CTEQ-TEA parton distribution functions with intrinsic charm

The possibility of a (sizable) nonperturbative contribution to the charm parton distribution function (PDF) in a nucleon is investigated together with theoretical issues arising in its interpretation. Results from the global PDF analysis are presented. The separation of the universal component of the nonperturbative charm from the rest of the radiative contributions is discussed and the potential impact of a nonperturbative charm PDF on LHC scattering processes is illustrated. An estimate of nonperturbative charm magnitude in the CT14 and CT14HERA2 global QCD analyses at the next-to-next-to leading order (NNLO) in the QCD coupling strength is given by including the latest experimental data from HERA and the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). A comparison between different models of intrinsic charm is shown and prospects for standard candle observables at the LHC are illustrated.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figures. Conference Proceedings of CIPANP2018, 13th Conference on the Intersections of Particle and Nuclear Physics, May 29 - June 3, 2018 Palm Springs, CA. Based on arXiv: 1707.00657, published in JHEP 1802 (2018) 05

FoxM1B transcriptionally regulates vascular endothelial growth factor expression and promotes the angiogenesis and growth of glioma cells.

We previously found that FoxM1B is overexpressed in human glioblastomas and that forced FoxM1B expression in anaplastic astrocytoma cells leads to the formation of highly angiogenic glioblastoma in nude mice. However, the molecular mechanisms by which FoxM1B enhances glioma angiogenesis are currently unknown. In this study, we found that vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) is a direct transcriptional target of FoxM1B. FoxM1B overexpression increased VEGF expression, whereas blockade of FoxM1 expression suppressed VEGF expression in glioma cells. Transfection of FoxM1 into glioma cells directly activated the VEGF promoter, and inhibition of FoxM1 expression by FoxM1 siRNA suppressed VEGF promoter activation. We identified two FoxM1-binding sites in the VEGF promoter that specifically bound to the FoxM1 protein. Mutation of these FoxM1-binding sites significantly attenuated VEGF promoter activity. Furthermore, FoxM1 overexpression increased and inhibition of FoxM1 expression suppressed the angiogenic ability of glioma cells. Finally, an immunohistochemical analysis of 59 human glioblastoma specimens also showed a significant correlation between FoxM1 overexpression and elevated VEGF expression. Our findings provide both clinical and mechanistic evidence that FoxM1 contributes to glioma progression by enhancing VEGF gene transcription and thus tumor angiogenesis

FoxM1B regulates NEDD4-1 expression, leading to cellular transformation and full malignant phenotype in immortalized human astrocytes.

Our recent studies have shown that the FoxM1B transcription factor is overexpressed in human glioma tissues and that the level of its expression correlates directly with glioma grade. However, whether FoxM1B plays a role in the early development of glioma (i.e., in transformation) is unknown. In this study, we found that the FoxM1B molecule causes cellular transformation and tumor formation in normal human astrocytes (NHA) immortalized by p53 and pRB inhibition. Moreover, brain tumors that arose from intracranial injection of FoxM1B-expressing immortalized NHAs displayed glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) phenotypes, suggesting that FoxM1B overexpression in immortalized NHAs not only transforms the cells but also leads to GBM formation. Mechanistically, our results showed that overexpression of FoxM1B upregulated NEDD4-1, an E3 ligase that mediates the degradation and downregulation of phosphatase and tensin homologue (PTEN) in multiple cell lines. Decreased PTEN in turn resulted in the hyperactivation of Akt, which led to phosphorylation and cytoplasmic retention of FoxO3a. Blocking Akt activation with phosphoinositide 3-kinase/Akt inhibitors inhibited the FoxM1B-induced transformation of immortalized NHAs. Furthermore, overexpression of FoxM1B in immortalized NHAs increased the expression of survivin, cyclin D1, and cyclin E, which are important molecules for tumor growth. Collectively, these results indicate that overexpression of FoxM1B, in cooperation with p53 and pRB inhibition in NHA cells, promotes astrocyte transformation and GBM formation through multiple mechanisms

