Anomaly Holography

We consider, in the effective field theory context, anomalies of gauge field theories on a slice of a five-dimensional, Anti-de Sitter geometry and their four-dimensional, holographic duals. A consistent effective field theory description can always be found, notwithstanding the presence of the anomalies and without modifying the degrees of freedom of the theory. If anomalies do not vanish, the d=4 theory contains additional pseudoscalar states, which are either present in the low-energy theory as physical, light states, or are eaten by (would-be massless) gauge bosons. We show that the pseudoscalars ensure that global anomalies of the four-dimensional dual satisfy the 't Hooft matching condition and comment on the relevance for warped models of electroweak symmetry breaking.Comment: 26 pages, references adde

Improved Higgs Naturalness with Supersymmetry

We present a supersymmetric model of electroweak symmetry-breaking exhibiting improved naturalness, wherein the stop mass can be pushed beyond the reach of the Large Hadron Collider without unnatural fine tuning. This implies that supersymmetry may still solve the hierarchy problem, even if it eludes detection at the LHC.Comment: 4 pp., to appear in Proceedings of SUSY06, the 14th International Conference on Supersymmetry and the Unification of Fundamental Interactions, UC Irvine, California, 12-17 June 200

Linear flavour violation and anomalies in B physics

We propose renormalizable models of new physics that can explain various anomalies observed in decays of B-mesons to electron and muon pairs. The new physics states couple to linear combinations of Standard Model fermions, yielding a pattern of flavour violation that gives a consistent fit to the gamut of flavour data. Accidental symmetries prevent contributions to baryon- and lepton-number-violating processes, as well as enforcing a loop suppression of new physics contributions to flavour violating processes. Data require that the new flavour-breaking couplings are largely aligned with the Yukawa couplings of the SM and so we also explore patterns of flavour symmetry breaking giving rise to this structure.Comment: v2: 28 pages, 10 figures. Added two appendices to make the SU(2) structure of the model clearer, and to discuss Z/photon penguin contributions. Updated a bound on Bs mixing, and added references. Conclusions unchanged. Version to appear in JHE

Polynomials, Riemann surfaces, and reconstructing missing-energy events

We consider the problem of reconstructing energies, momenta, and masses in collider events with missing energy, along with the complications introduced by combinatorial ambiguities and measurement errors. Typically, one reconstructs more than one value and we show how the wrong values may be correlated with the right ones. The problem has a natural formulation in terms of the theory of Riemann surfaces. We discuss examples including top quark decays in the Standard Model (relevant for top quark mass measurements and tests of spin correlation), cascade decays in models of new physics containing dark matter candidates, decays of third-generation leptoquarks in composite models of electroweak symmetry breaking, and Higgs boson decay into two tau leptons.Comment: 28 pages, 6 figures; version accepted for publication, with discussion of Higgs to tau tau deca

Gaugino mass in AdS space

We study supersymmetric QED in AdS4 with massless matter. At 1-loop the ultra-violet regulator of the theory generates a contribution to the gaugino mass that is naively inconsistent with unbroken supersymmetry. We show that this effect, known in flat space as anomaly mediated supersymmetry breaking, is required to cancel an infra-red contribution arising from the boundary conditions in AdS space, which necessarily break chiral symmetry. We also discuss an analogous UV/IR cancellation that is independent of supersymmetry.Comment: 20 pages, 1 figur

Veneziano-Yankielowicz Superpotential Terms in N=1 SUSY Gauge Theories

The Veneziano-Yankielowicz glueball superpotential for an arbitrary N=1 SUSY pure gauge theory with classical gauge group is derived using an approach following recent work of Dijkgraaf, Vafa and others. These non-perturbative terms, which had hitherto been included by hand in the above approach, are thus seen to arise naturally, and the approach is rendered self-contained. By minimising the glueball superpotential for theories with fundamental matter added, the expected vacuum structure with gaugino condensation and chiral symmetry breaking is obtained. Various possible extensions are also discussed.Comment: 9 page

