Determining Sneutrino Masses and Physical Implications

In some areas of supersymmetry parameter space, sneutrinos are lighter than the charginos and the next-to-lightest neutralino, and they decay into the invisible neutrino plus lightest-neutralino channel with probability one. In such a scenario they can be searched for in decays of charginos that are pair-produced in e+e- collisions, and in associated sneutrino-chargino production in photon-electron collisions. The sneutrino properties can be determined with high accuracy from the edges of the decay energy spectra in the first case and from threshold scans in the second. In the final part of the report we investigate the mass difference of sneutrinos and charged sleptons between the third and the first two generations in seesaw-type models of the neutrino/sneutrino sector. For a wide range these mass differences are sensitive to the seesaw scale.Comment: 20 p

Gold-plated processes at photon colliders

We review the most important topics and objectives of the physics program of the gamma-gamma, gamma-electron collider (photon collider) option for an e+e- linear collider.Comment: 36 pages, Latex, 11 figures(ps,eps), Talk at Intern. Workshop on High Energy Photon Colliders; June 14-17, 2000, DESY, Hamburg, Germany; to be published in Nucl. Instr. and Methods

Dark energy: a quantum fossil from the inflationary Universe?

The discovery of dark energy (DE) as the physical cause for the accelerated expansion of the Universe is the most remarkable experimental finding of modern cosmology. However, it leads to insurmountable theoretical difficulties from the point of view of fundamental physics. Inflation, on the other hand, constitutes another crucial ingredient, which seems necessary to solve other cosmological conundrums and provides the primeval quantum seeds for structure formation. One may wonder if there is any deep relationship between these two paradigms. In this work, we suggest that the existence of the DE in the present Universe could be linked to the quantum field theoretical mechanism that may have triggered primordial inflation in the early Universe. This mechanism, based on quantum conformal symmetry, induces a logarithmic, asymptotically-free, running of the gravitational coupling. If this evolution persists in the present Universe, and if matter is conserved, the general covariance of Einstein's equations demands the existence of dynamical DE in the form of a running cosmological term whose variation follows a power law of the redshift.Comment: LaTeX, 14 pages, extended discussion. References added. Accepted in J. Phys. A: Mathematical and Theoretica

Theoretical uncertainties in sparticle mass predictions from computational tools

We estimate the current theoretical uncertainty in sparticle mass predictions by comparing several state-of-the-art computations within the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM). We find that the theoretical uncertainty is comparable to the expected statistical errors from the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and significantly larger than those expected from a future e+e- Linear Collider (LC). We quantify the theoretical uncertainty on relevant sparticle observables for both LHC and LC, and show that the value of the error is significantly dependent upon the supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking parameters. We also present the theoretical uncertainty induced in fundamental-scale SUSY breaking parameters when they are fitted from LHC measurements. Two regions of the SUSY parameter space where accurate predictions are particularly difficult are examined in detail: the large tan(beta) and focus point regimes.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures; comment added pointing out that 2-loop QCD corrections to mt are incorrect in some of the programs investigated. We give the correct formul

Single Top Quark Production as a Probe for Anomalous Moments at Hadron Colliders

Single production of top quarks at hadron colliders via $gW$ fusion is examined as a probe of possible anomalous chromomagnetic and/or chromoelectric moment type couplings between the top and gluons. We find that this channel is far less sensitive to the existence of anomalous couplings of this kind than is the usual production of top pairs by $gg$ or $q\bar q$ fusion. This result is found to hold at both the Tevatron as well as the LHC although somewhat greater sensitivity for anomalous couplings in this channel is found at the higher energy machine.Comment: New discussion and 10 new figures added. uuencoded postscript fil

Dpes massless QCD have vacuum energy?

It is widely thought that this question has a positive answer, but we argue that the support for this belief from both experiment and theory is weak or nonexistent. We then list some of the ramifications of a negative answer.Comment: 8 pages, no figures, version to appear in NJ

Tevatron-for-LHC Report: Preparations for Discoveries

This is the "TeV4LHC" report of the "Physics Landscapes" Working Group, focused on facilitating the start-up of physics explorations at the LHC by using the experience gained at the Tevatron. We present experimental and theoretical results that can be employed to probe various scenarios for physics beyond the Standard Model.Comment: 222 pp., additional contribution added, typos/layout correcte

Rompimiento de la Simetria Electrodebil y la Fisica del Higgs: Conceptos Basicos

Presentamos una introduccion a los conceptos basicos del rompimiento de la simetria electrodebil y la fisica del Higgs dentro del Modelo Estandar y sus extensiones supersimetricas. Se presenta tambien una breve perspectiva general de mecanismos alternativos del rompimiento de la simetria. Ademas de las bases teoricas, se discute el estado actual de la fisica experimental del Higgs y sus implicaciones para futuros experimentos en el LHC y en colisionadores lineales e+e-.Comment: Spanish text, including full English translation. Published in the Proceedings of the XI Mexican School on Particles and Fields, Xalapa, Veracruz, Mexic

Energy Linearity and Resolution of the ATLAS Electromagnetic Barrel Calorimeter in an Electron Test-Beam

A module of the ATLAS electromagnetic barrel liquid argon calorimeter was exposed to the CERN electron test-beam at the H8 beam line upgraded for precision momentum measurement. The available energies of the electron beam ranged from 10 to 245 GeV. The electron beam impinged at one point corresponding to a pseudo-rapidity of eta=0.687 and an azimuthal angle of phi=0.28 in the ATLAS coordinate system. A detailed study of several effects biasing the electron energy measurement allowed an energy reconstruction procedure to be developed that ensures a good linearity and a good resolution. Use is made of detailed Monte Carlo simulations based on Geant which describe the longitudinal and transverse shower profiles as well as the energy distributions. For electron energies between 15 GeV and 180 GeV the deviation of the measured incident electron energy over the beam energy is within 0.1%. The systematic uncertainty of the measurement is about 0.1% at low energies and negligible at high energies. The energy resolution is found to be about 10% sqrt(E) for the sampling term and about 0.2% for the local constant term

Les Houches 2015: Physics at TeV colliders - new physics working group report

We present the activities of the 'New Physics' working group for the 'Physics at TeV Colliders' workshop (Les Houches, France, 1-19 June, 2015). Our report includes new physics studies connected with the Higgs boson and its properties, direct search strategies, reinterpretation of the LHC results in the building of viable models and new computational tool developments. Important signatures for searches for natural new physics at the LHC and new assessments of the interplay between direct dark matter searches and the LHC are also considered.Comment: Proceedings of the New Physics Working Group of the 2015 Les Houches Workshop, Physics at TeV Colliders, Les Houches 1-19 June 2015. 197 page