Nucleon strange quark content from two-flavor lattice QCD with exact chiral symmetry

Strange quark content of the nucleon is calculated in dynamical lattice QCD employing the overlap fermion formulation. For this quantity, exact chiral symmetry guaranteed by the Ginsparg-Wilson relation is crucial to avoid large contamination due to a possible operator mixing with $\bar{u}u+\bar{d}d$. Gauge configurations are generated with two dynamical flavors on a 16^3 x 32 lattice at a lattice spacing a \simeq 0.12fm. We directly calculate the relevant three-point function on the lattice including a disconnected strange quark loop utilizing the techniques of all-to-all quark propagator and low-mode averaging. Our result f_{T_s} = 0.032(8)(22), is in good agreement with our previous indirect estimate using the Feynman-Hellmann theorem.Comment: 31 pages, 22 figures; version published in PR

Search for Higgs Bosons in SUSY Cascade Decays and Neutralino Dark Matter

The Minimal Supersymmetric Extension of the Standard Model (MSSM) is a well motivated theoretical framework, which contains an extended Higgs sector, including a light Higgs with Standard Model-like properties in most of the parameter space. Due to the large QCD background, searches for such a Higgs, decaying into a pair of bottom quarks, is very challenging at the LHC. It has been long realized that the situation may be ameliorated by searching for Higgs bosons in supersymmetric decay chains. Moreover, it has been recently suggested that the bobber decay channel may be observed in standard production channels by selecting boosted Higgs bosons, which may be easily identified from the QCD background. Such boosted Higgs bosons are frequent in the MSSM, since they are produced from decays of heavy colored supersymmetric particles. Previous works have emphasized the possibility of observing boosted Higgs bosons in the light higgsino region. In this work, we study the same question in the regions of parameter space consistent with a neutralino dark matter relic density, analyzing its dependence on the non-standard Higgs boson, slepton and squark masses, as well as on the condition of gaugino mass unification. In general, we conclude that, provided sleptons are heavier than the second lightest neutralinos, the presence of boosted Higgs is a common MSSM feature, implying excellent prospects for observation of the light MSSM Higgs boson in the near future.Comment: 30 pages, 9 figures. v2: New Xenon 100 results implemented, version to appear in PR

Discrete R-symmetry anomalies in heterotic orbifold models

Anomalies of discrete R-symmetries appearing in heterotic orbifold models are studied. We find that the mixed anomalies for different gauge groups satisfy the universal Green-Schwarz (GS) condition, indicating that these anomalies are canceled by the GS mechanism. An exact relation between the anomaly coefficients of the discrete R-symmetries and one-loop beta-function coefficients is obtained. We also find that the discrete R-symmetries have a good chance to be unbroken down to the supersymmetry breaking scale. Even below this scale a $Z_2$ subgroup is unbroken, which may be an origin of the R-parity of the minimal supersymmetric standard model. Relations between the R-symmetry anomalies and T-duality anomalies are also investigated.Comment: 19 pages, no figur

Dark matter in the classically conformal B-L model

When the classically conformal invariance is imposed on the minimal gauged B-L extended Standard Model (SM), the B-L gauge symmetry is broken by the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism naturally at the TeV scale. Introducing a new Z_2 parity in the model, we investigate phenomenology of a right-handed neutrino dark matter whose stability is ensured by the parity. We find that the relic abundance of the dark matter particle can be consistent with the observations through annihilation processes enhanced by resonances of either the SM Higgs boson, the B-L Higgs boson or the B-L gauge boson (Z' boson). Therefore, the dark matter mass is close to half of one of these boson masses. Due to the classically conformal invariance and the B-L gauge symmetry breaking via the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism, Higgs boson masses, Z' boson mass and the dark matter mass are all related, and we identify the mass region to be consistent with experimental results. We also calculate the spin-independent cross section of the dark matter particle off with nucleon and discuss implications for future direct dark matter search experiments.Comment: 13 pages, 4 figure