In vitro reactivation of spindle elongation in fission yeast nuc2 mutant cells.

To investigate the mechanisms of spindle elongation and chromosome separation in the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe, we have developed an in vitro assay using a temperature-sensitive mutant strain, nuc2. At the restrictive temperature, nuc2 cells are arrested at a metaphase-like stage with short spindles and condensed chromosomes. After permeabilization of spheroplasts of the arrested cells, spindle elongation was reactivated by addition of ATP and neurotubulin both at the restrictive and the permissive temperatures, but chromosome separation was not. This suggests that the nuc2 cells are impaired in function at a stage before sister chromatid disjunction. Spindle elongation required both ATP and exogenous tubulin and was inhibited by adenylyl imidodiphosphate (AMPPNP) or vanadate. The ends of yeast half-spindle microtubules pulse-labeled with biotinylated tubulin moved past each other during spindle elongation and a gap formed between the original half-spindles. These results suggest that the primary mechanochemical event responsible for spindle elongation is the sliding apart of antiparallel microtubules of the two half-spindles

Inverted Hybrid Inflation as a solution to gravitino problems in Gravity Mediation

It was recently found that the decay of inflaton and the SUSY breaking field produces many gravitinos in the gravity mediation scenario. These discoveries led to an exclusion of many inflation models such as chaotic, (smooth) hybrid, topological and new inflation models. Under these circumstances we searched for a successful inflation model and found that the ``inverted'' hybrid inflation models can solve the gravitino overproduction problem by their distinctive shape of the potential. Furthermore, we found that this inflation model simultaneously can explain the observed baryon asymmetry through the non-thermal leptogenesis and is consistent with the WMAP results, that is, $n_s=0.951^{+0.015}_{-0.019}$ and the negligible tensor to scalar ratio.Comment: 23 pages, 2 figures in

Probing Variant Axion Models at LHC

We study collider implications of variant axion models which naturally avoid the cosmological domain wall problem. We find that in such models the branching ratio of $h \to \gamma\gamma$ can be enhanced by a factor of 5 up to 30 as compared with the standard model prediction. The $h \to \gamma\gamma$ process is therefore a promising channel to discover a light Higgs boson at the LHC and to probe the Peccei-Quinn charge assignment of the standard model fields from Yukawa interactions.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figure

Constraints on leptogenesis from a symmetry viewpoint

It is shown that type I seesaw models based on the standard model Lagrangian extended with three heavy Majorana right-handed fields do not have leptogenesis in leading order, if the symmetries of mass matrices are also the residual symmetry of the Lagrangian. In particular, flavor models that lead to a mass-independent leptonic mixing have a vanishing leptogenesis CP asymmetry. Based on symmetry arguments, we prove that in these models the Dirac-neutrino Yukawa coupling combinations relevant for leptogenesis are diagonal in the physical basis where the charged leptons and heavy Majorana neutrinos are diagonal.Comment: 5 pages; a few comments added; final version to appear in Phys. Rev.

Duality in Left-Right Symmetric Seesaw Mechanism

We consider type I+II seesaw mechanism, where the exchanges of both right-handed neutrinos and isotriplet Higgs bosons contribute to the neutrino mass. Working in the left-right symmetric framework and assuming the mass matrix of light neutrinos $m_\nu$ and the Dirac-type Yukawa couplings to be known, we find the triplet Yukawa coupling matrix $f$, which carries the information about the masses and mixing of the right-handed neutrinos. We show that in this case there exists a duality: for any solution $f$, there is a dual solution $\hat{f}=m_\nu/v_L-f$, where $v_L$ is the VEV of the triplet Higgs. Thus, unlike in pure type I (II) seesaw, there is no unique allowed structure for the matrix $f$. For $n$ lepton generations the number of solutions is $2^n$. We develop an exact analytic method of solving the seesaw non-linear matrix equation for $f$.Comment: 4 pages, revtex, small clarifications added, title changed to match published versio

New signals of a R-parity violating model of neutrino mass at the Tevatron

In a variety models of neutrino masses and mixings the lighter top squark decays into competing R - parity violating and R - parity conserving channels. Using Pythia we have estimated in a model independent way the minimum value of P $\equiv$ BR($\widetilde t_1 \to c \widetilde \chi_1^0$) $\times$ BR($\widetilde t_1 \to l^+_i b$), where $l_i = e^+$ and $\mu^+$, corresponding to an observable signal involving the final state 1$l$ + jets +\met (carried by the neutrinos from the $\tilde \chi_1^0$ decay) at Tevatron Run II. For the kinematical cuts designed in this paper P depends on $m_{\widetilde t_1}$ only. We then compute P for representative choices of the model parameters constrained by the oscillation data and find that over a significant region of the allowed parameter space P is indeed larger than $P_{min}$. This signal is complementary to the dilepton + dijet signal studied in several earlier experimental and phenomenological analyses and may be observed even if BR($\widetilde t_1 \to l^+_i b$) is an order of magnitude smaller than BR($\widetilde t_1 \to c \widetilde \chi_1^0$). The invariant mass distribution of the hardest lepton and the hardest jet may determine $m_{\widetilde t_1}$ and reveal the lepton number violating nature of the underlying interaction. The invariant mass distribution of the two lowest energy jets may determine $m_{\widetilde \chi_1^0}$.Comment: Some minor changes in language are made at pages 1,2,8 and 18 respectivel

Probing R-parity violating models of neutrino mass at the LHC via top squark decays

It is shown that the R-parity violating decays of the lighter top squarks (${\widetilde t}_1$) triggered by the lepton number violating couplings $\lambda^{\prime}_{i33}$, where the lepton family index i = 1-3, can be observed at the LHC via the dilepton di-jet channel even if the coupling is as small as 10$^{-4}$ or 10$^{-5}$, which is the case in several models of neutrino mass, provided it is the next lightest supersymmetric particle(NLSP) the lightest neutralino being the lightest supersymmetric particle(LSP). We have first obtained a fairly model independent estimate of the minimum observable value of the parameter ($P_{ij} \equiv BR(\widetilde t \to l_i^+ b) \times BR(\widetilde t^* \to l_j^- \bar b$)) at the LHC for an integrated luminosity of 10fb$^{-1}$ as a function of \mlstop by a standard Pythia based analysis. We have then computed the parameter $P_{ij}$ in several representative models of neutrino mass constrained by the neutrino oscillation data and have found that the theoretical predictions are above the estimated minimum observable levels for a wide region of the parameter space.Comment: 19 pages, 1 Figure and 11 Table

Dark matter in the classically conformal B-L model

When the classically conformal invariance is imposed on the minimal gauged B-L extended Standard Model (SM), the B-L gauge symmetry is broken by the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism naturally at the TeV scale. Introducing a new Z_2 parity in the model, we investigate phenomenology of a right-handed neutrino dark matter whose stability is ensured by the parity. We find that the relic abundance of the dark matter particle can be consistent with the observations through annihilation processes enhanced by resonances of either the SM Higgs boson, the B-L Higgs boson or the B-L gauge boson (Z' boson). Therefore, the dark matter mass is close to half of one of these boson masses. Due to the classically conformal invariance and the B-L gauge symmetry breaking via the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism, Higgs boson masses, Z' boson mass and the dark matter mass are all related, and we identify the mass region to be consistent with experimental results. We also calculate the spin-independent cross section of the dark matter particle off with nucleon and discuss implications for future direct dark matter search experiments.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure