Revisiting the QCD Corrections to the R-Parity Violating Processes pp/pp → eμ ＋ X

We present the theoretical predictions up to QCD next-to-leading order for the cross section of high-mass electron-muon pair production at the Tevatron and at the Large Hadron Collider （LHC）, considering only the dominant contributions from the third-generation sneutrino. The dependence of the renormalization and factorization scales on the total cross section, and the effects on the K-factor due to the uncertainty of parton distribution function are carefully investigated. By considering soft-gluon resummation effects to all orders in as of leading logarithm, we present the transverse momentum distributions of the final eμ pair.     

SUSY constraints from relic density: High sensitivity to pre-BBN expansion rate

The sensitivity of the lightest supersymmetric particle relic density calculation to the variation of the cosmological expansion rate before nucleosynthesis is discussed. Such a modification of the expansion rate, even extremely modest and with no consequence on the cosmological observations, can greatly enhance the calculated relic density, and therefore change the constraints on the SUSY parameter space drastically. We illustrate this variation in two examples of SUSY models, and show that it is unsafe to use the lower bound of the WMAP limits in order to constrain supersymmetry. We therefore suggest to use only the upper value ΩDMh²<0.135${\Omega }_{\mathrm{DM}}{h}^2<0.135$.     

All possible lightest supersymmetric particles in R-parity violating minimal supergravity models

We investigate, which lightest supersymmetric particles can be obtained via a non-vanishing lepton- or baryon-number violating operator at the grand unification scale within the R-parity violating minimal supergravity model. We employ the full one-loop renormalization group equations. We take into account restrictions from the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon and b→sγ$b\to s\gamma$, as well as collider constraints from LEP and the Tevatron. We also consider simple deformations of minimal supergravity models.     

Measuring modular weights in mirage unification models at the LHC and ILC

String compactification with fluxes yields MSSM soft SUSY breaking terms that receive comparable contributions from modulus and anomaly mediation whose relative strength is governed by a phenomenological parameter α  . Gaugino and first/second generation (and sometimes also Higgs and third generation) scalar mass parameters unify at a mirage unification scale Q≠MGUT$Q\ne M_{\mathrm{GUT}}$, determined by the value of α  . The ratio of scalar to gaugino masses at this mirage unification scale depends directly on the scalar field modular weights, which are fixed in turn by the brane or brane intersections on which the MSSM fields are localized. We outline a program of measurements which can in principle be made at the CERN LHC and the International Linear e⁺e⁻$e^{+}{e}^{-}$ Collider (ILC) which can lead to a determination of the modular weights.     

SUSY at the LHC

I discuss part of the program of work towards discoveries at the LHC with seeds for orientation and navigation in the parameter space given an anticipated multitude of excesses at start-up.     

Neutral Higgs sector of the MSSM with explicit CP violation and non-holomorphic soft breaking

Using the effective potential method, we computed one-loop corrections to the mass matrix of neutral Higgs bosons of the Non-Holomorphic Supersymmetric Standard Model (NHSSM) with explicit CP violation, where the radiative corrections due to the quarks and squarks of the third generation were taken into account. We observed that the non-holomorphic trilinear couplings can compete with the holomorphic ones in CP violating issues for the mass and mixing of the neutral Higgs bosons.     

Nuclear moments for the neutrinoless double beta decay II

The recently developed formalism for the evaluation of nuclear form factors in neutrinoless double beta decay is applied to ⁴⁸Ca, ⁷⁶Ge, ⁸²Se, ¹⁰⁰Mo, ¹²⁸Te and ¹³⁰Te nuclei. Explicit analytical expressions that follows from this theoretical development, in the single-mode model for the decay of ⁴⁸Ca, have been worked out. They are useful both for testing the full numerical calculations, and for analytically checking the consistency with other formalisms. Large configuration space calculations are compared with previous studies, where alternative formulations were used. Yet, besides using the G-matrix as residual interaction, we here use a simple δ-force. Attention is paid to the connected effects of the short range nuclear correlations and the finite nucleon size. Constraints on lepton number violating terms in the weak Hamiltonian (effective neutrino Majorana mass and effective right-handed current coupling strengths) are deduced.     

