Up Sector of Minimal Flavor Violation: Top Quark Properties and Direct D meson CP violation

Minimal Flavor Violation in the up-type quark sector leads to particularly interesting phenomenology due to the interplay of flavor physics in the charm sector and collider physics from flavor changing processes in the top sector. We study the most general operators that can affect top quark properties and $D$ meson decays in this scenario, concentrating on two CP violating operators for detailed studies. The consequences of these effective operators on charm and top flavor changing processes are generically small, but can be enhanced if there exists a light flavor mediator that is a Standard Model gauge singlet scalar and transforms under the flavor symmetry group. This flavor mediator can satisfy the current experimental bounds with a mass as low as tens of GeV and explain observed $D$-meson direct CP violation. Additionally, the model predicts a non-trivial branching fraction for a top quark decay that would mimic a dijet resonance.Comment: 27 pages, 7 figure

Revisiting slepton pair production at the Large Hadron Collider

Motivated by the shift in experimental attention towards electroweak supersymmetric particle production at the CERN LHC, we update in this paper our precision predictions at next-to-leading order of perturbative QCD matched to resummation at the next-to-leading logarithmic accuracy for direct slepton pair production in proton-proton collisions. Simplified models, now commonly adopted by the experimental collaborations for selectrons and smuons as well as mixing staus, are used as benchmarks for total cross sections at achieved and future center-of-mass energies. They are presented together with the corresponding scale and parton density uncertainties in graphical and tabular form for future reference. Using modern Monte Carlo techniques, we also reanalyze recent ATLAS and CMS slepton searches in light of our precision cross sections and for various assumptions on the decomposition of the sleptons and their neutralino decay products.Comment: 32 pages, 10 figures, 4 tables; version accepted by JHE

CP Violation

Several pieces of direct and indirect evidence now suggest that the Kobayashi-Maskawa mechanism plays a distinguished role for CP violation at the electroweak scale. This talk provides a general overview of CP violation in its various contexts, emphasizing CP violation in flavour-violating interactions, such as due to the Kobayashi-Maskawa mechanism. I then review a few recent theoretical developments relevant to the interpretation of CP violation.Comment: 27 pages, LaTeX; plenary talk presented at the International Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics, Budapest, July 2001; manuscript has some overlap with hep-lat/020101

Rare Decays as a Probe for New Physics

We discuss the indirect search for new degrees of freedom beyond the standard model, within flavour physics. In particular, we analyse the minimal flavour violation hypothesis and its phenomenological implications, especially the large-tan beta scenario in supersymmetric models, and also compare it with the constrained minimal flavour violation scenario. Moreover, we briefly discuss some recent progress in inclusive b to s transitions and present a status report of the so-called K-pi puzzle.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figures, based on an invited review talk given at Beauty 2006, the 11th International Conference on B physics at Hadron Colliders, September 2006, Oxford (England

New Physics Models of Direct CP Violation in Charm Decays

In view of the recent LHCb measurement of Delta A_CP, the difference between the time-integrated CP asymmetries in D --> K+K- and D --> pi+pi- decays, we perform a comparative study of the possible impact of New Physics degrees of freedom on the direct CP asymmetries in singly Cabibbo suppressed D meson decays. We systematically discuss scenarios with a minimal set of new degrees of freedom that have renormalizable couplings to the SM particles and that are heavy enough such that their effects on the D meson decays can be described by local operators. We take into account both constraints from low energy flavor observables, in particular D0-D0bar mixing, and from direct searches. While models that explain the large measured value for Delta A_CP with chirally enhanced chromomagnetic penguins are least constrained, we identify a few viable models that contribute to the D meson decays at tree level or through loop induced QCD penguins. We emphasize that such models motivate direct searches at the LHC.Comment: 24 pages, 13 figures. v2: typos corrected, reference added, published versio

Higgs Boson Production via Gluon Fusion in the Standard Model with four Generations

Higgs bosons can be produced copiously at the LHC via gluon fusion induced by top and bottom quark loops, and can be enhanced strongly if extra heavy quarks exist. We present results for Higgs +zero-, one- and two-jet production at the LHC, in both the Standard Model and the 4th generation model, by evaluating the corresponding heavy quark triangle, box and pentagon Feynman diagrams. We compare the results by using the effective Higgs-gluon interactions in the limit of heavy quarks with the cross sections including the full mass dependences. NLO effects with full mass dependence are included in the inclusive Higgs boson production rate. Our results improve the theoretical basis for fourth generation effects on the Higgs boson search at the LHC.Comment: Published version in PR

Long-lived staus from strong production in a simplified model approach

We study the phenomenology of a supersymmetric scenario where the next-to-lightest superparticle is the lighter stau and long-lived due to a very weakly coupled lightest superparticle, such as the gravitino. We investigate the LHC sensitivity and its dependence on the superparticle spectrum with an emphasis on strong production and decay. We do not assume any high-scale model for SUSY breaking but work along the lines of simplified models. Devising cuts that yield a large detection efficiency in the whole parameter space, we determine the LHC's discovery and exclusion potential. This allows us to derive robust limits on m_stau, m_gluino, a common m_squark, and m_stop1. We briefly discuss the prospects for observing stopped staus.Comment: 25 pages + references, 27 eps figures; v3: Matches journal version, typo in table 1 correcte

Neutral Higgs production at proton colliders in the CP-conserving NMSSM

We discuss neutral Higgs boson production through gluon fusion and bottom-quark annihilation in the CP-conserving $\mathbb{Z}_3$-invariant Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM) at proton colliders. For gluon fusion we adapt known asymptotic expansions in supersymmetric particles for the inclusion of next-to-leading order contributions of squarks and gluinos from the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) and include electro-weak corrections involving light quarks. Together with the resummation of higher order sbottom contributions in the bottom-quark Yukawa coupling for both production processes we thus present accurate cross section predictions implemented in a new release of the code SusHi. We elaborate on the new features of an additional SU$(2)_L$ singlet in the production of CP-even and -odd Higgs bosons with respect to the MSSM and include a short discussion of theory uncertainties.Comment: 33 pages, 8 figures; minor corrections, updated references, matches published versio