875 research outputs found
Tau Flavour Violation in Sparticle Decays at the LHC
We consider sparticle decays that violate tau lepton number, motivated by
neutrino oscillation data. We work in the context of the constrained minimal
supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (CMSSM), in which the different
sleptons have identical masses at the GUT scale, and neutrino Dirac Yukawa
couplings mix them. We find that the branching ratio for decay of the heavier
neutralino chi_2 to chi + tau mu is enhanced when the LSP mass m_chi =
m_stau_1, including the region of CMSSM parameter space where coannihilation
keeps the relic chi density within the range preferred by cosmology. Thus chi_2
to chi + tau mu decay may provide a physics opportunity for observing the
violation of tau lepton number at the LHC that is complementary to tau to mu +
gamma decay. Likewise, chi_2 to chi + e mu decay is also enhanced in the
coannihilation region, providing a complement to mu to e + gamma decay.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figure
Experimental evolution of cowpea mild mottle virus reveals recombination-driven reduction in virulence accompanied by increases in diversity and viral fitness
Phenomenological Tests of Supersymmetric A_4 Family Symmetry Model of Neutrino Mass
Recently Babu, Ma and Valle proposed a model of quark and lepton mixing based
on symmetry. Within this model the lepton and slepton mixings are
intimately related. We perform a numerical study in order to derive the slepton
masses and mixings in agreement with present data from neutrino physics. We
show that, starting from three-fold degeneracy of the neutrino masses at a high
energy scale, a viable low energy neutrino mass matrix can indeed be obtained
in agreement with constraints on lepton flavour violating
and decays. The resulting slepton spectrum must necessarily
include at least one mass below 200 GeV which can be produced at the LHC. The
predictions for the absolute Majorana neutrino mass scale eV
ensure that the model will be tested by future cosmological tests and
searches.
Rates for lepton flavour violating processes
in the range of sensitivity of current
experiments are typical in the model, with BR(\mu \to e \gamma) \gsim
10^{-15} and the lower bound BR. To first
approximation, the model leads to maximal leptonic CP violation in neutrino
oscillations.Comment: 23 pages, 7 figure
Lepton Flavor Violation in Z and Lepton Decays in Supersymmetric Models
The observation of charged lepton flavor non-conservation would be a clear
signature of physics beyond the Standard Model. In particular, supersymmetric
(SUSY) models introduce mixings in the sneutrino and the charged slepton
sectors which could imply flavor-changing processes at rates accessible to
upcoming experiments. In this paper we analyze the possibility to observe Z -->
lep_I lep_J in the GigaZ option of TESLA at DESY. We show that although models
with SUSY masses above the current limits could predict a branching ratio BR(Z
--> mu e) accessible to the experiment, they would imply an unobserved rate of
mu --> e gamma and thus are excluded. In models with a small mixing angle
between the first and the third (or the second and the third) slepton families
GigaZ could observe Z --> tau mu (or Z --> tau e) consistently with present
bounds on lep_J --> lep_I gamma. In contrast, if the mixing angles between the
three slepton families are large the bounds from mu --> e gamma push these
processes below the reach of GigaZ. We show that in this case the masses of the
three slepton families must be strongly degenerated (with mass differences of
order 10^{-3}). We update the limits on the slepton mass insertions
delta_{LL,RR,LR} and discuss the correlation between flavor changing and g_mu-2
in SUSY models.Comment: 23 pages, 6 figures. Version to appear in Phys. Rev.
