Anomaly-Mediated Supersymmetry Breaking with Axion

We construct hadronic axion models in the framework of the anomaly-mediated supersymmetry breaking scenario. If the Peccei-Quinn symmetry breaking is related to the supersymmetry breaking, mass spectrum of the minimal anomaly-mediated scenario is modified, which may solve the negative slepton mass problem in the minimal anomaly-mediated model. We find several classes of phenomenologically viable models of axion within the framework of the anomaly mediation and, in particular, we point out a new mechanism of stabilizing the axion potential. In this class of models, the Peccei-Quinn scale is related to the messenger scale. We also study phenomenological aspects of this class of models. We will see that, in some case, the lightest particle among the superpartners of the standard-model particles is stau while the lightest superparticle becomes the axino, the superpartner of the axion. With such a unique mass spectrum, conventional studies of the collider physics and cosmology for supersymmetric models should be altered.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures, added footnotes and references for section

Relaxing Constraints on Inflation Models with Curvaton

We consider the effects of the curvaton, late-decaying scalar condensation, to observational constraints on inflation models. From current observations of cosmic density fluctuations, severe constraints on some class of inflation models are obtained, in particular, on the chaotic inflation with higher-power monomials, the natural inflation, and the new inflation. We study how the curvaton scenario changes (and relaxes) the constraints on these models.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figure

Akt and mitogen-activated protein kinase enhance C-type lectin-like receptor 2-mediated platelet activation by inhibition of glycogen synthase kinase 3α/β

BACKGROUND: The C‐type lectin‐like receptor 2 (CLEC‐2) and the collagen receptor glycoprotein (GP)VI activate platelets through Src and Syk tyrosine kinases, and phospholipase Cγ2. The initial events in the two signaling cascades, however, are distinct, and there are quantitative differences in the roles of proteins downstream of Syk activation. The activation of Akt and mitogen‐activated protein kinases (MAPKs) has been shown to enhance platelet activation by GPVI, but their role in CLEC‐2 signaling is not known. OBJECTIVES: We sought to investigate the role of the Akt and MAPK pathways in platelet activation by CLEC‐2. RESULTS: The CLEC‐2 agonist rhodocytin stimulated phosphorylation of Akt and p38 and extracellular signal‐related kinase (ERK) MAPKs, but with a delay relative to Syk. Phosphorylation of these proteins was markedly inhibited in the combined presence of apyrase and indomethacin, consistent with the reported feedback action of ADP and thromboxane A(2) in CLEC‐2 signaling. Phosphorylation of Akt and phosphorylation of ERK were blocked by the phosphoinositide 3‐kinase (PI3K) inhibitor wortmannin and the protein kinase C (PKC) inhibitor Ro31‐8220, respectively, whereas Syk phosphorylation was not altered. On the other hand, both inhibitors reduced phosphorylation of the Akt substrate glycogen synthase kinase 3α/β (GSK3α/β). Phosphorylation of GSK3α/β was also blocked by the Akt inhibitor MK2206, and reduced at late, but not early, times by the MEK inhibitor PD0325901. MK2206 and PD0325901 inhibited aggregation and secretion in response to a low concentration of rhodocytin, which was restored by GSK3α/β inhibitors. CONCLUSIONS: These results demonstrate that CLEC‐2 regulates Akt and MAPK downstream of PI3K and PKC, leading to phosphorylation and inhibition of GSK3α/β, and enhanced platelet aggregation and secretion

Cosmological gravitino problem confronts electroweak physics

A generic feature of gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking models is that the gravitino is the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP). In order not to overclose the universe, the gravitino LSP should be light enough (~ 1 keV), or appropriately heavy (~ 1 GeV). We study further constraints on the mass of the gravitino imposed by electroweak experiments, i.e., muon g-2 measurements, electroweak precision measurements, and direct searches for supersymmetric particles at LEP2. We find that the heavy gravitino is strongly disfavored from the lower mass bound on the next-to-LSP. The sufficiently light gravitino, on the other hand, has rather sizable allowed regions in the model parameter space.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, version to appear in PR

