1,642 research outputs found
Implementing peer support in higher education: A feasibility study
Background:
When experiencing mental distress, many university students seek support from their peers. In schools and mental health services, formalised peer support interventions have demonstrated some success but implementation challenges have been reported. This study aimed to assess the feasibility, acceptability and safety of a novel manualized peer support intervention and associated data collection processes.
Methods:
A longitudinal mixed methods study was conducted following the pilot of a peer support intervention at a large London university between June 2021 and May 2022. The study utilised data routinely recorded on all students who booked a peer support session, focus groups with nine peer workers and five staff members implementing the intervention, pre-post intervention surveys with 13 students and qualitative interviews with 10 of those students.
Results:
169 bookings were made during the pilot, of which 130 (77%) were attended, with November the peak month. Staff and peer workers described strong motivation and commitment to implement the intervention, noting that the peer support model and peer worker role addressed previously unmet needs at the university. However, students described implementation problems relating to the coherence of the intervention and the burden of participation. While students mostly described acceptable experiences, there were examples where acceptability was lower. No adverse events were reported during the pilot.
Conclusion:
The training and supervision of peer workers, and the provision of one-to-one peer support to students was found to be feasible, mostly acceptable, and safe. However, sustained implementation difficulties were observed. These pose challenges to the scalability of peer support in universities. We make recommendations to improve implementation of peer support including improving reach, greater clarity about the intervention, and fuller involvement of students throughout
Lorentz Violation in Warped Extra Dimensions
Higher dimensional theories which address some of the problematic issues of
the Standard Model(SM) naturally involve some form of -dimensional
Lorentz invariance violation (LIV). In such models the fundamental physics
which leads to, e.g., field localization, orbifolding, the existence of brane
terms and the compactification process all can introduce LIV in the higher
dimensional theory while still preserving 4-d Lorentz invariance. In this
paper, attempting to capture some of this physics, we extend our previous
analysis of LIV in 5-d UED-type models to those with 5-d warped extra
dimensions. To be specific, we employ the 5-d analog of the SM Extension of
Kostelecky et. al. ~which incorporates a complete set of operators arising from
spontaneous LIV. We show that while the response of the bulk scalar, fermion
and gauge fields to the addition of LIV operators in warped models is
qualitatively similar to what happens in the flat 5-d UED case, the gravity
sector of these models reacts very differently than in flat space.
Specifically, we show that LIV in this warped case leads to a non-zero bulk
mass for the 5-d graviton and so the would-be zero mode, which we identify as
the usual 4-d graviton, must necessarily become massive. The origin of this
mass term is the simultaneous existence of the constant non-zero
curvature and the loss of general co-ordinate invariance via LIV in the 5-d
theory. Thus warped 5-d models with LIV in the gravity sector are not
phenomenologically viable.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figs; discussion added, algebra repaire
Higgs friends and counterfeits at hadron colliders
We consider the possibility of "Higgs counterfeits" - scalars that can be
produced with cross sections comparable to the SM Higgs, and which decay with
identical relative observable branching ratios, but which are nonetheless not
responsible for electroweak symmetry breaking. We also consider a related
scenario involving "Higgs friends," fields similarly produced through gg fusion
processes, which would be discovered through diboson channels WW, ZZ, gamma
gamma, or even gamma Z, potentially with larger cross sections times branching
ratios than for the Higgs. The discovery of either a Higgs friend or a Higgs
counterfeit, rather than directly pointing towards the origin of the weak
scale, would indicate the presence of new colored fields necessary for the
sizable production cross section (and possibly new colorless but electroweakly
charged states as well, in the case of the diboson decays of a Higgs friend).
These particles could easily be confused for an ordinary Higgs, perhaps with an
additional generation to explain the different cross section, and we emphasize
the importance of vector boson fusion as a channel to distinguish a Higgs
counterfeit from a true Higgs. Such fields would naturally be expected in
scenarios with "effective Z's," where heavy states charged under the SM produce
effective charges for SM fields under a new gauge force. We discuss the
prospects for discovery of Higgs counterfeits, Higgs friends, and associated
charged fields at the LHC.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figures. References added and typos fixe
Neutralino dark matter in mSUGRA/CMSSM with a 125 GeV light Higgs scalar
The minimal supergravity (mSUGRA or CMSSM) model is an oft-used framework for
exhibiting the properties of neutralino (WIMP) cold dark matter (CDM). However,
the recent evidence from Atlas and CMS on a light Higgs scalar with mass
m_h\simeq 125 GeV highly constrains the superparticle mass spectrum, which in
turn constrains the neutralino annihilation mechanisms in the early universe.
We find that stau and stop co-annihilation mechanisms -- already highly
stressed by the latest Atlas/CMS results on SUSY searches -- are nearly
eliminated if indeed the light Higgs scalar has mass m_h\simeq 125 GeV.
Furthermore, neutralino annihilation via the A-resonance is essentially ruled
out in mSUGRA so that it is exceedingly difficult to generate
thermally-produced neutralino-only dark matter at the measured abundance. The
remaining possibility lies in the focus-point region which now moves out to
m_0\sim 10-20 TeV range due to the required large trilinear soft SUSY breaking
term A_0. The remaining HB/FP region is more fine-tuned than before owing to
the typically large top squark masses. We present updated direct and indirect
detection rates for neutralino dark matter, and show that ton scale noble
liquid detectors will either discover mixed higgsino CDM or essentially rule
out thermally-produced neutralino-only CDM in the mSUGRA model.Comment: 17 pages including 9 .eps figure
Supersymmetric Monojets at the Large Hadron Collider
Supersymmetric monojets may be produced at the Large Hadron Collider by the
process qg -> squark neutralino_1 -> q neutralino_1 neutralino_1, leading to a
jet recoiling against missing transverse momentum. We discuss the feasibility
and utility of the supersymmetric monojet signal. In particular, we examine the
possible precision with which one can ascertain the neutralino_1-squark-quark
coupling via the rate for monojet events. Such a coupling contains information
on the composition of the neutralino_1 and helps bound dark matter direct
detection cross-sections and the dark matter relic density of the neutralino_1.
It also provides a check of the supersymmetric relation between gauge couplings
and gaugino-quark-squark couplings.Comment: 46 pages, 10 figures. The appendix has been rewritten to correct an
error that appears in all previous versions of the appendix. This error has
no effect on the results in the main body of the pape
Revealing the electroweak properties of a new scalar resonance
One or more new heavy resonances may be discovered in experiments at the CERN
Large Hadron Collider. In order to determine if such a resonance is the
long-awaited Higgs boson, it is essential to pin down its spin, CP, and
electroweak quantum numbers. Here we describe how to determine what role a
newly-discovered neutral CP-even scalar plays in electroweak symmetry breaking,
by measuring its relative decay rates into pairs of electroweak vector bosons:
WW, ZZ, \gamma\gamma, and Z\gamma. With the data-driven assumption that
electroweak symmetry breaking respects a remnant custodial symmetry, we perform
a general analysis with operators up to dimension five. Remarkably, only three
pure cases and one nontrivial mixed case need to be disambiguated, which can
always be done if all four decay modes to electroweak vector bosons can be
observed or constrained. We exhibit interesting special cases of Higgs
look-alikes with nonstandard decay patterns, including a very suppressed
branching to WW or very enhanced branchings to \gamma\gamma and Z\gamma. Even
if two vector boson branching fractions conform to Standard Model expectations
for a Higgs doublet, measurements of the other two decay modes could unmask a
Higgs imposter.Comment: 23 pages, two figures; v2: minor revision and version to appear in
JHE
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Finite top quark mass effects in NNLO Higgs boson production at LHC
We present next-to-next-to-leading order corrections to the inclusive
production of the Higgs bosons at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC)
including finite top quark mass effects. Expanding our analytic results for the
partonic cross section around the soft limit we find agreement with a very
recent publication by Harlander and Ozeren \cite{Harlander:2009mq}.Comment: 15 page
Production of scalar and pseudo-scalar Higgs bosons to next-to-next-to-leading order at hadron colliders
We consider the production of intermediate-mass CP-even and CP-odd Higgs
bosons in proton-proton and proton-anti-proton collisions. We extend the
recently published results for the complete next-to-next-to-leading order
calculation for a scalar Higgs boson to the pseudo-scalar case and present
details of the calculation that might be useful for similar future
investigations. The result is based on an expansion in the limit of a heavy top
quark mass and a subsequent matching to the expression obtained in the limit of
infinite energy. For a Higgs boson mass of 120 GeV the deviation from the
infinite-top quark mass result is small. For 300 GeV, however, the
next-to-next-to-leading order corrections for a scalar Higgs boson exceed the
effective-theory result by about 9% which increases to 22% in the pseudo-scalar
case. Thus in this mass range the effect on the total cross section amounts to
about 2% and 6%, respectively, which may be relevant in future precision
studies.Comment: 29 page
Antenna subtraction for gluon scattering at NNLO
We use the antenna subtraction method to isolate the double real radiation
infrared singularities present in gluonic scattering amplitudes at
next-to-next-to-leading order. The antenna subtraction framework has been
successfully applied to the calculation of NNLO corrections to the 3-jet cross
section and related event shape distributions in electron-positron
annihilation. Here we consider processes with two coloured particles in the
initial state, and in particular two-jet production at hadron colliders such as
the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We construct a subtraction term that describes
the single and double unresolved contributions from the six-gluon tree-level
process using antenna functions with initial state partons and show numerically
that the subtraction term correctly approximates the matrix elements in the
various single and double unresolved configurations.Comment: 71 pages, JHEP3 class; corrected typos, equivalent but more compact
version of eq. (5.12), results unchange
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