Lattice Theories with Nonlinearly Realized Chiral Symmetry

We present the lattice formulation of effective Lagrangians in which chiral symmetry is realized nonlinearly on the fermion fields. In this framework both the Wilson term removing unphysical doubler fermions and the fermion mass term do not break chiral symmetry. Our lattice formulation allows us to address non-perturbative questions in effective theories of baryons interacting with pions and in models involving constitutent quarks interacting with pions and gluons. With the presented methods, a system containing a non-zero density of static baryons interacting with pions can be studied on the lattice without encountering a complex action problem. This might lead to new insights into the phase diagram of strongly interacting matter at non-zero chemical potential.Comment: 3 pages, Lattice2003(chiral

Emission of thermal photons and the equilibration time in Heavy-Ion collisions

The emission of hard real photons from thermalized expanding hadronic matter is dominated by the initial high-temperature expansion phase. Therefore, a measurement of photon emission in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions provides valuable insights into the early conditions realized in such a collision. In particular, the initial temperature of the expanding fireball or equivalently the equilibration time of the strongly interacting matter are of great interest. An accurate determination of these quantities could help to answer the question whether or not partonic matter (the quark gluon plasma) is created in such collisions. In this work, we investigate the emission of real photons using a model which is based on the thermodynamics of QCD matter and which has been shown to reproduce a large variety of other observables. With the fireball evolution fixed beforehand, we are able to extract limits for the equilibration time by a comparison with photon emission data measured by WA98.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication at Phys. Rev.

Gravitino Dark Matter Scenarios with Massive Metastable Charged Sparticles at the LHC

We investigate the measurement of supersymmetric particle masses at the LHC in gravitino dark matter (GDM) scenarios where the next-to-lightest supersymmetric partner (NLSP) is the lighter scalar tau, or stau, and is stable on the scale of a detector. Such a massive metastable charged sparticle would have distinctive Time-of-Flight (ToF) and energy-loss ($dE/dx$) signatures. We summarise the documented accuracies expected to be achievable with the ATLAS detector in measurements of the stau mass and its momentum at the LHC. We then use a fast simulation of an LHC detector to demonstrate techniques for reconstructing the cascade decays of supersymmetric particles in GDM scenarios, using a parameterisation of the detector response to staus, taus and jets based on full simulation results. Supersymmetric pair-production events are selected with high redundancy and efficiency, and many valuable measurements can be made starting from stau tracks in the detector. We recalibrate the momenta of taus using transverse-momentum balance, and use kinematic cuts to select combinations of staus, taus, jets and leptons that exhibit peaks in invariant masses that correspond to various heavier sparticle species, with errors often comparable with the jet energy scale uncertainty.Comment: 23 pages, 10 figures, updated to version published in JHE

Signatures of Axinos and Gravitinos at Colliders

The axino and the gravitino are well-motivated candidates for the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) and also for cold dark matter in the Universe. Assuming that a charged slepton is the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle (NLSP), we show how the NLSP decays can be used to probe the axino LSP scenario in hadronic axion models as well as the gravitino LSP scenario at the Large Hadron Collider and the International Linear Collider. We show how one can identify experimentally the scenario realized in nature. In the case of the axino LSP, the NLSP decays will allow one to estimate the value of the axino mass and the Peccei-Quinn scale.Comment: 20 pages, 5 figures, revised version as published in Phys.Lett.B (comments on the experimental feasibility added

St\"uckelino Dark Matter in Anomalous U(1)' Models

We study a possible dark matter candidate in the framework of a minimal anomalous $U(1)'$ extension of the MSSM. It turns out that in a suitable decoupling limit the St\"uckelino, the fermionic degree of freedom of the St\"uckelberg multiplet, is the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP). We compute the relic density of this particle including coannihilations with the next to lightest supersymmetric particle (NLSP) and with the next to next to lightest supersymmetric particle (NNLSP) which are assumed almost degenerate in mass. This assumption is needed in order to satisfy the stringent limits that the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) puts on the relic density. We find that the WMAP constraints can be satisifed by different NLSP and NNLSP configurations as a function of the mass gap with the LSP. These results hold in the parameter space region where the model remains perturbative.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures, improved section 5, revised version published on EPJ

