1,059 research outputs found
On the Possibility of Optical Unification in Heterotic Strings
Recently J. Giedt discussed a mechanism, entitled optical unification,
whereby string scale unification is facilitated via exotic matter with
intermediate scale mass. This mechanism guarantees that a virtual MSSM
unification below the string scale is extrapolated from the running of gauge
couplings upward from M_Z^o when an intermediate scale desert is assumed. In
this letter we explore the possibility of optical unification within the
context of weakly coupled heterotic strings. In particular, we investigate this
for models of free fermionic construction containing the NAHE set of basis
vectors. This class is of particular interest for optical unification, because
it provides a standard hypercharge embedding within SO(10), giving the standard
k_Y = 5/3 hypercharge level, which was shown necessary for optical unification.
We present a NAHE model for which the set of exotic SU(3)_C
triplet/anti-triplet pairs, SU(2)_L doublets, and non-Abelian singlets with
hypercharge offers the possibility of optical unification. Whether this model
can realize optical unification is conditional upon these exotics not receiving
Fayet-Iliopoulos (FI) scale masses when a flat direction of scalar vacuum
expectation values is non-perturbatively chosen to cancel the FI D-term, xi,
generated by the anomalous U(1)-breaking Green-Schwarz-Dine-Seiberg-Wittten
mechanism. A study of perturbative flat directions and their phenomenological
implications for this model is underway.
This paper is a product of the NFS Research Experiences for Undergraduates
and the NSF High School Summer Science Research programs at Baylor University.Comment: 16 pages. Standard Late
Investigation of Quasi--Realistic Heterotic String Models with Reduced Higgs Spectrum
Quasi--realistic heterotic-string models in the free fermionic formulation
typically contain an anomalous U(1), which gives rise to a Fayet-Iliopolous
term that breaks supersymmetry at the one--loop level in string perturbation
theory. Supersymmetry is restored by imposing F- and D-flatness on the vacuum.
In Phys. Rev. D 78 (2008) 046009, we presented a three generation free
fermionic standard-like model which did not admit stringent F- and D-flat
directions, and argued that the all the moduli in the model are fixed. The
particular property of the model was the reduction of the untwisted Higgs
spectrum by a combination of symmetric and asymmetric boundary conditions with
respect to the internal fermions associated with the compactified dimensions.
In this paper we extend the analysis of free fermionic models with reduced
Higgs spectrum to the cases in which the SO(10) symmetry is left unbroken, or
is reduced to the flipped SU(5) subgroup. We show that all the models that we
study in this paper do admit stringent flat directions. The only examples of
models that do not admit stringent flat directions remain the strandard-like
models of reference Phys. Rev. D 78 (2008) 046009.Comment: 38 pages, 1 figur
Initial Systematic Investigations of the Landscape of Low Layer NAHE Extensions
The discovery that the number of physically consistent string vacua is on the
order of 10^500 has prompted several statistical studies of string
phenomenology. Contained here is one such study that focuses on the Weakly
Coupled Free Fermionic Heterotic String (WCFFHS) formalism. Presented are
systematic extensions of the well-known NAHE (Nanopoulos, Antoniadis, Hagelin,
Ellis) set of basis vectors, which have been shown to produce
phenomenologically realistic models. Statistics related to the number of
U(1)'s, gauge group factors, non-Abelian singlets, ST SUSYs, as well as the
gauge groups themselve are discussed for the full range of models produced as
well as models containing GUT groups only. Prior results of other large-scale
investigations are compared with these regarding the aforementioned quantities.
