Production and FCNC decay of supersymmetric Higgs bosons into heavy quarks in the LHC

We analyze the production and subsequent decay of the neutral MSSM Higgs bosons (h = h^0, H^0, A^0) mediated by flavor changing neutral currents (FCNC) in the LHC collider. We have computed the h-production cross-section times the FCNC branching ratio, \sigma(pp -> h -> qq') = \sigma(pp -> h) B(h -> qq'), in the LHC focusing on the strongly-interacting FCNC sector. Here qq' is an electrically neutral pair of quarks of different flavors, the dominant modes being those containing a heavy quark: tc or bs. We determine the maximum production rates for each of these modes and identify the relevant regions of the MSSM parameter space, after taking into account the severe restrictions imposed by low energy FCNC processes. The analysis of \sigma(pp -> h -> qq') singles out regions of the MSSM parameter space different from those obtained by maximizing only the branching ratio, due to non-trivial correlations between the parameters that maximize/minimize each isolated factor. The production rates for the bs channel can be huge for a FCNC process (0.1-1 pb), but its detection can be problematic. The production rates for the tc channel are more modest (10^{-3}-10^{-2} pb), but its detection should be easier due to the clear-cut top quark signature. A few thousand tc events could be collected in the highest luminosity phase of the LHC, with no counterpart in the SM.Comment: 25 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables, LaTeX 2e. Typos corrected. Version to appear in JHE

Predictions of striking energy and angular dependence in pp --> (pp)_S-wave pi^0 production

A phenomenological calculation from threshold to 800 MeV of the initial proton beam energy is presented to describe recent data on the reaction pp --> (pp)_S-wave pi^0 with a low energy cut on the final state diproton excitation energy. A strong forward dip is obtained in the differential cross section as in the data from COSY at 800 MeV, although the absolute value of the forward cross section is too low. Earlier low energy data from CELSIUS are reasonably well reproduced. In the unexplored energy interval between these two experiments the model predicts a spectacular energy dependence both in the forward direction and in the angle-integrated cross section.Comment: 9 pages, 4 figure

Two-loop SUSY QCD corrections to the chargino masses in the MSSM

We have calculated the two-loop strong interaction corrections to the chargino pole masses in the DRbar'-scheme in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) with complex parameters. We have performed a detailed numerical analysis for a particular point in the parameter space and found corrections of a few tenths of a percent. We provide a computer program which calculates chargino and neutralino masses with complex parameters including the one-loop corrections and all two-loop SQCD effects.Comment: 12 pages, 11 figures, references modified, clarifications adde

Development of an integrated system for estimating human error probabilities

This is the final report of a three-year, Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). This project had as its main objective the development of a Human Reliability Analysis (HRA), knowledge-based expert system that would provide probabilistic estimates for potential human errors within various risk assessments, safety analysis reports, and hazard assessments. HRA identifies where human errors are most likely, estimates the error rate for individual tasks, and highlights the most beneficial areas for system improvements. This project accomplished three major tasks. First, several prominent HRA techniques and associated databases were collected and translated into an electronic format. Next, the project started a knowledge engineering phase where the expertise, i.e., the procedural rules and data, were extracted from those techniques and compiled into various modules. Finally, these modules, rules, and data were combined into a nearly complete HRA expert system

On MSSM charged Higgs boson production in association with an electroweak W boson at electron positron colliders

We present a calculation of the cross section for the process e+ e- --> W+/- H-/+ in the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) and the Two Higgs Doublet Model (THDM). We study the basic features of the MSSM prediction for some distinctive parameter scenarios. We find large effects from virtual squarks for scenarios with large mixing in the stop sector which can lead to a cross section vastly different from a THDM with identical Higgs sector parameters. We investigate this interesting behaviour in more detail by thoroughly scanning the MSSM parameter space for regions of large cross section. For a charged Higgs boson too heavy to be pair-produced at such a machine, it turns out that a large MSSM cross section with a good chance of observation is linked to a squark mass scale below 600 GeV and a considerable amount of mixing in either the stop and sbottom sector.Comment: 25 pages, 10 figures (two in colour). Substantially improved on the MSSM parameter restrictions taken into account. Added some reference

Single top-quark production by strong and electroweak supersymmetric flavor-changing interactions at the LHC

