A Need for a Paradigm Shift in the Spanish Banking Sector? The Evolution from Regional to Multinational Banks in Spain.

Since the approval of Spain¿s 2012 National Budget on March 30, 2012, some doubts and controversies have added up to many fears in the private sector regarding the measures and stimuli that the Spanish government was going to undertake. At the same time, this situation was in some measure aggravated by the financial backlog of many small and medium companies, which are and will continue, in the following years to be completely unable to comply with their financial requirements. In line with Boronat Ombuena¿s (2009a, 2009b, 2010, 2012) requirements in his new approach to finance and private sector liaisons, the purpose of this paper is to analyze the recent years of the credit sector in Spain as well as its direct and mid-term effects that its mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have contributed up to date, and will still produce in the near future. We will take a closer look at the evolution of the banking sector in Spain from 1995 to 2012 through a historically-based methodology, compiling and synthesizing the existing financial and risk market information and analyzing its evolution. We shall observe that in a single year, the total number of savings banks in Spain decreased from 45 to only 15 entities and that the risks the financial system took over these last few years were not equally distributed across the entities, resulting in an advanced foreclosure of the regional savings banks and in a market-share growth for the commercial banking entities. This process has resulted in creating larger entities and, in some cases, a vacuum of regional and local credit entities that in the mid-long term will eventually end up in a representative loss on credit availability. These circumstances call into question the need for a paradigm change and most importantly, new approaches to solve the new challenges that can result in the financial fluidity of the system and the eventual recovery of the economic structure

Limitations of the heavy-baryon expansion as revealed by a pion-mass dispersion relation

The chiral expansion of nucleon properties such as mass, magnetic moment, and magnetic polarizability are investigated in the framework of chiral perturbation theory, with and without the heavy-baryon expansion. The analysis makes use of a pion-mass dispersion relation, which is shown to hold in both frameworks. The dispersion relation allows an ultraviolet cutoff to be implemented without compromising the symmetries. After renormalization, the leading-order heavy-baryon loops demonstrate a stronger dependence on the cutoff scale, which results in weakened convergence of the expansion. This conclusion is tested against the recent results of lattice quantum chromodynamics simulations for nucleon mass and isovector magnetic moment. In the case of the polarizability, the situation is even more dramatic as the heavy-baryon expansion is unable to reproduce large soft contributions to this quantity. Clearly, the heavy-baryon expansion is not suitable for every quantity.Comment: Accepted for publication in EPJ C. Made changes based on referee comments: clarifying sentences to conclusion 1. of Section IV, beginning of Section V, and new footnote in Section VI, page 8. Added more detailed explanation in paragraph 4 of Section III. Added citations of Phys.Rev. D60, 034014, and Phys.Lett. B716, 33

A Geometry of the Generations

We propose a geometric theory of flavor based on the discrete group $(S_3)^3$, in the context of the minimal supersymmetric standard model. The group treats three objects symmetrically, while making fundamental distinctions between the generations. The top quark is the only heavy quark in the symmetry limit, and the first and second generation squarks are degenerate. The hierarchical nature of Yukawa matrices is a consequence of a sequential breaking of $(S_3)^3$.Comment: 10 pages, 1 EPS figure as uuencoded tar-compressed file, uses psfig.st

Flavor at the TeV Scale with Extra Dimensions

Theories where the Standard Model fields reside on a 3-brane, with a low fundamental cut-off and extra dimensions, provide alternative solutions to the gauge hierarchy problem. However, generating flavor at the TeV scale while avoiding flavor-changing difficulties appears prohibitively difficult at first sight. We argue to the contrary that this picture allows us to lower flavor physics close to the TeV scale. Small Yukawa couplings are generated by ``shining'' badly broken flavor symmetries from distant branes, and flavor and CP-violating processes are adequately suppressed by these symmetries. We further show how the extra dimensions avoid four dimensional disasters associated with light fields charged under flavor. We construct elegant and realistic theories of flavor based on the maximal U(3)^5 flavor symmetry which naturally generate the simultaneous hierarchy of masses and mixing angles. Finally, we introduce a new framework for predictive theories of flavor, where our 3-brane is embedded within highly symmetrical configurations of higher-dimensional branes.Comment: 40 pages, 8 figure

A general formula of the effective potential in 5D SU(N) gauge theory on orbifold

We show a general formula of the one loop effective potential of the 5D SU(N) gauge theory compactified on an orbifold, $S^1/Z_2$. The formula shows the case when there are fundamental, (anti-)symmetric tensor and adjoint representational bulk fields. Our calculation method is also applicable when there are bulk fields belonging to higher dimensional representations. The supersymmetric version of the effective potential with Scherk-Schwarz breaking can be obtained straightforwardly. We also show some examples of effective potentials in SU(3), SU(5) and SU(6) models with various boundary conditions, which are reproduced by our general formula.Comment: 22 pages;minor corrections;references added;typos correcte

Model Building with Gauge-Yukawa Unification

In supersymmetric theories with extra dimensions, the Higgs and matter fields can be part of the gauge multiplet, so that the Yukawa interactions can arise from the gauge interactions. This leads to the possibility of gauge-Yukawa coupling unification, g_i=y_f, in the effective four dimensional theory after the initial gauge symmetry and the supersymmetry are broken upon orbifold compactification. We consider gauge-Yukawa unified models based on a variety of four dimensional symmetries, including SO(10), SU(5), Pati-Salam symmetry, trinification, and the Standard Model. Only in the case of Pati-Salam and the Standard Model symmetry, we do obtain gauge-Yukawa unification. Partial gauge-Yukawa unification is also briefly discussed.Comment: 23 page

Search for Solar Axions Produced in the p+d→3He+Ap + d \rightarrow\rm{^3He}+ A Reaction

A search for the axioelectric absorption of 5.5-MeV solar axions produced in the $p+d\rightarrow \rm{^3He}+\gamma(5.5 \rm{MeV})$ reaction was performed with two BGO detectors placed inside a low-background setup. A model independent limit on axion-photon and axion-nucleon couplings was obtained: $|g_{Ae}\times g_{AN}| \leq 3.2\times 10^{-9} (m_A=0)$. Constraints on the axion-electron coupling constant were obtained for axions with masses in the $(0.1-1.0)$ MeV range: $g_{Ae}\leq (1.8-9.0)\times 10^{-7}$. The solar positron flux from $A\rightarrow e^-+e^+$ decay was determined for axions with masses $m_A > 2m_e$. Using the existing experimental data on the interplanetary positron flux, a new constraint on the axion-electron coupling constant for axions with masses in the $(1.2-5.4)$ MeV range was obtained: $g_{Ae} \leq (1-5)\times 10^{-17}$.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figure