Minkowski space structure of the Higgs potential in 2HDM: II. Minima, symmetries, and topology

We continue to explore the consequences of the recently discovered Minkowski space structure of the Higgs potential in the two-Higgs-doublet model. Here, we focus on the vacuum properties. The search for extrema of the Higgs potential is reformulated in terms of 3-quadrics in the 3+1-dimensional Minkowski space. We prove that 2HDM cannot have more than two local minima in the orbit space and that a twice-degenerate minimum can arise only via spontaneous violation of a discrete symmetry of the Higgs potential. Investigating topology of the 3-quadrics, we give concise criteria for existence of non-contractible paths in the Higgs orbit space. We also study explicit symmetries of the Higgs potential/lagrangian and their spontaneous violation from a wider perspective than usual.Comment: 27 pages, 5 figure

Tunable diffusion of magnetic particles in a quasi-one-dimensional channel

The diffusion of a system of ferromagnetic dipoles confined in a quasi-one-dimensional parabolic trap is studied using Brownian dynamics simulations. We show that the dynamics of the system is tunable by an in-plane external homogeneous magnetic field. For a strong applied magnetic field, we find that the mobility of the system, the exponent of diffusion and the crossover time among different diffusion regimes can be tuned by the orientation of the magnetic field. For weak magnetic fields, the exponent of diffusion in the subdiffusive regime is independent of the orientation of the external field.Comment: 9 pages, 13 figures, to appear in Phys. Rev. E (2013

Structure of potentials with NN Higgs doublets

Extensions of the Standard Model with $N$ Higgs doublets are simple extensions presenting a rich mathematical structure. An underlying Minkowski structure emerges from the study of both variable space and parameter space. The former can be completely parametrized in terms of two future lightlike Minkowski vectors with spatial parts forming an angle whose cosine is $-(N-1)^{-1}$. For the parameter space, the Minkowski parametrization enables one to impose sufficient conditions for bounded below potentials, characterize certain classes of local minima and distinguish charge breaking vacua from neutral vacua. A particular class of neutral minima presents a degenerate mass spectrum for the physical charged Higgs bosons.Comment: 11 pages. Revtex4. Typos corrected. Few comments adde

Probing wrong-sign Yukawa couplings at the LHC and a future linear collider

We consider the two-Higgs-doublet model as a framework in which to evaluate the viability of scenarios in which the sign of the coupling of the observed Higgs boson to down-type fermions (in particular, $b$-quark pairs) is opposite to that of the Standard Model (SM), while at the same time all other tree-level couplings are close to the SM values. We show that, whereas such a scenario is consistent with current LHC observations, both future running at the LHC and a future $e^+ e^-$ linear collider could determine the sign of the Higgs coupling to $b$-quark pairs. Discrimination is possible for two reasons. First, the interference between the $b$-quark and the $t$-quark loop contributions to the $ggh$ coupling changes sign. Second, the charged-Higgs loop contribution to the $\gamma \gamma h$ coupling is large and fairly constant up to the largest charged-Higgs mass allowed by tree-level unitarity bounds when the $b$-quark Yukawa coupling has the opposite sign from that of the SM (the change in sign of the interference terms between the $b$-quark loop and the $W$ and $t$ loops having negligible impact).Comment: 28 pages, 21 figure

Effects of a CPT-even and Lorentz-violating nonminimal coupling on the electron-positron scattering

We propose a new \emph{CPT}-even and Lorentz-violating nonminimal coupling between fermions and Abelian gauge fields involving the CPT-even tensor $(K_{F})_{\mu\nu\alpha\beta}$ of the standard model extension. We thus investigate its effects on the cross section of the electron-positron scattering by analyzing the process $e^{+}+e^{-}\rightarrow\mu^{+}+\mu^{-}$. Such a study was performed for the parity-odd and parity-even nonbirefringent components of the Lorentz-violating $(K_{F})_{\mu\nu\alpha\beta}$ tensor. Finally, by using experimental data available in the literature, we have imposed upper bounds as tight as $10^{-12}(eV)^{-1}$ on the magnitude of the CPT-even and Lorentz-violating parameters while nonminimally coupled.Comment: LaTeX2e, 06 pages, 01 figure

Hysteresis and re-entrant melting of a self-organized system of classical particles confined in a parabolic trap

A self-organized system composed of classical particles confined in a two-dimensional parabolic trap and interacting through a potential with a short-range attractive part and long-range repulsive part is studied as function of temperature. The influence of the competition between the short-range attractive part of the inter-particle potential and its long-range repulsive part on the melting temperature is studied. Different behaviors of the melting temperature are found depending on the screening length ($\kappa$) and the strength ($B$) of the attractive part of the inter-particle potential. A re-entrant behavior and a thermal induced phase transition is observed in a small region of ($\kappa,B$)-space. A structural hysteresis effect is observed as a function of temperature and physically understood as due to the presence of a potential barrier between different configurations of the system.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

Radiative generation of the CPT-even gauge term of the SME from a dimension-five nonminimal coupling term

In this letter we show for the first time that the usual CPT-even gauge term of the standard model extension (SME) can be radiatively generated, in a gauge invariant level, in the context of a modified QED endowed with a dimension-five nonminimal coupling term recently proposed in the literature. As a consequence, the existing upper bounds on the coefficients of the tensor $(K_{F})$ can be used improve the bounds on the magnitude of the nonminimal coupling, $\lambda(K_{F}),$ by the factors $10^{5}$ or $10^{25}.$ The nonminimal coupling also generates higher-order derivative contributions to the gauge field effective action quadratic terms.Comment: Revtex style, two columns, 6 pages, revised final version to be published in the Physics Letters B (2013