Evaluation of the Overheight Detection System Effectiveness at Eklutna Bridge

The Eklutna River/Glenn Highway bridge has sustained repeated impacts from overheight trucks. In 2006, ADOT&PF installed an overheight vehicle warning system. The system includes laser detectors, alarms, and message boards. Since installation, personnel have seen no new damage, and no sign that the alarm system has been triggered. Although this is good news, the particulars are a mystery: Is the system working? Is the presence of the equipment enough to deter drivers from gambling with a vehicle that might be over the height limit? Is it worth installing similar systems at other overpasses? This project is examining the bridge for any evidence of damage, and is fitting the system with a datalogger to record and video any events that trigger the warning system. Finally, just to be sure, researchers will test the system with (officially) overheight vehicles. Project results will help ADOT&PF determine if this system is functioning, and if a similar system installed at other bridges would be cost-effective.Fairbanks North Star Boroug

Deconstruction and Elastic pi pi Scattering in Higgsless Models

We study elastic pion-pion scattering in global linear moose models and apply the results to a variety of Higgsless models in flat and AdS space using the Equivalence Theorem. In order to connect the global moose to Higgsless models, we first introduce a block-spin transformation which corresponds, in the continuum, to the freedom to perform coordinate transformations in the Higgsless model. We show that it is possible to make an "f-flat" deconstruction in which all of the f-constants f_j of the linear moose model are identical; the phenomenologically relevant f-flat models are those in which the coupling constants of the groups at either end of the moose are small - corresponding to the global linear moose. In studying pion-pion scattering, we derive various sum rules, including one analogous to the KSRF relation, and use them in evaluating the low-energy and high-energy forms of the leading elastic partial wave scattering amplitudes. We obtain elastic unitarity bounds as a function of the mass of the lightest KK mode and discuss their physical significance.Comment: 33 pages, JHEP3. Minor typos correcte

N=1 Supersymmetric SU(2)rSU(2)^r Moose Theories

We study the quantum moduli spaces and dynamical superpotentials of four dimensional $SU(2)^r$ linear and ring moose theories with $\mathcal{N}=1$ supersymmetry and link chiral superfields in the fundamental representation. Nontrivial quantum moduli spaces and dynamical superpotentials are produced. When the moduli space is perturbed by generic tree level superpotentials, the vacuum space becomes discrete. The ring moose is in the Coulomb phase and we find two singular submanifolds with a nontrivial modulus that is a function of all the independent gauge invariants needed to parameterize the quantum moduli space. The massive theory near these singularities confines. The Seiberg-Witten elliptic curve that describes the quantum moduli space of the ring moose is produced.Comment: 26 pages, 4 figures. A few comments and references added. To appear in PR

Peter Pekins, Professor, Department of Natural Resources & the Environment, travels to Poland

Professor Peter Pekins travelled to the 7th International Moose Conference in Poland to discuss research and management issues concerning moose that range west from Eastern Europe through North America.The Bialowieza National Park and Forest in western Poland was the site of the 7th International Moose Conference where 150 biologists gathered to discuss research and management issues concerning moose that range west from Eastern Europe through North America. My travel to Poland was focused on: 1) moose research/management and serving as Chief Editor of ALCES a scientific journal dedicated to moose research and management, 2) learning about the special history of the wisent, or European bison, that was saved from extinction in the Bialowieza National Park and Forest in the early 1900s 3) reconnecting with close Norwegian colleagues who have supported a previous sabbatical as well as a number of IROP students from the Hamel Center

The Top Triangle Moose

We introduce a deconstructed model that incorporates both Higgsless and top-color mechanisms. The model alleviates the typical tension in Higgsless models between obtaining the correct top quark mass and keeping delta-rho small. It does so by singling out the top quark mass generation as arising from a Yukawa coupling to an effective top-Higgs which develops a small vacuum expectation value, while electroweak symmetry breaking results largely from a Higgsless mechanism. As a result, the heavy partners of the SM fermions can be light enough to be seen at the LHC

Moose models with vanishing SS parameter

In the linear moose framework, which naturally emerges in deconstruction models, we show that there is a unique solution for the vanishing of the $S$ parameter at the lowest order in the weak interactions. We consider an effective gauge theory based on $K$ SU(2) gauge groups, $K+1$ chiral fields and electroweak groups $SU(2)_L$ and $U(1)_Y$ at the ends of the chain of the moose. $S$ vanishes when a link in the moose chain is cut. As a consequence one has to introduce a dynamical non local field connecting the two ends of the moose. Then the model acquires an additional custodial symmetry which protects this result. We examine also the possibility of a strong suppression of $S$ through an exponential behavior of the link couplings as suggested by Randall Sundrum metric.Comment: LaTex file, 27 pages, 8 figure