Large N_c

The 1/N_c expansion of QCD with N_c=3 has been successful in explaining a wide variety of QCD phenomenology. Here I focus on the contracted spin-flavor symmetry of baryons in the large-N_c limit and deviations from spin-flavor symmetry due to corrections suppressed by powers of 1/N_c. Baryon masses provide an important example of the 1/N_c expansion, and successful predictions of masses of heavy-quark baryons continue to be tested by experiment. The ground state charmed baryon masses have all been measured, and five of the eight ground state bottom baryon masses have been found. Results of the 1/N_c expansion can aid in the discovery of the remaining bottom baryons. The brand new measurement of the \Omega_b^- mass by the CDF collaboration conflicts with the original D0 discovery value and is in excellent agreement with the prediction of the 1/N_c expansion.Comment: 4 pages, Invited talk at CIPANP 2009, May 26-31, 2009, to be published in the proceeding

Algebraic Structure of Lepton and Quark Flavor Invariants and CP Violation

Lepton and quark flavor invariants are studied, both in the Standard Model with a dimension five Majorana neutrino mass operator, and in the seesaw model. The ring of invariants in the lepton sector is highly non-trivial, with non-linear relations among the basic invariants. The invariants are classified for the Standard Model with two and three generations, and for the seesaw model with two generations, and the Hilbert series is computed. The seesaw model with three generations proved computationally too difficult for a complete solution. We give an invariant definition of the CP-violating angle theta in the electroweak sector

Naturalness of the Coleman-Glashow Mass Relation in the 1/N_c Expansion: an Update

A new measurement of the Xi^0 mass verifies the accuracy of the Coleman-Glashow relation at the level predicted by the 1/N_c expansion. Values for other baryon isospin mass splittings are updated, and continue to agree with the 1/N_c hierarchy.Comment: 6 pages, revte

Low-Energy Effective Field Theory below the Electroweak Scale: Operators and Matching

The gauge-invariant operators up to dimension six in the low-energy effective field theory below the electroweak scale are classified. There are 70 Hermitian dimension-five and 3631 Hermitian dimension-six operators that conserve baryon and lepton number, as well as $\Delta B= \pm \Delta L = \pm 1$, $\Delta L=\pm 2$, and $\Delta L=\pm 4$ operators. The matching onto these operators from the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT) up to order $1/\Lambda^2$ is computed at tree level. SMEFT imposes constraints on the coefficients of the low-energy effective theory, which can be checked experimentally to determine whether the electroweak gauge symmetry is broken by a single fundamental scalar doublet as in SMEFT. Our results, when combined with the one-loop anomalous dimensions of the low-energy theory and the one-loop anomalous dimensions of SMEFT, allow one to compute the low-energy implications of new physics to leading-log accuracy, and combine them consistently with high-energy LHC constraints.Comment: 44 pages, 22 tables; version published in JHE

On Gauge Invariance and Minimal Coupling

The principle of minimal coupling has been used in the study of Higgs boson interactions to argue that certain higher dimensional operators in the low-energy effective theory generalization of the Standard Model are suppressed by loop factors, and thus smaller than others. It also has been extensively used to analyze beyond-the-standard-model theories. We show that in field theory, and even in quantum mechanics, the concept of minimal coupling is ill-defined and inapplicable as a general principle, and give many pedagogical examples which illustrate this fact. We also clarify some related misconceptions about the dynamics of strongly coupled gauge theories. Many arguments in the literature on Higgs boson interactions that use minimal coupling, particularly in pseudo-Goldstone Higgs theories, are inherently flawed.Comment: 25 pp, 2 figures v2: refs added, JHEP version, conclusions unchange

Renormalization Group Scaling of Higgs Operators and \Gamma(h -> \gamma \gamma)

We compute the renormalization of dimension six Higgs-gauge boson operators that can modify \Gamma(h -> \gamma \gamma) at tree-level. Operator mixing is shown to lead to an important modification of new physics effects which has been neglected in past calculations. We also find that the usual formula for the S oblique parameter contribution of these Higgs-gauge boson operators needs additional terms to be consistent with renormalization group evolution. We study the implications of our results for Higgs phenomenology and for new physics models which attempt to explain a deviation in \Gamma(h -> \gamma \gamma). We derive a new relation between the S parameter and the \Gamma(h -> \gamma \gamma) and \Gamma(h ->Z \gamma) decay rates.Comment: 20 pp. 2 fi

Non-Perturbative Effects in μ→eγ\mu \to e \gamma

We compute the non-perturbative contribution of semileptonic tensor operators $(\bar q \sigma^{\mu \nu} q)(\bar \ell \sigma_{\mu \nu} \ell)$ to the purely leptonic process $\mu \to e \gamma$ and to the electric and magnetic dipole moments of charged leptons by matching onto chiral perturbation theory at low energies. This matching procedure has been used extensively to study semileptonic and leptonic weak decays of hadrons. In this paper, we apply it to observables that contain no strongly interacting external particles. The non-perturbative contribution to $\mu \to e$ processes is used to extract the best current bound on lepton-flavor-violating semileptonic tensor operators, $\Lambda_\text{BSM} \gtrsim 450$ TeV. We briefly discuss how the same method applies to dark-matter interactions.Comment: 21 pages, 1 figure; version published in JHE

Higher-Order Gravitational Lensing Reconstruction using Feynman Diagrams

We develop a method for calculating the correlation structure of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) using Feynman diagrams, when the CMB has been modified by gravitational lensing, Faraday rotation, patchy reionization, or other distorting effects. This method is used to calculate the bias of the Hu-Okamoto quadratic estimator in reconstructing the lensing power spectrum up to O(\phi^4) in the lensing potential $\phi$. We consider both the diagonal noise TTTT, EBEB, etc. and, for the first time, the off-diagonal noise TTTE, TBEB, etc. The previously noted large O(\phi^4) term in the second order noise is identified to come from a particular class of diagrams. It can be significantly reduced by a reorganization of the $\phi$ expansion. These improved estimators have almost no bias for the off-diagonal case involving only one $B$ component of the CMB, such as EEEB.Comment: 17 pages, 17 figure