85,000-GPM, single-stage, single-suction LMFBR intermediate centrifugal pump

The mechanical and hydraulic design features of the 85,000-gpm, single-stage, single-suction pump test article, which is designed to circulate liquid-sodium coolant in the intermediate heat-transport system of a Large-Scale Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor (LS-LMFBR), are described. The design and analytical considerations used to satisfy the pump performance and operability requirements are presented. The validation of pump hydraulic performance using a hydraulic scale-model pump is discussed, as is the featute test for the mechanical-shaft seal system

The Faint Sky Variability Survey I: Goals and data reduction process

The Faint Sky Variability Survey is aimed at finding photometric and/or astrometric variable objects in the brightness range between 16<V<24 on timescales between tens of minutes and years with photometric precisions ranging from 3 millimagnitudes for the brightest to 0.2 magnitudes for the faintest objects. An area of ~23 square degrees, located at mid and high Galactic latitudes, has been covered using the Wide Field Camera on the 2.5m Isaac Newton Telescope on La Palma. Here we describe the main goals of the Faint Sky Variability Survey and the data reduction process.Comment: Accepted by MNRAS, 8 pages, 6 figure + 3 as JPEG

Fermions on an Interval: Quark and Lepton Masses without a Higgs

We consider fermions on an extra dimensional interval. We find the boundary conditions at the ends of the interval that are consistent with the variational principle, and explain which ones arise in various physical circumstances. We apply these results to higgsless models of electroweak symmetry breaking, where electroweak symmetry is not broken by a scalar vacuum expectation value, but rather by the boundary conditions of the gauge fields. We show that it is possible to find a set of boundary conditions for bulk fermions that would give a realistic fermion mass spectrum without the presence of a Higgs scalar, and present some sample fermion mass spectra for the standard model quarks and leptons as well as their resonances.Comment: LaTeX, 36 pages, 5 figure

Constraints on the Bulk Standard Model in the Randall-Sundrum Scenario

We derive constraints on the Randall-Sundrum scenario with the standard model fields in the bulk. These result from tree level effects associated with the deformation of the zero mode wave-functions of the W and the Z once electroweak symmetry is broken. Recently Cs\'{a}ki, Erlich and Terning pointed out that this implies large contributions to electroweak oblique parameters. Here we find that when fermions are allowed in the bulk the couplings of the $W$ and the $Z$ to zero-mode fermions are also affected. We perform a fit to electroweak observables assuming universal bulk fermion masses and including all effects and find constraints that are considerably stronger than for the case with fermions localized in the low energy boundary. These put the lowest Kaluza-Klein excitation out of reach of the Large Hadron Collider. We then relax the universality assumption and study the effects of flavor violation in the bulk and its possible signatures.Comment: 18 pages, 2 ps figure

Magnetic Fields at First Order Phase Transition: A Threat to Electroweak Baryogenesis

The generation of the observed baryon asymmetry may have taken place during the electroweak phase transition, thus involving physics testable at LHC, a scenario dubbed electroweak baryogenesis. In this paper we point out that the magnetic field which is produced in the bubbles of a first order phase transition endangers the baryon asymmetry produced in the bubble walls. The reason being that the produced magnetic field couples to the sphaleron magnetic moment and lowers the sphaleron energy; this strengthens the sphaleron transitions inside the bubbles and triggers a more effective wash out of the baryon asymmetry. We apply this scenario to the Minimal Supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model (MSSM) where, in the absence of a magnetic field, successful electroweak baryogenesis requires the lightest CP-even Higgs and the right-handed stop masses to be lighter than about 127 GeV and 120 GeV, respectively. We show that even for moderate values of the magnetic field, the Higgs mass required to preserve the baryon asymmetry is below the present experimental bound. As a consequence electroweak baryogenesis within the MSSM should be confronted on the one hand to future measurements at the LHC on the Higgs and the right-handed stop masses, and on the other hand to more precise calculations of the magnetic field produced at the electroweak phase transition.Comment: 16 pages, 4 figures. Minor corrections and references added to match published versio

Following Gluonic World Lines to Find the QCD Coupling in the Infrared

Using a parametrization of the Wilson loop with the minimal-area law, we calculate the polarization operator of a valence gluon, which propagates in the confining background. This enables us to obtain the infrared freezing (i.e. finiteness) of the running strong coupling in the confinement phase, as well as in the deconfinement phase up to the temperature of dimensional reduction. The momentum scale defining the onset of freezing is found both analytically and numerically. The nonperturbative contribution to the thrust variable, originating from the freezing, makes the value of this variable closer to the experimental one.Comment: 25 pages, 5 figure

The Effective Lagrangian in the Randall-Sundrum Model and Electroweak Physics

We consider the two-brane Randall-Sundrum (RS) model with bulk gauge fields. We carefully match the bulk theory to a 4D low-energy effective Lagrangian. In addition to the four-fermion operators induced by KK exchange we find that large negative S and T parameters are induced in the effective theory. This is a tree-level effect and is a consequence of the shapes of the W and Z wave functions in the bulk. Such effects are generic in extra dimensional theories where the standard model (SM) gauge bosons have non-uniform wave functions along the extra dimension. The corrections to precision electroweak observables in the RS model are mostly dominated by S. We fit the parameters of the RS model to the experimental data and find somewhat stronger bounds than previously obtained; however, the standard model bound on the Higgs mass from precision measurements can only be slightly relaxed in this theory.Comment: 16 pages, LaTeX, 1 figure included, uses JHEP.cls, extended introduction, added reference

RS1, Custodial Isospin and Precision Tests

We study precision electroweak constraints within a RS1 model with gauge fields and fermions in the bulk. The electroweak gauge symmetry is enhanced to SU(2)_L \times SU(2)_R \times U(1)_{B-L}, thereby providing a custodial isospin symmetry sufficient to suppress excessive contributions to the T parameter. We then construct complete models, complying with all electroweak constraints, for solving the hierarchy problem, without supersymmetry or large hierarchies in the fundamental couplings. Using the AdS/CFT correspondence our models can be interpreted as dual to a strongly coupled conformal Higgs sector with global custodial symmetry, gauge and fermionic matter being fundamental fields external to the CFT. This scenario has interesting collider signals, distinct from other RS models in the literature.Comment: 32 pages, 6 figures, latex2e, minor changes, references adde

Opaque Branes in Warped Backgrounds

We examine localized kinetic terms for gauge fields which can propagate into compact, warped extra dimensions. We show that these terms can have a relevant impact on the values of the Kaluza-Klein (KK) gauge field masses, wave functions, and couplings to brane and bulk matter. The resulting phenomenological implications are discussed. In particular, we show that the presence of opaque branes, with non-vanishing brane-localized gauge kinetic terms, allow much lower values of the lightest KK mode than in the case of transparent branes. Moreover, we show that if the large discrepancies among the different determinations of the weak mixing angle would be solved in favor of the value obtained from the lepton asymmetries, bulk electroweak gauge fields in warped-extra dimensions may lead to an improvement of the agreement of the fit to the electroweak precision data for a Higgs mass of the order of the weak scale and a mass of the first gauge boson KK excitation most likely within reach of the LHC.Comment: 37 pages, 12 figures, improved analysis of the precision electroweak constraint