Supersymmetric Correction to Top Quark Pair Production near Threshold

We studied the leading supersymmetric contribution to top-antitop threshold production using the NRQCD framework. The one-loop matching to the potential and the Wilson coefficient of the leading production current were considered. We point out that the leading correction to the potential is zero due to SU(3)_c gauge invariance. This is true in general for any new physics that enters above the electroweak scale. The shape of the top quark pair production cross section is therefore almost unaffected near threshold, allowing a precise determination of the top quark mass based on the Standard Model calculations. The supersymmetric correction to the Wilson coefficient c_1 of the production current decouples for heavy super particles. Its contribution is smaller than the Standard Model next-to-next-leading-log results.Comment: 7 pages, 2 figure

Exotic QQ\qbar\qbar States in QCD

We show that QCD contains stable four-quark QQ\qbar\qbar hadronic states in the limit where the heavy quark mass goes to infinity. (Here Q denotes a heavy quark, \qbar a light antiquark and the stability refers only to the strong interactions.) The long range binding potential is due to one pion exchange between ground state Q\qbar mesons, and is computed using chiral perturbation theory. For the Q=b, this long range potential may be sufficiently attractive to produce a weakly bound two meson state.Comment: (21 pages, 1 figure; uses harvmac.tex, tables.tex and uufiles), CERN-TH.6744/92, CALT-68-186

The Nucleon-Nucleon Potential in the 1/N_c Expansion

The nucleon-nucleon potential is analysed using the 1/N_c expansion of QCD. The NN potential is shown to have an expansion in 1/N_c^2, and the strengths of the leading order central, spin-orbit, tensor, and quadratic spin-orbit forces (including isospin dependence) are determined. Comparison with a successful phenomenological potential (Nijmegen) shows that the large-N_c analysis explains many of the qualitative features observed in the nucleon-nucleon interaction. The 1/N_c expansion implies an effective Wigner supermultiplet symmetry for light nuclei. Results for baryons containing strange quarks are presented in an appendix.Comment: 17 pages, 3 figures, TeX, macros harvmac and eps

Factorization Structure of Gauge Theory Amplitudes and Application to Hard Scattering Processes at the LHC

Previous work on electroweak radiative corrections to high energy scattering using soft-collinear effective theory (SCET) has been extended to include external transverse and longitudinal gauge bosons and Higgs bosons. This allows one to compute radiative corrections to all parton-level hard scattering amplitudes in the standard model to NLL order, including QCD and electroweak radiative corrections, mass effects, and Higgs exchange corrections, if the high-scale matching, which is suppressed by two orders in the log counting, and contains no large logs, is known. The factorization structure of the effective theory places strong constraints on the form of gauge theory amplitudes at high energy for massless and massive gauge theories, which are discussed in detail in the paper. The radiative corrections can be written as the sum of process-independent one-particle collinear functions, and a universal soft function. We give plots for the radiative corrections to q qbar -> W_T W_T, Z_T Z_T, W_L W_L, and Z_L H, and gg -> W_T W_T to illustrate our results. The purely electroweak corrections are large, ranging from 12% at 500 GeV to 37% at 2 TeV for transverse W pair production, and increasing rapidly with energy. The estimated theoretical uncertainty to the partonic (hard) cross-section in most cases is below one percent, smaller than uncertainties in the parton distribution functions (PDFs). We discuss the relation between SCET and other factorization methods, and derive the Magnea-Sterman equations for the Sudakov form factor using SCET, for massless and massive gauge theories, and for light and heavy external particles.Comment: 44 pages, 30 figures. Refs added, typos fixed. ZL ZL plots removed because of a possible subtlet

Flavor Changing Neutral Currents, an Extended Scalar Sector, and the Higgs Production Rate at the LHC

We study extensions of the standard model with additional colored scalar fields which can couple directly to quarks. Natural suppression of flavor changing neutral currents implies minimal flavor violation, and fixes the scalars to transform as (8,2)_1/2 under the SU(3) X SU(2) X U(1) gauge symmetry. We explore the phenomenology of the standard model with one additional (8,2)_1/2 scalar, and discuss how this extension can modify flavor physics and the Higgs boson production rate at the LHC. Custodial SU(2) symmetry can be implemented for the octet scalars since they transform as a real color representation. Additional weak scale degrees of freedom needed for gauge unification are discussed.Comment: Minor change

Renormalization of the Vector Current in QED

It is commonly asserted that the electromagnetic current is conserved and therefore is not renormalized. Within QED we show (a) that this statement is false, (b) how to obtain the renormalization of the current to all orders of perturbation theory, and (c) how to correctly define an electron number operator. The current mixes with the four-divergence of the electromagnetic field-strength tensor. The true electron number operator is the integral of the time component of the electron number density, but only when the current differs from the MSbar-renormalized current by a definite finite renormalization. This happens in such a way that Gauss's law holds: the charge operator is the surface integral of the electric field at infinity. The theorem extends naturally to any gauge theory.Comment: 9 pages. Corresponds to published version (Phys. Rev. D), including appendix about Weeks's parado

Chiral Perturbation Theory for phi -> rho gamma gamma and phi -> omega gamma gamma

We predict differential decay distributions for phi->rho gamma gamma and phi -> omega gamma gamma using chiral perturbation theory. We also consider the isospin violating decay phi -> omega pi^0. Experimental information on these decays can be used to determine couplings in the heavy vector meson chiral Lagrangian.Comment: It was shown by P. Ko et al., hep-ph/9510205 (Phys. Lett. B366 (1996) 287), that there is a etaprime pole contribution that dominates over what we calculate

Analysis of General Power Counting Rules in Effective Field Theory

We derive the general counting rules for a quantum effective field theory (EFT) in $\mathsf{d}$ dimensions. The rules are valid for strongly and weakly coupled theories, and predict that all kinetic energy terms are canonically normalized. They determine the energy dependence of scattering cross sections in the range of validity of the EFT expansion. We show that the size of cross sections is controlled by the $\Lambda$ power counting of EFT, not by chiral counting, even for chiral perturbation theory ($\chi$PT). The relation between $\Lambda$ and $f$ is generalized to $\mathsf{d}$ dimensions. We show that the naive dimensional analysis $4\pi$ counting is related to $\hbar$ counting. The EFT counting rules are applied to $\chi$PT, low-energy weak interactions, Standard Model EFT and the non-trivial case of Higgs EFT.Comment: V2: more details and examples added; version published in journal. 17 pages, 4 figures, 2 table