The Astronomical Orientation of Ancient Greek Temples

Despite its appearing to be a simple question to answer, there has been no consensus as to whether or not the alignments of ancient Greek temples reflect astronomical intentions. Here I present the results of a survey of archaic and classical Greek temples in Sicily and compare them with temples in Greece. Using a binomial test I show strong evidence that there is a preference for solar orientations. I then speculate that differences in alignment patterns between Sicily and Greece reflect differing pressures in the expression of ethnic identity

The NANOG transcription factor induces type 2 deiodinase expression and regulates the intracellular activation of thyroid hormone in keratinocyte carcinomas

Type 2 deiodinase (D2), the principal activator of thyroid hormone (TH) signaling in target tissues, is expressed in cutaneous squamous cell carcinomas (SCCs) during late tumorigenesis, and its repression attenuates the invasiveness and metastatic spread of SCC. Although D2 plays multiple roles in cancer progression, nothing is known about the mechanisms regulating D2 in cancer. To address this issue, we investigated putative upstream regulators of D2 in keratinocyte carcinomas. We found that the expression of D2 in SCC cells is positively regulated by the NANOG transcription factor, whose expression, besides being causally linked to embryonic stemness, is associated with many human cancers. We also found that NANOG binds to the D2 promoter and enhances D2 transcription. Notably, blockage of D2 activity reduced NANOG-induced cell migration as well as the expression of key genes involved in epithelial–mesenchymal transition in SCC cells. In conclusion, our study reveals a link among endogenous endocrine regulators of cancer, thyroid hormone and its activating enzyme, and the NANOG regulator of cancer biology. These findings could provide the basis for the development of TH inhibitors as context-dependent anti-tumor agents

Three-loop \beta-functions for top-Yukawa and the Higgs self-interaction in the Standard Model

We analytically compute the dominant contributions to the \beta-functions for the top-Yukawa coupling, the strong coupling and the Higgs self-coupling as well as the anomalous dimensions of the scalar, gluon and quark fields in the unbroken phase of the Standard Model at three-loop level. These are mainly the QCD and top-Yukawa corrections. The contributions from the Higgs self-interaction which are negligible for the running of the top-Yukawa and the strong coupling but important for the running of the Higgs self-coupling are also evaluated.Comment: 22 pages, 7 figures. Few extra citations are added; the plots are improved. Results in computer readable form can be retrieved from http://www-ttp.particle.uni-karlsruhe.de/Progdata/ttp12/ttp12-012

Anarchy and Leptogenesis

We study if leptogenesis works successfully together with the neutrino mass anarchy hypothesis. We find that the predicted neutrino mass spectrum is sensitive to the reheating temperature or the inflaton mass, while the distributions of the neutrino mixing angles and CP violation phases remain intact as determined by the invariant Haar measure of U(3). In the case of thermal leptogenesis, the light neutrino mass distribution agrees well with the observations if the reheating temperature is O(10^{9-11}) GeV. The mass spectrum of the right-handed neutrinos and the neutrino Yukawa matrix exhibit a certain pattern, as a result of the competition between random matrices with elements of order unity and the wash-out effect. Non-thermal leptogenesis is consistent with observation only if the inflaton mass is larger than or comparable to the typical right-handed neutrino mass scale. Cosmological implications are discussed in connection with the 125GeV Higgs boson mass.Comment: 29 pages, 6 figures. v2: figures and references added. v3: published in JHE

Higgs Interference Effects in \Pg \Pg \to \PZ\PZ and their Uncertainty

Interference between the Standard Model Higgs boson and continuum contributions is considered in the heavy-mass scenario. Results are available at leading order for the background. It is discussed how to combine the result with the next-to-next-to-leading order Higgs production cross-section and a proposal for estimating the associated theoretical uncertainty is presented.Comment: 25 pages, 10 figures; improved numerical accuracy, Numerics updated, conclusions unchanged, references added. v

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