Electroweak Baryogenesis in Non-minimal Composite Higgs Models

We address electroweak baryogenesis in the context of composite Higgs models, pointing out that modifications to the Higgs and top quark sectors can play an important role in generating the baryon asymmetry. Our main observation is that composite Higgs models that include a light, gauge singlet scalar in the spectrum [as in the model based on the symmetry breaking pattern SO(6)/SO(5)], provide all necessary ingredients for viable baryogenesis. In particular, the singlet leads to a strongly first-order electroweak phase transition and introduces new sources of CP violation in dimension-five operators involving the top quark. We discuss the amount of baryon asymmetry produced and the experimental constraints on the model.Comment: 15 pages, 7 figure

Beyond the Minimal Composite Higgs Model

The Higgs spectrum of the minimal composite Higgs model, based on the SO(5)/SO(4) coset, consists of a unique Higgs doublet whose phenomenology does not differ greatly from the Standard Model (SM). Nevertheless, extensions beyond this minimal coset structure exhibit a richer Higgs spectrum and therefore very different Higgs physics. We explore one of these extensions, the SO(6)/SO(5) model, whose Higgs spectrum contains a CP-odd singlet scalar, eta, in addition to the Higgs doublet. Due to the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone nature of these Higgs bosons, their physical properties can be derived from symmetry considerations alone. We find that the mass of eta can be naturally light, opening up the possibility that the SM Higgs decays predominantly to the singlet, and therefore lowering the LEP bound on its mass to 86 GeV. We also show that eta can have interesting consequences in flavour-violating processes, as well as induce spontaneous CP-violation in the Higgs sector. The model can also have anomalies, giving rise to interactions between the SM gauge bosons and eta which, if measured at the LHC, would give quantitative information about the structure of the high energy theory.Comment: 13p

Partially Supersymmetric Composite Higgs Models

We study the idea of the Higgs as a pseudo-Goldstone boson within the framework of partial supersymmetry in Randall-Sundrum scenarios and their CFT duals. The Higgs and third generation of the MSSM are composites arising from a strongly coupled supersymmetric CFT with global symmetry SO(5) spontaneously broken to SO(4), whilst the light generations and gauge fields are elementary degrees of freedom whose couplings to the strong sector explicitly break the global symmetry as well as supersymmetry. The presence of supersymmetry in the strong sector may allow the compositeness scale to be raised to ~10 TeV without fine tuning, consistent with the bounds from precision electro-weak measurements and flavour physics. The supersymmetric flavour problem is also solved. At low energies, this scenario reduces to the "More Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model" where only stops, Higgsinos and gauginos are light and within reach of the LHC.Comment: 28 pages. v2 minor changes and Refs. adde

Flavourful Production at Hadron Colliders

We ask what new states may lie at or below the TeV scale, with sizable flavour-dependent couplings to light quarks, putting them within reach of hadron colliders via resonant production, or in association with Standard Model states. In particular, we focus on the compatibility of such states with stringent flavour-changing neutral current and electric-dipole moment constraints. We argue that the broadest and most theoretically plausible flavour structure of the new couplings is that they are hierarchical, as are Standard Model Yukawa couplings, although the hierarchical pattern may well be different. We point out that, without the need for any more elaborate or restrictive structure, new scalars with "diquark" couplings to standard quarks are particularly immune to existing constraints, and that such scalars may arise within a variety of theoretical paradigms. In particular, there can be substantial couplings to a pair of light quarks or to one light and one heavy quark. For example, the latter possibility may provide a flavour-safe interpretation of the asymmetry in top quark production observed at the Tevatron. We thereby motivate searches for diquark scalars at the Tevatron and LHC, and argue that their discovery represents one of our best chances for new insight into the Flavour Puzzle of the Standard Model.Comment: 18 pp., 8 figures, references adde