Fermion mass hierarchy and new physics at the TeV scale

In this talk, I present a new framework to understand the long-standing fermion mass hierarchy puzzle. We extend the Standard Model gauge symmetry by an extra local U(1)_S symmetry, broken spontaneously at the electroweak scale. All the SM particles are singlet with respect to this U(1)_S. We also introduce additional flavor symmetries, U(1)_F's, with flavon scalars F_i, as well as vectorlike quarks and leptons at the TeV scale. The flavon scalars have VEV in the TeV scale. Only the top quark has the usual dimension four Yukawa coupling. EW symmetry breaking to all other quarks and leptons are propagated through the messenger field, S through their interactions involving the heavy vector-like fermions and S, as well as through their interactions involving the vector-like fermions and F_i. In addition the explaining the hierarchy of the charged fermion masses and mixings, the model has several interesting predictions for Higgs decays, flavor changing neutral current processes in the top and the b quark decays, decays of the new singlet scalars to the new Z' boson, as well as productions of the new vectorlike quarks. These predictions can be tested at the LHC.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures; Plenary talk presented at the 17th International Conference on Supersymmetry and the Unification of Fundamental Interactions (SUSY09) at Northeastern University, Boston, MA, 5-10 June, 200

Shaking during Ion-Atom Collisions

Shaking (shakeup + shakeoff) probabilities accompanying ion-atom collisions are studied using hydrogenic wavefunctions for K-, L-, M- shell electrons in the sudden approximation limit. The role of recoil velocity in the shaking processes is discussed. Further, it is found that the suddenness of collision between projectile and target nuclei plays a major factor in shaking of respective atomic system than the recoil of nuclei.Comment: 10 page

Topflavor: A Separate SU(2) for the Third Family

We consider an extended electroweak gauge group: SU(2)$_1 \times$ SU(2)$_2 \times$ U(1)$_Y$ where the first and second generation of fermions couple to SU(2)$_1$ and the third generation couples to SU(2)$_2$. Bounds based on heavy gauge boson searches and current precision electroweak measurements are placed on the masses of the new heavy gauge bosons. In particular we find that the mass of the heavy W boson can not be less than 800 GeV. For some range of the allowed parameter space, these heavy gauge bosons produce observable signals at the Tevatron and LEP-II.Comment: LaTeX, 11 pages, some comments on FCNC interactions and single top production added, additional references include