2,055 research outputs found
Strange two-baryon interactions using chiral effective field theory
We have constructed the leading order strangeness S=-1,-2 baryon-baryon
potential in a chiral effective field theory approach. The chiral potential
consists of one-pseudoscalar-meson exchanges and non-derivative four-baryon
contact terms. The potential, derived using SU(3)_f symmetry constraints,
contains six independent low-energy coefficients. We have solved a regularized
Lippmann-Schwinger equation and achieved a good description of the available
scattering data. Furthermore a correctly bound hypertriton has been obtained.Comment: 3 pages, 2 PostScript figures, talk to appear in the proceedings of
the "20th European Conference on Few-Body Problems in Physics (EFB20), Pisa,
Italy, 10-14 September 2007
Effective Theory of a Dynamically Broken Electroweak Standard Model at NLO
We consider the Standard Model as an effective theory at the weak scale
of a generic new strong interaction that dynamically breaks electroweak
symmetry at the energy scale (few) TeV. Assuming only the
minimal field content with the Standard Model fermions and gauge bosons, but
without a light Higgs particle, we construct the complete Lagrangian through
next-to-leading order, that is, including terms of order . The
systematics behind this expansion is clarified. Although similar to chiral
perturbation theory, it is not governed by the dimension of operators alone,
but depends in an essential way on the loop expansion. Power-counting formulas
are derived that indicate the classes of operators required at the
next-to-leading order. The complete set of operators at leading and
next-to-leading order is then listed, based on the restrictions implied by the
Standard-Model gauge symmetries. We recover the well-known operators discussed
in the literature in connection with the electroweak chiral Lagrangian and in
similar contexts, but we collect a complete and systematic list of all terms
through order . This includes some operators not discussed in
explicit terms before. We also show that a few of the previously considered
operators can be eliminated via the equations of motion. As another important
result we confirm the known list of dimension-6 operators in the Standard Model
with an elementary Higgs doublet, essentially as a special case of our
scenario.Comment: 35 pages, 1 figure; references adde
Quantum Gravity in Everyday Life: General Relativity as an Effective Field Theory
This article is meant as a summary and introduction to the ideas of effective
field theory as applied to gravitational systems.
Contents:
1. Introduction
2. Effective Field Theories
3. Low-Energy Quantum Gravity
4. Explicit Quantum Calculations
5. ConclusionsComment: 56 pages, 2 figures, JHEP style, Invited review to appear in Living
Reviews of Relativit
Using the 3D Facial Norms Database to investigate craniofacial sexual dimorphism in healthy children, adolescents, and adults
Background: Although craniofacial sex differences have been extensively studied in humans, relatively little is known about when various dimorphic features manifest during postnatal life. Using cross-sectional data derived from the 3D Facial Norms data repository, we tested for sexual dimorphism of craniofacial soft-tissue morphology at different ages. Methods: One thousand five hundred fifty-five individuals, pre-screened for craniofacial conditions, between 3 and 25 years of age were placed in to one of six age-defined categories: early childhood, late childhood, puberty, adolescence, young adult, and adult. At each age group, sex differences were tested by ANCOVA for 29 traditional soft-tissue anthropometric measurements collected from 3D facial scans. Additionally, sex differences in shape were tested using a geometric morphometric analysis of 24 3D facial landmarks. Results: Significant (p < 0.05) sex differences were observed in every age group for measurements covering multiple aspects of the craniofacial complex. The magnitude of the dimorphism generally increased with age, with large spikes in the nasal, cranial, and facial measurements observed after puberty. Significant facial shape differences (p < 0.05) were also seen at each age, with some dimorphic features already present in young children (eye fissure inclination) and others emerging only after puberty (mandibular position). Conclusions: Several craniofacial soft-tissue sex differences were already present in the youngest age group studied, indicating that these differences emerged prior to 3 years of age. The results paint a complex and heterogeneous picture, with different groups of traits exhibiting distinct patterns of dimorphism during ontogeny. The definitive adult male and female facial shape was present following puberty, but arose from numerous distinct changes taking place at earlier stages
Quantum catastrophe of slow light
Catastrophes are at the heart of many fascinating optical phenomena. The
rainbow, for example, is a ray catastrophe where light rays become infinitely
intense. The wave nature of light resolves the infinities of ray catastrophes
while drawing delicate interference patterns such as the supernumerary arcs of
the rainbow. Black holes cause wave singularities. Waves oscillate with
infinitely small wave lengths at the event horizon where time stands still. The
quantum nature of light avoids this higher level of catastrophic behaviour
while producing a quantum phenomenon known as Hawking radiation. As this letter
describes, light brought to a standstill in laboratory experiments can suffer a
similar wave singularity caused by a parabolic profile of the group velocity.
