Photogenetic Retinal Prosthesis

The last few decades have witnessed an immense effort to develop working retinal implants for patients suffering from retinal degeneration diseases such as retinitis pigmentosa. However, it is becoming apparent that this approach is unable to restore levels of vision that will be sufficient to offer significant improvement in the quality of life of patients. Herein, a new type of retinal prosthesis that is based on genetic expression of microbial light sensitive ion channel, Chanelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2), and a remote light stimulation is examined. First, the dynamics of the ChR2 stimulation is characterized and it is shown that (1) the temporal resolution of ChR2-evoked spiking is limited by a continuous drop in its depolarization efficiency that is due to (a) frequency-independent desensitization process and (b) slow photocurrent shutting, which leads to a frequency-dependent post-spike depolarization and (2) the ChR2 response to light can be accurately reproduced by a four-state model consisting of two interconnected branches of open and close states. Then, a stimulation prototype is developed and its functionality is demonstrated in-vitro. The prototype uses a new micro-emissive matrix which enables generating of two-dimensional stimulation patterns with enhanced resolution compared to the conventional retinal implants. Finally, based on the micro-emitters matrix, a new technique for sub-cellular and network-level neuroscience experimentations is shown. The capacity to excite sub-cellular compartments is demonstrated and an example utility to fast map variability in dendrites conductance is shown. The outcomes of this thesis present an outline and a first proof-of-concept for a future photogenetic retinal prosthesis. In addition, they provide the emerging optogenetic technology with a detailed analysis of its temporal resolution and a tool to expand its spatial resolution, which can have immediate high impact applications in modulating the activity of sub-cellular compartments, mapping neuronal networks and studying synchrony and plasticity effects

Future prospects of B physics

In recent years, the CKM picture of flavor and CP violation has been confirmed, mainly due to B decay data. Yet, it is likely that there are small corrections to this picture. We expect to find new physics not much above the weak scale. This new physics could modify flavor changing processes compared to their SM expectations. Much larger B decay data sets, which are expected from LHCb and super-$B$-factories, will be used to search for these deviations with much improved sensitivity. The combination of low and high energy data will be particularly useful to probe the structure of new physics.Comment: 19 pages. To appear in the Progress of Theoretical Physics special issue commemorating Kobayashi and Maskawa Nobel prize. v2: references added. Final version to appear in the journa

A Model Independent Construction of the Unitarity Triangle

In a large class of models, the only significant new physics effect on the CP asymmetries in $B \to \psi K_S$ and $B \to \pi\pi$ decays is a new contribution to the $B-\bar B$ mixing amplitude. This allows a model independent construction of the CKM Unitarity Triangle (up to hadronic uncertainties). Furthermore, the contributions to the mixing from the Standard Model and from the new physics can be disentangled. A serious obstacle to this analysis is an eightfold discrete ambiguity in solving for the angles of the triangle. Several ways to reduce the ambiguity either by making further measurements, or by making further assumptions about the nature of the new physics are described.Comment: 14 pages, harvmac, 2 figures uses eps

CP Violation Beyond the Standard Model

We review CP violation in various extensions of the electroweak sector of the Standard Model. A particular emphasis is put on supersymmetric models. We describe the two CP problems of supersymmetry, concerning $d_N$ and $\epsilon_K$. We critically review the various mechanisms that have been suggested to solve these problems: exact universality, approximate CP symmetry, alignment, approximate universality and heavy squarks. We explain how future measurements of CP violation will test these mechanisms. We describe extensions of the quark sector and their implications on CP asymmetries in neutral B decays, on the $K_L \to \pi \nu \bar\nu$ decay and on $\Delta\Gamma(B_s)$. We discuss CP violation in charged scalar exchange in models with natural flavor conservation and explain how transverse lepton polarization in meson decays can probe such models. CP violation in neutral scalar exchange arises in models of horizontal symmetries and may be manifest in heavy quark (b and t) physics. We describe the implications of Left-Right Symmetric models on $d_N$, $\epsilon_K$, $\epsilon'/\epsilon$ and CP asymmetries in B decays. Finally, we briefly discuss the potential of future measurements of CP violation to discover New Physics.Comment: 50 pages, harvmac, 1 figure. To appear in the Review Volume "Heavy Flavours II", eds. A.J. Buras and M. Lindner, Advanced Series on Directions in High Energy Physics, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapor

Υ\Upsilon and ψ\psi leptonic decays as probes of solutions to the RD(∗)R_D^{(*)} puzzle

