2,110 research outputs found
New physics searches at near detectors of neutrino oscillation experiments
We systematically investigate the prospects of testing new physics with tau
sensitive near detectors at neutrino oscillation facilities. For neutrino beams
from pion decay, from the decay of radiative ions, as well as from the decays
of muons in a storage ring at a neutrino factory, we discuss which effective
operators can lead to new physics effects. Furthermore, we discuss the present
bounds on such operators set by other experimental data currently available.
For operators with two leptons and two quarks we present the first complete
analysis including all relevant operators simultaneously and performing a
Markov Chain Monte Carlo fit to the data. We find that these effects can induce
tau neutrino appearance probabilities as large as O(10^{-4}), which are within
reach of forthcoming experiments. We highlight to which kind of new physics a
tau sensitive near detector would be most sensitive.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figures, REVTeX
Institutions, Human Capital, and Development
In this article, we revisit the relationship among institutions, human capital, and development. We argue that empirical models that treat institutions and human capital as exogenous are misspecified, both because of the usual omitted variable bias problems and because of differential measurement error in these variables, and that this misspecification is at the root of the very large returns of human capital, about four to five times greater than that implied by micro (Mincerian) estimates, found in the previous literature. Using cross-country and cross-regional regressions, we show that when we focus on historically determined differences in human capital and control for the effect of institutions, the impact of institutions on long-run development is robust, whereas the estimates of the effect of human capital are much diminished and become consistent with micro estimates. Using historical and cross-country regression evidence, we also show that there is no support for the view that differences in the human capital endowments of early European colonists have been a major factor in the subsequent institutional development of former colonies.Comisión Nacional de Investigación Ciencia y Tecnología (Chile) (CONICYT/Programa de Investigación Asociativa (project SOC1102))United States. Army Research Office (ARO MURI W911NF-12-1-0509
R-parity violation in SU(5)
We show that judiciously chosen R-parity violating terms in the minimal
renormalizable supersymmetric SU(5) are able to correct all the
phenomenologically wrong mass relations between down quarks and charged
leptons. The model can accommodate neutrino masses as well. One of the most
striking consequences is a large mixing between the electron and the Higgsino.
We show that this can still be in accord with data in some regions of the
parameter space and possibly falsified in future experiments.Comment: 30 pages, 1 figure. Revised version. To appear in JHE
Implications of Flavor Dynamics for Fermion Triplet Leptogenesis
We analyze the importance of flavor effects in models in which leptogenesis
proceeds via the decay of Majorana electroweak triplets. We find that depending
on the relative strengths of gauge and Yukawa reactions the asymmetry can
be sizably enhanced, exceeding in some cases an order of magnitude level. We
also discuss the impact that such effects can have for TeV-scale triplets
showing that as long as the asymmetry is produced by the dynamics of the
lightest such triplet they are negligible, but open the possibility for
scenarios in which the asymmetry is generated above the TeV scale by heavier
states, possibly surviving the TeV triplet related washouts. We investigate
these cases and show how they can be disentangled at the LHC by using Majorana
triplet collider observables and, in the case of minimal type III see-saw
models even through lepton flavor violation observables.Comment: 22 pages, 9 figures, extended discussion on collider phenomenology,
references added. Version matches publication in JHE
Can a falling tree make a noise in two forests at the same time?