Mixing-induced CP violating sources for electroweak baryogenesis from a semiclassical approach

The effects of flavor mixing in electroweak baryogenesis is investigated in a generalized semiclassical WKB approach. Through calculating the non-adiabatic corrections to the particle currents, it is shown that extra CP violation sources arise from the off-diagonal part of the equation of motion of particles moving inside the bubble wall. This type of mixing-induced source is of first order in a derivative expansion of the Higgs condensate, but it is oscillation suppressed. The numerical importance of the mixing-induced source is discussed in the minimal supersymmetric standard model and compared with the source term induced by a semiclassical force. It is found that in a large parameter space where oscillation suppression is not strong enough, the mixing-induced source can dominate over that from the semiclassical force.     

Probing the reheating temperature at colliders and with primordial nucleosynthesis

Considering gravitino dark matter scenarios with a long-lived charged slepton, we show that collider measurements of the slepton mass and its lifetime can probe not only the gravitino mass but also the post-inflationary reheating temperature TR$T_{\mathrm{R}}$. In a model independent way, we derive upper limits on TR$T_{\mathrm{R}}$ and discuss them in light of the constraints from the primordial catalysis of ⁶Li through bound-state effects. In the collider-friendly region of slepton masses below 1 TeV, the obtained conservative estimate of the maximum reheating temperature is about TR=3×¹⁰⁹ GeV$T_{\mathrm{R}}=3\times {10}^9\text{GeV}$ for the limiting case of a small gluino–slepton mass splitting and about TR=¹⁰⁸ GeV$T_{\mathrm{R}}={10}^8\text{GeV}$ for the case that is typical for universal soft supersymmetry breaking parameters at the scale of grand unification. We find that a determination of the gluino–slepton mass ratio at the Large Hadron Collider will test the possibility of TR>¹⁰⁹ GeV$T_{\mathrm{R}}>{10}^9\text{GeV}$ and thereby the viability of thermal leptogenesis with hierarchical heavy right-handed Majorana neutrinos.     

Prospects for discovering supersymmetry at the LHC

Supersymmetry is one of the best-motivated candidates for physics beyond the standard model that might be discovered at the LHC. There are many reasons to expect that it may appear at the TeV scale, in particular because it provides a natural cold dark-matter candidate. The apparent discrepancy between the experimental measurement of g _μ −2 and the standard-model value calculated using low-energy e ⁺ e ⁻ data favours relatively light sparticles, accessible to the LHC. A global likelihood analysis including this, other electroweak precision observables and B decay observables suggests that the LHC might be able to discover supersymmetry with 1/fb or less of integrated luminosity. The LHC should be able to discover supersymmetry via the classic missing-energy signature, or in alternative phenomenological scenarios. The prospects for discovering supersymmetry at the LHC look very good. CERN-PH-TH/2008-208.     

Review of searches for Higgs bosons and beyond the Standard Model Physics at the Tevatron

The energy frontier is currently at the Fermilab Tevatron accelerator, which collides protons and antiprotons at a center-of-mass energy of 1.96 TeV. The luminosity delivered to the CDF and DØ experiments has now surpassed the 4 fb^?1. This paper reviews the most recent direct searches for Higgs bosons and beyond-the-standard-model (BSM) physics at the Tevatron. The results reported correspond to an integrated luminosity of up to 2.5 fb^?1 of Run II data collected by the two Collaborations. Searches covered include the standard model (SM) Higgs boson (including sensitivity projections), the neutral Higgs bosons in the minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model (MSSM), charged Higgs bosons and extended Higgs models, supersymmetric decays that conserve or violate R-parity, gauge-mediated supersymmetric breaking models, long-lived particles, leptoquarks, compositeness, extra gauge bosons, extra dimensions, and finally signature-based searches. Given the excellent performance of the collider and the continued productivity of the experiments, the Tevatron physics potential looks promising for discovery with the coming larger data sets. In particular, evidence for the SM Higgs boson could be obtained if its mass is light or near 160 GeV. The observed (expected) upper limits are currently a factor of 3.7 (3.3) higher than the expected SM Higgs boson cross section at m _H =115 GeV and 1.1 (1.6) at m _H =160 GeV at 95% C.L.     

