Regularization Dependence of Running Couplings in Softly Broken Supersymmetry

We discuss the dependence of running couplings on the choice of regularization method in a general softly-broken N=1 supersymmetric theory. Regularization by dimensional reduction respects supersymmetry, but standard dimensional regularization does not. We find expressions for the differences between running couplings in the modified minimal subtraction schemes of these two regularization methods, to one loop order. We also find the two-loop renormalization group equations for gaugino masses in both schemes, and discuss the application of these results to the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model.Comment: 11 pages. v2: Signs of equations (1.2) and (4.2) are fixe

The smart grid as commons: exploring alternatives to infrastructure financialisation

This paper explores a tension between financialisation of electricity infrastructures and efforts to bring critical urban systems into common ownership. Focusing on the emerging landscape of electricity regulation and e-mobility in the United Kingdom (UK), it examines how electricity grid ownership has become financialised, and why the economic assumptions that enabled this financialisation are being called into question. New technologies, such as smart electricity meters and electric vehicles, provide cities with new tools to tackle poor air quality and greenhouse gas emissions. Electricity grids are key enabling infrastructures but the companies that run them do not get rewarded for improving air quality or tackling climate change. UK government regulation of electricity grids both enables financialisation and forecloses opportunities to manage the infrastructure for wider environmental and public benefit. Nonetheless, the addition of smart devices to this network - the ‘smart grid’ – opens up an opportunity for common ownership of the infrastructure. Transforming the smart grid into commons necessitates deep structural reform to the entire architecture of infrastructure regulation in the UK

Some Simple Criteria for Gauged R-parity

We catalog some simple conditions which are sufficient to guarantee that R-parity survives as an unbroken gauged discrete subgroup of the continuous gauge symmetry in certain supersymmetric extensions of the standard model.Comment: 11 pages, UFIFT-HEP-92-22. v2: TeX formatting fixed, no other change

Molecular Phylogeny of Edge Hill Virus Supports its Position in the Yellow Fever Virus Group and Identifies a New Genetic Variant

Edge Hill virus (EHV) is a mosquito-borne flavivirus isolated throughout Australia during mosquito surveillance programs. While not posing an immediate threat to the human population, EHV is a taxonomically interesting flavivirus since it remains the only member of the yellow fever virus (YFV) sub-group to be detected within Australia. Here we present both an antigenic and genetic investigation of collected isolates, and confirm taxonomic classification of the virus within the YFV-group. Isolates were not clustered based on geographical origin or time of isolation, suggesting that minimal genetic evolution of EHV has occurred over geographic distance or time within the EHV cluster. However, two isolates showed significant differences in antigenic reactivity patterns, and had a much larger divergence from the EHV prototype (19% nucleotide and 6% amino acid divergence), indicating a distinct subtype or variant within the EHV subgroup

Sparticle Spectrum Constraints

The supersymmetric standard model with supergravity-inspired soft breaking terms predicts a rich pectrum of sparticles to be discovered at the SSC, LHC and NLC. Because there are more supersymmetric particles than unknown parameters, one can write down sum rules relating their masses. We discuss the pectrum of sparticles from this point of view. Some of the sum rules do not depend on the input parameters and can be used to test the consistency of the model, while others are useful in determining the input parameters of the theory. If supersymmetry is discovered but the sum rules turn out to be violated, it will be evidence of new physics beyond the minimal supersymmetric standard model with universal soft supersymmetry-breaking terms.Comment: 25 pages. NUB-3067-93TH, UFIFT-HEP-93-16, SSCL-Preprint-439, June 199

Implications of supersymmetric models with natural R-parity conservation

In the minimal supersymmetric standard model, the conservation of R-parity is phenomenologically desirable, but is ad hoc in the sense that it is not required for the internal consistency of the theory. However, if B-L is gauged at very high energies, R-parity will be conserved automatically and exactly, provided only that all order parameters carry even integer values of 3(B-L). We propose a minimal extension of the supersymmetric standard model in which R-parity conservation arises naturally in this way. This approach predicts the existence of a very weakly coupled, neutral chiral supermultiplet of particles with electroweak-scale masses and lifetimes which may be cosmologically interesting. Neutrino masses arise via an intermediate-scale seesaw mechanism, and a solution to the $\mu$ problem is naturally incorporated. The apparent unification of gauge couplings at high energies is shown to be preserved in this approach. We also discuss a next-to-minimal extension, which predicts a pair of electroweak-scale chiral supermultiplets with electric charge 2.Comment: 19 pages, plain TeX, no figure

Two-Loop Renormalization Group Equations for Soft Supersymmetry-Breaking Couplings

We compute the two-loop renormalization group equations for all soft supersymmetry-breaking couplings in a general softly broken N=1 supersymmetric model. We also specialize these results to the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model.Comment: 26 pages. [v4: Signs of equations (4.2) and (4.3) are fixed.

