Supersymmetry Phenomenology

The phenomenological implications of a low-energy supersymmetry are surveyed, with particular attention given to unification constraints and the role of a large top quark Yukawa couplings. Generic expectations for sparticle mass spectra are presented along with prospects for their discovery and study at present and future colliders.Comment: 8 pages, Latex2.09, uses aip2col.sty (included) and epsf.sty. 11 postscript figures. Talk present at FCP97, Workshop on Fundamental Particles and Interactions, Vanderbilt University, May 1997. Postscript file of complete paper also available at http://pheno.physics.wisc.edu/pub/preprints/1997/madph-97-1011.ps.Z or at ftp://pheno.physics.wisc.edu/pub/preprints/1997/madph-97-1011.ps.

M-Phenomenology

Recent developments involving strongly coupled superstrings are discussed from a phenomenological point of view. In particular, strongly coupled $E_8\times E'_8$ is described as an appropriate long-wavelength limit of M-theory, and some generic phenomenological implications are analyzed, including a long sought downward shift of the string unification scale and a novel way to break supersymmetry. A specific scenario is presented that leads to a rather light, and thus presently experimentally testable, sparticle spectrum.Comment: 22 pages, 2 figure

Warped Phenomenology

We explore the phenomenology associated with the recently proposed localized gravity model of Randall and Sundrum where gravity propagates in a 5-dimensional non-factorizable geometry and generates the 4-dimensional weak-Planck scale hierarchy by an exponential function of the compactification radius, called a warp factor. The Kaluza-Klein tower of gravitons which emerge in this scenario have strikingly different properties than in the factorizable case with large extra dimensions. We derive the form of the graviton tower interactions with the Standard Model fields and examine their direct production in Drell-Yan and dijet events at the Tevatron and LHC as well as the KK spectrum line-shape at high-energy linear \epem colliders. In the case where the first KK excitation is observed, we outline the procedure to uniquely determine the parameters of this scenario. We also investigate the effect of KK tower exchanges in contact interaction searches. We find that present experiments can place meaningful constraints on the parameters of this model.Comment: 14 pages, LaTex, 3 fig

Sporting embodiment: sports studies and the (continuing) promise of phenomenology

Whilst in recent years sports studies have addressed the calls ‘to bring the body back in’ to theorisations of sport and physical activity, the ‘promise of phenomenology’ remains largely under-realised with regard to sporting embodiment. Relatively few accounts are grounded in the ‘flesh’ of the lived sporting body, and phenomenology offers a powerful framework for such analysis. A wide-ranging, multi-stranded, and interpretatively contested perspective, phenomenology in general has been taken up and utilised in very different ways within different disciplinary fields. The purpose of this article is to consider some selected phenomenological threads, key qualities of the phenomenological method, and the potential for existentialist phenomenology in particular to contribute fresh perspectives to the sociological study of embodiment in sport and exercise. It offers one way to convey the ‘essences’, corporeal immediacy and textured sensuosity of the lived sporting body. The use of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (IPA) is also critically addressed. Key words: phenomenology; existentialist phenomenology; interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA); sporting embodiment; the lived-body; Merleau-Pont

Perceptual phenomenology

I am looking at an apple. The apple has a lot of properties and some, but not all, of these are part of my phenomenology at this moment: I am aware of these properties. And some, but not all, of these properties that I am aware of are part of my perceptual (or sensory) phenomenology. If I am attending to the apple’s color, this property will be part of my perceptual phenomenology. The property of being a granny smith apple from Chile is unlikely to be part of my perceptual phenomenology. Here are two problems for anyone who is interested in conscious experience in general, and perceptual experience in particular: (a) How can we tell which properties are part of our phenomenology and which ones are not? (b) How can we tell which properties are part of our perceptual phenomenology and which ones are part of our non-perceptual phenomenology? I will focus on (b) in this paper. My aim is twofold: I propose a methodology for answering the question of which properties are part of our perceptual phenomenology and I provide an example for how this methodology could be applied