Perspectives on Heavy Quark 98

I summarize and comment upon some highlights of HQ98, the Workshop on Heavy Quarks (strange, charm, and beauty) at Fixed Target.Comment: Summary talk at HQ98. 21 pages, uses aipproc (included

Supersymmetry Explanation for the Puzzling Bottom Quark Production Cross Section

It has been known for a long time that the cross section for bottom-quark $b$ production at hadron collider energies exceeds theoretical expectations. An additional contribution from pair-production of light gluinos $\tilde{g}$, of mass 12 to 16 GeV, with two-body decays into bottom quarks and light bottom squarks $\tilde{b}$, helps to obtain a $b$ production rate in better agreement with data. The masses of the $\tilde{g}$ and $\tilde{b}$ are restricted further by the ratio of like-sign to opposite-sign leptons at hadron colliders. Constraints on this scenario from other data are examined, and predictions are made for various processes such as Upsilon decay into $\tilde{b}'s$.Comment: 10 pages, latex, 2 figures. Invited paper to be published in the Proceedings of the 9th International Symposium on Heavy Flavor Physics, Caltech, Pasadena, CA, September 10 - 13, 200

Measurements of CKM angles beta/phi_1 and alpha/phi_2 at the BABAR and Belle experiments

We report measurements of the CKM angles beta/phi_1 and alpha/phi_2 done by the BABAR and Belle experiments. Both experiments have collected large data samples, corresponding to a total of more than 1 billion of BBbar pairs, at the e^+e^- asymmetric-energy colliders PEP-II (SLAC) and KEK-B (KEK), respectively.Comment: 6 pages, 1 postscript figure, contributed to the Proceedings of Heavy Quarks and Leptons, Melbourne, 200

A Survey of Lepton Number Violation Via Effective Operators

We survey 129 lepton number violating effective operators, consistent with the minimal Standard Model gauge group and particle content, of mass dimension up to and including eleven. Upon requiring that each one radiatively generates the observed neutrino masses, we extract an associated characteristic cutoff energy scale which we use to calculate other observable manifestations of these operators for a number of current and future experimental probes, concentrating on lepton number violating phenomena. These include searches for neutrinoless double-beta decay and rare meson, lepton, and gauge boson decays. We also consider searches at hadron/lepton collider facilities in anticipation of the LHC and the future ILC. We find that some operators are already disfavored by current data, while more are ripe to be probed by next-generation experiments. We also find that our current understanding of lepton mixing disfavors a subset of higher dimensional operators. While neutrinoless double-beta decay is the most promising signature of lepton number violation for the majority of operators, a handful is best probed by other means. We argue that a combination of constraints from various independent experimental sources will help to pinpoint the ``correct'' model of neutrino mass, or at least aid in narrowing down the set of possibilities.Comment: 34 pages, 10 eps figures, 1 tabl

Oscillation effects on high-energy neutrino fluxes from astrophysical hidden sources

High-energy neutrinos are expected to be produced in a vareity of astrophysical sources as well as in optically thick hidden sources. We explore the matter-induced oscillation effects on emitted neutrino fluxes of three different flavors from the latter class. We use the ratio of electron and tau induced showers to muon tracks, in upcoming neutrino telescopes, as the principal observable in our analysis. This ratio depends on the neutrino energy, density profile of the sources and on the oscillation parameters. The largely unknown flux normalization drops out of our calculation and only affects the statistics. For the current knowledge of the oscillation parameters we find that the matter-induced effects are non-negligible and the enhancement of the ratio from its vacuum value takes place in an energy range where the neutrino telescopes are the most sensitive. Quantifying the effect would be useful to learn about the astrophysics of the sources as well as the oscillation parameters. If the neutrino telescopes mostly detect diffuse neutrinos without identifying their sources, then any deviation of the measured flux ratios from the vacuum expectation values would be most naturally explained by a large population of hidden sources for which matter-induced neutrino oscillation effects are important.Comment: Phys.Rev.D accepted version. 12 pages, 10 figures. Results unchanged, added references, minor changes and text re-arrangement

The ρ−π\rho - \pi Puzzle of J/\psi and \psi' Decays

The recent BES Collaboration data on \psi' \ra PV, particularly the isospin violating mode \psi' \ra \pi^0 \omega^0 and finding of a finite number for B(\psi' \ra K^{*0}\bar{K}^0), enable us now to deal more precisely about the challenges to theory concerning this extraordinary and remarkable so called $\rho - \pi$ Puzzle of $J/\psi$ and $\psi'$ Decays. In terms of existing data, and deploying the simplest phenomenology, measurement of \psi' \ra \pi^+\pi^- and whether a finite number for the $K^{*+} K^-$ mode might require a significantly larger accumulation of data, remain interesting questions.Comment: 9pages, added reference, typos, and very slight change in text, LATEX forma