CP-violating Supersymmetric Higgs at the Tevatron and LHC

We analyze the prospect for observing the intermediate neutral Higgs boson ($h_2$) in its decay to two lighter Higgs bosons ($h_1$) at the presently operating hadron colliders in the framework of the CP violating MSSM using the PYTHIA event generator. We consider the lepton+ 4-jets+ \met channel from associate $W h_2$ production, with W h_2 \ra W h_1 h_1 \ra \ell \nu_\ell b \bar b b\bar b. We require two, three or four tagged $b$-jets. We explicitly consider all relevant Standard Model backgrounds, treating $c$-jets separately from light flavor and gluon jets and allowing for mistagging. We find that it is very hard to observe this signature at the Tevatron, even with 20 fb$^{-1}$ of data, in the LEP--allowed region of parameter space due to the small signal efficiency, even though the background is manageable. At the LHC, a priori huge SM backgrounds can be suppressed by applying judiciously chosen kinematical selections. After all cuts, we are left with a signal cross section of around 0.5 fb, and a signal to background ratio between 1.2 and 2.9. According to our analysis this Higgs signal should be viable at the LHC in the vicinity of present LEP exclusion once 20 to 50 fb$^{-1}$ of data have been accumulated at $\sqrt{s}=14$ TeV.Comment: 27 pages, 12 figure

Mitigation of the LHC Inverse Problem

The LHC inverse problem refers to the difficulties in determining the parameters of an underlying theory from data (to be) taken by the LHC experiments: if they find signals of new physics, and an underlying theory is assumed, could its parameters be determined uniquely, or do different parameter choices give indistinguishable experimental signatures? This inverse problem was studied before for a supersymmetric Standard Model with 15 free parameters. This earlier study found 283 indistinguishable pairs of parameter choices, called degenerate pairs, even if backgrounds are ignored. We can resolve all but 23 of those pairs by constructing a true \chi^2 distribution using mostly counting observables. The elimination of systematic errors would even allow separating the residual degeneracies. Taking the Standard Model background into account we still can resolve 237 of the 283 "degenerate" pairs. This indicates that (some of) our observables should also be useful for the purpose of determining the values of SUSY parameters.Comment: 32 pages, 13 figures, typo in (3.6) corrected, version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Direct and Indirect Detection of Neutralino Dark Matter and Collider Signatures in an SO(10)SO(10) Model with Two Intermediate Scales

We investigate the detectability of neutralino Dark Matter via direct and indirect searches as well as collider signatures of an $SO(10)$ model with two intermediate scales. We compare the direct Dark Matter detection cross section and the muon flux due to neutralino annihilation in the Sun that we obtain in this model with mSUGRA predictions and with the sensitivity of current and future experiments. In both cases, we find that the detectability improves as the model deviates more from mSUGRA. In order to study collider signatures, we choose two benchmark points that represent the main phenomenological features of the model: a lower value of $|\mu|$ and reduced third generation sfermion masses due to extra Yukawa coupling contributions in the Renormalization Group Equations, and increased first and second generation slepton masses due to new gaugino loop contributions. We show that measurements at the LHC can distinguish this model from mSUGRA in both cases, by counting events containing leptonically decaying $Z^0$ bosons, heavy neutral Higgs bosons, or like--sign lepton pairs.Comment: 21 pages, 16 figure

Weighing the universe with accelerators and detectors

Suppose the lightest superpartner (LSP) is observed at colliders, and WIMPs are detected in explicit experiments. We point out that one cannot immediately conclude that cold dark matter (CDM) of the universe has been observed, and we determine what measurements are necessary before such a conclusion is meaningful. We discuss the analogous situation for neutrinos and axions; in the axion case we have not found a way to conclude axions are the CDM even if axions are detected.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures; minor changes included and typos fixe

Determining the Mass of Dark Matter Particles with Direct Detection Experiments

In this article I review two data analysis methods for determining the mass (and eventually the spin-independent cross section on nucleons) of Weakly Interacting Massive Particles with positive signals from direct Dark Matter detection experiments: a maximum likelihood analysis with only one experiment and a model-independent method requiring at least two experiments. Uncertainties and caveats of these methods will also be discussed.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, 1 reference added, typos fixed, published version, to appear in the NJP Focus Issue on "Dark Matter and Particle Physics

