618 research outputs found
The Origin of Mass
The quark-lepton mass problem and the ideas of mass protection are reviewed.
The hierarchy problem and suggestions for its resolution, including Little
Higgs models, are discussed. The Multiple Point Principle is introduced and
used within the Standard Model to predict the top quark and Higgs particle
masses. Mass matrix ans\"{a}tze are considered; in particular we discuss the
lightest family mass generation model, in which all the quark mixing angles are
successfully expressed in terms of simple expressions involving quark mass
ratios. It is argued that an underlying chiral flavour symmetry is responsible
for the hierarchical texture of the fermion mass matrices. The phenomenology of
neutrino mass matrices is briefly discussed.Comment: 33 pages, 7 figures, to be published in the Proceedings of the XXXI
ITEP Winter School, Moscow, Russia, 18 - 26 February 200
Management and Outcome of Prosthetic Patch Infection after Carotid Endarterectomy: A Single-centre Series and Systematic Review of the Literature
AbstractObjectivesOutcomes following prosthetic patch infection after carotid endarterectomy (CEA).MethodsRetrospective audit and systematic review.Results22 patients were treated between January 1992 and April 2012, 5 having undergone their original CEA at another institution. The commonest infecting organism was Staphylococcus. One patient was treated by antibiotic irrigation, one was stented, while 20 underwent debridement and patch excision plus; carotid ligation (n = 3), vein patching (n = 3) or vein bypass (n = 14). There was one peri-operative stroke, but no peri-operative deaths. There were no reinfections at a median follow-up of 54 months.A systematic review identified 123 patients with prosthetic patch infection in the world literature. Thirty-six (29%) presented <2 months, 78 (63%) presented >6 months after the original CEA. Seventy-nine of/87 patients (91%) with a positive culture yielded Staphylococci or Streptococci. Seventy-four patients were treated by patch excision and autologous reconstruction. Four (5%) developed reinfection <30 days, but later reinfections have been reported. Seven of nine patients (78%) undergoing prosthetic reconstruction either died or suffered reinfection. Five patients were treated with a covered stent, none developing reinfection (median followup 12 months).ConclusionPatch infection following CEA is rare. Few have undergone stenting and long term data are awaited. For now, patch excision and autologous reconstruction remains the âgold standardâ
Neutrinos in 5D SO(10) Unification
We study neutrino physics in a 5D supersymmetric SO(10) GUT. We analyze
several different choices for realizing the See-Saw mechanism. We find that the
"natural" scale for the Majorana mass of right-handed neutrinos depends
critically on whether the right-handed neutrinos are located in the bulk or
localized on a brane. In the former case, the effective Majorana mass is
"naturally" of order the compactification scale, about 10^{14} GeV. Note, this
is the value necessary for obtaining a light tau neutrino mass approximately
10^{-2} eV which, within the context of hierarchical neutrino masses, is the
right order of magnitude to explain atmospheric neutrino oscillations. On the
other-hand when the right-handed neutrino is localized on the brane, the
effective Majorana mass is typically larger than the compactification scale.
Nevertheless with small parameters of order 1/10 - 1/30, an effective Majorana
mass of order 10^{14} GeV can be accommodated. We also discuss the constraints
on model building resulting from the different scenarios for locating the
right-handed neutrinos.Comment: 24 page
Neutrino masses in the Lepton Number Violating MSSM
We consider the most general supersymmetric model with minimal particle
content and an additional discrete Z_3 symmetry (instead of R-parity), which
allows lepton number violating terms and results in non-zero Majorana neutrino
masses. We investigate whether the currently measured values for lepton masses
and mixing can be reproduced. We set up a framework in which Lagrangian
parameters can be initialised without recourse to assumptions concerning
trilinear or bilinear superpotential terms, CP-conservation or
intergenerational mixing and analyse in detail the one loop corrections to the
neutrino masses. We present scenarios in which the experimental data are
reproduced and show the effect varying lepton number violating couplings has on
the predicted atmospheric and solar mass^2 differences. We find that with
bilinear lepton number violating couplings in the superpotential of the order 1
MeV the atmospheric mass scale can be reproduced. Certain trilinear
superpotential couplings, usually, of the order of the electron Yukawa coupling
can give rise to either atmospheric or solar mass scales and bilinear
supersymmetry breaking terms of the order 0.1 GeV^2 can set the solar mass
scale. Further details of our calculation, Lagrangian, Feynman rules and
relevant generic loop diagrams, are presented in three Appendices.Comment: 48 pages, 7 figures, v2 references added, typos corrected, published
versio
Lepton Flavor Violating Z Decays in the Zee Model
We calculate lepton flavor violating (LFV) Z decays Z \to {{e_i^\pm}}e_j^\mp
(i, j = e, \mu, \tau ; i\neq j) in the Zee model keeping in view the radiative
leptonic decays e_i\to e_j\gamma (i = \mu, \tau ; j = e, \mu ; i\neq j), \mu
decay and anomalous muon magnetic moment (\mu AMM). We investigate three
different cases of Zee f_{ij} coupling (A) f_{e\mu}^2 = f_{\mu\tau}^2= f_{\tau
e}^2, (B) f_{e\mu}^2 \gg f_{\tau e}^2 \gg f_{\mu\tau}^2, and (C) f_{\mu\tau}^2
\gg f_{e\mu}^2 \gg f_{\tau e}^2 subject to the neutrino phenomenology.
