceed the standard GWS-value by more than a factor of 5.     

Decays of heavy Higgs Bosons into vector Bosons

The decays Higgs → Higgs + V (V = W, Z) are studied in the Weinberg-Salam model with two Higgs doublets and are shown to exceed the usual fermion decay mode with known fermions and the mode V$\text{V}$ in a large region of Higgs masses and mixing angles. Higgs-Higgs final states and the role of the heavy Higgs decays are briefly discussed.     

Multilepton configurations in b and t decays

The probabilities of emitting one or more prompt charged leptons in b and t decays and in the decay of a b$\text{b}$ or t$\text{t}$ pair are computed and found to be large. Multilepton configurations can thus be used to identify the production of new flavours, and to obtain information on the weak mixing angles.