Probing EWSB Naturalness in Unified SUSY Models with Dark Matter

We have studied Electroweak Symmetry Breaking (EWSB) fine-tuning in the context of two unified Supersymmetry scenarios: the Constrained Minimal Supersymmetric Model (CMSSM) and models with Non-Universal Higgs Masses (NUHM), in light of current and upcoming direct detection dark matter experiments. We consider both those models that satisfy a one-sided bound on the relic density of neutralinos, $\Omega_{\chi} h^2 < 0.12$, and also the subset that satisfy the two-sided bound in which the relic density is within the 2 sigma best fit of WMAP7 + BAO + H0 data. We find that current direct detection searches for dark matter probe the least fine-tuned regions of parameter-space, or equivalently those of lowest Higgs mass parameter $\mu$, and will tend to probe progressively more and more fine-tuned models, though the trend is more pronounced in the CMSSM than in the NUHM. Additionally, we examine several subsets of model points, categorized by common mass hierarchies; M_{\chi_0} \sim M_{\chi^\pm}, M_{\chi_0} \sim M_{\stau}, M_{\chi_0} \sim M_{\stop_1}, the light and heavy Higgs poles, and any additional models classified as "other"; the relevance of these mass hierarchies is their connection to the preferred neutralino annihilation channel that determines the relic abundance. For each of these subsets of models we investigated the degree of fine-tuning and discoverability in current and next generation direct detection experiments.Comment: 26 pages, 10 figures. v2: references added. v3: matches published versio

The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog V. Seventh Data Release

We present the fifth edition of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Quasar Catalog, which is based upon the SDSS Seventh Data Release. The catalog, which contains 105,783 spectroscopically confirmed quasars, represents the conclusion of the SDSS-I and SDSS-II quasar survey. The catalog consists of the SDSS objects that have luminosities larger than M_i = -22.0 (in a cosmology with H_0 = 70 km/s/Mpc Omega_M = 0.3, and Omega_Lambda = 0.7) have at least one emission line with FWHM larger than 1000 km/s or have interesting/complex absorption features, are fainter than i > 15.0 and have highly reliable redshifts. The catalog covers an area of 9380 deg^2. The quasar redshifts range from 0.065 to 5.46, with a median value of 1.49; the catalog includes 1248 quasars at redshifts greater than four, of which 56 are at redshifts greater than five. The catalog contains 9210 quasars with i < 18; slightly over half of the entries have i< 19. For each object the catalog presents positions accurate to better than 0.1" rms per coordinate, five-band (ugriz) CCD-based photometry with typical accuracy of 0.03 mag, and information on the morphology and selection method. The catalog also contains radio, near-infrared, and X-ray emission properties of the quasars, when available, from other large-area surveys. The calibrated digital spectra cover the wavelength region 3800-9200 Ang. at a spectral resolution R = 2000 the spectra can be retrieved from the SDSS public database using the information provided in the catalog. Over 96% of the objects in the catalog were discovered by the SDSS. We also include a supplemental list of an additional 207 quasars with SDSS spectra whose archive photometric information is incomplete.Comment: Accepted, to appear in AJ, 7 figures, electronic version of Table 2 is available, see http://www.sdss.org/dr7/products/value_added/qsocat_dr7.htm

Criminology or Zemiology? Yes, please! on the refusal of choice between false alternatives

Buried deep within the zemiological movement and its supportive literature is the implicit assumption that the word zemia, the organising concept around which zemiology is built, simply represents ‘the Greek word for harm’. This interpretation has supported numerous drives to ‘move beyond criminology’ and erect strict borders between the study of crime and harm. However, a deeper, albeit still rather brief, exploration of zemia reveals that it possesses a broader range of meaning than that commonly afforded to it. By beginning to unpick zemia’s semantic genealogy, it appears that the conventional use of the word to support the imposition of false alternatives between criminology and zemiology is untenable. Accordingly, this chapter attempts to foreground a more integrated approach to the study of crime and harm