Theoretical Expectations for Rare and Forbidden Tau Decays

Given the experimental evidence for $\nu_\mu - \nu_\tau$ oscillations, the existence of lepton flavor violation in $\tau$ decays is a theoretical certainty. In this brief review, I consider the connection between models of neutrino mass and the expected observability of some $\tau$ decays.Comment: Talk at TAU 02 (Santa Cruz, CA

Flavor and Spin Structure of Octet Baryons at Large x

The quark flavor and spin distributions in octet baryons are calculated both in the SU(6) quark spectator diquark model and in a perturbative QCD (pQCD) based model. It is shown that the $\Lambda$ has the most significant difference in flavor structure at large $x$ between the two models, though the flavor and spin structure of other baryons can also provide tests of different models. The Drell-Yan process for $\Sigma^{\pm}$ beams on isoscalar targets can be used to test different predictions concerning the valence quark flavor structure of the $\Sigma^{\pm}$.Comment: 24 pages, 11 figures, version published in Nucl.Phys.B 574 (2000) 33

Light Charged Higgs Bosons in Supersymmetric Models

We point out that present experimental limits from searches for neutral Higgs bosons at LEP already imply stringent lower bounds on the mass of the charged Higgs boson in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM); these bounds are especially severe for low values of \tanb (\tanb \leq 3), where the $H^+ \bar{t} b$ coupling is large. However, these indirect constraints are much weaker in simple extensions of the MSSM Higgs sector involving the introduction of an extra U(1) gauge group or an extra $SU(2) \times U(1)_Y$ Higgs singlet field; in the latter case charged Higgs bosons can even be light enough to be pair produced at LEP.Comment: LaTeX with equation.sty, 3 PS figures. Version to appear in PLB: Added one paragraph concerning charged Higgs searches at the Tevatro

Inhibition of food intake in obese subjects by peptide YY3-36

Background: The gut hormone fragment peptide YY3-36 (PYY) reduces appetite and food intake when infused into subjects of normal weight. In common with the adipocyte hormone leptin, PYY reduces food intake by modulating appetite circuits in the hypothalamus. However, in obesity there is a marked resistance to the action of leptin, which greatly limits its therapeutic effectiveness. We investigated whether obese subjects were also resistant to the anorectic effects of PYY.Methods: We compared the effects of PYY infusion on appetite and food intake in 12 obese and 12 lean subjects in a double-blind, placebo-controlled, crossover study. The plasma levels of PYY, ghrelin, leptin, and insulin were also determined.Results: Caloric intake during a buffet lunch offered two hours after the infusion of PYY was decreased by 30 percent in the obese subjects (P<0.001) and 31 percent in the lean subjects (P<0.001). PYY infusion also caused a significant decrease in the cumulative 24-hour caloric intake in both obese and lean subjects. PYY infusion reduced plasma levels of the appetite-stimulatory hormone ghrelin. Endogenous fasting and postprandial levels of PYY were significantly lower in obese subjects (the mean [+/-SE] fasting PYY levels were 10.2+/-0.7 pmol per liter in the obese group and 16.9+/-0.8 pmol per liter in the lean group, P<0.001). Furthermore, the fasting PYY levels correlated negatively with the body-mass index (r=-0.84, P<0.001).Conclusions: We found that obese subjects were not resistant to the anorectic effects of PYY. Endogenous PYY levels were low in the obese subjects, suggesting that PYY deficiency may contribute to the pathogenesis of obesity

Parton Sum Rules and Improved Scaling Variable

The effect from quark masses and transversal motion on the Gottfried, Bjorken, and Ellis-Jaffe sum rules is examined by using a quark-parton model of nucleon structure functions based on an improved scaling variable. Its use results in corrections to the Gottfried, Bjorken, and Ellis-Jaffe sum rules. We use the Brodsky-Huang-Lepage prescription of light-cone wavefunctions to estimate the size of the corrections. We constrain our choice of parameters by the roughly known higher twist corrections to the Bjorken sum rule and find that the resulting corrections to the Gottfried and Ellis-Jaffe sum rules are relevant, though not large enough to explain the observed sum rule violations.Comment: latex, with 1 postscript figure, to be published in Phys.Lett.