Experimental measurements of the ratios $R(D^{(*)})\equiv\frac{\Gamma(B\to D^{(*)}\tau\nu)}{\Gamma(B\to D^{(*)}\ell\nu)}$ ($\ell=e,\mu$) show a $3.9\sigma$ deviation from the Standard Model prediction. In the absence of light right-handed neutrinos, a new physics contribution to $b\to c\tau\nu$ decays necessarily modifies also $b\bar b\to\tau^+\tau^-$ and/or $c\bar c\to\tau^+\tau^-$ transitions. These contributions lead to violation of lepton flavor universality in, respectively, $\Upsilon$ and $\psi$ leptonic decays. We analyze the constraints resulting from measurements of the leptonic vector-meson decays on solutions to the $R(D^{(*)})$ puzzle. Available data from BaBar and Belle can already disfavor some of the new physics explanations of this anomaly. Further discrimination can be made by measuring $\Upsilon(1S,2S,3S)\to\tau\tau$ in the upcoming Belle II experiment.Comment: Version published in JHEP, 17 pages, 7 figure

The Role of CP violation in D0 anti-D0 Mixing

In current searches for D0 anti-D0 mixing, the time evolution of ``wrong-sign'' decays is used to distinguish between a potential mixing signal and the dominant background from doubly-Cabibbo-suppressed decays. A term proportional to $\Delta Mt$ in the expression for the time evolution is often neglected in theoretical discussions and experimental analyses of these processes. We emphasize that, in general, this term does not vanish even in the case of CP invariance. Furthermore, CP invariance is likely to be violated if the rate of D0 anti-D0 mixing is close to the experimental bound. The consequence of either of these two facts is that the strongest existing measured bound is not applicable for constraining New Physics.Comment: 14 pages, uuencoded gzip-compressed postscript (84 kB

Implications of the Fleischer-Mannel Bound

Fleischer and Mannel (FM) have shown that it may become possible to constrain the angle $\gamma$ of the unitarity triangle from measurements of various $B\to\pi K$ decays. This constraint is independent of hadronic uncertainties to the few percent level. We show that, within the Standard Model, the FM bound gives strong constraints on the CKM parameters. In particular, it could predict a well defined sign for $\sin2\gamma$ and $\sin2\alpha$. In a class of extensions of the Standard Model, where the New Physics affects only $\Delta B=2$ (and, in particular, not $\Delta B=1$) processes, the FM bound can lead to constraints on CP asymmetries in $B$ decays into final CP eigenstates even if $B-\bar B$ mixing is dominated by unknown New Physics. In our analysis, we use a new method to combine in a statistically meaningful way the various measurements that involve CKM parameters.Comment: 24 pages, revtex, 6 figures included using psfi

New Physics and Future B Factories

Further experimental and theoretical studies of the physics of flavor and CP violation are well motivated. Within the supersymmetric framework, higher precision measurements will allow to explore classes of models with stronger degree of universality: first, models with no universality, such as alignment or heavy first two squark generations; second, models with approximate universality, such as dilaton dominance or AMSB; and finally models of exact universality, such as GMSB. A broad program, including various rare processes or CP asymmetries in B, D and K decays, will provide detailed information about viable extensions of the Standard Model. Some highlights of future B-physics experiments (the present B-factories with integrated luminosity of 0.5 ab^{-1}, hadron machines, and future high-luminosity B-factories) are described.Comment: 16 pages; An extended version of the contribution to the proceedings of the fifth KEK topical conference `Frontiers in Flavor Physics', KEK, Tsukuba, Japan, November 2001; Talk at the conference given by Y

The importance of N2 leptogenesis

We argue that fast interactions of the lightest singlet neutrino $N_1$ would project part of a preexisting lepton asymmetry $L_p$ onto a direction that is protected from $N_1$ washout effects, thus preventing it from being erased. In particular, we consider an asymmetry generated in $N_2$ decays, assuming that $N_1$ interactions are fast enough to bring $N_1$ into full thermal equilibrium. If $N_1$ decays occur at T\gsim 10^9 GeV, that is, before the muon Yukawa interactions enter into thermal equilibrium, then generically part of $L_p$ survives. In this case some of the constraints implied by the standard $N_1$ leptogenesis scenario hold only if $L_p \approx 0$. For T\lsim 10^9 GeV, $L_p$ is generally erased, unless special alignment/orthogonality conditions in flavor space are realized.Comment: 5 pages. A few clarifications added, conclusions unchanged. Version published in Phys. Rev. Lett. (Title changed in journal