Neutrino Oscillation and Charged Lepton-Flavor Violation in the Supersymmetric Standard Models

The neutrino experiment results suggest that the neutrinos have finite masses and the lepton-flavor symmetries are violating in nature. In the supersymmetric models, the charged lepton-flavor violating processes, such as mu -> e gamma and tau -> mu gamma, may have the branching ratios accessible to the future experiments, depending on origins of the neutrino masses and the SUSY breaking. In this paper we discuss the branching ratios in the supergravity scenario using the current solar and atmospheric neutrino experimental data.Comment: 12 pages. Talk given at the Workshop on High Intensity Muon Sources (HIMUS99), Tsukuba, Japan, 1-4 Dec 199

Molecular Hydrogen Emission from Protoplanetary Disks

We have modeled self-consistently the density and temperature profiles of gas and dust in protoplanetary disks, taking into account irradiation from a central star. Making use of this physical structure, we have calculated the level populations of molecular hydrogen and the line emission from the disks. As a result, we can reproduce the observed strong line spectra of molecular hydrogen from protoplanetary disks, both in the ultraviolet (UV) and the near-infrared, but only if the central star has a strong UV excess radiation.Comment: 19 pages, accepted for publication in Astronomy and Astrophysic

Unification of Weak and Hypercharge Interactions at the TeV Scale

A realistic SU(3)_C x SU(3)_W unified theory is constructed with a TeV sized extra dimension compactified on the orbifold S_1/Z_2, leaving only the standard model gauge group SU(3)_C x SU(2)_L x U(1)_Y unbroken in the low energy 4D theory. The Higgs doublets are zero modes of bulk SU(3)_W triplets and serve to normalize the hypercharge generator, apparently giving a tree-level prediction for the weak mixing angle: \sin^2\theta = 1/4. The orbifold boundary conditions imply a restricted set of SU(3)_W gauge transformations: at an orbifold fixed point only the transformations of SU(2)_L x U(1)_Y are operative. This allows quarks to be located at this fixed point, overcoming the longstanding problem of how to incorporate matter in a unified SU(3)_W theory. However, in general this local, explicit breaking of SU(3)_W symmetry, necessary for including quarks into the theory, destroys the tree-level prediction for the weak mixing angle. This apparent contradiction is reconciled by making the volume of the extra dimension large, diluting the effects of the local SU(3)_W violation. In the case that the electroweak theory is strongly coupled at the cutoff scale of the effective theory, radiative corrections to the weak mixing angle can be reliably computed, and used to predict the scale of compactification: 1 - 2 TeV without supersymmetry, and in the region of 3 - 6 TeV for a supersymmetric theory. The experimental signature of electroweak unification into SU(3)_W is a set of ``weak partners'' of mass 1/2R, which are all electrically charged and are expected to be accessible at LHC. These include weak doublets of gauge particles of electric charge (++,+), and a charged scalar. When pair produced, they yield events containing multiple charged leptons, missing large transverse energy and possibly Higgs and electroweak gauge bosons.Comment: 13 pages, LaTeX, note added on charge quantizatio

Grand Unification and Intermediate Scale Supersymmetry

With minimal field content and for an interesting range of the supersymmetric Higgs mixing parameter, 0.5 < tan^2 \beta < 2, the superpartner mass scale, \tilde{m}, is found to be at the intermediate scale, ~ 10^{10 \pm 1} GeV, near where the Standard Model Higgs quartic coupling passes through zero. For any 4d supersymmetric grand unified symmetry spontaneously broken by a vacuum expectation value , if superpotential interactions for \Sigma are forbidden e.g. by R symmetries, the uneaten color octet, \Sigma_8, and weak triplet, \Sigma_3, have masses of order \tilde{m}. The combination of superpartner and \Sigma_{8,3} states leads to successful gauge coupling unification, removing the disastrously high proton decay rate of minimal Standard Model unification. Proton decay could be seen in future experiments if \tilde{m} ~ 10^{11} GeV, but not if it is lower. If the reheating temperature after inflation, T_R, is less than \tilde{m} dark matter may be axions. If T_R > \tilde{m}, thermal LSP dark matter may lead to the environmental selection of a TeV-scale LSP, either wino or Higgsino, which could comprise all or just one component of dark matter. In the Higgsino case, the dark matter is found to behave inelastically in direct detection experiments, and gauge coupling unification occurs accurately without the need of any threshold corrections.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures; version to appear in JHE

The Entropy of a Vacuum: What Does the Covariant Entropy Count?

