Nuclei as Laboratories: Nuclear Tests of Fundamental Symmetries

The prospect of a rare isosotope accelerator facility opens up possibilities for a new generation of nuclear tests of fundamental symmetries. In this talk, I survey the current landscape of such tests and discuss future opportunities that a new facility might present.Comment: To appear in proceedings of 3rd ANL/MSU/INT/JINA Theory Workshop, Argonne National Laboratory (April, 2006); 13 page

Chiral Symmetries and Low Energy Searches for New Physics

I discuss low energy searches for new physics beyond the Standard Model, identifying the role played by chiral symmetries in these searches and in various new physics scenarios. I focus in particular on electric dipole moment searches; precision studies of weak decays and electron scattering; and neutrino properties and interactions.Comment: Talk given at 5th International Workshop on Chiral Dynamics, Durham/Chapel Hill, NC (September, 2006); 12 page

Electric Dipole Moments: A Global Analysis

We perform a global analysis of searches for the permanent electric dipole moments (EDMs) of the neutron, neutral atoms, and molecules in terms of six leptonic, semileptonic, and nonleptonic interactions involving photons, electrons, pions, and nucleons. Translating the results into fundamental CP-violating effective interactions through dimension six involving Standard Model particles, we obtain rough lower bounds on the scale of beyond the Standard Model CP-violating interactions ranging from 1.5 TeV for the electron EDM to 1300 TeV for the nuclear spin-independent electron-quark interaction. We show that future measurements involving systems or combinations of systems with complementary sensitivities to the low-energy parameters may extend the mass reach by an order of magnitude or more.Comment: 15 pages, 1 figur

Top Down Electroweak Dipole Operators

We derive present constraints on, and prospective sensitivity to, the electric dipole moment (EDM) of the top quark ($d_t$) implied by searches for the EDMs of the electron and nucleons. Above the electroweak scale $v$, the $d_t$ arises from two gauge invariant operators generated at a scale $\Lambda \gg v$ that also mix with the light fermion EDMs under renormalization group evolution at two-loop order. Bounds on the EDMs of first generation fermion systems thus imply bounds on $|d_t|$. Working in the leading log-squared approximation, we find that the present upper bound on $|d_t|$ is roughly $10^{-19}$ $e$ cm for $\Lambda = 1$ TeV, except in regions of finely tuned cancellations that allow for $|d_t|$ to be up to fifty times larger. Future $d_e$ and $d_n$ probes may yield an order of magnitude increase in $d_t$ sensitivity, while inclusion of a prospective proton EDM search may lead to an additional increase in reach.Comment: 7 pages, 6 figure

Electron-to-Tau Lepton Flavor Violation at the Electron-Ion Collider

We analyze the potential sensitivity of a search for $e\rightarrow\tau$ conversion at a proposed electron-ion collider (EIC) facility. To that end, we calculate the cross sections for $e\rightarrow\tau$ events in a leptoquark framework assuming that the leptoquark masses are on the order of several hundred GeV or more. Given present limits on leptoquarks from direct searches at HERA and rare decay processes, an EIC sensitive to 0.1 fb $e\rightarrow\tau$ cross sections could probe previously unexplored regions of parameter space for these lepton flavor violating events (assuming 90 GeV center-of-mass energy and 10 fb$^{-1}$ integrated luminosity). Depending on the species of leptoquark and flavor structure of the couplings, an EIC search could surpass the HERA and rare process sensitivity to $e\rightarrow\tau$ conversion amplitudes by as much as an order of magnitude or more. We also derive updated limits on quark flavor-diagonal LFV leptoquark interactions using the most recent BaBar $\tau\rightarrow e\gamma$ search. We find that limits from an EIC $e\rightarrow\tau$ search could be competitive with the most recent $\tau\rightarrow e\gamma$ limit for a subset of the quark flavor-diagonal leptoquark couplings. Using an SU(5) GUT model in which leptoquark couplings are constrained by the neutrino masses and mixing, we illustrate how observable leptoquark-induced $e\rightarrow\tau$ conversion can be consistent with stringent LFV limits imposed by $\mu\rightarrow e\gamma$ and $\mu\rightarrow e$ conversion searches.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figure

Electroweak Baryogenesis, Electric Dipole Moments, and Higgs Diphoton Decays

We study the viability of electroweak baryogenesis in a two Higgs doublet model scenario augmented by vector-like, electroweakly interacting fermions. Considering a limited, but illustrative region of the model parameter space, we obtain the observed cosmic baryon asymmetry while satisfying present constraints from the non-observation of the permanent electric dipole moment (EDM) of the electron and the combined ATLAS and CMS result for the Higgs boson diphoton decay rate. The observation of a non-zero electron EDM in a next generation experiment and/or the observation of an excess (over the Standard Model) of Higgs to diphoton events with the 14 TeV LHC run or a future $e^+e^-$ collider would be consistent with generation of the observed baryon asymmetry in this scenario.Comment: 22 pages, 3 figure

Probing the Higgs portal at the LHC through resonant di-Higgs production

We investigate resonant di-Higgs production as a means of probing extended scalar sectors that include a 125 GeV Standard Model-like Higgs boson. For concreteness, we consider a gauge singlet Higgs portal scenario leading to two mixed doublet-singlet states, h_1,2. For m_h_2 > 2 m_h_1, the resonant di-Higgs production process p p -> h_2 -> h_1 h_1 will lead to final states associated with the decaying pair of Standard Model-like Higgs scalars. We focus on h_2 production via gluon fusion and on the b b tau^+ tau^- final state. We find that discovery of the h_2 at the LHC may be achieved with ~ 100 fb^-1 of integrated luminosity for benchmark parameter choices relevant to cosmology. Our analysis directly maps onto the decoupling limits of the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM) and more generically onto extensions of the Standard Model Higgs sector in which a heavy scalar produced through gluon fusion decays to a pair of Standard Model-like Higgs bosons

Cuts, Cancellations and the Closed Time Path: The Soft Leptogenesis Example

By including all leading quantum-statistical effects at finite temperature, we show that no net asymmetry of leptons and sleptons is generated from soft leptogenesis, save the possible contribution from the resonant mixing of sneutrinos. This result contrasts with different conclusions appearing in the literature that are based on an incomplete inclusion of quantum statistics. We discuss vertex and wave-function diagrams as well as all different possible kinematic cuts that nominally lead to CP-violating asymmetries. The present example of soft leptogenesis may therefore serve as a paradigm in order to identify more generally applicable caveats relevant to alternative scenarios for baryogenesis and leptogenesis, and it may provide useful guidance in constructing viable models.Comment: 38 page