The First Year of the Large Hadron Collider: A Brief Review

The first year of LHC data taking provided an integrated luminosity of about 35/pb in proton-proton collisions at sqrt(s)=7 TeV. The accelerator and the experiments have demonstrated an excellent performance. The experiments have obtained important physics results in many areas, ranging from tests of the Standard Model to searches for new particles. Among other results the physics highlights have been the measurements of the W-, Z-boson and t t-bar production cross-sections, improved limits on supersymmetric and other hypothetical particles and the observation of jet-quenching, elliptical flow and J/Psi suppression in lead-lead collisions at sqrt(sNN) = 2.76 TeV.Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures, invited brief review for Mod. Phys. Lett.

A matrix model for strings beyond the c=1 barrier: the spin-s Heisenberg model on random surfaces

We consider a spin-s Heisenberg model coupled to two-dimensional quantum gravity. We quantize the model using the Feynman path integral, summing over all possible two-dimensional geometries and spin configurations. We regularize this path integral by starting with the R-matrices defining the spin-s Heisenberg model on a regular 2d Manhattan lattice. 2d quantum gravity is included by defining the R-matrices on random Manhattan lattices and summing over these, in the same way as one sums over 2d geometries using random triangulations in non-critical string theory. We formulate a random matrix model where the partition function reproduces the annealed average of the spin-s Heisenberg model over all random Manhattan lattices. A technique is presented which reduces the random matrix integration in partition function to an integration over their eigenvalues.Comment: 18 pages, 6 figures. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1304.690

Exploring singlet deflection of gauge mediation

We embed the Next-to Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model into gauge mediation of supersymmetry breaking and study the phenomenology of scenarios where the gauge-mediation contributions to soft parameters are deflected by superpotential interactions of the gauge singlet with the messenger fields and the Higgs doublets. This kind of models provide a satisfactory solution to the mu-b_mu problem of gauge mediation, compatible with the adequate pattern of electroweak symmetry breaking and a realistic spectrum with supersymmetric partners at the TeV scale without requiring a significant fine tuning.Comment: Latex 18 pages, 4 eps figures. Minor corrections, version published in Phys. Rev.