The supersymmetric Georgi-Machacek model

We show that the well known Georgi-Machacek (GM) model can be realized as a limit of the recently constructed Supersymmetric Custodial Higgs Triplet Model (SCTM) which in general contains a signifcantly more complex scalar spectrum. We dub this limit of the SCTM, which gives a weakly coupled origin for the GM model at the electroweak scale, the Supersymmetric GM (SGM) model. We derive a mapping between the SGM and GM models using it to show how a supersymmetric origin implies constraints on the Higgs potential in conventional GM model constructions which would generically not be present. We then perform a simplifed phenomenological study of diphoton and ZZ signals for a pair of benchmark scenarios to illustrate under what circumstances the GM model can mimic the SGM model and when they should be easily distinguishable.The work of R.V.M. is supported by MINECO, FPA 2016-78220-C3-1-P, FPA 2013-47836-C3-2/3-P (including ERDF), and the Juan de la Cierva program, as well as by Junta de Andalucia Project FQM-101. The work of R.V. is partially supported by the Sam Taylor fellowship. K.X. is supported by U. S. Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-SC0010129

High Energy Leptonic Collisions and Electroweak Parton Distribution Functions

In high-energy leptonic collisions well above the electroweak scale, the collinear splitting mechanism of the electroweak gauge bosons becomes the dominant phenomena via the initial state radiation and the final state showering. We point out that at future high-energy lepton colliders, such as a multi-TeV muon collider, the electroweak parton distribution functions (EW PDFs) should be adopted as the proper description for partonic collisions of the initial states. The leptons and electroweak gauge bosons are the EW partons, that evolve according to the unbroken Standard Model (SM) gauge group and that effectively resum potentially large collinear logarithms. We present a formalism for the EW PDFs at the Next-to-Leading-Log (NLL) accuracy. We calculate semi-inclusive cross sections for some important SM processes at a future multi-TeV muon collider. We conclude that it is appropriate to adopt the EW PDF formalism for future high-energy lepton colliders.Comment: The revised version is published in Phys.Rev.D Lette

Fermionic Electroweak NNLO Corrections to e+e−→ZHe^+ e^- \to ZH with Polarized Beams and Different Renormalization Schemes

Recently, the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) electroweak corrections with fermion loops to the Higgsstrahling process were computed. Here we present numerical results for polarized electron/positron beams, as well as for two input parameter schemes known as the $\alpha(0)$ and $G_\mu$ schemes. The size of the NNLO corrections strongly depends on the beam polarization, leading to an increase of the $ZH$ cross-section by 0.76% for $e^+_{\rm L} e^-_{\rm R}$ beams, and a decrease of 0.04% for $e^+_{\rm R} e^-_{\rm L}$ beams. Furthermore, inclusion of the NNLO corrections is found to significantly reduce the discrepancy between the results in the $\alpha(0)$ and $G_\mu$ schemes. Using the remaining difference, together with other methods, the theory uncertainty from missing bosonic electroweak corrections is estimated to be less than 0.3%.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures and 3 table

