The minimal fermionic model of electroweak baryogenesis

We present the minimal model of electroweak baryogenesis induced by fermions. The model consists of an extension of the Standard Model with one electroweak singlet fermion and one pair of vector like doublet fermions with renormalizable couplings to the Higgs. A strong first order phase transition is radiatively induced by the singlet-doublet fermions, while the origin of the baryon asymmetry is due to asymmetric reflection of the same set of fermions on the expanding electroweak bubble wall. The singlet-doublet fermions are stabilized at the electroweak scale by chiral symmetries and the Higgs potential is stabilized by threshold corrections coming from a multi-TeV ultraviolet completion which does not play any significant role in the phase transition. We work in terms of background symmetry invariants and perform an analytic semiclassical calculation of the baryon asymmetry, showing that the model may effectively generate the observed baryon asymmetry for percent level values of the unique invariant CP violating phase of the singlet-doublet sector. We include a detailed study of electron electric dipole moment and electroweak precision limits, and for one typical benchmark scenario we also recast existing collider constraints, showing that the model is consistent with all current experimental data. We point out that fermion induced electroweak baryogenesis has irreducible phenomenology at the $13 \, \textrm{TeV}$ LHC since the new fermions must be at the electroweak scale, have electroweak quantum numbers and couple strongly with the Higgs. The most promising searches involve topologies with multiple leptons and missing energy in the final state.Comment: 30 + 10 pages, 6 figure

Charged Fermions Below 100 GeV

How light can a fermion be if it has unit electric charge? We revisit the lore that LEP robustly excludes charged fermions lighter than about 100 GeV. We review LEP chargino searches, and find them to exclude charged fermions lighter than 90 GeV, assuming a higgsino-like cross section. However, if the charged fermion couples to a new scalar, destructive interference among production channels can lower the LEP cross section by a factor of 3. In this case, we find that charged fermions as light as 75 GeV can evade LEP bounds, while remaining consistent with constraints from the LHC. As the LHC collects more data, charged fermions in the 75-100 GeV mass range serve as a target for future monojet and disappearing track searches.Comment: 35 pages, 11 figures, 2 table

125 GeV Higgs from Tree-Level AA-terms

We present a new mechanism to generate large $A$-terms at tree-level in the MSSM through the use of superpotential operators. The mechanism trivially resolves the $A/m^2$ problem which plagues models with conventional, loop-induced $A$-terms. We study both MFV and non-MFV models; in the former, naturalness motivates us to construct a UV completion using Seiberg duality. Finally, we study the phenomenology of these models when they are coupled to minimal gauge mediation. We find that after imposing the Higgs mass constraint, they are largely out of reach of LHC Run I, but they will be probed at Run II. Their fine tuning is basically the minimum possible in the MSSM.Comment: 24 pages, 6 figure

Quantification of total fetal brain volume using 3D MR imaging data acquired in utero.

Objective: Interpretation of magnetic resonance (MR) imaging of the fetal brain in utero is primarily undertaken using 2D images to provide anatomical information about structural abnormalities. It is now possible to obtain 3D image acquisitions that allow measurement of fetal brain volumes that are potentially useful clinically. The aim of our current work is to provide reference values of total brain volumes obtained from a cohort of low risk fetuses with no abnormalities on ante-natal ultrasonography and in utero MR imaging. Method: Images from volume MR acquisitions of 132 fetuses were used to extract brain volumes by manual segmentation. Reproducibility and reliability were assessed by analysis of the results of two subgroups who had repeated measurements made by the primary and a secondary observer. Results: Intra-observer and inter-observer agreement was high with no statistically significant differences between and within observers (p = 0.476 and p = 0.427, respectively). The results of the brain volume assessments are presented graphically with mean and 95% prediction limits alongside estimates of normal growth rates. Conclusion: We have shown that fetal brain volumes can be reliably extracted from in utero MR (iuMR) imaging 3D datasets with a high degree of reproducibility. The resultant data could potentially be used as a reference tool in the clinical setting