Supersymmetric Unification at the Millenium

We argue that the discovery of neutrino mass effects at Super-Kamiokande implies a clear logical chain leading from the Standard Model, through the MSSM and the recently developed Minimal Left Right Supersymmetric models with a renormalizable see-saw mechanism for neutrino mass, to Left Right symmetric SUSY GUTS : in particular, SO(10) and $SU(2)_L \times SU(2)_R\times SU(4)_c$. The progress in constructing such GUTS explicitly is reviewed and their testability/falsifiability by lepton flavour violation and proton decay measurements emphasized. Susy violations of the survival principle and the interplay between third generation Yukawa coupling unification and the structurally stable IR attractive features of the RG flow in SUSY GUTS are also discussed .Comment: Plenary Talk at WHEPP-6, Chennai, India, Jan. 3-15, 2000. ReVTeX. 9 pages. Two pairs of figures as separate postscript fil

Rational Design of Pore Size and Functionality in a Series of Isoreticular Zwitterionic Metal-Organic Frameworks

The isoreticular expansion and functionalization of charged-polarized porosity has been systematically explored by the rational design of 11 isostructural zwitterionic metal-organic frameworks (ZW-MOFs). This extended series of general structural composition {[M3F(L1)3(L2)1.5]·guests}n was prepared by employing the solvothermal reaction of Co and Ni tetrafluoroborates with a binary ligand system composed of zwitterionic pyridinium derivatives and traditional functionalized ditopic carboxylate auxiliary ligands (HL1·Cl = 1-(4-carboxyphenyl)-4,4′-bipyridinium chloride, Hcpb·Cl; or 1-(4-carboxyphenyl-3-hydroxyphenyl)-4,4′-bipyridinium chloride, Hchpb·Cl; and H2L2 = benzene-1,4-dicarboxylic acid, H2bdc; 2-aminobenzene-1,4-dicarboxylic acid, H2abdc; 2,5-dihydroxy-1,4-benzenedicarboxylic acid, H2dhbdc; biphenyl-4,4′-dicarboxylic acid, H2bpdc; or stilbene-4,4′-dicarboxylic acid, H2sdc). Single-crystal structure analyses revealed cubic crystal symmetry (I-43m, a = 31-36 Å) with a 3D pore system of significant void space (73-81%). The pore system features three types of pores being systematically tunable in size ranging from 17.4 to 18.8 Å (pore I), 8.2 to 12.8 Å (pore II), and 4.8 to 10.4 Å (pore III) by the choice of auxiliary ligands. All members of this series have noninterpenetrating structures and exhibit robust architectures, as evidenced by their permanent porosity and high thermal stability (up to 300 °C). The structural integrity and specific surface areas could be systematically optimized using supercritical CO2 exchange methods for framework activation resulting in BET surface areas ranging from 1250 to 2250 m2/g. Most interestingly, as a structural landmark, we found the pore surfaces lined with charge gradients employed by the pyridinium ligands. This key feature results in significant adsorption of carbon dioxide and methane which is attributed to polarization effects. With this contribution we pioneer the reticulation of pyridinium building blocks into extended zwitterionic networks in which specific properties can be targeted

Influence of plant residues on denitrification rates in conventional and zero tilled soils, The

Includes bibliographical references (page 794).A field study was conducted with treatments consisting of a factorial combination of N (0 or 100 kg N ha−1 as (NH4)2SO4, straw (0 or 3000 kg ha−1), and two tillage treatments. Ground straw was mixed with the plow layer of soil in the conventional till (CT) plots and chopped straw was spread over the surface of the zero till (ZT) plots. Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) was grown as the test crop. Gaseous losses of N were measured using the acetylene inhibition-soil core technique and compared with loss estimates obtained from the imbalance in the N budget of 15N-treated microplots located within the larger yield plots. When adequate inorganic N was present, the incorporation of straw in CT soil or the application of straw on the surface of ZT soil approximately doubled the accumulative gaseous N losses. The straw apparently increased the supply of energy material available to denitrifying organisms, and also increased surface soil moisture content (particularly during the month of June). This further stimulated denitrification in ZT soil. Unaccounted 15N on the fertilizer N balance studies agreed closely with cumulative N losses using the acetylene inhibition technique

Gaseous nitrogen losses from cropped and summer-fallowed soils

Includes bibliographical references (pages 195-196).A study designed to assess gaseous losses of N as N2O and N2 from soils of conventional till fields seeded to wheat in the Chernozemic soil region of Saskatchewan, together with limited supporting laboratory investigations, has confirmed that for the May-November period losses were in the vicinity of 3 kg N∙ha−1 or less. In contrast, total losses from a summer-fallowed field were approximately 300% higher. Comparisons at one site were made of N losses from a conventionally tilled and zero-tilled Dark Brown Chernozemic soil seeded to wheat; the total losses of N were twice as high for the zero till as the conventional till treatments. The N2O fluxes were shown to be the result of both reductive (denitrification) and oxidative (nitrification) processes and generally, under the conditions of these field experiments, both occurred simultaneously. This experiment also confirmed that C2H2 inhibited nitrification in a manner very similar to N-serve, a well-known nitrification inhibitor

