IS (Low Energy) SUSY STILL ALIVE?

Supersymmetry, a new symmetry that relates bosons and fermions in particle physics, still escapes observation. Search for supersymmetry is one of the main aims of the Large Hadron Collider. The other possible manifestation of supersymmetry is the Dark Matter in the Universe. The present lectures contain a brief introduction to supersymmetry in particle physics. The main notions of supersymmetry are introduced. The supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model -- the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model -- is considered in more detail. Phenomenological features of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model as well as possible experimental signatures of supersymmetry at the Large Hadron Collider are described. The present limits on supersymmetric particles are presented and the allowed region of parameter space of the MSSM is shown.Comment: 59 pages, 35 figures, PDFLatex, Lectures at the European School of High-Energy Physics, June 2012, Anjou, Franc

Renormalization Group Improved Radiative Corrections to the Supersymmetric Higgs Boson Masses

The one-loop radiative corrections to the Higgs boson potential in the MSSM, originating from the top quark and squark loops, are summed in the leading log approximation using the renormalization group. The RG improved effective potential is minimized and the corrections to the CP-odd and CP-even Higgs boson masses are calculated. The resulting masses exhibit smoother top mass dependence than those calculated without RG summation. We have also found that for preferable values of the top mass the light Higgs mass does not exceed 100 GeV.Comment: 10 PAGES, 1 FIGURE ENCLOSED, LATE

Automated Inference of Past Action Instances in Digital Investigations

As the amount of digital devices suspected of containing digital evidence increases, case backlogs for digital investigations are also increasing in many organizations. To ensure timely investigation of requests, this work proposes the use of signature-based methods for automated action instance approximation to automatically reconstruct past user activities within a compromised or suspect system. This work specifically explores how multiple instances of a user action may be detected using signature-based methods during a post-mortem digital forensic analysis. A system is formally defined as a set of objects, where a subset of objects may be altered on the occurrence of an action. A novel action-trace update time threshold is proposed that enables objects to be categorized by their respective update patterns over time. By integrating time into event reconstruction, the most recent action instance approximation as well as limited past instances of the action may be differentiated and their time values approximated. After the formal theory if signature-based event reconstruction is defined, a case study is given to evaluate the practicality of the proposed method.Comment: International Journal of Information Securit

Could we learn more about HERA high Q2Q^2 anomaly from LEP200 and TEVATRON? R-parity violation scenario

The excess of high $Q^2$ events at HERA reported in the early 1997 by H1 and ZEUS collaborations has become the subject of extensive studies in the framework of several models related to new physics. Here we concentrate on the most promising, from our point of view, model describing HERA anomaly. We update our previous analysis and take into account new HERA statistics of the 1997 year. HERA events are considered within the R-parity broken SUSY model for a specific scenario with several non-zero couplings. R-parity broken SUSY with several non-zero couplings could explain both high $Q^2 e^+ + jets$ and $\mu^+ + jets$ observed at HERA. The consequence of such a particular scenario is the excess of high $Q^2$ di- or tri-jet events at HERA. The relation of this scenario for LEP and TEVATRON colliders is considered. This study shows that if a squark resonance does take place at HERA, supersymmetry with broken R-parity can be revealed at either LEP200 or TEVATRON in the near future.Comment: 15 pages, LaTeX file with 9 eps figure

Long-lived Charginos in the Focus-point Region of the MSSM Parameter Space

We analyse the possibility to get light long-lived charginos within the framework of the MSSM with gravity mediated SUSY breaking. We find out that this possibility can be realized in the so-called focus-point region of parameter space. The mass degeneracy of higgsino-like chargino and two higgsino-like neutralinos is the necessary condition for a long lifetime. It requires the fine-tuning of parameters, but being a single additional constraint in the whole parameter space it can be fulfilled in the Constrained MSSM along the border line where radiative electroweak symmetry breaking fails. In a narrow band close to the border line the charginos are long-lived particles. The cross-sections of their production and co-production at the LHC via electroweak interaction reach a few tenth of pb.Comment: LaTeX, 11 pages, 11 eps figure

Production of Long-Lived Sleptons at LHC

We analyse the MSSM parameter space and discuss the narrow band near the so-called co-annihilation region where sleptons may be long-lived particles. This region is consistent with the WMAP restrictions on the Dark matter and depends on the value of $\tan\beta$. In this region staus are long-lived and may go through the detector. Due to a relatively small mass (150 $\div$ 850 GeV) their production cross-section at LHC may reach a few % pb.Comment: LaTex, 8 pages, 6 eps figure

Direct recognition of homology between double helices of DNA in Neurospora crassa

Chromosomal regions of identical or nearly identical DNA sequence can preferentially associate with one another in the apparent absence of DNA breakage. Molecular mechanism(s) underlying such homology-dependent pairing phenomena remain(s) unknown. Using Neurospora crassa repeat-induced point mutation (RIP) as a model system, we show that a pair of DNA segments can be recognized as homologous if they share triplets of base pairs arrayed with the matching periodicity of 11 or 12 base pairs. This pattern suggests direct interactions between slightly underwound co-aligned DNA duplexes engaging once per turn and over many consecutive turns. The process occurs in the absence of MEI3, the only RAD51/DMC1 protein in N. crassa, demonstrating independence from the canonical homology recognition pathway. A new perspective is thus provided for further analysis of the breakage-independent recognition of homology that underlies RIP and, potentially, other processes where sequence-specific pairing of intact chromosomes is involved