Statistical coupling between the gauge groups and the number of ST SUSYs is
also discussed, and it was found that for order-3 extensions there are more
models with enhanced ST SUSY when there is an exceptional group present. Also
discussed are some three-generation GUT models found in the data sets. These
models are unique because they come from basis vectors which still have a
geometric interpretation -- there are no "rank-cuts" in these models.Comment: 65 Pages, 31 Tables, 31 Figure
Left-Right Symmetric Heterotic-String Derived Models
Recently it was demonstrated that free fermionic heterotic-strings can
produce models with solely the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model states in
the low energy spectrum. This unprecedented result provides further strong
evidence for the possibility that the true string vacuum shares some of the
properties of the free fermionic models. Past free fermionic models have
focused on several possible unbroken observable SO(10) subgroups at the string
scale, which include the flipped SU(5) (FSU5), the Pati-Salam (PS) string
models, and the string Standard-like Models (SLM). We extend this study to
include the case in which the SO(10) symmetry is broken to the Left-Right
Symmetric (LRS) gauge group, SO(10) -> SU(3)_C X U(1)_{B-L} X SU(2)_L X
SU(2)_R. We present several models of this type and discuss their
phenomenological features. The most striking new outcome of the LRS string
models, in contrast to the case of the FSU5, the PS, and the SLM string models,
is that they can produce effective field theories that are free of Abelian
anomalies. We discuss the distinction between the two types of free fermionic
models which result in the presence, or absence, of an anomalous U(1). As a
counter example we also present a LRS model that does contain an anomalous
U(1). Additionally, we discuss how in string models the Standard Model spectrum
may arise from the three \mbf 16 representations of SO(10), while the
weak-hypercharge does not have the canonical SO(10) embedding.Comment: 39 pages. Standard Latex. Version to appear in PR
Minimal Standard Heterotic String Models
Three generation heterotic-string vacua in the free fermionic formulation
gave rise to models with solely the MSSM states in the observable Standard
Model charged sector. The relation of these models to Z_2 x Z_2 orbifold
compactifications dictates that they produce three pairs of untwisted Higgs
multiplets. The reduction to one pair relies on the analysis of supersymmetric
flat directions, that give superheavy mass to the dispensable Higgs states. We
explore the removal of the extra Higgs representations by using the free
fermion boundary conditions and hence directly at the string level, rather than
in the effective low energy field theory. We present a general mechanism that
achieves this reduction by using asymmetric boundary conditions between the
left- and right-moving internal fermions. We incorporate this mechanism in
explicit string models containing three twisted generations and a single
untwisted Higgs doublet pair. We further demonstrate that an additional effect
of the asymmetric boundary conditions is to substantially reduce the
supersymmetric moduli space.Comment: 20 pages, LaTeX; added reference
Nematic liquid crystal alignment on chemical patterns
Patterned Self-Assembled Monolayers (SAMs) promoting both homeotropic and planar degenerate alignment of 6CB and 9CB in their nematic phase, were created using microcontact printing of functionalised organothiols on gold films. The effects of a range of different pattern geometries and sizes were investigated, including stripes, circles and checkerboards. EvanescentWave Ellipsometry was used to study the orientation of the liquid crystal (LC) on these patterned surfaces during the isotropic-nematic phase transition. Pretransitional growth of a homeotropic layer was observed on 1 Âčm homeotropic aligning stripes, followed by a homeotropic mono-domain state prior to the
bulk phase transition. Accompanying Monte-Carlo simulations of LCs aligned on nano-patterned surfaces were also performed. These simulations also showed the presence of the homeotropic mono-domain state prior to the transition.</p
Computer simulations of hard pear-shaped particles
We report results obtained from Monte Carlo simulations investi-
gating mesophase formation in two model systems of hard pear-shaped
particles. The first model considered is a hard variant of the trun-
cated Stone-Expansion model previously shown to form nematic and
smectic mesophases when embedded within a 12-6 Gay-Berne-like po-
tential [1]. When stripped of its attractive interactions, however, this system is found to lose its liquid crystalline phases. For particles of length to breadth ratio k = 3, glassy behaviour is seen at high pressures, whereas for k = 5 several bi-layer-like domains are seen, with high intradomain order but little interdomain orientational correlation. For the second model, which uses a parametric shape parameter based on the generalised Gay-Berne formalism, results are presented for particles with elongation k = 3; 4 and 5. Here, the systems with k = 3 and 4 fail to display orientationally ordered phases, but that with k = 5 shows isotropic, nematic and, unusually for a hard-particle model, interdigitated smectic A2 phases.</p
Report of the Supersymmetry Theory Working Group
We provide a mini-guide to some of the possible manifestations of weak scale
supersymmetry. For each of six scenarios we provide a brief description of the
theoretical underpinnings, the adjustable parameters, a qualitative description
of the associated phenomenology at future colliders, comments on how to
simulate each scenario with existing event generators.Comment: Report of Snowmass Supersymmetry Theory Working Group; 14 pages plus
3 figures using latex2e and snow2e.cls; this version has corrected a number
of typos from the first versio
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