Experiments and Simulations of short-pulse laser-pumped extreme ultraviolet lasers

Recent experimental work on the development of extreme ultraviolet lasers undertaken using as the pumping source the VULCAN laser at the Rutherford Appleton Laboratory is compared to detailed simulations. It is shown that short duration (similar topicosecond) pumping can produce X-ray laser pulses of a few picosecond duration and that measurement of the emission from the plasma can give an estimate of the duration of the gain coefficient. The Ehybrid fluid and atomic physics code developed at the University of York is used to simulate X-ray laser gain and plasma emission. Two postprocessors to the Ehybrid code are utilized: 1) to raytrace the X-ray laser beam amplification and refraction and 2) to calculate the radiation emission in the kiloelectronvolt photon energy range. The raytracing and spectral simulations are compared, respectively, to measured X-ray laser output and the output of two diagnostics recording transverse X-ray emission. The pumping laser energy absorbed in the plasma is examined by comparing the simulations to experimental results. It is shown that at high pumping irradiance (>10(15) Wcm(-2)), fast electrons are produced by parametric processes in the preformed long scale-length plasmas. These fast electrons do not pump the population inversion and so pumping efficiency is reduced at high irradiance

Flavour-Conserving CP Phases in Supersymmetry and Implications for Exclusive B Decays

We study rare exclusive B decays based on the quark-level transition b->s(d)l^+l^-, where l=e or mu, in the context of supersymmetric theories with minimal flavour violation. We present analytic expressions for various mixing matrices in the presence of new CP-violating phases, and examine their impact on observables involving B and \bar{B} decays. An estimate is obtained for CP-violating asymmetries in B->K^(*)l^+l^- and B->rho(pi)l^+l^- decays for the dilepton invariant mass region 1.2 GeV < M_{l^+l^-}< M_{J/psi}. As a typical result, we find a CP-violating partial width asymmetry of about -6% (-5%) in the case of B->pi (B->rho) in effective supersymmetry with phases of O(1), taking into account the measurement of the inclusive b->s gamma branching fraction. On the other hand, CP asymmetries of less than 1% are predicted in the case of B->K^(*). We argue that it is not sufficient to have additional CP phases of O(1) to observe large CP-violating effects in exclusive b->s(d)l^+l^- decays.Comment: 34 pages, REVTeX, 6 figures, final version to appear in Phys. Rev. D, with some minor addition

Higgs for Graviton: Simple and Elegant Solution

A Higgs mechanism for gravity is presented, where four scalars with global Lorentz symmetry are employed. We show that in the broken symmetry phase a graviton absorbs all scalars and become massive spin 2 particle with five degrees of freedom. The resulting theory is unitary and free of ghosts.Comment: 8 pages, References added. The decoupling of ghost state is analyzed in detail

Minimal Flavour Violation: an effective field theory approach

We present a general analysis of extensions of the Standard Model which satisfy the criterion of Minimal Flavour Violation (MFV). We define this general framework by constructing a low-energy effective theory containing the Standard Model fields, with one or two Higgs doublets and, as the only source of SU(3)^5 flavour symmetry breaking, the background values of fields transforming under the flavour group as the ordinary Yukawa couplings. We analyse present bounds on the effective scale of dimension-six operators, which range between 1 and 10 TeV, with the most stringent constraints imposed by B -> X_s gamma. In this class of theories, it is possible to relate predictions for FCNC processes in B physics to those in K physics. We compare the sensitivity of various experimental searches in probing the hypothesis of MFV. Within the two-Higgs-doublet scenario, we develop a general procedure to obtain all tan(beta)-enhanced Higgs-mediated FCNC amplitudes, discussing in particular their impact in B -> l^+l^-, Delta M_B and B -> X_s gamma. As a byproduct, we derive some two-loop tan(beta)-enhanced supersymmetric contributions to B -> X_s gamma previously unknown.Comment: 32 pages, 6 figures. Version 2: new section discussing MFV in supersymmetric models added; updated experimental data; few minor change

Assessment of proportion of hidden patients having symptoms of overactive bladder and why has it been hidden in female outpatients admitted to hospital