Two-photon decay in strong central fields observed for the case of He-like gold

The photon energy differential shape of the second order matrix element for the two-photon (2E1) decay of the 1s2s¹S₀ level in He-like gold has been measured. The results are in agreement with a recent fully relativistic calculation. The corresponding 2E1 matrix element deviates from those in lighter He-like systems due to the strong central field in a heavy two-electron ion.     

Heavy sterile neutrinos: bounds from big-bang nucleosynthesis and SN 1987A

Cosmological and astrophysical effects of heavy (10–200 MeV) sterile Dirac neutrinos, mixed with the active ones, are considered. The bounds on mass and mixing angle from both supernovae and big-bang nucleosynthesis are presented.     

High density quark matter and the renormalization group in QCD with two and three flavors

We consider the most general four fermion operators in QCD for two and three massless flavors and study their renormalization in the vicinity of the Fermi surface. We show that, asymptotically, the largest coupling corresponds to scalar diquark condensation. Asymptotically the direct and iterated (molecular) instanton interactions become equal. We provide simple arguments for the form of the operators that diagonalize the evolution equations. Some solutions of the flow equations exhibit instabilities arising out of purely repulsive interactions.     

ℵ0-extended supergravity and Chern-Simons theories

We give generalizations of extended Poincaré supergravity with arbitrarily many supersymmetries in the absence of central charges in three dimensions by gauging its intrinsic global SO(N) symmetry. We call these ℵ₀ (Aleph-null) supergravity theories. We further couple a non-Abelian supersymmetric Chern-Simons theory and an Abelian topological BF theory to ℵ₀ supergravity. Our result overcomes the previous difficulty for supersymmetrization of Chern-Simons theories beyond N = 4. This feature is peculiar to the Chern-Simons and BF theories including supergravity in three dimensions. We also show that dimensional reduction schemes for four-dimensional theories such as N = 1 self-dual supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory or N = 1 supergravity theory that can generate ℵ₀ globally and locally supersymmetric theories in three dimensions. As an interesting application, we present ℵ₀ supergravity Liouville theory in two dimensions after appropriate dimensional reduction from three dimensions.     

Search for Higgs bosons in SUSY cascades in CMS and dark matter with non-universal gaugino masses

In grand-unified theories (GUT), non-universal boundary conditions for the gaugino masses may arise at the unification scale and may affect the observability of the neutral MSSM Higgs bosons (h/H/A) at the LHC. The implications of such non-universal gaugino masses are investigated for Higgs boson production in the SUSY cascade decay chain , , , produced in pp interactions. In the singlet representation with universal gaugino masses only the light Higgs boson can be produced in this cascade with the parameter region of interest for us, while with non-universal gaugino masses heavy neutral MSSM Higgs boson production may dominate. The allowed parameter space in the light of the WMAP constraints on the cold dark-matter relic density is investigated in the above scenarios for gaugino mass parameters. We also demonstrate that combination of representations can give the required amount of dark matter in any point of the parameter space. In the non-universal case we show that heavy Higgs bosons can be detected in the cascade studied in parameter regions with the WMAP preferred neutralino relic density.     

The weak electroproduction of Σ in electron–proton scattering

We obtain differential cross sections for the reaction e⁻+p→Σ⁰+ν_e, for incident electron energies from 0.5 GeV to 6.0 GeV. This calculation is phenomenologically based and makes use of SU(3) and SU(2) relations. We obtain contributions of the individual form factors to the differential cross section and show that the vector current form factor dominates in the region of observability. We also obtain reaction rates for a standard set of conditions. Finally we compare this case with that for Λ production and discuss what might be learned from this reaction concerning the structure of the weak, strangeness changing, hadronic current.     

Double-logarithmic asymptotics of the electromagnetic form factors of the electron and quark

The asymptotic behaviour of the electromagnetic form factors of the electron and quark is obtained in the double-logarithmic approximation for Sudakov kinematics, i.e., for the case that the value of the momentum transfer is much greater than the mass of the particle.