The non-adiabatic pressure in general scalar field systems

We discuss the non-adiabatic or entropy perturbation, which controls the evolution of the curvature perturbation in the uniform density gauge, for a scalar field system minimally coupled to gravity with non-canonical action. We highlight the differences between the sound and the phase speed in these systems, and show that the non-adiabatic pressure perturbation vanishes in the single field case, resulting in the conservation of the curvature perturbation on large scales.Comment: 6 pages, revtex4; v2: typos corrected, results clarified, version being submitted; v3: version accepted for publicatio

Higher-Dimensional Origin of Heavy Sneutrino Domination and Low-Scale Leptogenesis

If the expectation value of the right-handed (rhd) sneutrino comes to dominate the universe, its decay naturally leads to successful leptogenesis, as well as significant dilution of dangerous inflationary relics, such as the gravitino. The resulting baryon asymmetry is independent of other cosmological initial conditions. This attractive variant of leptogenesis requires at least one of the rhd neutrinos to have small Yukawa coupling and to have mass ~ 10^6 GeV, much smaller than the grand unified (GUT) scale. We show that these features naturally arise in the context of independently motivated and successful 5d orbifold GUTs with inverse-GUT-scale-sized extra dimensions. Rhd neutrinos are realized as bulk fields N_i with 5d bulk masses, while Yukawa couplings and lepton-number-violating masses for the N_i are localized at the SM boundary. The exponential suppression of the would-be N_i zero-modes leads to the desired small 4d Yukawa couplings and small masses for the rhd neutrino states. The see-saw prediction for the lhd neutrino mass scale is automatically maintained. We show that this realization of rhd neutrinos is nicely accommodated within an attractive orbifold-GUT flavour model, where all flavour hierarchies have a geometrical origin.Comment: LaTeX, 10 pages, clarifying comments adde

QCD Correction to Neutralino Annihilation Process and Dark Matter Density in Supersymmetric Models

We calculate QCD correction to the neutralino annihilation cross section into quark anti-quark final state and discuss its implications to the calculation of neutralino relic density. We see that the QCD correction enhances the pair-annihilation cross section by O(10 %) when final-state quarks are non-relativistic. Consequently, when the lightest neutralinos dominantly annihilate into a t\bar{t} pair, the relic density of the lightest neutralino is significantly affected by the QCD correction, in particular when the lightest-neutralino mass is close to the top-quark mass.Comment: 19 pages, 5 figure

Adiabatic Modes in Cosmology

We show that the field equations for cosmological perturbations in Newtonian gauge always have an adiabatic solution, for which a quantity ${\cal R}$ is non-zero and constant in all eras in the limit of large wavelength, so that it can be used to connect observed cosmological fluctuations in this mode with those at very early times. There is also a second adiabatic mode, for which ${\cal R}$ vanishes for large wavelength, and in general there may be non-adiabatic modes as well. These conclusions apply in all eras and whatever the constituents of the universe, under only a mild technical assumption about the wavelength dependence of the field equations for large wave length. In the absence of anisotropic inertia, the perturbations in the adiabatic modes are given for large wavelength by universal formulas in terms of the Robertson--Walker scale factor. We discuss an apparent discrepancy between these results and what appears to be a conservation law in all modes found for large wavelength in synchronous gauge: it turns out that, although equivalent, synchronous and Newtonian gauges suggest inequivalent assumptions about the behavior of the perturbations for large wavelength.Comment: 24 pages, Latex, no special macro

Implications of the Curvaton on Inflationary Cosmology

We study implications of the curvaton, a late-decaying light scalar field, on inflationary cosmology, paying particular attentions to modifications of observable quantities such as the scalar spectral index of the primordial power spectrum and the tensor-to-scalar ratio. We consider this issue from a general viewpoint and discuss how the observable quantities are affected by the existence of the curvaton. It is shown that the modification owing to the curvaton depends on class of inflation models. We also study the effects of the curvaton on inflation models generated by the inflationary flow equation.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figure

Curvaton Scenario with Affleck-Dine Baryogenesis

We discuss the curvaton scenario with the Affleck-Dine baryogenesis. In this scenario, non-vanishing baryonic entropy fluctuation may be generated even without primordial fluctuation of the Affleck-Dine field. Too large entropy fluctuation is inconsistent with the observations and hence constraints on the curvaton scenario with the Affleck-Dine baryogenesis are obtained. We calculate the baryonic entropy fluctuation (as well as other cosmological density fluctuations) in this case and derive constraints. Implications to some of the models of the curvaton are also discussed.Comment: 16 pages,2 figure