(Abridged) We report on a complete study of the single top-quark production by direct supersymmetric flavor-changing neutral-current (FCNC) processes at the LHC. The total cross section for pp(gg)->t\bar{c}+\bar{t}c is computed at the 1-loop order within the unconstrained Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). The present study extends the results of the supersymmetric strong effects (SUSY-QCD), which were advanced by some of us in a previous work, and includes the computation of the full supersymmetric electroweak corrections (SUSY-EW). Our analysis of pp(gg)->t\bar{c}+\bar{t}c in the MSSM has been performed in correspondence with the stringent low-energy constraints from b->s gamma. In the most favorable scenarios, the SUSY-QCD contribution can give rise to production rates of around 10^5 events per 100 fb^{-1} of integrated luminosity. Furthermore, we show that there exist regions of the MSSM parameter space where the SUSY-EW correction becomes sizeable. In the SUSY-EW favored regions, one obtains lower, but still appreciable, event production rates that can reach the 10^3 level for the same range of integrated luminosity. We study also the possible reduction in the maximum event rate obtained from the full MSSM contribution if we additionally include the constraints from B^0_s-\bar{B}^0_s. In view of the fact that the FCNC production of heavy quark pairs of different flavors is extremely suppressed in the SM, the detection of a significant number of these events could lead to evidence of new physics -- of likely supersymmetric origin.Comment: LaTex, 35 pages, typos corrected. Version accepted in JHE

Two-Boson Exchange Physics: A Brief Review

Current status of the two-boson exchange contributions to elastic electron-proton scattering, both for parity conserving and parity-violating, is briefly reviewed. How the discrepancy in the extraction of elastic nucleon form factors between unpolarized Rosenbluth and polarization transfer experiments can be understood, in large part, by the two-photon exchange corrections is discussed. We also illustrate how the measurement of the ratio between positron-proton and electron-proton scattering can be used to differentiate different models of two-photon exchange. For the parity-violating electron-proton scattering, the interest is on how the two-boson exchange (TBE), \gamma Z-exchange in particular, could affect the extraction of the long-sought strangeness form factors. Various calculations all indicate that the magnitudes of effect of TBE on the extraction of strangeness form factors is small, though can be large percentage-wise in certain kinematics.Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures, prepared for Proceedings of the fifth Asia-Pacific Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics (APFB2011), Seoul, Korea, August 22-26, 2011, to appear in Few-Body Systems, November 201

Rare top decays t -> c gamma, t -> c g and CKM unitarity

Top flavour-changing neutral decays are extremely suppressed within the Standard Model (SM) by the GIM mechanism, but can reach observable rates in some of its extensions. We compute the branching ratios for t -> c gamma and t -> c g in minimal SM extensions where the addition of a vector-like up or down quark singlet breaks the unitarity of the 3 x 3 Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) matrix. The maximum rates obtained indicate to what extent present experimental data allow 3 x 3 CKM unitarity to be broken in these models, and are too small to be observed in the near future. As a by-product, we reproduce the calculation of these branching ratios in the SM, and with an improved set of parameters we obtain values one order of magnitude smaller than the ones usually quoted in the literature. We study the CP asymmetries between the decay rates of the top quark and antiquark, which can be much larger than in the SM, also as a consequence of the partial breaking of 3 x 3 CKM unitarity.Comment: LaTeX, 15 pages, 12 PS figures, minor changes. To be published in PL

Analysis of Strong-Coupling Parameters for Superfluid 3He

Superfluid $^{3}$He experiments show strong deviation from the weak-coupling limit of the Ginzburg-Landau theory, and this discrepancy grows with increasing pressure. Strong-coupling contributions to the quasiparticle interactions are known to account for this effect and they are manifest in the five $\beta$-coefficients of the fourth order Ginzburg-Landau free energy terms. The Ginzburg-Landau free energy also has a coefficient $g_{z}$ to include magnetic field coupling to the order parameter. From NMR susceptibility experiments, we find the deviation of $g_{z}$ from its weak-coupling value to be negligible at all pressures. New results for the pressure dependence of four different combinations of $\beta$-coefficients, $\beta$_{345}, $\beta$_{12}, $\beta$_{245}, and $\beta$_{5} are calculated and comparison is made with theory.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, 1 table. Manuscript prepared for QFS200