Strain Relaxation Mechanisms and Local Structural Changes in Si_{1-x}$Ge_{x} Alloys

In this work, we address issues pertinent to the understanding of the structural and electronic properties of Si_{1-x} Ge_{x}alloys, namely, (i) how does the lattice constant mismatch between bulk Si and bulk Ge manifests itself in the alloy system? and (ii) what are the relevant strain release mechanisms? To provide answers to these questions, we have carried out an in-depth study of the changes in the local geometric and electronic structures arising from the strain relaxation in Si_{1-x} Ge_{x} alloys using an ab initio molecular dynamics scheme. The optimized lattice constant, while exhibiting a general trend of linear dependence on the composition (Vegard's law), shows a negative deviation from Vegard's law in the vicinity of x=0.5. We delineate the mechanisms responsible for each one of the above features. We show that the radial-strain relaxation through bond stretching is responsible for the overall trend of linear dependence of the lattice constant on the composition. On the other hand, the negative deviation from Vegard's law is shown to arise from the angular-strain relaxation.Comment: 21 pages, 7 figure

Accidental stability of dark matter

We propose that dark matter is stable as a consequence of an accidental Z2 that results from a flavour-symmetry group which is the double-cover group of the symmetry group of one of the regular geometric solids. Although model-dependent, the phenomenology resembles that of a generic Higgs portal dark matter scheme.Comment: 12 pages, final version, published in JHE

Bilinear R-parity violation with flavor symmetry

Bilinear R-parity violation (BRPV) provides the simplest intrinsically supersymmetric neutrino mass generation scheme. While neutrino mixing parameters can be probed in high energy accelerators, they are unfortunately not predicted by the theory. Here we propose a model based on the discrete flavor symmetry $A_4$ with a single R-parity violating parameter, leading to (i) correct Cabbibo mixing given by the Gatto-Sartori-Tonin formula, and a successful unification-like b-tau mass relation, and (ii) a correlation between the lepton mixing angles $\theta_{13}$ and $\theta_{23}$ in agreement with recent neutrino oscillation data, as well as a (nearly) massless neutrino, leading to absence of neutrinoless double beta decay.Comment: 16 pages, 3 figures. Extended version, as published in JHE

Direct and Indirect Detection of Dark Matter in D6 Flavor Symmetric Model

We study a fermionic dark matter in a non-supersymmetric extension of the standard model with a family symmetry based on D6xZ2xZ2. In our model, the final state of the dark matter annihilation is determined to be e+ e- by the flavor symmetry, which is consistent with the PAMELA result. At first, we show that our dark matter mass should be within the range of 230 GeV - 750 GeV in the WMAP analysis combined with mu to e gamma constraint. Moreover we simultaneously explain the experiments of direct and indirect detection, by simply adding a gauge and D6 singlet real scalar field. In the direct detection experiments, we show that the lighter dark matter mass ~ 230 GeV and the lighter standard model Higgs boson ~ 115 GeV is in favor of the observed bounds reported by CDMS II and XENON100. In the indirect detection experiments, we explain the positron excess reported by PAMELA through the Breit-Wigner enhancement mechanism. We also show that our model is consistent with no antiproton excess suggested by PAMELA.Comment: 20 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables, accepted version for publication in European Physical Journal

Dark Matter from Minimal Flavor Violation

We consider theories of flavored dark matter, in which the dark matter particle is part of a multiplet transforming nontrivially under the flavor group of the Standard Model in a manner consistent with the principle of Minimal Flavor Violation (MFV). MFV automatically leads to the stability of the lightest state for a large number of flavor multiplets. If neutral, this particle is an excellent dark matter candidate. Furthermore, MFV implies specific patterns of mass splittings among the flavors of dark matter and governs the structure of the couplings between dark matter and ordinary particles, leading to a rich and predictive cosmology and phenomenology. We present an illustrative phenomenological study of an effective theory of a flavor SU(3)_Q triplet, gauge singlet scalar.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures; v2: references added, minor changes to collider analysis, conclusions unchange

Solar 8B and hep Neutrino Measurements from 1258 Days of Super-Kamiokande Data

Solar neutrino measurements from 1258 days of data from the Super-Kamiokande detector are presented. The measurements are based on recoil electrons in the energy range 5.0-20.0MeV. The measured solar neutrino flux is 2.32 +- 0.03(stat.) +0.08-0.07(sys.)*10^6cm^{-2}s^{-1}, which is 45.1+-0.5(stat.)+1.6-1.4(sys.)% of that predicted by the BP2000 SSM. The day vs night flux asymmetry is 0.033+-0.022(stat.)+0.013-0.012(sys.). The recoil electron energy spectrum is consistent with no spectral distortion (\chi^2/d.o.f. = 19.0/18). The seasonal variation of the flux is consistent with that expected from the eccentricity of the Earth's orbit (\chi^2/d.o.f. = 3.7/7). For the hep neutrino flux, we set a 90% C.L. upper limit of 40 *10^3cm^{-2}s^{-1}, which is 4.3 times the BP2000 SSM prediction.Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, submitted to PRL (part of this paper

Constraints on Neutrino Oscillations Using 1258 Days of Super-Kamiokande Solar Neutrino Data

We report the result of a search for neutrino oscillations using precise measurements of the recoil electron energy spectrum and zenith angle variations of the solar neutrino flux from 1258 days of neutrino-electron scattering data in Super-Kamiokande. The absence of significant zenith angle variation and spectrum distortion places strong constraints on neutrino mixing and mass difference in a flux-independent way. Using the Super-Kamiokande flux measurement in addition, two allowed regions at large mixing are found.Comment: 6 pages, 4 figures, submitted to PR

Constraints from Solar and Reactor Neutrinos on Unparticle Long-Range Forces

We have investigated the impact of long-range forces induced by unparticle operators of scalar, vector and tensor nature coupled to fermions in the interpretation of solar neutrinos and KamLAND data. If the unparticle couplings to the neutrinos are mildly non-universal, such long-range forces will not factorize out in the neutrino flavour evolution. As a consequence large deviations from the observed standard matter-induced oscillation pattern for solar neutrinos would be generated. In this case, severe limits can be set on the infrared fix point scale, Lambda_u, and the new physics scale, M, as a function of the ultraviolet (d_UV) and anomalous (d) dimension of the unparticle operator. For a scalar unparticle, for instance, assuming the non-universality of the lepton couplings to unparticles to be of the order of a few per mil we find that, for d_UV=3 and d=1.1, M is constrained to be M > O(10^9) TeV (M > O(10^10) TeV) if Lambda_u= 1 TeV (10 TeV). For given values of Lambda_u and d, the corresponding bounds on M for vector [tensor] unparticles are approximately 100 [3/Sqrt(Lambda_u/TeV)] times those for the scalar case. Conversely, these results can be translated into severe constraints on universality violation of the fermion couplings to unparticle operators with scales which can be accessible at future colliders.Comment: 13 pages, 3 figures. Minor changes due to precision in numerical factors and correction in figure labels. References added. Conclusions remain unchange

Repressing Anarchy in Neutrino Mass Textures

The recent results that $\theta_{13}$ is relatively large, of the order of the previous upper bound, and the indications of a sizable deviation of $\theta_{23}$ from the maximal value are in agreement with the predictions of Anarchy in the lepton sector. The quark and charged lepton hierarchies can then be reproduced in a SU(5) GUT context by attributing non-vanishing $U(1)_{FN}$ charges, different for each family, only to the SU(5) tenplet states. The fact that the observed mass hierarchies are stronger for up quarks than for down quarks and charged leptons supports this idea. As discussed in the past, in the flexible context of $SU(5)\otimes U(1)_{FN}$, different patterns of charges can be adopted going from Anarchy to various types of hierarchy. We revisit this approach by also considering new models and we compare all versions to the present data. As a result we confirm that, by relaxing the extreme ansatz of equal $U(1)_{FN}$ charges for all SU(5) pentaplets and singlets, better agreement with the data than for Anarchy is obtained without increasing the model complexity. We also present the distributions obtained in the different models for the Dirac CP-violating phase. Finally we discuss the relative merits of these simple models.Comment: v1: 12 pages, 3 figures; v2: 13 pages, 3 figures, text improved, matches version accepted for publication; v3: submitted to add an acknowledgment to a networ