Interestingly, we find that, although the case (C) satisfies the large excess
value of \mu AMM, however, it is unable to explain the solar neutrino
experimental result, whereas the case (B) satisfies the bi-maximal neutrino
mixing scenario, but confronts with the result of \mu AMM experiment. We also
find that among all the three cases, only the case (C) gives rise to largest
contribution to the ratio B(Z\to e^\pm\tau^\mp)/B(Z\to \mu^\pm \mu^\mp) \simeq
{10}^{-8} which is still two order less than the accessible value to be probed
by the future linear colliders, whereas for the other two cases, this ratio is
too low to be observed even in the near future for all possible LFV Z decay
modes.Comment: 12 pages, RevTex, 2 figures, 3 Tables, typos corrected, reference
added, version to appear in Phys. Rev.
Strong Interactions at Low Energy
The lectures review some of the basic concepts relevant for an understanding
of the low energy properties of the strong interactions: chiral symmetry,
spontaneous symmetry breakdown, Goldstone bosons, quark condensate. The
effective field theory used to analyze the low energy structure is briefly
sketched. As an illustration, I discuss the implications of the recent data on
the decay for the magnitude of the quark condensate.Comment: Lectures given at the school of physics "Understanding the structure
of hadrons", Prague, July 2001, 20 p
Many-body-QED perturbation theory: Connection to the Bethe-Salpeter equation
The connection between many-body theory (MBPT)--in perturbative and
non-perturbative form--and quantum-electrodynamics (QED) is reviewed for
systems of two fermions in an external field. The treatment is mainly based
upon the recently developed covariant-evolution-operator method for QED
calculations [Lindgren et al. Phys. Rep. 389, 161 (2004)], which has a
structure quite akin to that of many-body perturbation theory. At the same time
this procedure is closely connected to the S-matrix and the Green's-function
formalisms and can therefore serve as a bridge between various approaches. It
is demonstrated that the MBPT-QED scheme, when carried to all orders, leads to
a Schroedinger-like equation, equivalent to the Bethe-Salpeter (BS) equation. A
Bloch equation in commutator form that can be used for an "extended" or
quasi-degenerate model space is derived. It has the same relation to the BS
equation as has the standard Bloch equation to the ordinary Schroedinger
equation and can be used to generate a perturbation expansion compatible with
the BS equation also for a quasi-degenerate model space.Comment: Submitted to Canadian J of Physic
Zodiacal Exoplanets in Time (ZEIT). VIII. A Two-planet System in Praesepe from K2 Campaign 16
Young planets offer a direct view of the formation and evolution processes that produced the diverse population of mature exoplanet systems known today. The repurposed Kepler mission K2 is providing the first sample of young transiting planets by observing populations of stars in nearby, young clusters and stellar associations. We report the detection and confirmation of two planets transiting K2-264, an M2.5 dwarf in the 650 Myr old Praesepe open cluster. Using our notch-filter search method on the K2 light curve, we identify planets with periods of 5.84 and 19.66 days. This is currently the second known multi-transit system in open clusters younger than 1 Gyr. The inner planet has a radius of 2.27+0.20 -0.16 Râ and the outer planet has a radius of 2.27+0.20 -0.18 R â. Both planets are likely mini-Neptunes. These planets are expected to produce radial velocity signals of 3.4 and 2.7 m s-1, respectively, which is smaller than the expected stellar variability in the optical (â30 m s-1), making mass measurements unlikely in the optical but possible with future near-infrared spectrographs. We use an injection-recovery test to place robust limits on additional planets in the system and find that planets larger than 2 R â with periods of 1-20 days are unlikely
Minimal Mixing of Quarks and Leptons in the SU(3) Theory of Flavour
We argue that flavour mixing, both in the quark and lepton sector, follows
the minimal mixing pattern, according to which the whole of this mixing is
basically determined by the physical mass generation for the first family of
fermions. So, in the chiral symmetry limit when the masses of the lightest (
and ) quarks vanish, all the quark mixing angles vanish. This minimal
pattern is shown to fit extremely well the already established CKM matrix
elements and to give fairly distinctive predictions for the as yet poorly known
ones. Remarkably, together with generically small quark mixing, it also leads
to large neutrino mixing, provided that neutrino masses appear through the
ordinary ``see-saw'' mechanism. It is natural to think that this minimal
flavour mixing pattern presupposes some underlying family symmetry, treating
families of quarks and leptons in a special way. Indeed, we have found a local
chiral family symmetry model which leads, through its dominant
symmetry breaking vacuum configuration, to a natural realization of the
proposed minimal mechanism. It can also naturally generate the quark and lepton
mass hierarchies. Furthermore spontaneous CP violation is possible, leading to
a maximal CP violating phase , in the framework of the
MSSM extended by a high-scale chiral family symmetry.Comment: 52 pages, LaTex, no figures; some typos corrected; journal versio
Field theory description of vacuum replicas
In this paper we develop a systematic quantum field theory based approach to
the vacuum replica recently found to exist in effective low energy models in
hadronic physics. A local operator creating the replica state is constructed
explicitly. We show that a new effective quark-quark force arises in result of
replica existence. Phenomenological implications of such a force are also
briefly discussed.Comment: RevTeX4, 23 pages, 4 Postscript figures, uses epsfig.sty, to appear
in Phys.Rev.
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