Purpose: To determine the proportion of patients with undetected symptoms of overactive bladder by using the overactive bladder-validated 8 (OAB-V8) screening questionnaire and investigate these symptoms were undetected in female patients who were hospitalized. Methods: We invited 2,250 female patients hospitalized in the Aegean region of Turkey to answer a self-administered questionnaire. The questionnaire included questions on evidence of lower urinary tract symptoms (OAB-V8), relevant medical history, and demographic data. Patients with a total OAB-V8 score ≥ 8 were defined as having OAB symptoms. Results: The proportion of patients with OAB symptoms in this study was 40.6%. Nearly 57% of the patients with OAB symptoms had not been previously admitted to any hospital for lower urinary tract symptoms (LUTS). The two most common reasons why women with OAB symptoms did not admit themselves to a hospital because of LUTS were as follows: "I did not think I had a disease" and "The symptoms did not bother me," with a response rate of 74.7%. The mean OAB-V8 scores of the patients with these two responses were significantly lower than those of the other patients (P < 0.001). Conclusions: This is the first study to demonstrate a significant proportion of women with undetected OAB symptoms. The main reasons the women did not admit themselves to a hospital were their unawareness of the disease and because the LUTS were not bothersome. Public awareness programs on this disease may resolve this problem. © 2016 Korean Continence Society

B -> X_s gamma in Supersymmetry with Explicit CP Violation

We discuss B -> X_s gamma decay in both constrained and unconstrained supersymmetric models with explicit CP violation within the minimal flavor violation scheme by including tan(beta) -enhanced large contributions beyond the leading order. In this analysis, we take into account the relevant cosmological and collider bounds, as well as electric dipole moment constraints. In the unconstrained model, there are portions of the parameter space yielding a large CP asymmetry at leading order (LO). In these regions, we find that the CP phases satisfy certain sum rules, e.g., the sum of the phases of the \mu parameter and the stop trilinear coupling centralize around \pi with a width determined by the experimental bounds. In addition, at large values of tan(beta), the sign of the CP asymmetry tracks the sign of the gluino mass, and the CP asymmetry is significantly larger than the LO prediction. In the constrained minimal supersymmetric standard model based on minimal supergravity, we find that the decay rate is sensitive to the phase of the universal trilinear coupling. This sensitivity decreases at large values of the universal gauino mass. We also show that for a given set of the mass parameters, there exists a threshold value of the phase of the universal trilinear coupling which grows with tan(beta) and beyond which the experimental bounds are satisfied. In both supersymmetric scenarios, the allowed ranges of the CP phases are wide enough to have phenomenological consequences.Comment: 25 pages, 11 figures. Added references, made minor changes in the text; journal versio

B decays and Supersymmetry

I discuss how supersymmetry affects various observables in B decays, and point out the interesting channels in the context of B factories.Comment: LaTex file of working group talk presented at WHEPP-7, HRI, Allahabad, Jan. 200

Loop-Induced CP Violation in the Gaugino and Higgsino Sectors of Supersymmetric Theories

We show that the gaugino and higgsino sectors of supersymmetric theories can naturally acquire observable CP violation through radiative effects which originate from large CP-violating trilinear couplings of the Higgs bosons to the third-generation scalar quarks. These CP-violating loop effects are not attainable by evolving the supersymmetric renormalization-group equations from a higher unification scale down to the electroweak one. We briefly discuss the phenomenological consequences of such a scenario, and as an example, calculate the two-loop contribution to the neutron electric dipole moment generated by the one-loop chromo-electric dipole moment of the gluino.Comment: 9 pages, as to appear in Physical Review

MSSM Higgs-Boson Production at Hadron Colliders with Explicit CP Violation

Gluon fusion is the main production mechanism for Higgs bosons with masses up to several hundred GeV in $pp$ collisions at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. We investigate the effects of the CP-violating phases on the fusion process including both the sfermion-loop contributions and the one-loop induced CP-violating scalar-pseudoscalar mixing in the minimal supersymmetric standard model. With a universal trilinear parameter assumed, every physical observable involves only the sum of the phases of the universal trilinear parameter $A$ and the higgsino mass parameter $\mu$. The phase affects the lightest Higgs-boson production rate significantly through the neutral Higgs-boson mixing and, for the masses around the lightest stop-pair threshold, it also changes the production rate of the heavy Higgs bosons significantly through both the stop and sbottom loops and the neutral Higgs-boson mixing.Comment: 28 pages, 8 figures. Some references and comments added. Typos corrected. To appear in Phys. Rev.

Lepton polarization asymmetry in radiative dileptonic B-meson decays in MSSM

In this paper we study the polarization asymmetries of the final state lepton in the radiative dileptonic decay of B meson (\bsllg) in the framework of Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) and various other unified models within the framework of MSSM e.g. mSUGRA, SUGRA (where condition of universality of scalar masses is relaxed) etc. Lepton polarization, in addition of having a longitudinal component (\pl), can have two other components, \pt and \pn, lying in and perpendicular to the decay plane, which are proportional to \ml and hence are significant for final state being $\mu^+ ~ \mu^-$ or $\tau^+ \~\tau^-$. We analyse the dependence of these polarization asymmetries on the parameters of the various models.Comment: typos corrected to match with published versio