We argue that a unitary description of the formation and evaporation of a black hole implies that the Bekenstein-Hawking entropy is the "entropy of a vacuum": the logarithm of the number of possible independent ways in which quantum field theory on a fixed classical spacetime background can emerge in a full quantum theory of gravity. In many cases, the covariant entropy counts this entropy--the degeneracy of emergent quantum field theories in full quantum gravity--with the entropy of particle excitations in each quantum field theory giving only a tiny perturbation. In the Rindler description of a (black hole) horizon, the relevant vacuum degrees of freedom manifest themselves as an extra hidden quantum number carried by the states representing the second exterior region; this quantum number is invisible in the emergent quantum field theory. In a distant picture, these states arise as exponentially degenerate ground and excited states of the intrinsically quantum gravitational degrees of freedom on the stretched horizon. The formation and evaporation of a black hole involve processes in which the entropy of collapsing matter is transformed into that of a vacuum and then to that of final-state Hawking radiation. In the intermediate stage of this evolution, entanglement between the vacuum and (early) Hawking radiation develops, which is transferred to the entanglement among final-state Hawking quanta through the evaporation process. The horizon is kept smooth throughout the evolution; in particular, no firewall develops. Similar considerations also apply for cosmological horizons, for example for the horizon of a meta-stable de-Sitter space.Comment: 30 pages; v2: references added, minor revisions; v3: footnotes 2 and 7 added for the journal versio

Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless transitions in the six-state clock model

Classical 2D clock model is known to have a critical phase with Berezinskii-Kosterlitz-Thouless(BKT) transitions. These transitions have logarithmic corrections which make numerical analysis difficult. In order to resolve this difficulty, one of the authors has proposed the method called level spectroscopy, which is based on the conformal field theory. We extend this method to the multi-degenerated case. As an example, we study the classical 2D 6-clock model which can be mapped to the quantum self-dual 1D 6-clock model. Additionally, we confirm that the self-dual point has a precise numerical agreement with the analytical result, and we argue the degeneracy of the excitation states at the self-dual point from the effective field theoretical point of view.Comment: 18pages, 7figure

Dimension-six Proton Decays in the Modified Missing Doublet SU(5) Model

Dimension-five operators for nucleon decays are suppressed in the modified missing doublet (MMD) model in the supersymmetric SU(5) grand unification. We show that nonrenormalizable interactions decrease the unification scale in the MMD model which increases the nucleon decay rate of dimension-six operators by a significant amount. We find that the theoretical lower bound on the proton life time \tau(p \to \e^+ \pi^0) is within the observable range at SuperKamiokande.Comment: 9 pages, Latex, 1 Postscript figure

Grand Unification, Axion, and Inflation in Intermediate Scale Supersymmetry

A class of supersymmetric grand unified theories is introduced that has a single scale below the cutoff, that of the supersymmetry breaking masses $\tilde{m}$. For a wide range of the dimensionless parameters, agreement with the observed mass of the Higgs boson determines $\tilde{m} \sim 10^9-10^{13} {\rm GeV}$, yielding Intermediate Scale Supersymmetry. We show that within this framework it is possible for seesaw neutrino masses, axions, and inflation to be described by the scale $\tilde{m}$, offering the possibility of a unified origin of disparate phenomena. Neutrino masses allowing for thermal leptogenesis can be obtained, and the axion decay constant lies naturally in the range $f_a \sim 10^9-10^{11} {\rm GeV}$, consistent with a recent observational suggestion of high scale inflation. A minimal $SU(5)$ model is presented that illustrates these features. In this model, the only states at the grand unified scale are those of the heavy gauge supermultiplet. The grand unified partners of the Higgs doublets have a mass of order $\tilde{m}$, leading to the dominant proton decay mode $p \rightarrow \bar{\nu} K^+$, which may be probed in upcoming experiments. Dark matter may be winos, with mass environmentally selected to the TeV scale, and/or axions. Gauge coupling unification is found to be successful, especially if the wino is at the TeV scale.Comment: 27 pages, 7 figures; minor corrections, references and discussion adde

Low Energy Description of Quantum Gravity and Complementarity

We consider a framework in which low energy dynamics of quantum gravity is described preserving locality, and yet taking into account the effects that are not captured by the naive global spacetime picture, e.g. those associated with black hole complementarity. Our framework employs a "special relativistic" description of gravity; specifically, gravity is treated as a force measured by the observer tied to the coordinate system associated with a freely falling local Lorentz frame. We identify, in simple cases, regions of spacetime in which low energy local descriptions are applicable as viewed from the freely falling frame; in particular, we identify a surface called the gravitational observer horizon on which the local proper acceleration measured in the observer's coordinates becomes the cutoff (string) scale. This allows for separating between the "low-energy" local physics and "trans-Planckian" intrinsically quantum gravitational (stringy) physics, and allows for developing physical pictures of the origins of various effects. We explore the structure of the Hilbert space in which the proposed scheme is realized in a simple manner, and classify its elements according to certain horizons they possess. We also discuss implications of our framework on the firewall problem. We conjecture that the complementarity picture may persist due to properties of trans-Planckian physics.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figure; matches published versio