SO(10) unified models and soft leptogenesis

Motivated by the fact that, in some realistic models combining SO(10) GUTs and flavour symmetries, it is not possible to achieve the required baryon asymmetry through the CP asymmetry generated in the decay of right-handed neutrinos, we take a fresh look on how deep this connection is in SO(10). The common characteristics of these models are that they use the see-saw with right-handed neutrinos, predict a normal hierarchy of masses for the neutrinos observed in oscillating experiments and in the basis where the right-handed Majorana mass is diagonal, the charged lepton mixings are tiny. In addition these models link the up-quark Yukawa matrix to the neutrino Yukawa matrix Y^\nu with the special feature of Y^\nu_{11}-> 0 Using this condition, we find that the required baryon asymmetry of the Universe can be explained by the soft leptogenesis using the soft B parameter of the second lightest right-handed neutrino whose mass turns out to be around 10^8 GeV. It is pointed out that a natural way to do so is to use no-scale supergravity where the value of B ~1 GeV is set through gauge-loop corrections.Comment: 26 pages, 2 figures. Added references, new appendix of a relevant fit and improved comment

Gauge vs. Gravity mediation in models with anomalous U(1)'s

In an attempt to implement gauge mediation in string theory, we study string effective supergravity models of supersymmetry breaking, containing anomalous gauge factors. We discuss subtleties related to gauge invariance and the stabilization of the Green-Schwarz moduli, which set non-trivial constraints on the transmission of supersymmetry breaking to MSSM via gauge interactions. Given those constraints, it is difficult to obtain the dominance of gauge mediation over gravity mediation. Furthermore, generically the gauge contributions to soft terms contain additional non-standard terms coming from D-term contributions. Motivated by this, we study the phenomenology of recently proposed hybrid models, where gravity and gauge mediations compete at the GUT scale, and show that such a scenario can respect WMAP constraints and would be easily testable at LHC.Comment: 40 pages, 5 figure

Constraining warm dark matter with cosmic shear power spectra

We investigate potential constraints from cosmic shear on the dark matter particle mass, assuming all dark matter is made up of light thermal relic particles. Given the theoretical uncertainties involved in making cosmological predictions in such warm dark matter scenarios we use analytical fits to linear warm dark matter power spectra and compare (i) the halo model using a mass function evaluated from these linear power spectra and (ii) an analytical fit to the non-linear evolution of the linear power spectra. We optimistically ignore the competing effect of baryons for this work. We find approach (ii) to be conservative compared to approach (i). We evaluate cosmological constraints using these methods, marginalising over four other cosmological parameters. Using the more conservative method we find that a Euclid-like weak lensing survey together with constraints from the Planck cosmic microwave background mission primary anisotropies could achieve a lower limit on the particle mass of 2.5 keV.Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures, minor changes to match the version accepted for publication in JCA

Are direct photons a clean signal of a thermalized quark gluon plasma?

Direct photon production from a quark gluon plasma (QGP) in thermal equilibrium is studied directly in real time. In contrast to the usual S-matrix calculations, the real time approach is valid for a QGP that formed and reached LTE a short time after a collision and of finite lifetime ($\sim 10-20 \mathrm{fm}/c$ as expected at RHIC or LHC). We point out that during such finite QGP lifetime the spectrum of emitted photons carries information on the initial state. There is an inherent ambiguity in separating the virtual from the observable photons during the transient evolution of the QGP. We propose a real time formulation to extract the photon yield which includes the initial stage of formation of the QGP parametrized by an effective time scale of formation $\Gamma^{-1}$. This formulation coincides with the S-matrix approach in the infinite lifetime limit. It allows to separate the virtual cloud as well as the observable photons emitted during the pre- equilibrium stage from the yield during the QGP lifetime. We find that the lowest order contribution $\mathcal{O}(\alpha_{em})$ which does \emph{not} contribute to the S-matrix approach, is of the same order of or larger than the S-matrix contribution during the lifetime of the QGP for a typical formation time $\sim 1 \mathrm{fm}/c$. The yield for momenta $\gtrsim 3 \mathrm{Gev}/c$ features a power law fall-off $\sim T^3 \Gamma^2/k^{5}$ and is larger than that obtained with the S-matrix for momenta $\geq 4 \mathrm{Gev}/c$. We provide a comprehensive numerical comparison between the real time and S-matrix yields and study the dynamics of the build-up of the photon cloud and the different contributions to the radiative energy loss. The reliability of the current estimates on photon emission is discussed.Comment: 31 pages, 12 eps figures, version to appear in PR

Dark matter in supersymmetric models with axino LSP in Randall-Sundrum II brane model

The axino dark matter hypothesis in RSII brane model is studied. Within the framework of CMSSM we assume that the lightest neutralino or stau is the NLSP, and that the axino production has a single contribution from the NLSP decay. It is found that the axino can play the role of dark matter in the universe and we determine what the axino mass should be for different values of the five-dimensional Planck mass. An upper bound is obtained for the latterComment: 12 pages,3 figures, accepted in JHE