Neutrinos that violate CPT, and the experiments that love them

Recently we proposed a framework for explaining the observed evidence for neutrino oscillations without enlarging the neutrino sector, by introducing CPT violating Dirac masses for the neutrinos. In this paper we continue the exploration of the phenomenology of CPT violation in the neutrino sector. We show that our CPT violating model fits the existing SuperKamiokande data at least as well as the standard atmospheric neutrino oscillation models. We discuss the challenge of measuring CP violation in a neutrino sector that also violates CPT. We point out that the proposed off-axis extension of MINOS looks especially promising in this regard. Finally, we describe a method to compute CPT violating neutrino effects by mocking them up with analog matter effects.Comment: 17 pages, 3 eps figure

Higgs Sector of the Minimal Left-Right Symmetric Model

We perform an exhaustive analysis of the most general Higgs sector of the minimal left-right symmetric model (MLRM). We find that the CP properties of the vacuum state are connected to the Higgs spectrum: if CP is broken spontaneously, the MLRM does not approach the Standard Model in the limit of a decoupling left-right symmetry breaking scale. Depending on the size of the CP phases scenarios with extra non-decoupling flavor-violating doublet Higgses or very light SU(2) triplet Higgses emerge, both of which are ruled out by phenomenology. For zero CP phases the non-standard Higgses decouple only if a very unnatural fine-tuning condition is fulfilled. We also discuss generalizations to a non-minimal Higgs sector.Comment: brief discussion of non-minimal Higgs sectors added, journal versio

METing SUSY on the Z peak

Recently the ATLAS experiment announced a 3 $\sigma$ excess at the Z-peak consisting of 29 pairs of leptons together with two or more jets, $E_T^{\rm miss}> 225$ GeV and $H_T \geq 600$ GeV, to be compared with $10.6 \pm 3.2$ expected lepton pairs in the Standard Model. No excess outside the Z-peak was observed. By trying to explain this signal with SUSY we find that only relatively light gluinos, $m_{\tilde g} \lesssim 1.2$ TeV, together with a heavy neutralino NLSP of $m_{\tilde \chi} \gtrsim 400$ GeV decaying predominantly to Z-boson plus a light gravitino, such that nearly every gluino produces at least one Z-boson in its decay chain, could reproduce the excess. We construct an explicit general gauge mediation model able to reproduce the observed signal overcoming all the experimental limits. Needless to say, more sophisticated models could also reproduce the signal, however, any model would have to exhibit the following features, light gluinos, or heavy particles with a strong production cross-section, producing at least one Z-boson in its decay chain. The implications of our findings for the Run II at LHC with the scaling on the Z peak, as well as for the direct search of gluinos and other SUSY particles, are pointed out.Comment: 24 pages, 17 figures, simulation improved, Checkmate analysis added, new benchmark point included. Typos corrected, conclusions unchange

Neutrino oscillation probabilities through the looking glass

In this paper we review different expansions for neutrino oscillation probabilities in matter in the context of long-baseline neutrino experiments. We examine the accuracy and computational efficiency of different exact and approximate expressions. We find that many of the expressions used in the literature are not precise enough for the next generation of long-baseline experiments, but several of them are while maintaining comparable simplicity. The results of this paper can be used as guidance to both phenomenologists and experimentalists when implementing the various oscillation expressions into their analysis tools.Comment: 32 pages, 6 figure

Spontaneous CP violation and the B system

We investigate effects of spontaneous breakdown of CP in $B^0_{d,s}-\overline{B^0}_{d,s}$ systems in left-right symmetric models. Assuming that the left-right contribution to the $B^0-\overline{B^0}$ matrix element $M_{12}$ can be at most equal to the standard model one we obtain a new lower bound, M_H\gsim 12 TeV, on the flavour changing Higgs boson mass. Most importantly, the convention independent parameter $Re(\overline{\epsilon}_B),$ which measures the amount of $\Delta B=2$ CP violation, can be enhanced by a factor of four or more for $B^0_d$ and almost by two orders of magnitude for $B^0_s$ systems when compared with the Standard Model predictions. Therefore, interesting possibilities to observe indirect CP violation in the $B$ system are open in the planned facilities.Comment: 19 pages, LATEX, 4 postscript figures include

Anatomy of Mixing-Induced CP Asymmetries in Left-Right-Symmetric Models with Spontaneous CP Violation

We investigate the pattern of CP violation in K, B_d and B_s mixing in a symmetrical SU(2)_R x SU(2)_L x U(1) model with spontaneous CP violation. We calculate the phases of the left and right quark mixing matrices beyond the small phase approximation and perform a careful analysis of all relevant restrictions on the model's parameters from Delta m_K, Delta m_B, epsilon, epsilon'/epsilon and the CP asymmetry in B->J/psi K_S. We find that, with current experimental data, the mass of the right-handed charged gauge boson, M2, is restricted to be in the range 2.75 to 13 TeV and the mass of the flavour-changing neutral Higgs boson, MH, in 10.2 to 14.6 TeV. This means in particular that the decoupling limit M2, MH -> infinity is already excluded by experiment. We also find that the model favours opposite signs of epsilon and sin 2beta and is excluded if sin 2beta > 0.1.Comment: 33 pages Latex with 11 Postscript-Figures (included