A renormalizable SO(10) GUT scenario with spontaneous CP violation

We consider fermion masses and mixings in a renormalizable SUSY SO(10) GUT with Yukawa couplings of scalar fields in the representation 10 + 120 + 126 bar. We investigate a scenario defined by the following assumptions: i) A single large scale in the theory, the GUT scale. ii) Small neutrino masses generated by the type I seesaw mechanism with negligible type II contributions. iii) A suitable form of spontaneous CP breaking which induces hermitian mass matrices for all fermion mass terms of the Dirac type. Our assumptions define an 18-parameter scenario for the fermion mass matrices for 18 experimentally known observables. Performing a numerical analysis, we find excellent fits to all observables in the case of both the normal and inverted neutrino mass spectrum.Comment: 16 pages, two eps figure

Minimal SUSY SO(10) model and predictions for neutrino mixings and leptonic CP violation

We discuss a minimal Supersymmetric SO(10) model where B-L symmetry is broken by a {\bf 126} dimensional Higgs multiplet which also contributes to fermion masses in conjunction with a {\bf 10} dimensional superfield. This minimal Higgs choice provides a partial unification of neutrino flavor structure with that of quarks and has been shown to predict all three neutrino mixing angles and the solar mass splitting in agreement with observations, provided one uses the type II seesaw formula for neutrino masses. In this paper we generalize this analysis to include arbitrary CP phases in couplings and vevs. We find that (i) the predictions for neutrino mixings are similar with $U_{e3}\simeq 0.18$ as before and other parameters in a somewhat bigger range and (ii) that to first order in the quark mixing parameter $\lambda$ (the Cabibbo angle), the leptonic mixing matrix is CP conserving. We also find that in the absence of any higher dimensional contributions to fermion masses, the CKM phase is different from that of the standard model implying that there must be new contributions to quark CP violation from the supersymmetry breaking sector. Inclusion of higher dimensional terms however allows the standard model CKM phase to be maintained.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figure

Baryogenesis with Scalar Bilinears

We show that if a baryon asymmetry of the universe is generated through the out-of-equilibrium decays of heavy scalar bilinears coupling to two fermions of the minimal standard model, it is necessarily an asymmetry conserving $(B-L)$ which cannot survive past the electroweak phase transition because of sphalerons. We then show that a surviving $(B-L)$ asymmetry may be generated if the heavy scalars decay into two fermions, \underline {and into two light scalars} (which may be detectable at hadron colliders). We list all possible such trilinear scalar interactions, and discuss how our new baryogenesis scenario may occur naturally in supersymmetric grand unified theories.Comment: LATEX, 14 pages, one figure include

High scale perturbative gauge coupling in R-parity conserving SUSY SO(10) with longer proton lifetime

It is well known that in single step breaking of R-parity conserving SUSY SO(10) that needs the Higgs representations $126+\bar 126$ the GUT-gauge coupling violates the perturbative constraint at mass scales few times larger than the GUT scale. Therefore, if the SO(10) gauge coupling is to remain perturbative up the Planck scale(=2x10^{18} GeV), the scale $M_U$ of GUT symmetry breaking is to be bounded from below. The bound depends upon specific Higgs representations used for SO(10) symmetry breaking but, as we find, can not be lower than $1.5x10^{17}$ GeV. In order to obtain such high unification scale we propose a two-step SO(10) breaking through $SU(2)_LXSU(2)_RXU(1)_{B-L}XSU(3)_C(g_{2L} \neq g_{2R})$ intermediate gauge symmetry. We estimate potential threshold and gravitational corrections to the running of gauge couplings and show that they can make the picture of perturbative GUT- gauge coupling running consistent at least up to the Planck scale. We also show that when $SO(10) \to G_{2213}$ by $210 + 54$, gravitational corrections alone with negligible threshold effects may guarantee such perturbative gauge coupling. The lifetime of the proton is found to increase by nearly 6 orders over the current experimental limit for $p \to e^+\pi^0$. For the proton decay mediated by dim.5 operator a wide range of lifetimes is possible extending from the current experimental limit up to values 2-3 orders longer.Comment: 11 pages epjc LaTex as per specifications of European Physical Journal

Cohomological BRST aspects of the massless tensor field with the mixed symmetry (k,k)

The main BRST cohomological properties of a free, massless tensor field that transforms in an irreducible representation of GL(D,R), corresponding to a rectangular, two-column Young diagram with k>2 rows are studied in detail. In particular, it is shown that any non-trivial co-cycle from the local BRST cohomology group H(s|d) can be taken to stop either at antighost number (k+1) or k, its last component belonging to the cohomology of the exterior longitudinal derivative H(gamma) and containing non-trivial elements from the (invariant) characteristic cohomology H^{inv}(delta|d).Comment: Latex, 50 pages, uses amssym

Supersymmetric Unification in the Light of Neutrino Mass

We argue that with the discovery of neutrino mass effects at Super-Kamiokande there is a clear logical chain leading from the Standard Model through the MSSM and the recently developed Minimal Left Right Supersymmetric models with a renormalizable see-saw mechanism for neutrino mass to Left Right symmetric SUSY GUTS : in particular, SO(10) and $SU(2)_L \times SU(2)_R\times SU(4)_c$. The progress in constructing such GUTS explicitly is reviewed and their testability/falsifiability by proton decay measurements emphasized.Comment: 16 pages, REVTEX. Invited talk presented at XIII DAE Symposium on High Energy Physics, Chandigarh, December 199