Baryon masses at second order in large-NN chiral perturbation theory

We consider flavor breaking in the the octet and decuplet baryon masses at second order in large-$N$ chiral perturbation theory, where $N$ is the number of QCD colors. We assume that $1/N \sim 1/N_F \sim m_s / \Lambda \gg m_{u,d}/\Lambda, \alpha_{EM}$, where $N_F$ is the number of light quark flavors, and $m_{u,d,s} / \Lambda$ are the parameters controlling $SU(N_F)$ flavor breaking in chiral perturbation theory. We consistently include non-analytic contributions to the baryon masses at orders $m_q^{3/2}$, $m_q^2 \ln m_q$, and $(m_q \ln m_q) / N$. The $m_q^{3/2}$ corrections are small for the relations that follow from $SU(N_F)$ symmetry alone, but the corrections to the large-$N$ relations are large and have the wrong sign. Chiral power-counting and large-$N$ consistency allow a 2-loop contribution at order $m_q^2 \ln m_q$, and a non-trivial explicit calculation is required to show that this contribution vanishes. At second order in the expansion, there are eight relations that are non-trivial consequences of the $1/N$ expansion, all of which are well satisfied within the experimental errors. The average deviation at this order is 7 \MeV for the \De I = 0 mass differences and 0.35 \MeV for the \De I \ne 0 mass differences, consistent with the expectation that the error is of order $1/N^2 \sim 10\%$.Comment: 19 pages, 2 uuencoded ps figs, uses revte

Mediation of supersymmetry breaking in extra dimensions

We review the mechanisms of supersymmetry breaking mediation that occur in sequestered models, where the visible and the hidden sectors are separated by an extra dimension and communicate only via gravitational interactions. By locality, soft breaking terms are forbidden at the classical level and reliably computable within an effective field theory approach at the quantum level. We present a self-contained discussion of these radiative gravitational effects and the resulting pattern of soft masses, and give an overview of realistic model building based on this set-up. We consider both flat and warped extra dimensions, as well as the possibility that there be localized kinetic terms for the gravitational fields.Comment: LaTex, 15 pages; brief review prepared for MPLA. v2: minor correction

Spherical Collapse and the Halo Model in Braneworld Gravity

We present a detailed study of the collapse of a spherical perturbation in DGP braneworld gravity for the purpose of modeling simulation results for the halo mass function, bias and matter power spectrum. The presence of evolving modifications to the gravitational force in form of the scalar brane-bending mode lead to qualitative differences to the collapse in ordinary gravity. In particular, differences in the energetics of the collapse necessitate a new, generalized method for defining the virial radius which does not rely on strict energy conservation. These differences and techniques apply to smooth dark energy models with w unequal -1 as well. We also discuss the impact of the exterior of the perturbation on collapse quantities due to the lack of a Birkhoff theorem in DGP. The resulting predictions for the mass function, halo bias and power spectrum are in good overall agreement with DGP N-body simulations on both the self-accelerating and normal branch. In particular, the impact of the Vainshtein mechanism as measured in the full simulations is matched well. The model and techniques introduced here can serve as practical tools for placing consistent constraints on braneworld models using observations of large scale structure.Comment: 20 pages, 16 figures; v2: minor addition to appendix; matches published version; v3: typos in Eqs. (20), (23) correcte

Supergravity loop contributions to brane world supersymmetry breaking

We compute the supergravity loop contributions to the visible sector scalar masses in the simplest 5D `brane-world' model. Supersymmetry is assumed to be broken away from the visible brane and the contributions are UV finite due to 5D locality. We perform the calculation with N = 1 supergraphs, using a formulation of 5D supergravity in terms of N = 1 superfields. We compute contributions to the 4D effective action that determine the visible scalar masses, and we find that the mass-squared terms are negative.Comment: 12 pages, LaTeX 2

Visible Effects of the Hidden Sector

The renormalization of operators responsible for soft supersymmetry breaking is usually calculated by starting at some high scale and including only visible sector interactions in the evolution equations, while ignoring hidden sector interactions. Here we explain why this is correct only for the most trivial structures in the hidden sector, and discuss possible implications. This investigation was prompted by the idea of conformal sequestering. In that framework hidden sector renormalizations by nearly conformal dynamics are critical. In the original models of conformal sequestering it was necessary to impose hidden sector flavor symmetries to achieve the sequestered form. We present models which can evade this requirement and lead to no-scale or anomaly mediated boundary conditions; but the necessary structures do not seem generic. More generally, the ratios of scalar masses to gaugino masses, the $\mu$-term, the $B\mu$-term, $A$-terms, and the gravitino mass can be significantly affected.Comment: 23 pages, no figure

The Unhiggs

We examine a scenario where the Higgs is part of an approximate conformal field theory, and has a scaling dimension greater than one. Such an unparticle Higgs (or Unhiggs) can still break electroweak symmetry and unitarize WW scattering, but its gauge couplings are suppressed. An Unhiggs model has a reduced sensitivity of the weak scale to the cutoff, and can thus provide a solution to the little hierarchy problem.Comment: 21 pages, 9 figures; v2: further discussion, references added, version published in JHE

Effective Action and Holography in 5D Gauge Theories

We apply the holographic method to 5D gauge theories on the warped interval. Our treatment includes the scalars associated with the fifth gauge field component, which appear as 4D Goldstone bosons in the holographic effective action. Applications are considered to two classes of models in which these scalars play an important role. In the Composite-Higgs (and/or Gauge-Higgs Unification) scenario, the scalars are interpreted as the Higgs field and we use the holographic recipe to compute its one-loop potential. In AdS/QCD models, the scalars are identified with the mesons and we compute holographically the Chiral Perturbation Theory Lagrangian up to p^4 order. We also discuss, using the holographic perspective, the effect of including a Chern-Simons term in the 5D gauge Lagrangian. We show that it makes a Wess-Zumino-Witten term to appear in the holographic effective action. This is immediately applied to AdS/QCD, where a Chern-Simons term is needed in order to mimic the Adler-Bardeen chiral anomaly.Comment: 37 pages; v2, minor changes, one reference added; v3, minor corrections, version published in JHE

Supersymmetry and Electroweak Breaking in the Interval

Hypermultiplets are considered in the five-dimensional interval where all fields are continuous and the boundary conditions are dynamically obtained from the action principle. The orbifold boundary conditions are obtained as particular cases. We can interpret the Scherk-Schwarz supersymmetry breaking as a misalignment of boundary conditions while a new source of supersymmetry breaking corresponding to a mismatch of different boundary parameters is identified. The latter can be viewed as coming from boundary supersymmetry breaking masses for hyperscalars and the nature of the corresponding supersymmetry breaking parameter is analyzed. For some regions of the parameter space where supersymmetry is broken (either by Scherk-Schwarz boundary conditions or by boundary hyperscalar masses) electroweak symmetry breaking can be triggered at the tree level.Comment: 28 pages, 5 figure