It is a commonplace to claim that quantum mechanics supports the old idea
that a tree falling in a forest makes no sound unless there is a listener
present. In fact, this conclusion is far from obvious. Furthermore, if a
tunnelling particle is observed in the barrier region, it collapses to a state
in which it is no longer tunnelling. Does this imply that while tunnelling, the
particle can not have any physical effects? I argue that this is not the case,
and moreover, speculate that it may be possible for a particle to have effects
on two spacelike separate apparatuses simultaneously. I discuss the measurable
consequences of such a feat, and speculate about possible statistical tests
which could distinguish this view of quantum mechanics from a ``corpuscular''
one. Brief remarks are made about an experiment underway at Toronto to
investigate these issues.Comment: 9 pp, Latex, 3 figs, to appear in Proc. Obsc. Unr. Conf.; Fig 2
postscript repaired on 26.10.9
Higgs-mediated FCNCs: Natural Flavour Conservation vs. Minimal Flavour Violation
We compare the effectiveness of two hypotheses, Natural Flavour Conservation
(NFC) and Minimal Flavour Violation (MFV), in suppressing the strength of
flavour-changing neutral-currents (FCNCs) in models with more than one Higgs
doublet. We show that the MFV hypothesis, in its general formulation, is more
stable in suppressing FCNCs than the hypothesis of NFC alone when quantum
corrections are taken into account. The phenomenological implications of the
two scenarios are discussed analysing meson-antimeson mixing observables and
the rare decays B -> mu+ mu-. We demonstrate that, introducing flavour-blind CP
phases, two-Higgs doublet models respecting the MFV hypothesis can accommodate
a large CP-violating phase in Bs mixing, as hinted by CDF and D0 data and,
without extra free parameters, soften significantly in a correlated manner the
observed anomaly in the relation between epsilon_K and S_psi_K.Comment: 27 pages, 4 figures. v3: minor modifications (typos corrected and few
refs. added), conclusions unchanged; journal versio
Radiative contribution to neutrino masses and mixing in SSM
In an extension of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (popularly known
as the SSM), three right handed neutrino superfields are introduced to
solve the -problem and to accommodate the non-vanishing neutrino masses
and mixing. Neutrino masses at the tree level are generated through parity
violation and seesaw mechanism. We have analyzed the full effect of one-loop
contributions to the neutrino mass matrix. We show that the current three
flavour global neutrino data can be accommodated in the SSM, for both
the tree level and one-loop corrected analyses. We find that it is relatively
easier to accommodate the normal hierarchical mass pattern compared to the
inverted hierarchical or quasi-degenerate case, when one-loop corrections are
included.Comment: 51 pages, 14 figures (58 .eps files), expanded introduction, other
minor changes, references adde
Interplay of LFV and slepton mass splittings at the LHC as a probe of the SUSY seesaw
We study the impact of a type-I SUSY seesaw concerning lepton flavour
violation (LFV) both at low-energies and at the LHC. The study of the di-lepton
invariant mass distribution at the LHC allows to reconstruct some of the masses
of the different sparticles involved in a decay chain. In particular, the
combination with other observables renders feasible the reconstruction of the
masses of the intermediate sleptons involved in decays. Slepton mass splittings can be either
interpreted as a signal of non-universality in the SUSY soft breaking-terms
(signalling a deviation from constrained scenarios as the cMSSM) or as being
due to the violation of lepton flavour. In the latter case, in addition to
these high-energy processes, one expects further low-energy manifestations of
LFV such as radiative and three-body lepton decays. Under the assumption of a
type-I seesaw as the source of neutrino masses and mixings, all these LFV
observables are related. Working in the framework of the cMSSM extended by
three right-handed neutrino superfields, we conduct a systematic analysis
addressing the simultaneous implications of the SUSY seesaw for both high- and
low-energy lepton flavour violation. We discuss how the confrontation of
slepton mass splittings as observed at the LHC and low-energy LFV observables
may provide important information about the underlying mechanism of LFV.Comment: 50 pages, 42 eps Figures, typos correcte
Retargeted adenoviruses for radiation-guided gene delivery
The combination of radiation with radiosensitizing gene delivery or oncolytic viruses promises to provide an advantage that could improve the therapeutic results for glioblastoma. X-rays can induce significant molecular changes in cancer cells. We isolated the GIRLRG peptide that binds to radiation-inducible 78 kDa glucose-regulated protein (GRP78), which is overexpressed on the plasma membranes of irradiated cancer cells and tumor-associated microvascular endothelial cells. The goal of our study was to improve tumor-specific adenovirus-mediated gene delivery by selectively targeting the adenovirus binding to this radiation-inducible protein. We employed an adenoviral fiber replacement approach to conduct a study of the targeting utility of GRP78-binding peptide. We have developed fiber-modified adenoviruses encoding the GRP78-binding peptide inserted into the fiber-fibritin. We have evaluated the reporter gene expression of fiber-modified adenoviruses in vitro using a panel of glioma cells and a human D54MG tumor xenograft model. The obtained results demonstrated that employment of the GRP78-binding peptide resulted in increased gene expression in irradiated tumors following infection with fiber-modified adenoviruses, compared with untreated tumor cells. These studies demonstrate the feasibility of adenoviral retargeting using the GRP78-binding peptide that selectively recognizes tumor cells responding to radiation treatment
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