Electroweak Symmetry Breaking and Large Extra Dimensions

If spacetime contains large compact extra dimensions, the fundamental mass scale of nature, $Lambda$, may be close to the weak scale, allowing gravitational physics to significantly modify electroweak symmetry breaking. Operators of the form $(1/Lambda^2) |phi^* D phi|^2$ and $(1/Lambda^2) phi^* W B phi$, where $W$ and $B$ are the SU(2) and U(1) field strengths and $phi$ is the Higgs field, remove the precision electroweak bound on the Higgs boson mass for values of $Lambda$ in a wide range: $4 TeV < Lambda < 11 TeV$. Within this framework, there is no preference between a light Higgs boson, a heavy Higgs boson, or a non-linearly realized SU(2)xU(1) symmetry beneath $Lambda$. If there is a Higgs doublet, then operators of the form $(1/Lambda^2) phi^* phi (G^2, F^2)$, where $G$ and $F$ are the QCD and electromagnetic field strengths, modify the production of the Higgs boson by gluon-gluon fusion, and the decay of the Higgs boson to 2 photons, respectively. At Run II of the Tevatron collider, a 2-photon signal for extra dimensions will be discovered if $Lambda$ is below 2.5 (1) TeV for a Higgs boson of mass 100 (300) GeV. Furthermore, such a signal would point to gravitational physics, rather than to new conventional gauge theories at $Lambda$. The discovery potential of the LHC depends sensitively on whether the gravitational amplitudes interfere constructively or destructively with the standard model amplitudes, and ranges from $Lambda$ = 3 - 10 (2 - 4) TeV for a light (heavy) Higgs boson.Comment: 14 pages LaTeX, 3 figure

A New Perspective on Cosmic Coincidence Problems

Cosmological data suggest that we live in an interesting period in the history of the universe when \rho_\Lambda \sim \rho_M \sim \rho_R. The occurence of any epoch with such a "triple coincidence" is puzzling, while the question of why we happen to live during this special epoch is the "Why now?" problem. We introduce a framework which makes the triple coincidence inevitable; furthermore, the ``Why now?'' problem is transformed and greatly ameliorated. The framework assumes that the only relevant mass scales are the electroweak scale, M_{EW}, and the Planck scale, M_{Pl}, and requires \rho_\Lambda^{1/4} \sim M_{EW}^2/M_{Pl} parametrically. Assuming that the true vacuum energy vanishes, we present a simple model where a false vacuum energy yields a cosmological constant of this form.Comment: 5 pages, 1 figure, uses psfig. Refs added, slightly enhance

New Mechanism of Flavor Symmetry Breaking from Supersymmetric Strong Dynamics

We present a class of supersymmetric models in which flavor symmetries are broken dynamically, by a set of composite flavon fields. The strong dynamics that is responsible for confinement in the flavor sector also drives flavor symmetry breaking vacuum expectation values, as a consequence of a quantum-deformed moduli space. Yukawa couplings result as a power series in the ratio of the confinement to Planck scale, and the fermion mass hierarchy depends on the differing number of preons in different flavor symmetry-breaking operators. We present viable non-Abelian and Abelian flavor models that incorporate this mechanism.Comment: 24 pp. LaTe

A Supersymmetric Theory of Flavor and R Parity

We construct a renormalizable, supersymmetric theory of flavor and $R$ parity based on the discrete flavor group $(S_3)^3$. The model can account for all the masses and mixing angles of the Standard Model, while maintaining sufficient squark degeneracy to circumvent the supersymmetric flavor problem. By starting with a simpler set of flavor symmetry breaking fields than we have suggested previously, we construct an economical Froggatt-Nielsen sector that generates the desired elements of the fermion Yukawa matrices. With the particle content above the flavor scale completely specified, we show that all renormalizable $R$-parity-violating interactions involving the ordinary matter fields are forbidden by the flavor symmetry. Thus, $R$ parity arises as an accidental symmetry in our model. Planck-suppressed operators that violate $R$ parity, if present, can be rendered harmless by taking the flavor scale to be $\lesssim 8 \times 10^{10}$ GeV.Comment: 28 pp. LaTeX, 1 Postscript Figur

SUSY, the Third Generation and the LHC

We develop a bottom-up approach to studying SUSY with light stops and sbottoms, but with other squarks and sleptons heavy and beyond reach of the LHC. We discuss the range of squark, gaugino and Higgsino masses for which the electroweak scale is radiatively stable over the "little hierarchy" below ~ 10 TeV. We review and expand on indirect constraints on this scenario, in particular from flavor and CP tests. We emphasize that in this context, R-parity violation is very well motivated. The phenomenological differences between Majorana and Dirac gauginos are also discussed. Finally, we focus on the light subsystem of stops, sbottom and neutralino with R-parity, in order to probe the current collider bounds. We find that 1/fb LHC bounds are mild and large parts of the motivated parameter space remain open, while the 10/fb data can be much more decisive.Comment: 42 pages, 8 figures, 1 table. V2: minor corrections, references adde

nnResting state fMRI scanner instabilities revealed by longitud inal phantom scans in a multi-center study

Quality assurance (QA) is crucial in longitudinal and/or multi-site studies, which involve the collection of data from a group of subjects over time and/or at different locations. It is important to regularly monitor the performance of the scanners over time and at different locations to detect and control for intrinsic differences (e.g., due to manufacturers) and changes in scanner performance (e.g., due to gradual component aging, software and/or hardware upgrades, etc.). As part of the Ontario Neurodegenerative Disease Research Initiative (ONDRI) and the Canadian Biomarker Integration Network in Depression (CAN-BIND), QA phantom scans were conducted approximately monthly for three to four years at 13 sites across Canada with 3T research MRI scanners. QA parameters were calculated for each scan using the functional Biomarker Imaging Research Network\u27s (fBIRN) QA phantom and pipeline to capture between- and within-scanner variability. We also describe a QA protocol to measure the full-width-at-half-maximum (FWHM) of slice-wise point spread functions (PSF), used in conjunction with the fBIRN QA parameters. Variations in image resolution measured by the FWHM are a primary source of variance over time for many sites, as well as between sites and between manufacturers. We also identify an unexpected range of instabilities affecting individual slices in a number of scanners, which may amount to a substantial contribution of unexplained signal variance to their data. Finally, we identify a preliminary preprocessing approach to reduce this variance and/or alleviate the slice anomalies, and in a small human data set show that this change in preprocessing can have a significant impact on seed-based connectivity measurements for some individual subjects. We expect that other fMRI centres will find this approach to identifying and controlling scanner instabilities useful in similar studies