In turn, the quantum vacuum is forced to create photon pairs with a
characteristic spectrum. The idea may initiate a theory of quantum
catastrophes, in addition to classical catastrophe theory, and the proposed
experiment may lead to the first direct observation of a phenomenon related to
Hawking radiation.Comment: Published as "A laboratory analogue of the event horizon using slow
light in an atomic medium
Vectorlike Confinement at the LHC
We argue for the plausibility of a broad class of vectorlike confining gauge
theories at the TeV scale which interact with the Standard Model predominantly
via gauge interactions. These theories have a rich phenomenology at the LHC if
confinement occurs at the TeV scale, while ensuring negligible impact on
precision electroweak and flavor observables. Spin-1 bound states can be
resonantly produced via their mixing with Standard Model gauge bosons. The
resonances promptly decay to pseudo-Goldstone bosons, some of which promptly
decay to a pair of Standard Model gauge bosons, while others are charged and
stable on collider time scales. The diverse set of final states with little
background include multiple photons and leptons, missing energy, massive stable
charged particles and the possibility of highly displaced vertices in dilepton,
leptoquark or diquark decays. Among others, a novel experimental signature of
resonance reconstruction out of massive stable charged particles is
highlighted. Some of the long-lived states also constitute Dark Matter
candidates.Comment: 33 pages, 6 figures. v4: expanded discussion of Z_2 symmetry for
stability, one reference adde
Pure-glue hidden valleys through the Higgs portal
We consider the possibility that the Higgs boson can act as a link to a
hidden sector in the context of pure-glue hidden valley models. In these models
the standard model is weakly coupled, through loops of heavy messengers fields,
to a hidden sector whose low energy dynamics is described by a pure-Yang-Mills
theory. Such a hidden sector contains several metastable hidden glueballs. In
this work we shall extend earlier results on hidden valleys to include
couplings of the messengers to the standard model Higgs sector. The effective
interactions at one-loop couple the hidden gluons to the standard model
particles through the Higgs sector. These couplings in turn induce hidden
glueball decays to fermion pairs, or cascade decays with multiple Higgs
emission. The presence of effective operators of different mass dimensions,
often competing with each other, together with a great diversity of states,
leads to a great variability in the lifetimes and decay modes of the hidden
glueballs. We find that most of the operators considered in this paper are not
heavily constrained by precision electroweak physics, therefore leaving plenty
of room in the parameter space to be explored by the future experiments at the
LHC.Comment: 44 pages, 16 figures. Major revision for JHEP, corrected an error in
Eq. 5.1, comments adde
Minimal Conformal Technicolor and Precision Electroweak Tests
We study the minimal model of conformal technicolor, an SU(2) gauge theory
near a strongly coupled conformal fixed point, with conformal symmetry softly
broken by technifermion mass terms. Conformal symmetry breaking triggers chiral
symmetry breaking in the pattern SU(4) -> Sp(4), which gives rise to a
pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson that can act as a composite Higgs boson. The top
quark is elementary, and the top and electroweak gauge loop contributions to
the Higgs mass are cut off entirely by Higgs compositeness. In particular, the
model requires no top partners and no "little Higgs" mechanism. A nontrivial
vacuum alignment results from the interplay of the top loop and technifermion
mass terms. The composite Higgs mass is completely determined by the top loop,
in the sense that m_h/m_t is independent of the vacuum alignment and is
computable by a strong-coupling calculation. There is an additional composite
pseudoscalar A with mass larger than m_h and suppressed direct production at
LHC. We discuss the electroweak fit in this model in detail. Corrections to Z
-> bb and the T parameter from the top sector are suppressed by the enhanced
Sp(4) custodial symmetry. Even assuming that the strong contribution to the S
parameter is positive and usuppressed, a good electroweak fit can be obtained
for v/f ~ 0.25, where v and f are the electroweak and chiral symmetry breaking
scales respectively. This requires fine tuning at the 10% level.Comment: 34 pages, 4 figures; v2: updated precision electroweak fi
One-Loop Calculation of the Oblique S Parameter in Higgsless Electroweak Models
We present a one-loop calculation of the oblique S parameter within Higgsless
models of electroweak symmetry breaking and analyze the phenomenological
implications of the available electroweak precision data. We use the most
general effective Lagrangian with at most two derivatives, implementing the
chiral symmetry breaking SU(2)_L x SU(2)_R -> SU(2)_{L+R} with Goldstones,
gauge bosons and one multiplet of vector and axial-vector massive resonance
states. Using the dispersive representation of Peskin and Takeuchi and imposing
the short-distance constraints dictated by the operator product expansion, we
obtain S at the NLO in terms of a few resonance parameters. In
asymptotically-free gauge theories, the final result only depends on the
vector-resonance mass and requires M_V > 1.8 TeV (3.8 TeV) to satisfy the
experimental limits at the 3 \sigma (1\sigma) level; the axial state is always
heavier, we obtain M_A > 2.5 TeV (6.6 TeV) at 3\sigma (1\sigma). In
strongly-coupled models, such as walking or conformal technicolour, where the
second Weinberg sum rule does not apply, the vector and axial couplings are not
determined by the short-distance constraints; but one can still derive a lower
bound on S, provided the hierarchy M_V < M_A remains valid. Even in this less
constrained situation, we find that in order to satisfy the experimental limits
at 3\sigma one needs M_{V,A} > 1.8 TeV.Comment: 34 pages, 9 figures. Version published in JHEP. Some references and
sentences have been added to facilitate the discussio
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