114 research outputs found
Penguin decays of B mesons
Penguin, or loop, decays of B mesons induce effective flavor-changing neutral
currents, which are forbidden at tree level in the Standard Model. These decays
give special insight into the CKM matrix and are sensitive to non-standard
model effects. In this review, we give a historical and theoretical
introduction to penguins and a description of the various types of penguin
processes: electromagnetic, electroweak, and gluonic. We review the
experimental searches for penguin decays, including the measurements of the
electromagnetic penguins b -> s gamma and B -> K* gamma and gluonic penguins B
-> K pi, B+ -> omega K+ and B -> eta' K, and their implications for the
Standard Model and New Physics. We conclude by exploring the future prospects
for penguin physics.Comment: 49 pages, LATEX, 30 embedded figures, submitted to Annual Reviews of
Nuclear and Particle Scienc
Higgs for Graviton: Simple and Elegant Solution
A Higgs mechanism for gravity is presented, where four scalars with global
Lorentz symmetry are employed. We show that in the broken symmetry phase a
graviton absorbs all scalars and become massive spin 2 particle with five
degrees of freedom. The resulting theory is unitary and free of ghosts.Comment: 8 pages, References added. The decoupling of ghost state is analyzed
in detail
Cleaning up the cosmological constant
We present a novel idea for screening the vacuum energy contribution to the
overall value of the cosmological constant, thereby enabling us to choose the
bare value of the vacuum curvature empirically, without any need to worry about
the zero-point energy contributions of each particle. The trick is to couple
matter to a metric that is really a composite of other fields, with the
property that the square-root of its determinant is the integrand of a
topological invariant, and/or a total derivative. This ensures that the vacuum
energy contribution to the Lagrangian is non-dynamical. We then give an
explicit example of a theory with this property that is free from Ostrogradski
ghosts, and is consistent with solar system physics and cosmological tests.Comment: 8 pages, typos corrected and more text added, version accepted for
publication in JHE
UV-Completion by Classicalization
We suggest a novel approach to UV-completion of a class of non-renormalizable
theories, according to which the high-energy scattering amplitudes get
unitarized by production of extended classical objects (classicalons), playing
a role analogous to black holes, in the case of non-gravitational theories. The
key property of classicalization is the existence of a classicalizer field that
couples to energy-momentum sources. Such localized sources are excited in
high-energy scattering processes and lead to the formation of classicalons. Two
kinds of natural classicalizers are Nambu-Goldstone bosons (or, equivalently,
longitudinal polarizations of massive gauge fields) and scalars coupled to
energy-momentum type sources. Classicalization has interesting phenomenological
applications for the UV-completion of the Standard Model both with or without
the Higgs. In the Higgless Standard Model the high-energy scattering amplitudes
of longitudinal -bosons self-unitarize via classicalization, without the
help of any new weakly-coupled physics. Alternatively, in the presence of a
Higgs boson, classicalization could explain the stabilization of the hierarchy.
