Detection of the neutral MSSM Higgs bosons in the intense-coupling regime at the LHC

We analyse the prospects to detect at the LHC the neutral Higgs particles of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, when the masses of the two CP-even $h,H$ and of the CP-odd $A$ boson are close to one another, and the value of \tb is large. In this "intense-coupling regime", the Higgs bosons have strongly enhanced couplings to isospin down-type fermions and large total decay widths, so that the $\gamma \gamma, WW^*$ and $ZZ^*$ decay modes of the three Higgs bosons are strongly suppressed. We advocate the use of the decays into muon pairs, $h,H,A \to \mu^+ \mu^-$, to resolve the three Higgs boson peaks: although the branching ratios are small, ${\cal O}(10^{4})$, the resolution on muons is good enough to allow for their detection, if the mass splitting is large enough. Using an event generator analysis and a fast detector simulation, we show that only the process $pp \to b\bar{b} \mu^+ \mu^-$, when at least one of the $b$-quarks is detected, is viable.Comment: 12 pages, latex, 6 figure

Supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories with local coupling: The supersymmetric gauge

Supersymmetric pure Yang-Mills theory is formulated with a local, i.e. space-time dependent, complex coupling in superspace. Super-Yang-Mills theories with local coupling have an anomaly, which has been first investigated in the Wess-Zumino gauge and there identified as an anomaly of supersymmetry. In a manifest supersymmetric formulation the anomaly appears in two other identities: The first one describes the non-renormalization of the topological term, the second relates the renormalization of the gauge coupling to the renormalization of the complex supercoupling. Only one of the two identities can be maintained in perturbation theory. We discuss the two versions and derive the respective beta function of the local supercoupling, which is non-holomorphic in the first version, but directly related to the coupling renormalization, and holomorphic in the second version, but has a non-trivial, i.e.anomalous, relation to the beta function of the gauge coupling.Comment: References correcte

Gluino Polarization at the LHC

Gluinos are produced pairwise at the LHC in quark-antiquark and gluon-gluon collisions: $qqbar,gg \to \tilde{g} \tilde{g}$. While the individual polarization of gluinos vanishes in the limit in which the small mass difference between L and R squarks of the first two generations is neglected, non-zero spin-spin correlations are predicted within gluino pairs. If the squark/quark charges in Majorana gluino decays are tagged, the spin correlations have an impact on the energy and angular distributions in reconstructed final states. On the other hand, the gluino polarization in single gluino production in the supersymmetric Compton process $g q \to \tilde{g} \tilde{q}_{R,L}$ is predicted to be non-zero, and the polarization affects the final-state distributions in super-Compton events.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figure

Cabozantinib in hepatocellular carcinoma: results of a phase 2 placebo-controlled randomized discontinuation study.

BackgroundCabozantinib, an orally bioavailable inhibitor of tyrosine kinases including MET, AXL, and VEGF receptors, was assessed in patients with hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) as part of a phase 2 randomized discontinuation trial with nine tumor-type cohorts.Patients and methodsEligible patients had Child-Pugh A liver function and ≤1 prior systemic anticancer regimen, completed ≥4 weeks before study entry. The cabozantinib starting dose was 100 mg daily. After an initial 12-week cabozantinib treatment period, patients with stable disease (SD) per Response Evaluation Criteria in Solid Tumors (RECIST) version 1.0 were randomized to cabozantinib or placebo. The primary endpoint of the lead-in stage was objective response rate (ORR) at week 12, and the primary endpoint of the randomized stage was progression-free survival (PFS).ResultsAmong the 41 HCC patients enrolled, the week 12 ORR was 5%, with 2 patients achieving a confirmed partial response (PR). The week 12 disease control rate (PR or SD) was 66% (Asian subgroup: 73%). Of patients with ≥1 post-baseline scan, 78% had tumor regression, with no apparent relationship to prior sorafenib therapy. Alpha-fetoprotein (AFP) response (>50% reduction from baseline) occurred in 9 of the 26 (35%) patients with elevated baseline AFP and ≥1 post-baseline measurement. Twenty-two patients with SD at week 12 were randomized. Median PFS after randomization was 2.5 months with cabozantinib and 1.4 months with placebo, although this difference was not statistically significant. Median PFS and overall survival from Day 1 in all patients were 5.2 and 11.5 months, respectively. The most common grade 3/4 adverse events, regardless of attribution, were diarrhea (20%), hand-foot syndrome (15%), and thrombocytopenia (15%). Dose reductions were utilized in 59% of patients.ConclusionsCabozantinib has clinical activity in HCC patients, including objective tumor responses, disease stabilization, and reductions in AFP. Adverse events were managed with dose reductions.Trial registration numberNCT00940225

Reversible and permanent effects of tobacco smoke exposure on airway epithelial gene expression

Oligonucleotide microarray analysis revealed 175 genes that are differentially expressed in large airway epithelial cells of people who currently smoke compared with those who never smoked, with 28 classified as irreversible, 6 as slowly reversible, and 139 as rapidly reversible

Neutral Higgs-Boson Pair Production at Hadron Colliders: QCD Corrections

Neutral Higgs-boson pair production provides the possibility of studying the trilinear Higgs couplings at future high-energy colliders. We present the QCD corrections to the gluon-initiated processes in the limit of a heavy top quark in the loops and the Drell-Yan-like pair production of scalar and pseudoscalar Higgs particles. The pp cross sections are discussed for LHC energies within the Standard Model and its minimal supersymmetric extension. The QCD corrections are large, enhancing the total cross sections significantly.Comment: 26 pages, latex, 9 ps figure

Next-to-leading order jet distributions for Higgs boson production via weak-boson fusion

The weak-boson fusion process is expected to provide crucial information on Higgs boson couplings at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The achievable statistical accuracy demands comparison with next-to-leading order QCD calculations, which are presented here in the form of a fully flexible parton Monte Carlo program. QCD corrections are determined for jet distributions and are shown to be modest, of order 5 to 10% in most cases, but reaching 30% occasionally. Remaining scale uncertainties range from order 5% or less for distributions to below +-2% for the Higgs boson cross section in typical weak-boson fusion search regions.Comment: 19 pages, 8 figure