Asymptotically Safe Dark Matter

We introduce a new paradigm for dark matter (DM) interactions in which the interaction strength is asymptotically safe. In models of this type, the coupling strength is small at low energies but increases at higher energies, and asymptotically approaches a finite constant value. The resulting phenomenology of this "asymptotically safe DM" is quite distinct. One interesting effect of this is to partially offset the low-energy constraints from direct detection experiments without affecting thermal freeze-out processes which occur at higher energies. High-energy collider and indirect annihilation searches are the primary ways to constrain or discover asymptotically safe dark matter.Comment: 5 pages, 2 multi-panel figures, PRD versio

Corrigan-Ramond Extension of QCD at Nonzero Baryon Density

We investigate the Corrigan-Ramond extension of one massless flavor Quantum Chromo Dynamics at nonzero quark chemical potential. Since the extension requires the fermions to transform in the two index antisymmetric representation of the gauge group, one finds that the number of possible channels is richer than in the 't Hooft limit. We first discuss the diquark channels and show that for a number of colors larger than three a new diquark channel appears. We then study the infinite number of color limit and show that the Fermi surface is unstable to the formation of the Deryagin-Grigoriev-Rubakov chiral waves. We discover, differently from the 't Hooft limit, the possibility of a colored chiral wave breaking the color symmetry as well as translation invariance.Comment: RevTeX, 14 pages, 2 figure

Weinberg-Salam model at finite temperature and density

We present a new gauge fixing condition for the Weinberg-Salam electro-weak theory at finite temperature and density. After spontaneous symmetry breaking occurs, every unphysical term in the Lagrangian is eliminated with our gauge fixing condition. A new and simple Lagrangian can be obtained where we can identify the propagators and vertices. Some consequences are discussed, as the new gauge dependent masses of the gauge fields and the new Faddeev-Popov Lagrangian. After obtaining the quadratic terms, we calculate exactly the 1-loop effective potential identifying the contribution of every particular field.Comment: 4 pages, no figures. New references added. Typo correcte

Scaling Behavior in Soliton Models

In the framework of chiral soliton models we study the behavior of static nucleon properties under rescaling of the parameters describing the effective meson theory. In particular we investigate the question of whether the Brown--Rho scaling laws are general features of such models. When going beyond the simple Skyrme model we find that restrictive constraints need to be imposed on the mesonic parameters in order to maintain these scaling laws. Furthermore, in the case when vector mesons are included in the model it turns out that the isoscalar form factor no longer scales according to these laws. Finally we note that, in addition to the exact scaling laws of the model, one may construct approximate {\it local scaling laws}, which depend of the particular choice of Lagrangian parameters.Comment: 10 pages Latex, figures added using epsfi

Minimal Super Technicolor

We introduce novel extensions of the Standard Model featuring a supersymmetric technicolor sector. First we consider N=4 Super Yang-Mills which breaks to N=1 via the electroweak (EW) interactions and coupling to the MSSM. This is a well defined, economical and calculable extension of the SM involving the smallest number of fields. It constitutes an explicit example of a natural supersymmetric conformal extension of the Standard Model featuring a well defined connection to string theory. It allows to interpolate, depending on how we break the underlying supersymmetry, between unparticle physics and Minimal Walking Technicolor. As a second alternative we consider other N =1 extensions of the Minimal Walking Technicolor model. The new models allow all the standard model matter fields to acquire a mass.Comment: Improved version demonstrating that this extension is phenomenologically viable. No Landau pole exists in the theory to two loops level. This is the first theory showing that supersymmetry can solve the flavor problem when coupled to low energy technicolo

X-ray Lines from Dark Matter: The Good, The Bad, and The Unlikely

We consider three classes of dark matter (DM) models to account for the recently observed 3.5 keV line: metastable excited state DM, annihilating DM, and decaying DM. We study two examples of metastable excited state DM. The first, millicharged composite DM, has both inelasticity and photon emission built in, but with a very constrained parameter space. In the second example, up-scattering and decay come from separate sectors and is thus less constrained. The decay of the excited state can potentially be detectable at direct detection experiments. However we find that CMB constraints are at the border of excluding this as an interpretation of the DAMA signal. The annihilating DM interpretation of the X-ray line is found to be in tension with CMB constraints. Lastly, a generalized version of decaying DM can account for the data with a lifetime exceeding the age of the Universe for masses $\lesssim 10^{6}$ GeV.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures; updated to match JCAP published versio

Conformal Windows of SU(N) Gauge Theories, Higher Dimensional Representations and The Size of The Unparticle World

We present the conformal windows of SU(N) supersymmetric and nonsupersymmetric gauge theories with vector-like matter transforming according to higher irreducible representations of the gauge group. We determine the fraction of asymptotically free theories expected to develop an infrared fixed point and find that it does not depend on the specific choice of the representation. This result is exact in supersymmetric theories while it is an approximate one in the nonsupersymmetric case. The analysis allows us to size the unparticle world related to the existence of underlying gauge theories developing an infrared stable fixed point. We find that exactly 50 % of the asymptotically free theories can develop an infrared fixed point while for the nonsupersymmetric theories it is circa 25 %. When considering multiple representations, only for the nonsupersymmetric case, the conformal regions quickly dominate over the nonconformal ones. For four representations, 70 % of the asymptotically free space is filled by the conformal region. According to our theoretical landscape survey the unparticle physics world occupies a sizable amount of the particle world, at least in theory space, and before mixing it (at the operator level) with the nonconformal one.Comment: RevTeX, 18 pages, 2 figure

Confinement and Chiral Symmetry

We illustrate why color deconfines when chiral symmetry is restored in gauge theories with quarks in the fundamental representation, and while these transitions do not need to coincide when quarks are in the adjoint representation, entanglement between them is still present.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, proceedings of Quark Matter 200

Supersymmetry Inspired QCD Beta Function

We propose an all orders beta function for ordinary Yang-Mills theories with or without fermions inspired by the Novikov-Shifman-Vainshtein-Zakharov beta function of N=1 supersymmetric gauge theories. The beta function allows us to bound the conformal window. When restricting to one adjoint Weyl fermion we show how the proposed beta function matches the one of supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. The running of the pure Yang-Mills coupling is computed and the deviation from the two loop result is presented. We then compare the deviation with the one obtained from lattice data also with respect to the two loop running.Comment: 17 pages and 3 figures. References Adde

Helping children overcome reading difficulties using Response to Intervention

The purpose of this qualitative study was to determine if Argryis and Schon\u27s (1974) Theory-of-Action framework could be used as a viable professional development tool to improve teachers\u27 professional practices when providing Tier II literacy interventions within the context of a Response to Intervention (RTI) program in an elementary school. This multicase study sought to understand more deeply the espoused beliefs and theories-in-use of four elementary literacy interventionists\u27 when delivering intensive literacy interventions to students not reading on grade level within the context of the RTI program by using semi-structured interviews, collection of student work, and classroom observations. Discrepancies were found between the interventionists\u27 espoused theories and theories-in-use, therefore, confirming the need for educators to explore alignment between their two theories as a powerful tool for reflection and dialogue. This study contributes to the literature by presenting a description of belief systems and practices, along with identifying barriers potentially affecting implementation of RTI that can be used to implement positive system-wide change