Trying to understand the Standard Model parameters

We stress the importance of the circa 20 parameters in the Standard Model, which are not fixed by the model but only determined experimentally, as a window to the physics beyond the Standard Model. However, it is a tiny window in as far as these numbers contain only the information corresponding to about one line of text. Looking for a method to study these coupling and mass parameters, we put forward the idea of the Multiple Point Principle as a first step. This principle states that Nature adjusts the coupling and mass parameters so as to make many different vacuum states exist and have approximately the same energy densities (cosmological constants). As an illustrative application, we put up the proposal that a small increase (maybe only an infinitesimal one) in the value of the top quark coupling constant could lead to a new vacuum phase; in this new phase the binding of a bound state of 6 top quarks and 6 anti-top quarks becomes so strong as to become a tachyon and condense in the vacuum. Assuming the existence of a third degenerate vacuum at the fundamental energy scale, we present a solution to the hierarchy problem of why the ratio of the fundamental scale to the electroweak scale is so large. We also present a 5 parameter fit to the orders of magnitude of the quark-lepton masses and mixing angles in the Family Replicated Gauge Group Model. In this model, the Standard Model gauge group and a gauged B-L (baryon number minus lepton number) is extended to one set of gauge fields for each family of fermions.Comment: Institute address corrected and one reference adde

Crypto-baryonic Dark Matter

It is proposed that dark matter could consist of compressed collections of atoms (or metallic matter) encapsulated into, for example, 20 cm big pieces of a different phase. The idea is based on the assumption that there exists at least one other phase of the vacuum degenerate with the usual one. Apart from the degeneracy of the phases we only assume Standard Model physics. The other phase has a Higgs VEV appreciably smaller than in the usual electroweak vacuum. The balls making up the dark matter are very difficult to observe directly, but inside dense stars may expand eating up the star and cause huge explosions (gamma ray bursts). The ratio of dark matter to ordinary baryonic matter is expressed as a ratio of nuclear binding energies and predicted to be about 5.Comment: 9 pages. Published version with shorter abstract and new referenc

Public Involvement in research within care homes: Benefits and challenges in the APPROACH Study

Public involvement in research (PIR) can improve research design and recruitment. Less is known about how PIR enhances the experience of participation and enriches the data collection process. In a study to evaluate how UK care homes and primary health care services achieve integrated working to promote older people’s health, PIR was integrated throughout the research processes. Objectives This paper aims to present one way in which PIR has been integrated into the design and delivery of a multi-site research study based in care homes. Design A prospective case study design, with an embedded qualitative evaluation of PIR activity. Setting and Participants Data collection was undertaken in six care homes in three sites in England. Six PIR members participated: all had prior personal or work experience in care homes. Data Collection Qualitative data collection involved discussion groups, and site-specific meetings to review experiences of participation, benefits and challenges, and completion of structured fieldwork notes after each care home visit. Results PIR members supported: recruitment, resident and staff interviews and participated in data interpretation. Benefits of PIR work were resident engagement that minimised distress and made best use of limited research resources. Challenges concerned communication and scheduling. Researcher support for PIR involvement was resource intensive. Discussion and Conclusions Clearly defined roles with identified training and support facilitated involvement in different aspectsPublic Involvement in Research members of the research team: Gail Capstick, Marion Cowie, Derek Hope, Rita Hewitt, Alex Mendoza, John Willmott. Also the involvement of Steven Iliffe and Heather Gag

Re-identification of c. 15 700 cal yr BP tephra bed at Kaipo Bog, eastern North Island: implications for dispersal of Rotorua and Puketarata tephra beds.

A 10 mm thick, c. 15 700 calendar yr BP (c. 13 100 14C yr BP) rhyolitic tephra bed in the well-studied montane Kaipo Bog sequence of eastern North Island was previously correlated with Maroa-derived Puketarata Tephra. We revise this correlation to Okataina-derived Rotorua Tephra based on new compositional data from biotite phenocrysts and glass. The new correlation limits the known dispersal of Puketarata Tephra (sensu stricto, c. 16 800 cal yr BP) and eliminates requirements to either reassess its age or to invoke dual Puketarata eruptive events. Our data show that Rotorua Tephra comprises two glass-shard types: an early-erupted low-K2O type that was dispersed mostly to the northwest, and a high-K2O type dispersed mostly to the south and southeast, contemporary with late-stage lava extrusion. Late-stage Rotorua eruptives contain biotite that is enriched in FeO compared with biotite from Puketarata pyroclastics. The occurrence of Rotorua Tephra in Kaipo Bog (100 km from the source) substantially extends its known distribution to the southeast. Our analyses demonstrate that unrecognised syn-eruption compositional and dispersal changes can cause errors in fingerprinting tephra deposits. However, the compositional complexity, once recognised, provides additional fingerprinting criteria, and also documents magmatic and dispersal processes

On the smallness of the cosmological constant

In N=1supergravity the scalar potential of the hidden sector may have degenerate supersymmetric (SUSY) and non-supersymmetric Minkowski vacua. In this case local SUSY in the second supersymmetric Minkowski phase can be broken dynamically. Assuming that such a second phase and the phase associated with the physical vacuum are exactly degenerate, we estimate the value of the cosmological constant. We argue that the observed value of the dark energy density can be reproduced if in the second vacuum local SUSY breaking is induced by gaugino condensation at a scale which is just slightly lower than ΛQCD in the physical vacuum. The presence of a third degenerate vacuum, in which local SUSY and electroweak (EW) symmetry are broken near the Planck scale, may lead to small values of the quartic Higgs self-coupling and the corresponding beta function at the Planck scale in the phase in which we live.C. D. Froggatt, R. Nevzorov, H. B. Nielsen, A. W. Thoma

New Bound States of Heavy Quarks at LHC and Tevatron

The present paper is based on the assumption that heavy quarks bound states exist in the Standard Model (SM). Considering New Bound States (NBS) of top-anti-top quarks (named T-balls) we have shown that: 1) there exists the scalar 1S--bound state of $6t+6\bar t$; 2) the forces which bind the top-quarks are very strong and almost completely compensate the mass of the twelve top-anti-top-quarks in the scalar NBS; 3) such strong forces are produced by the Higgs-top-quarks interaction with a large value of the top-quark Yukawa coupling constant $g_t\simeq 1$. Theory also predicts the existence of the NBS $6t + 5\bar t$, which is a color triplet and a fermion similar to the $t'$-quark of the fourth generation. We have also considered the "b-quark-replaced" NBS, estimated the masses of the lightest fermionic NBS: $M_{NBS}\gtrsim 300$ GeV, and discussed the larger masses of T-balls. We have developed a theory of the scalar T-ball's condensate and predicted the existence of three SM phases. Searching for heavy quark bound states at the Tevatron and LHC is discussed. We have constructed the possible form-factors of T-balls, and estimated the charge multiplicity coming from the T-ball's decays.Comment: 25 pages 12 figure

New Species, Subgenus and Records of Bactrocera Macquart from the South Pacific (Diptera: Tephritidae: Dacinae)

ABSTRACT Bactrocera (Bulladacus) subgen.nov. is described to include nine species of Asian and Pacific Dacinae. B. (Afrodacus) grandistylus sp.nov., B. (Bulladacus) gnetum sp.nov. and B. (Notodacus) paraxanthodes sp.nov. are described and illustrated, the latter being closely related to B. xanthodes (Broun), an economic species with which it has been confused. B. (Bactrocera) passiflorae (Froggatt) and B. (Bulladacus) aenigmatica (Malloch) are revised and a new colour form of the former illustrated, while the male of the latter is described and illustrated for the first time