Signals of Two Universal Extra Dimensions at the LHC

Extensions of the standard model with universal extra dimensions are interesting both as phenomenological templates as well as model-building fertile ground. For instance, they are one the prototypes for theories exhibiting compressed spectra, leading to difficult searches at the LHC since the decay products of new states are soft and immersed in a large standard model background. Here we study the phenomenology at the LHC of theories with two universal extra dimensions. We obtain the current bound by using the production of second level excitations of electroweak gauge bosons decaying to a pair of leptons and study the reach of the LHC Run~II in this channel. We also introduce a new channel originating in higher dimensional operators and resulting in the single production of a second level quark excitation. Its subsequent decay into a hard jet and lepton pair resonance would allow the identification of a more model-specific process, unlike the more generic vector resonance signal. We show that the sensitivity of this channel to the compactification scale is very similar to the one obtained using the vector resonance.Comment: 11 pages and 6 figure

Scalars from Top-condensation Models at Hadron Colliders

We study the production and decay of neutral scalars and pseudo-scalars at hadron colliders, in theories where the top-quark mass is the result of a $t\bar t$ condensate. We show that the dominant decay channel for masses below the $t\bar t$ threshold is the flavor changing mode $tc$. This is a consequence of the non-universal nature of the underlying interactions in all top-condensation models and provides a model-independent signature of these scenarios. We show that an upgraded Tevatron is sensitive to a sizeable region of the interesting parameter space and that the LHC will highly constrain these models through this flavor violating channel.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures. Minor changes in figures for readibility. final version to appear in PR

Kaluza-Klein masses of bulk fields with general boundary conditions in AdS5_5

Recently bulk Randall-Sundrum theories with the gauge group $SU(2)_L \times SU(2)_R \times U(1)_{B-L}$ have drawn a lot of interest as an alternative to electroweak symmetry breaking mechanism. These models are in better agreement with electroweak precision data since custodial isospin symmetry on the IR brane is protected by the extended bulk gauge symmetry. We comprehensively study, in the S^1/\ZZ orbifold, the bulk gauge and fermion fields with the general boundary conditions as well as the bulk and localized mass terms. Master equations to determine the Kaluza-Klein (KK) mass spectra are derived without any approximation, which is an important basic step for various phenomenologies at high energy colliders. The correspondence between orbifold boundary conditions and localized mass terms is demonstrated not only in the gauge sector but also in the fermion sector. As the localized mass increases, the first KK fermion mass is shown to decrease while the first KK gauge boson mass to increase. The degree of gauge coupling universality violation is computed to be small in most parameter space, and its correlation with the mass difference between the top quark and light quark KK mode is also studied.Comment: 25 pages with 10 figures, Final version accepted by PR

Top quark associated production of topcolor pions at hadron colliders

We investigate the associated production of a neutral physical pion with top quarks in the context of topcolor assisted technicolor. We find that single-top associated production does not yield viable rates at either the Tevatron or LHC. tt-associated production at the Tevatron is suppressed relative to Standard Model ttH, but at the LHC is strongly enhanced and would allow for easy observation of the main decay channels to bottom quarks, and possible observation of the decay to gluons.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figures, submitted to PR

Radiative corrections to the lightest KK states in the T^2/(Z_2\times Z_2') orbifold

We study radiative corrections localized in the fixed points of the orbifold for the field theory in six dimensions with two dimensions compactified on the $T_2/(Z_2\times Z_2')$ orbifold in a specific realistic model for low energy physics that solves the proton decay and neutrino mass problem. We calculate corrections to the masses of the lightest stable KK modes, which could be the candidates for the dark matter.Comment: 14 pages, 2 figure

The Little Hierarchy in Universal Extra Dimensions

In the standard model in universal extra dimensions (UED) the mass of the Higgs field is driven to the cutoff of the higher-dimensional theory. This re-introduces a small hierarchy since the compactification scale 1/R should not be smaller than the weak scale. In this paper we study possible solutions to this problem by considering five-dimensional theories where the Higgs field potential vanishes at tree level due to a global symmetry. We consider two avenues: a Little Higgs model and a Twin Higgs model. An obstacle for the embedding of these four-dimensional models in five dimensions is that their logarithmic sensitivity to the cutoff will result in linear divergences in the higher dimensional theory. We show that, despite the increased cutoff sensitivity of higher dimensional theories, it is possible to control the Higgs mass in these two scenarios. For the Little Higgs model studied, the phenomenology will be significantly different from the case of the standard model in UED. This is due to the fact that the compactification scale approximately coincides with the scale where the masses of the new states appear. For the case of the Twin Higgs model, the compactification scale may be considerably lower than the scale where the new states appear. If it is as low as allowed by current limits, it would be possible to experimentally observe the standard model Kaluza-Klein states as well as a new heavy quark. On the other hand, if the compactification scale is higher, then the phenomenology at colliders would coincide with the one for the standard model in UED.Comment: 25 pages, 2 figure

Radiative Leptonic BcB_c Decays

We analyze the radiative leptonic $B_c$ decay mode: $B_c \to \ell \nu \gamma$ ($\ell=e, \mu$) using a QCD-inspired constituent quark model. The prediction: ${\cal B}(B_c \to \ell \nu \gamma)\simeq 3 \times 10^{-5}$ makes this channel experimentally promising in view of the large number of $B_c$ mesons which are expected to be produced at the future hadron facilities.Comment: LaTex, 12 pages, 2 figures. A discussion on gauge invariance added. Numerical results update

D−DˉD-\bar{D} mixing constraints on FCNC with a non-universal Z′Z^\prime

The BaBar and Belle collaborations have recently reported evidence for $D^0-\bar D^0$ mixing. This measurement provides the first significant constraint on FCNC in the up-quark sector for non-universal $Z^\prime$ models. Attributing the observed $D-\bar D$ mixing to new physics, we comment on the resulting rare $D$ and $t$ decays. We also show that a CP violating semileptonic asymmetry as large as $\sim 30$ is allowed by the experimental results.Comment: RevTex, 10 pages, 1 figure. Several typoes correcte