Inclusive Photoproduction of Polarized 3P1^3P_1 Quarkonium

We analyse inclusive photoproduction of polarized $^3P_1$ quarkonium in the framework of QCD. To separate nonperturbative and perturbative parts in the density matrix of the produced quarkonium we use a method , which is equivalent to the diagramatic expansion widely used in analysing deeply inelastic scatterings. A systematic expansion in a small velocity $v$, with which a heavy quark moves inside the quarkonium in its rest frame, is performed for the nonperturbative parts, and they are expressed as matrix elements in nonrelativistic QCD. At the leading order of $v$ there are four matrix elements representing nonperturbative physics. The perturbative parts are calculated at the leading order of coupling constants. Some numerical results, especially, numerical results for HERA are given.Comment: 19 pages+7 Figures as one compressed and encoded postcript fil

The Quark/Antiquark Asymmetry of the Nucleon Sea

Although the distributions of sea quarks and antiquarks generated by leading-twist QCD evolution through gluon splitting $g \rightarrow \bar q q$ are necessarily CP symmetric, the distributions of nonvalence quarks and antiquarks which are intrinsic to the nucleon's bound state wavefunction need not be identical. In this paper we investigate the sea quark/antiquark asymmetries in the nucleon wavefunction which are generated by a light-cone model of energetically-favored meson-baryon fluctuations. The model predicts striking quark/antiquark asymmetries in the momentum and helicity distributions for the down and strange contributions to the proton structure function: the intrinsic $d$ and $s$ quarks in the proton sea are predicted to be negatively polarized, whereas the intrinsic $\bar d$ and $\bar s$ antiquarks give zero contributions to the proton spin. Such a picture is supported by experimental phenomena related to the proton spin problem and the violation of the Ellis-Jaffe sum rule. The light-cone meson-baryon fluctuation model also suggests a structured momentum distribution asymmetry for strange quarks and antiquarks which could be relevant to an outstanding conflict between two different determinations of the strange quark sea in the nucleon. The model predicts an excess of intrinsic $d \bar d$ pairs over $u \bar u$ pairs, as supported by the Gottfried sum rule violation. We also predict that the intrinsic charm and anticharm helicity and momentum distributions are not identical.Comment: LaTex 18 pages, 4 figures. To obtain a copy, send e-mail to [email protected]

Scalar Mass Bounds in Two Supersymmetric Extended Electroweak Gauge Models

In two recently proposed supersymmetric extended electroweak gauge models, the reduced Higgs sector at the 100-GeV energy scale consists of only two doublets, but they have quartic scalar couplings different from those of the minimal supersymmetric standard model. In the SU(2) X SU(2) X U(1) model, there is an absolute upper bound of about 145 GeV on the mass of the lightest neutral scalar boson. In the SU(3) X U(1) model, there is only a parameter-dependent upper bound which formally goes to infinity in a particular limitComment: 9 pages (6 figures not included), UCRHEP-T128 (July 1994

The universe seen at different scales

A large-scale smoothed-out model of the universe ignores small-scale inhomogeneities, but the averaged effects of those inhomogeneities may alter both observational and dynamical relations at the larger scale. This article discusses these effects, and comments briefly on the relation to gravitational entropy.Comment: 17 pages; matches published version in Phys. Lett. A (Einstein special issue

Search for neutrinoless tau decays tau -> 3l and tau -> l K0S

Neutrinoless tau-lepton decays into either three leptons (tau- -> l1- l2 l3) or one lepton and one K0S meson(tau- -> l- K0S) where lepton l means either an electron or muon, have been searched for using 48.6 fb^{-1} of data collected with the Belle detector at the KEKB e+e- collider. No evidence for candidate decays are found in any channel. Therefore we set 90% confidence level upper limits on the branching fraction for 8 different decay modes. These limits are more stringent than those set previously and reach to the 10^{-7} level.Comment: Invited talk at the Seventh International Workshop on Tau Lepton Physics (TAU02), Santa Cruz, Ca, USA, Sept 2002, 7 pages, LaTeX, 3 eps figure