Probing Gravitational Interactions of Elementary Particles

The gravitational interactions of elementary particles are suppressed by the Planck scale M_P ~ 10^18 GeV and are typically expected to be far too weak to be probed by experiments. We show that, contrary to conventional wisdom, such interactions may be studied by particle physics experiments in the next few years. As an example, we consider conventional supergravity with a stable gravitino as the lightest supersymmetric particle. The next-lightest supersymmetric particle (NLSP) decays to the gravitino through gravitational interactions after about a year. This lifetime can be measured by stopping NLSPs at colliders and observing their decays. Such studies will yield a measurement of Newton's gravitational constant on unprecedentedly small scales, shed light on dark matter, and provide a window on the early universe.Comment: 6 pages, second prize in the 2004 Gravity Research Foundation essay competitio

Superweakly Interacting Massive Particles

We investigate a new class of dark matter: superweakly-interacting massive particles (superWIMPs). As with conventional WIMPs, superWIMPs appear in well-motivated particle theories with naturally the correct relic density. In contrast to WIMPs, however, superWIMPs are impossible to detect in all conventional dark matter searches. We consider the concrete examples of gravitino and graviton cold dark matter in models with supersymmetry and universal extra dimensions, respectively, and show that superWIMP dark matter satisfies stringent constraints from Big Bang nucleosynthesis and the cosmic microwave background.Comment: 4 pages, 4 figures, published versio

Goldilocks Supersymmetry: Simultaneous Solution to the Dark Matter and Flavor Problems of Supersymmetry

Neutralino dark matter is well motivated, but also suffers from two shortcomings: it requires gravity-mediated supersymmetry breaking, which generically violates flavor constraints, and its thermal relic density \Omega is typically too large. We propose a simple solution to both problems: neutralinos freezeout with \Omega ~10-100, but then decay to ~1 GeV gravitinos, which are simultaneously light enough to satisfy flavor constraints and heavy enough to be all of dark matter. This scenario is naturally realized in high-scale gauge-mediation models, ameliorates small scale structure problems, and implies that ``cosmologically excluded'' models may, in fact, be cosmologically preferred.Comment: 4 pages; v2: references added; v3: published versio

Study of lepton flavor violation in flavor symmetric models for lepton sector

Flavor symmetric model is one of the attractive Beyond Standard Models (BSMs) to reveal the flavor structure of the Standard Model (SM). A lot of efforts have been put into the model building and we find many kinds of flavor symmetries and setups are able to explain the observed fermion mass matrices. In this paper, we look for common predictions of physical observables among the ones in flavor symmetric models, and try to understand how to test flavor symmetry in experiments. Especially, we focus on the BSMs for leptons with extra Higgs $SU(2)_L$ doublets charged under flavor symmetry. In many flavor models for leptons, remnant symmetry is partially respected after the flavor symmetry breaking, and it controls well the Flavor Changing Neutral Currents (FCNCs) and suggests some crucial predictions against the flavor changing process, although the remnant symmetry is not respected in the full lagrangian. In fact, we see that $\tau^- \to e^+ \mu^- \mu^-$ $( \mu^+ e^- e^-)$ and $e^+ e^- \to \tau^+\tau^-$ $(\mu^-\mu^+)$ processes are the most important in the flavor models that the extra Higgs doublets belong to triplet representation of flavor symmetry. For instance, the stringent constraint from the $\mu \to e \gamma$ process could be evaded according to the partial remnant symmetry. We also investigate the breaking effect of the remnant symmetry mediated by the Higgs scalars, and investigate the constraints from the flavor physics: the flavor violating $\tau$ and $\mu$ decays, the electric dipole moments, and the muon anomalous magnetic moment. We also discuss the correlation between FCNCs and nonzero $\theta_{13}$, and point out the physical observables in the charged lepton sector to test the BSMs for the neutrino mixing.Comment: 29 pages, 11 figure

SuperWIMP Gravitino Dark Matter from Slepton and Sneutrino Decays

Dark matter may be composed of superWIMPs, superweakly-interacting massive particles produced in the late decays of other particles. We focus on the case of gravitinos produced in the late decays of sleptons or sneutrinos and assume they are produced in sufficient numbers to constitute all of non-baryonic dark matter. At leading order, these late decays are two-body and the accompanying energy is electromagnetic. For natural weak-scale parameters, these decays have been shown to satisfy bounds from Big Bang nucleosynthesis and the cosmic microwave background. However, sleptons and sneutrinos may also decay to three-body final states, producing hadronic energy, which is subject to even more stringent nucleosynthesis bounds. We determine the three-body branching fractions and the resulting hadronic energy release. We find that superWIMP gravitino dark matter is viable and determine the gravitino and slepton/sneutrino masses preferred by this solution to the dark matter problem. In passing, we note that hadronic constraints disfavor the possibility of superWIMPs produced by neutralino decays unless the neutralino is photino-like.Comment: 22 pages, updated figures and minor changes, version to appear in Phys. Rev.