In both scenarios the high-energy scatterings are dominated by the formation of
classicalons, which subsequently decay into many particle states. The
experimental signatures at the LHC are quite distinctive, with sharp
differences in the two cases.Comment: 37 page
Massive Gravity: Exorcising the Ghost
We consider Higgs massive gravity [1,2] and investigate whether a nonlinear
ghost in this theory can be avoided. We show that although the theory
considered in [10,11] is ghost free in the decoupling limit, the ghost
nevertheless reappears in the fourth order away from the decoupling limit. We
also demonstrate that there is no direct relation between the value of the
Vainshtein scale and the existence of nonlinear ghost. We discuss how massive
gravity should be modified to avoid the appearance of the ghost.Comment: 16 page
Lessons from the decoupling limit of Horava gravity
We consider the so-called "healthy" extension of Horava gravity in the limit
where the Stuckelberg field decouples from the graviton. We verify the alleged
strong coupling problem in this limit, under the assumption that no large
dimensionless parameters are put in by hand. This follows from the fact that
the dispersion relation for the Stuckelberg field does not have the desired z =
3 anisotropic scaling in the UV. To get the desired scaling and avoid strong
coupling one has to introduce a low scale of Lorentz violation and retain some
coupling between the graviton and the Stuckelberg field. We also make use of
the foliation preserving symmetry to show how the Stuckelberg field couples to
some violation of energy conservation. We source the Stuckelberg field using a
point particle with a slowly varying mass and show that two such particles feel
a constant attractive force. In this particular example, we see no Vainshtein
effect, and violations of the Equivalence Principle. The latter is probably
generic to other types of source and could potentially be used to place lower
bounds on the scale of Lorentz violation.Comment: 18 pages, 1 figure. Version to appear in JHEP. Conclusions with
respect to strong coupling modified - our strong coupling analysis does not
apply to a low scale of Lorentz violation. Expanded Equivalence Principle
violation discussion, noting it presents a challenge to low scale Lorentz
violation, exactly the scenario designed to cure strong coupling. Other minor
corrections and references adde
Supersymmetric QCD: Exact Results and Strong Coupling
We revisit two longstanding puzzles in supersymmetric gauge theories. The
first concerns the question of the holomorphy of the coupling, and related to
this the possible definition of an exact (NSVZ) beta function. The second
concerns instantons in pure gluodynamics, which appear to give sensible, exact
results for certain correlation functions, which nonetheless differ from those
obtained using systematic weak coupling expansions. For the first question, we
extend an earlier proposal of Arkani-Hamed and Murayama, showing that if their
regulated action is written suitably, the holomorphy of the couplings is
manifest, and it is easy to determine the renormalization scheme for which the
NSVZ formula holds. This scheme, however, is seen to be one of an infinite
class of schemes, each leading to an exact beta function; the NSVZ scheme,
while simple, is not selected by any compelling physical consideration. For the
second question, we explain why the instanton computation in the pure
supersymmetric gauge theory is not reliable, even at short distances. The
semiclassical expansion about the instanton is purely formal; if infrared
divergences appear, they spoil arguments based on holomorphy. We demonstrate
that infrared divergences do not occur in the perturbation expansion about the
instanton, but explain that there is no reason to think this captures all
contributions from the sector with unit topological charge. That one expects
additional contributions is illustrated by dilute gas corrections. These are
infrared divergent, and so difficult to define, but if non-zero give order one,
holomorphic, corrections to the leading result. Exploiting an earlier analysis
of Davies et al, we demonstrate that in the theory compactified on a circle of
radius beta, due to infrared effects, finite contributions indeed arise which
are not visible in the formal limit that beta goes to infinity.Comment: 28 pages, two references added, one typo correcte
What two models may teach us about duality violations in QCD
Though the operator product expansion is applicable in the calculation of
current correlation functions in the Euclidean region, when approaching the
Minkowskian domain, violations of quark-hadron duality are expected to occur,
due to the presence of bound-state or resonance poles. In QCD finite-energy sum
rules, contour integrals in the complex energy plane down to the Minkowskian
axis have to be performed, and thus the question arises what the impact of
duality violations may be. The structure and possible relevance of duality
violations is investigated on the basis of two models: the Coulomb system and a
model for light-quark correlators which has already been studied previously. As
might yet be naively expected, duality violations are in some sense "maximal"
for zero-width bound states and they become weaker for broader resonances whose
poles lie further away from the physical axis. Furthermore, to a certain
extent, they can be suppressed by choosing appropriate weight functions in the
finite-energy sum rules. A simplified Ansatz for including effects of duality
violations in phenomenological QCD sum rule analyses is discussed as well.Comment: 17 pages, 6 figures; version to appear in JHE
On Non-Linear Actions for Massive Gravity
In this work we present a systematic construction of the potentially
ghost-free non-linear massive gravity actions. The most general action can be
regarded as a 2-parameter deformation of a minimal massive action. Further
extensions vanish in 4 dimensions. The general mass term is constructed in
terms of a "deformed" determinant from which this property can clearly be seen.
In addition, our formulation identifies non-dynamical terms that appear in
previous constructions and which do not contribute to the equations of motion.
We elaborate on the formal structure of these theories as well as some of their
implications.Comment: v3: 22 pages, minor comments added, version to appear in JHE
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