Experimental evolution of cowpea mild mottle virus reveals recombination-driven reduction in virulence accompanied by increases in diversity and viral fitness
Charged-Lepton-Flavour Violation in the CMSSM in View of the Muon Anomalous Magnetic Moment
We use the BNL E821 measurement of g - 2, the anomalous magnetic moment of
the muon, to normalize, within a supersymmetric GUT framework, constrained MSSM
(CMSSM) predictions for processes that violate charged-lepton flavour
conservation, including mu to e gamma, mu to e conversion and K^0_L to mu e. We
illustrate our analysis with two examples of lepton mass matrix textures
motivated by data on neutrino oscillations. We find that mu to e gamma may well
occur at a rate within one or two (two or three) orders of magnitude of the
present experimental upper limit if g - 2 is within the one- (two-)standard
deviation range indicated by E821. We also find that mu to e conversion is
likely to occur at rate measurable by MECO, and there is a chance that K^0_L to
mu e may be observable in an experiment using an intense proton source.Comment: 14 pages, 3 eps figure
Charged lepton Flavor Violation in Supersymmetry with Bilinear R-Parity Violation
The simplest unified extension of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model
with bi-linear R-parity violation naturally predicts a hierarchical neutrino
mass spectrum, suitable to explain atmospheric and solar neutrino fluxes. We
study whether the individual violation of the lepton numbers L_{e,mu,tau} in
the charged sector can lead to measurable rates for BR(mu->e gamma)and
$BR(tau-> mu gamma). We find that some of the R-parity violating terms that are
compatible with the observed atmospheric neutrino oscillations could lead to
rates for mu->e gamma measurable in projected experiments. However, the Delta
m^2_{12} obtained for those parameters is too high to be compatible with the
solar neutrino data, excluding therefore the possibility of having measurable
rates for mu->e gamma in the model.Comment: 29 pages, 8 figures. Constraint from solar neutrino data included,
conclusions changed respect v
Hypertension Is Associated With Intestinal Microbiota Dysbiosis and Inflammation in a Brazilian Population
Hypertension is a major global health challenge, as it represents the main risk factor for stroke and cardiovascular disease. It is a multifactorial clinical condition characterized by high and sustained levels of blood pressure, likely resulting from a complex interplay of endogenous and environmental factors. The gut microbiota has been strongly supposed to be involved but its role in hypertension is still poorly understood. In an attempt to fill this gap, here we characterized the microbial composition of fecal samples from 48 hypertensive and 32 normotensive Brazilian individuals by next-generation sequencing of the 16S rRNA gene. In addition, the cytokine production of peripheral blood samples was investigated to build an immunological profile of these individuals. We identified a dysbiosis of the intestinal microbiota in hypertensive subjects, featured by reduced biodiversity and distinct bacterial signatures compared with the normotensive counterpart. Along with a reduction in Bacteroidetes members, hypertensive individuals were indeed mainly characterized by increased proportions of Lactobacillus and Akkermansia while decreased relative abundances of well-known butyrate-producing commensals, including Roseburia and Faecalibacterium within the Lachnospiraceae and Ruminococcaceae families. We also observed an inflamed immune profile in hypertensive individuals with an increase in TNF/IFN-\u3b3 ratio, and in TNF and IL-6 production when compared to normotensive ones. Our work provides the first evidence of association of hypertension with altered gut microbiota and inflammation in a Brazilian population. While lending support to the existence of potential microbial signatures of hypertension, likely to be robust to age and geography, our findings point to largely neglected bacteria as potential contributors to intestinal homeostasis loss and emphasize the high vulnerability of hypertensive individuals to inflammation-related disorders
Incidence of healthcare-associated Clostridioides difficile infection in a quaternary referral university hospital in Brazil
Clostridioides difficile infection (CDI) is an important cause of diarrhea in hospitals worldwide. The incidence of CDI in Latin America has not yet been standardized. To fill this gap, the present study performed a daily active surveillance, for three months, between April to July of 2021, at a quaternary referral university hospital in Brazil. The incidence density was 9.2 cases per 10,000 patient-days. Cases were associated mostly with ribotypes 014 and 106 (44% and 22%, respectively). Ribotype 027 was not identified. The findings strongly reinforce the need for broad epidemiological studies on the incidence of CDI in Brazilian hospitals to increase the understanding, prevention, and treatment of this infection.(c) 2022 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.Medical Microbiolog
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