Supergroup BF action for supergravity

General relativity can be formulated as a SU(2) BF-theory with constraints, as has been shown, by Pleba\'nski. The cosmological constant term can be obtained from the constraint term, following from the consistency of the equations of motion, as recently shown by Krasnov. We consider an $OSp(2|1)$ invariant, supergravity extension of this theory, for which the consistency of the equations of motion and the constraints contribute as well to the cosmological constant terms of Townsend's supergravity. The Kalb-Ramond invariance is shortly discussed.Comment: 14 page

Convergent Friends: The Emergence of Postmodern Quakerism

Postmodernism is ushering in radical change for the Church. Some theologians argue that this change, especially given the discontinuities between modernism and postmodernism, affords new opportunities. Because of these changes there is a decline in many Christian traditions in the West, but there is also a renaissance of \u27 emerging churches\u27. The same can be said for Quakers who are experiencing a renaissance of their own. \u27Convergent Friends\u27 are a decentralized, international, body of Quakers seeking to renew their tradition through a growing awareness of the need to interact with culture missionally. Their origins and interactions are unique to Convergence Culture, which opens up new possibilities for community among diverse people. Thus, renewal for these Friends begins with participation and production. From the writing of blog posts about Quaker faith in today\u27s society, to initiating gatherings, and forming friendships over a variety of mediums, the convergent community bypasses older top-down institutional boundaries and renews from the bottom up. The end result is a hybrid Quakerism that incorporates both mission and tradition in at least six ways that may help the larger Quaker body navigate cultural change

Revolutionary Faithfulness: Quaker Pastoral Practice and Theology in an Age of Empire

I am glad there is space for what I expect will be a rigorous and critical examination of Quaker pastoral theology within the pages of Quaker Religious Thought. This is needed as much now as ever. For a practice that goes back to at least the late 1860s (Barbour and Frost, 1994: 211), it is unclear why so little has been written about it in 160 years.1 This is not just a lost opportunity; it is a grave deficit for programmed Friends. It could be argued that many of the challenges Gurneyite Quakerism faces today—in terms of tradition drift, division, and, at least in the US, shrinking congregations—are the results of Friends not apprenticing people into the practice of Quaker pastoring

Supersymmetric 3-3-1 model with right-handed neutrinos

We consider the supersymmetric extension of the 3-3-1 model with right-handed neutrinos. We study the mass spectra in the scalar and pseudoscalar sectors, and for a given set of the input parameters, we find that the lightest scalar in the model has a mass of 130 GeV and the lightest pseudoscalar has mass of 5 GeV. However, this pseudoscalar decouples from the $Z^0$ at high energy scales since it is almost a singlet under $SU(2)_L\otimes U(1)_Y$.Comment: Revtex4, 16 pages, no figure

New Results for Light Gravitinos at Hadron Colliders - Tevatron Limits and LHC Perspectives

We derive Feynman rules for the interactions of a single gravitino with (s)quarks and gluons/gluinos from an effective supergravity Lagrangian in non-derivative form and use them to calculate the hadroproduction cross sections and decay widths of single gravitinos. We confirm the results obtained previously with a derivative Lagrangian as well as those obtained with the non-derivative Lagrangian in the high-energy limit and elaborate on the connection between gauge independence and the presence of quartic vertices. We perform extensive numerical studies of branching ratios, total cross sections, and transverse-momentum spectra at the Tevatron and the LHC. From the latest CDF monojet cross section limit, we derive a new and robust exclusion contour in the gravitino-squark/gluino mass plane, implying that gravitinos with masses below $2\cdot10^{-5}$ to $1\cdot10^{-5}$ eV are excluded for squark/gluino-masses below 200 and 500 GeV, respectively. These limits are complementary to the one obtained by the CDF collaboration, $1.1\cdot 10^{-5}$ eV, under the assumption of infinitely heavy squarks and gluinos. For the LHC, we conclude that SUSY scenarios with light gravitinos will lead to a striking monojet signal very quickly after its startup.Comment: 30 pages, 12 figures. Tevatron limit improved and unitarity limit included. Version to be published in Phys. Rev.

Field Theory on q=−1q=-1 Quantum Plane

We build the $q=-1$ defomation of plane on a product of two copies of algebras of functions on the plane. This algebra constains a subalgebra of functions on the plane. We present general scheme (which could be used as well to construct quaternion from pairs of complex numbers) and we use it to derive differential structures, metric and discuss sample field theoretical models.Comment: LaTeX, 10 page

One-loop renormalization group study of boson-fermion mixtures

A weakly interacting boson-fermion mixture model was investigated using Wisonian renormalization group analysis. This model includes one boson-boson interaction term and one boson-fermion interaction term. The scaling dimensions of the two interaction coupling constants were calculated as 2-D at tree level and the Gell-Mann-Low equations were derived at one-loop level. We find that in the Gell-Mann-Low equations the contributions from the fermion loops go to zero as the length scale approaches infinity. After ignoring the fermion loop contributions two fixed points were found in 3 dimensional case. One is the Gaussian fixed point and the other one is Wilson-Fisher fixed point. We find that the boson-fermion interaction decouples at the Wilson-Fisher fixed point. We also observe that under RG transformation the boson-fermion interaction coupling constant runs to negative infinity with a small negative initial value, which indicates a boson-fermion pairing instability. Furthermore, the possibility of emergent supersymmetry in this model was discussed.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figure

Scaling of the CKM Matrix in the 5D MSSM

We discuss a five-dimensional Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model compactified on a $S^1/Z_2$ orbifold, looking at, in particular, the one-loop evolution equations of the Yukawa couplings for the quark sector and various flavor observables. Different possibilities for the matter fields are discussed, that is, where they are in the bulk or localised to the brane. The two possibilities give rise to quite different behaviours. By studying the implications of the evolution with the renormalisation group of the Yukawa couplings and of the flavor observables we find that, for a theory that is valid up to the unification scale, the case where fields are localised to the brane, with a large $\tan\beta$, would be more easily distinguishable from other scenarios.Comment: 12 pages, 8 figures, Extra comments adde