Detection of Dust Condensations in the Orion Bar Photon-dominated Region

We report Submillimeter Array dust continuum and molecular spectral line observations toward the Orion Bar photon-dominated region (PDR). The 1.2 mm continuum map reveals, for the first time, a total of 9 compact (r < 0.01pc) dust condensations located within a distance of ~0.03 pc from the dissociation front of the PDR. Part of the dust condensations are seen in spectral line emissions of CS (5-4) and H$_2$CS ($7_{1,7}$-$6_{1,6}$), though the CS map also reveals dense gas further away from the dissociation front. We detect compact emissions in H$_2$CS ($6_{0,6}$-$5_{0,5}$), ($6_{2,4}$-$5_{2,3}$) and C$^{34}$S, C$^{33}$S (4-3) toward bright dust condensations. The line ratio of H$_2$CS ($6_{0,6}$-$5_{0,5}$)/($6_{2,4}$-$5_{2,3}$) suggests a temperature of $73\pm58$ K. A non-thermal velocity dispersion of ~0.25 - 0.50 km s$^{-1}$ is derived from the high spectral resolution C$^{34}$S data, and indicates a subsonic to transonic turbulence in the condensations. The masses of the condensations are estimated from the dust emission, and range from 0.03 to 0.3 $M_{\odot}$, all significantly lower than any critical mass that is required for self-gravity to play a crucial role. Thus the condensations are not gravitationally bound, and could not collapse to form stars. In cooperating with recent high resolution observations of the surface layers of the molecular cloud in the Bar, we speculate that the condensations are produced as a high-pressure wave induced by the expansion of the HII region compresses and enters the cloud. A velocity gradient along a direction perpendicular to the major axis of the Bar is seen in H$_2$CS ($7_{1,7}$-$6_{1,6}$), and is consistent with the scenario that the molecular gas behind the dissociation front is being compressed.Comment: published in The Astrophysical Journa

Light (and darkness) from a light hidden Higgs

We examine light diphoton signals from extended Higgs sectors possessing (approximate) fermiophobia with Standard Model (SM) fermions as well as custodial symmetry. This class of Higgs sectors can be realized in various beyond the SM scenarios and is able to evade many experimental limits, even at light masses, which are otherwise strongly constraining. Below the WW threshold, the most robust probes of the neutral component are di and multi-photon searches. Utilizing the dominant Drell-Yan Higgs pair production mechanism and combining it with updated LHC diphoton data, we derive robust upper bounds on the allowed branching ratio for masses between 45 − 160 GeV. Furthermore, masses ≲ 110 GeV are ruled out if the coupling to photons is dominated by W boson loops. We then examine two simple ways to evade these bounds via cancellations between different loop contributions or by introducing decays into an invisible sector. This also opens up the possibility of future LHC diphoton signals from a light hidden Higgs sector. As explicit realizations, we consider the Georgi-Machacek (GM) and Supersymmetric GM (SGM) models which contain custodial (degenerate) Higgs bosons with suppressed couplings to SM fermions and, in the SGM model, a (neutralino) LSP. We also breifly examine the recent ∼ 3σ CMS diphoton excess at ∼ 95 GeV.We thank Andrew Akeroyd, Filippo Sala, Jose Santiago, Daniel Stolarski, and Lorenzo Ubaldi for useful comments and discussions. The work of R.V.M. is supported by MINECO, FPA 2016-78220-C3-1-P, FPA 2013-47836-C3-2/3-P (including ERDF), and the Juan de la Cierva program, as well as by Junta de Andalucia Project FQM-101. The work of R.V. is partially supported by the Sam Taylor fellowship. K.X. is supported by U. S. Department of Energy under Grant No. DE-SC0010129. K.X. also thanks Fermilab for their hospitality and partial support during this work

The Photon Content of the Neutron

In this work, we complete our CT18qed study with the neutron's photon parton distribution function (PDF), which is essential for the nucleus scattering phenomenology. Two methods, CT18lux and CT18qed, based on the LUXqed formalism and the DGLAP evolution, respectively, to determine the neutron's photon PDF have been presented. Various low-$Q^2$ non-perturbative variations have been carefully examined, which are treated as additional uncertainties on top of those induced by quark and gluon PDFs. The impacts of the momentum sum rule as well as isospin symmetry violation have been explored, and turn out to be negligible. A detailed comparison with other neutron's photon PDF sets has been performed, which shows a great improvement in the precision and a reasonable uncertainty estimation in our results. Finally, two phenomenological implications are demonstrated with photon-initiated processes: neutrino-nucleus $W$-boson production, which is important for the near-future TeV--PeV neutrino observations, and the axion-like particle production at a high-energy muon beam-dump experiment.Comment: 38 pages, 22 figure