Inference on the tail process with application to financial time series modelling

To draw inference on serial extremal dependence within heavy-tailed Markov chains, Drees, Segers and Warcho{\l} [Extremes (2015) 18, 369--402] proposed nonparametric estimators of the spectral tail process. The methodology can be extended to the more general setting of a stationary, regularly varying time series. The large-sample distribution of the estimators is derived via empirical process theory for cluster functionals. The finite-sample performance of these estimators is evaluated via Monte Carlo simulations. Moreover, two different bootstrap schemes are employed which yield confidence intervals for the pre-asymptotic spectral tail process: the stationary bootstrap and the multiplier block bootstrap. The estimators are applied to stock price data to study the persistence of positive and negative shocks.Comment: 22 page

SUSY darkmatter at the LHC - 7 TeV

We have analysed the early LHC signatures of the minimal supergravity (mSUGRA) model. Our emphasis is on the 7 - $TeV$ run corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $\sim 1.0 ~fb^{-1}$ although we have also discussed briefly the prospects at LHC-10 $TeV$. We focus on the parameter space yielding relatively light squark and gluinos consistent with the darkmatter relic density data and the LEP bounds on the lightest Higgs scalar mass. This parameter space is only allowed for non-vanishing trilinear soft breaking term $A_0$. A significant region of the parameter space with large to moderate negative values of $A_0$ consistent with the stability of the scalar potential and relic density production via neutralino annihilation and/or neutralino - stau coannihilation yields observable signal via the jets + missing transverse energy channel. The one lepton + jets + missing energy signal is also viable over a smaller but non-trivial parameter space. The ratio of the size of the two signals - free from theoretical uncertainties - may distinguish between different relic density generating mechanisms. With efficient $\tau$-tagging facilities at 7 $TeV$ the discriminating power may increase significantly. We also comment on other dark matter relic density allowed mSUGRA scenarios and variants there of in the context of LHC-7 $TeV$.Comment: Brief comments on signals at 7 TeV in the Higgs funnel region of mSUGRA, models with non universal scalar and gaugino masses have been added. Accepted for publication in PR

Light Stop Searches at the LHC with Monojet Events

We consider light top squarks (stops) in the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model at the Large Hadron Collider. Here, we assume that the lightest neutralino is the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) and the lighter stop is the next-to-LSP. Stop pair production is difficult to probe at the Large Hadron Collider for small stop-LSP mass splitting. It has been shown previously that even in this case stop detection is possible if one considers stop pair production in association with one hard jet. We reconsider this supersymmetric monojet signature and go beyond previous works by including the full Standard Model background and optimizing the cuts, working at the hadron level and including detector effects. As a result, a larger portion of the stop-LSP mass plane becomes accessible to monojet searches.Comment: 12 page

Aspects of Two-Photon Physics at Linear e+e- Colliders

We discuss various reactions at future e+e- and gamma-gamma colliders involving real (beamstrahlung or backscattered laser) or quasi--real (bremsstrahlung) photons in the initial state and hadrons in the final state. The production of two central jets with large pT is described in some detail; we give distributions for the rapidity and pT of the jets as well as the di--jet invariant mass, and discuss the relative importance of various initial state configurations and the uncertainties in our predictions. We also present results for `mono--jet' production where one jet goes down a beam pipe, for the production of charm, bottom and top quarks, and for single production of W and Z bosons. Where appropriate, the two--photon processes are compared with annihilation reactions leading to similar final states. We also argue that the behaviour of the total inelastic gamma-gamma cross section at high energies will probably have little impact on the severity of background problems caused by soft and semi--hard (`minijet') two--photon reactions. We find very large differences in cross sections for all two--photon processes between existing designs for future e+e- colliders, due to the different beamstrahlung spectra; in particular, both designs with >1 events per bunch crossing exist.Comment: 51 pages, 13 figures(not included