Anomaly Mediation, Fayet-Iliopoulos D-terms and the Renormalisation Group

We address renormalisation group evolution issues that arise in the Anomaly Mediated Supersymmetry Breaking scenario when the tachyonic slepton problem is resolved by Fayet-Iliopoulos term contributions. We present typical sparticle spectra both for the original formulation of this idea and an alternative using Fayet-Iliopoulos terms for a U(1) compatible with a straightforward GUT embedding.Comment: 20 pages, 2 figure

Embedding the Pentagon

The Pentagon Model is an explicit supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model, which involves a new strongly-interacting SU(5) gauge theory at TeV-scale energies. We show that the Pentagon can be embedded into an SU(5) x SU(5) x SU(5) gauge group at the GUT scale. The doublet-triplet splitting problem, and proton decay compatible with experimental bounds, can be successfully addressed in this context. The simplest approach fails to provide masses for the lighter two generations of quarks and leptons; however, this problem can be solved by the addition of a pair of antisymmetric tensor fields and an axion.Comment: 39 page

Electroweak Precision Constraints on the Littlest Higgs Model with T Parity

We compute the leading corrections to the properties of W and Z bosons induced at the one-loop level in the SU(5)/SO(5) Littlest Higgs model with T parity, and perform a global fit to precision electroweak data to determine the constraints on the model parameters. We find that a large part of the model parameter space is consistent with data. Values of the symmetry breaking scale as low as 500 GeV are allowed, indicating that no significant fine tuning in the Higgs potential is required. We identify a region within the allowed parameter space in which the lightest T-odd particle, the partner of the hypercharge gauge boson, has the correct relic abundance to play the role of dark matter. In addition, we find that a consistent fit to data can be obtained for large values of the Higgs mass, up to 800 GeV, due to the possibility of a partial cancellation between the contributions to the T parameter from Higgs loops and new physics.Comment: 23 pages, 9 figures. Minor correction

Enough is not enough: Medical students’ knowledge of early warning signs of childhood cancer

Background. The reported incidence of childhood cancer in upper-middle-income South Africa (SA) is much lower than in high-income countries, partly due to under-diagnosis and under-reporting. Documented survival rates are disturbingly low, prompting an analysis of potential factors that may be responsible.Objectives. To determine final-year medical students’ level of knowledge of early warning signs of childhood cancer and whether a correlation existed between test scores and participants’ age, gender and previous exposure to a person with cancer.Methods. A two-part questionnaire based on the Saint Siluan mnemonic, testing both recall and recognition of early warning signs of childhood cancer, was administered. The Mann-Whitney-Wilcoxon test was used to assess differences in continuous and count variables between demographic data, experience and responses, and Fisher’s exact test and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient were used to determine correlations between demographic data, previous contact with persons with cancer and test scores. A novel equality ratio was calculated to compare the recall and recognition sections and allowed analysis of recall v. recognition.Results. The 84 participants recalled a median of six signs each (interquartile range 4 - 7) and correctly recognised a median of 70% in the recognition section, considered a pass mark. There was no correlation between participants’ age, gender, previous contact with a person with cancer and recognition scores. Students with previous exposure to a person with cancer had higher scores in the recall section, but this did not achieve statistical significance. Students were able to recognise more signs of haematological malignancies than central nervous system (CNS) malignancies.Conclusion. The study demonstrated a marked inconsistency between recall and recognition of signs of childhood cancer, with signs of CNS malignancies being least recognised. However, the majority of students could recognise enough early warning signs to meet the university pass standard. Although this study demonstrated acceptable recognition of early warning signs of childhood cancer at one university, we suggest that long-term recall in medical practitioners is poor, as reflected in the low age-standardised ratios of childhood cancer in SA. We recommend increased ongoing exposure to paediatric oncology in medical school and improved awareness programmes to increase early referrals

The Intermediate Higgs

Two paradigms for the origin of electroweak superconductivity are a weakly coupled scalar condensate, and a strongly coupled fermion condensate. The former suffers from a finetuning problem unless there are cancelations to radiative corrections, while the latter presents potential discrepancies with precision electroweak physics. Here we present a framework for electroweak symmetry breaking which interpolates between these two paradigms, and mitigates their faults. As in Little Higgs theories, the Higgs is a pseudo-Nambu Goldstone boson, potentially composite. The cutoff sensitivity of the one loop top quark contribution to the effective potential is canceled by contributions from additional vector-like quarks, and the cutoff can naturally be higher than in the minimal Standard Model. Unlike the Little Higgs models, the cutoff sensitivity from one loop gauge contributions is not canceled. However, such gauge contributions are naturally small as long as the cutoff is below 6 TeV. Precision electroweak corrections are suppressed relative to those of Technicolor or generic Little Higgs theories. In some versions of the intermediate scenario, the Higgs mass is computable in terms of the masses of these additional fermions and the Nambu-Goldstone Boson decay constant. In addition to the Higgs, new scalar and pseudoscalar particles are typically present at the weak scale

On higher congruences between cusp forms and Eisenstein series

In this paper we present several finite families of congruences between cusp forms and Eisenstein series of higher weights at powers of prime ideals. We formulate a conjecture which describes properties of the prime ideals and their relation to the weights. We check the validity of the conjecture on several numerical examples.Comment: 20 page

Determinants of job satisfaction for salaried and self-employed professionals in Finland

This paper contributes to our knowledge of the determinants of job satisfaction by analysing the effects of employment status (self-employed or salaried employee) and work characteristics (autonomy, variety, task identity, task significance and feedback) on job satisfaction in a sample of 2327 Finnish professionals. The results of the structural equation model analysis show that although the self-employed are significantly more satisfied with their jobs than their salaried counterparts also in Finland, employment status as such does not explain job satisfaction when the five work characteristics are added to the structural model. Further, the analysis finds that task significance, variety and autonomy have similar effects on the level of job satisfaction among both employees and self-employed individuals, while feedback has a weaker effect when the individual is self-employed and task identity does not affect job satisfaction in either group. Overall the study points to the need to develop jobs that are high in autonomy, variety and task significance for professionals in order to enhance job satisfaction

Examples of M5-Brane Elliptic Genera

We determine the modified elliptic genus of an M5-brane wrapped on various one modulus Calabi-Yau spaces, using modular invariance together with some known Gopakumar-Vafa invariants of small degrees. As a bonus, we find nontrivial relations among Gopakumar-Vafa invariants of different degrees and genera from modular invariance.Comment: 13 page

C^2/Z_n Fractional branes and Monodromy

We construct geometric representatives for the C^2/Z_n fractional branes in terms of branes wrapping certain exceptional cycles of the resolution. In the process we use large radius and conifold-type monodromies, and also check some of the orbifold quantum symmetries. We find the explicit Seiberg-duality which connects our fractional branes to the ones given by the McKay correspondence. We also comment on the Harvey-Moore BPS algebras.Comment: 34 pages, v1 identical to v2, v3: typos fixed, discussion of Harvey-Moore BPS algebras update