Gauge boson fusion as a probe of inverted hierarchies in supersymmetry

Supersymmetric scenarios with inverted mass hierarchy can be hard to observe at a hadron collider, particularly for the non-strongly interacting sector. We show how the production of stau-pairs via gauge boson fusion, along with hard jets in the high rapidity region, can be instrumental in uncovering the signatures of such scenarios. We demonstrate this both in a model-independent way and with reference to some specific, well-motivated models.Comment: RevTeX4, 4 pages, 2 figures. Final version to appear in Phys.Rev.D Changes in context, figures modified. References added. Conclusions unchange

Report of the Higgs Working Group of the Tevatron Run 2 SUSY/Higgs Workshop

This report presents the theoretical analysis relevant for Higgs physics at the upgraded Tevatron collider and documents the Higgs Working Group simulations to estimate the discovery reach in Run 2 for the Standard Model and MSSM Higgs bosons. Based on a simple detector simulation, we have determined the integrated luminosity necessary to discover the SM Higgs in the mass range 100-190 GeV. The first phase of the Run 2 Higgs search, with a total integrated luminosity of 2 fb-1 per detector, will provide a 95% CL exclusion sensitivity comparable to that expected at the end of the LEP2 run. With 10 fb-1 per detector, this exclusion will extend up to Higgs masses of 180 GeV, and a tantalizing 3 sigma effect will be visible if the Higgs mass lies below 125 GeV. With 25 fb-1 of integrated luminosity per detector, evidence for SM Higgs production at the 3 sigma level is possible for Higgs masses up to 180 GeV. However, the discovery reach is much less impressive for achieving a 5 sigma Higgs boson signal. Even with 30 fb-1 per detector, only Higgs bosons with masses up to about 130 GeV can be detected with 5 sigma significance. These results can also be re-interpreted in the MSSM framework and yield the required luminosities to discover at least one Higgs boson of the MSSM Higgs sector. With 5-10 fb-1 of data per detector, it will be possible to exclude at 95% CL nearly the entire MSSM Higgs parameter space, whereas 20-30 fb-1 is required to obtain a 5 sigma Higgs discovery over a significant portion of the parameter space. Moreover, in one interesting region of the MSSM parameter space (at large tan(beta)), the associated production of a Higgs boson and a b b-bar pair is significantly enhanced and provides potential for discovering a non-SM-like Higgs boson in Run 2.Comment: 185 pages, 124 figures, 55 table

PDFS: Practical Data Feed Service for Smart Contracts

Smart contracts are a new paradigm that emerged with the rise of the blockchain technology. They allow untrusting parties to arrange agreements. These agreements are encoded as a programming language code and deployed on a blockchain platform, where all participants execute them and maintain their state. Smart contracts are promising since they are automated and decentralized, thus limiting the involvement of third trusted parties, and can contain monetary transfers. Due to these features, many people believe that smart contracts will revolutionize the way we think of distributed applications, information sharing, financial services, and infrastructures. To release the potential of smart contracts, it is necessary to connect the contracts with the outside world, such that they can understand and use information from other infrastructures. For instance, smart contracts would greatly benefit when they have access to web content. However, there are many challenges associated with realizing such a system, and despite the existence of many proposals, no solution is secure, provides easily-parsable data, introduces small overheads, and is easy to deploy. In this paper we propose PDFS, a practical system for data feeds that combines the advantages of the previous schemes and introduces new functionalities. PDFS extends content providers by including new features for data transparency and consistency validations. This combination provides multiple benefits like content which is easy to parse and efficient authenticity verification without breaking natural trust chains. PDFS keeps content providers auditable, mitigates their malicious activities (like data modification or censorship), and allows them to create a new business model. We show how PDFS is integrated with existing web services, report on a PDFS implementation and present results from conducted case studies and experiments.Comment: Blockchain; Smart Contracts; Data Authentication; Ethereu

Decoupling Properties of MSSM particles in Higgs and Top Decays

We study the supersymmetric (SUSY) QCD radiative corrections, at the one-loop level, to $h^0$, $H^{\pm}$ and t quark decays, in the context of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) and in the decoupling limit. The decoupling behaviour of the various MSSM sectors is analyzed in some special cases, where some or all of the SUSY mass parameters become large as compared to the electroweak scale. We show that in the decoupling limit of both large SUSY mass parameters and large CP-odd Higgs mass, the $\Gamma (h^0\to b \bar b)$ decay width approaches its Standard Model value at one loop, with the onset of decoupling being delayed for large $\tan\beta$ values. However, this decoupling does not occur if just the SUSY mass parameters are taken large. A similar interesting non-decoupling behaviour, also enhanced by $\tan\beta$, is found in the SUSY-QCD corrections to the $\Gamma (H^+\to t \bar b)$ decay width at one loop. In contrast, the SUSY-QCD corrections in the $\Gamma (t\to W^+ b)$ decay width do decouple and this decoupling is fast.Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures. Invited talk presented by M.J.Herrero at the 5th International Symposium on Radiative Corrections (RADCOR 2000) Carmel CA, USA, 11-15 September, 200

Does the butterfly diagram indicate asolar flux-transport dynamo?

We address the question whether the properties of the observed latitude-time diagram of sunspot occurence (the butterfly diagram) provide evidence for the operation of a flux-transport dynamo, which explains the migration of the sunspot zones and the period of the solar cycle in terms of a deep equatorward meridional flow. We show that the properties of the butterfly diagram are equally well reproduced by a conventional dynamo model with migrating dynamo waves, but without transport of magnetic flux by a flow. These properties seem to be generic for an oscillatory and migratory field of dipole parity and thus do not permit an observational distinction between different dynamo approaches.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figur

Complete High Temperature Expansions for One-Loop Finite Temperature Effects

We develop exact, simple closed form expressions for partition functions associated with relativistic bosons and fermions in odd spatial dimensions. These expressions, valid at high temperature, include the effects of a non-trivial Polyakov loop and generalize well-known high temperature expansions. The key technical point is the proof of a set of Bessel function identities which resum low temperature expansions into high temperature expansions. The complete expressions for these partition functions can be used to obtain one-loop finite temperature contributions to effective potentials, and thus free energies and pressures.Comment: 9 pages, RevTeX, no figures. To be published in Phys. Rev D. v2 has revised introduction and conclusions, plus a few typographical errors are corrected; v3 corrects one typ

One-loop Effective Potential for a Fixed Charged Self-interacting Bosonic Model at Finite Temperature with its Related Multiplicative Anomaly

The one-loop partition function for a charged self-interacting Bose gas at finite temperature in D-dimensional spacetime is evaluated within a path integral approach making use of zeta-function regularization. For D even, a new additional vacuum term ---overlooked in all previous treatments and coming from the multiplicative anomaly related to functional determinants-- is found and its dependence on the mass and chemical potential is obtained. The presence of the new term is shown to be crucial for having the factorization invariance of the regularized partition function. In the non interacting case, the relativistic Bose-Einstein condensation is revisited. By means of a suitable charge renormalization, for D=4 the symmetry breaking phase is shown to be unaffected by the new term, which, however, gives actually rise to a non vanishing new contribution in the unbroken phase.Comment: 25 pages, RevTex, a new Section and several explanations added concering the non-commutative residue and the physical discussio