CP violation in supersymmetric theories

We review the present status of CP violating problem in supersymmetric extensions of the standard model. We analyze the constraints imposed by the experimental limits of the electron, neutron, and mercury electric dipole moments on the supersymmetric CP phases and show that only the scenarios with flavour-off- diagonal CP violation remain attractive. These scenarios require hermitian Yukawa matrices which naturally arise in models with left-right symmetry or a SU(3) flavour symmetry. In this case, epsilon_K and epsilon'/epsilon can be saturated by a small non-universality of the soft scalar masses through the gluino and chargino contributions respectively. The model also predicts a strong correlation between A_{CP}(b-> s gamma) and the neutron electric dipole moment. In this framework, the standard model gives a the leading contribution to the CP asymmetry in B ->psi K_S decay, while the dominant chargino contribution to this asymmetry is < 0.2. Thus, no constraint is set on the non-universality of this model by the recent BaBar and Belle measureets.Comment: 34 pages, 10 figures. Invited review article for International Journal of Modern Physics

SU(5) Octet Scalar at the LHC

Color scalars are salient features of non-minimal SU(5) model, where Higgs sector is extended by 45-dimensional multiplet. We show that gauge coupling unification can be realized in this model with TeV octet scalar and intermediate (~10^6 GeV) color-triplet scalar at scale larger than 10^{15} GeV. We analyze the possible LHC signatures of these TeV octet scalars. We emphasize that multi-(b)-jet final states provide significant signal for direct probe of octet scalars at the LHC.Comment: 8 pages, 6 figure

A node-wise analysis of the uterine muscle networks for pregnancy monitoring

The recent past years have seen a noticeable increase of interest in the correlation analysis of electrohysterographic (EHG) signals in the perspective of improving the pregnancy monitoring. Here we propose a new approach based on the functional connectivity between multichannel (4x4 matrix) EHG signals recorded from the women abdomen. The proposed pipeline includes i) the computation of the statistical couplings between the multichannel EHG signals, ii) the characterization of the connectivity matrices, computed by using the imaginary part of the coherence, based on the graph-theory analysis and iii) the use of these measures for pregnancy monitoring. The method was evaluated on a dataset of EHGs, in order to track the correlation between EHGs collected by each electrode of the matrix (called node-wise analysis) and follow their evolution along weeks before labor. Results showed that the strength of each node significantly increases from pregnancy to labor. Electrodes located on the median vertical axis of the uterus seemed to be the more discriminant. We speculate that the network-based analysis can be a very promising tool to improve pregnancy monitoring.Comment: 4 pages, 3 figures, accepted in the IEEE EMBC conferanc

Time Crystals from Minimum Time Uncertainty

Motivated by the Generalized Uncertainty Principle, covariance, and a minimum measurable time, we propose a deformation of the Heisenberg algebra and show that this leads to corrections to all quantum mechanical systems. We also demonstrate that such a deformation implies a discrete spectrum for time. In other words, time behaves like a crystal. As an application of our formalism, we analyze the effect of such a deformation on the rate of spontaneous emission in a hydrogen atom.Comment: 11 pages, to appear in Eur. Phys. J.

Phenomenological Aspects of TeV Scale Alternative Left-Right Model

We revisit the alternative left-right symmetric model, motivated by superstring-inspired $E_6$ model. We systematically analyze the constraints imposed by theoretical and experimental bounds on the parameter space of this class of models. We perform a comprehensive analysis of the Higgs sector and show that three neutral CP-even and two CP-odd Higgs bosons in addition to two charged Higgs bosons can be light, of ${\cal O}(100)$ GeV. We emphasise that our model has a potential to account for the recent Large Hadron Collider results for signal strength of Higgs decays. We also explore discovery signatures of the exotic down-type quark, which is one of the salient predictions of this model.Comment: 21 pages, 8 figure

Fourth post-Newtonian effective-one-body Hamiltonians with generic spins

In a compact binary coalescence, the spins of the compact objects can have a significant effect on the orbital motion and gravitational-wave (GW) emission. For generic spin orientations, the orbital plane precesses, leading to characteristic modulations of the GW signal. The observation of precession effects is crucial to discriminate among different binary formation scenarios, and to carry out precise tests of General Relativity. Here, we work toward an improved description of spin effects in binary inspirals, within the effective-one-body (EOB) formalism, which is commonly used to build waveform models for LIGO and Virgo data analysis. We derive EOB Hamiltonians including the complete fourth post-Newtonian (4PN) conservative dynamics, which is the current state of the art. We place no restrictions on the spin orientations or magnitudes, or on the type of compact object (e.g., black hole or neutron star), and we produce the first generic-spin EOB Hamiltonians complete at 4PN order. We consider multiple spinning EOB Hamiltonians, which are more or less direct extensions of the varieties found in previous literature, and we suggest another simplified variant. Finally, we compare the circular-orbit, aligned-spin binding-energy functions derived from the EOB Hamiltonians to numerical-relativity simulations of the late inspiral. While finding that all proposed Hamiltonians perform reasonably well, we point out some interesting differences, which could guide the selection of a simpler, and thus faster-to-evolve EOB Hamiltonian to be used in future LIGO and Virgo inference studies