Transplanckian collisions at future accelerators

Scattering at transplanckian energies offers model independent tests of TeV scale gravity. Black-hole production is one spectacular signal, though a full calculation of the cross section is not yet available. Another signal is given by gravitational elastic scattering, which is maybe less spectacular but which can be nicely computed in the forward region using the eikonal approximation. In this talk I discuss the distinctive signatures of eikonalized scattering at future accelerators.Comment: 11 pages, 2 figures; talk given at the XXXVIIth Rencontres de Moriond, Electroweak Interactions and Unified Theories, Les Arcs, March 9-16, 200

Cargese Lectures on Extra Dimensions

I give a pedagogical introduction to the concepts and the tools that are necessary to study particle physics models in higher dimensions. I then give a more detailed presentation of warped compactifications and discuss their possible relevance to the hierarchy problem.Comment: 56 pages, 11 figures, lectures given at Cargese School "Particle Physics and Cosmology: the Interface'', August 200

Physics Beyond the Standard Model

I review recent theoretical work on electroweak symmetry breaking.Comment: 23 pages, 3 figures, talk at EPS International Europhysics Conference on High Energy Physics (HEP-EPS 2005), Lisbon, Portugal, 21-27 Jul 200

A Note on Bounds of Scalar Operators in Perturbative SCFTs

Bounds on anomalous dimensions of scalar operators in 4d superconformal field theory are explored through perturbative viewpoint. Following the recent work of Green and Shih, in which a conjecture involved this issue is verified at the NLO, we consider the NNLO corrections to the bounds, which are important in some situations and can be divided into two cases where $\mathcal{O}(\lambda^{4})$ or $\mathcal{O}(y^2)$ effects dominate respectively. In the former case, we find that the conjecture is maintained at NNLO, while in the later case, the statement still holds due to the null corrections arising from $\mathcal{O}(y^{2})$.Comment: 17 pages, no figure; v2 typos fixed; v3: revised version with more typos correcte

Comments on the Holographic Picture of the Randall-Sundrum Model

We discuss some issues about the holographic interpretation of the compact Randall-Sundrum model, which is conjectured to be dual to a 4d field theory with non-linearly realized conformal symmetry. We make several checks of this conjecture. In particular, we show that the radion couples conformally to a background 4d metric. We also discuss the interpretation of the Goldberger-Wise mechanism for stabilizing the radion. We consider situations where the electroweak breaking stabilizes the radion and we discuss the issue of natural conservation of flavor quantum numbers.Comment: misprints corrected, references adde

Soft Supersymmetry Breaking in Deformed Moduli Spaces, Conformal Theories, and N = 2 Yang-Mills Theory

We give a self-contained discussion of recent progress in computing the non-perturbative effects of small non-holomorphic soft supersymmetry breaking, including a simple new derivation of these results based on an anomaly-free gauged U(1)_R background. We apply these results to N = 1 theories with deformed moduli spaces and conformal fixed points. In an SU(2) theory with a deformed moduli space, we completely determine the vacuum expectation values and induced soft masses. We then consider the most general soft breaking of supersymmetry in N = 2 SU(2) super-Yang-Mills theory. An N = 2 superfield spurion analysis is used to give an elementary derivation of the relation between the modulus and the prepotential in the effective theory. This analysis also allows us to determine the non-perturbative effects of all soft terms except a non-holomorphic scalar mass, away from the monopole points. We then use an N = 1 spurion analysis to determine the effects of the most general soft breaking, and also analyze the monopole points. We show that naive dimensional analysis works perfectly. Also, a soft mass for the scalar in this theory forces the theory into a free Coulomb phase.Comment: 37 pages, LaTeX2e, 4 eps figure

R-Parity Violation and Unification

The reported anomaly in deep-inelastic scattering at HERA has revived interest in the phenomenology of R-parity violation. From the theoretical point of view, the existence of R-violating interactions poses two considerable problems. The first one concerns the flavour structure of the interactions and the origin of an appropriate suppression of flavour-changing neutral-current processes and lepton-family transitions. The second one concerns the way of embedding R-violating interactions in a grand unified theory (GUT) without introducing unacceptable nucleon decay rates. We show that the second problem can be solved by a mechanism which is purely group theoretical and does not rely on details of the flavour theory. We construct explicit GUT models in which our mechanism can be realized.Comment: Flipped SU(5) example modified. Conclusions unchange

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

Bounds in 4D Conformal Field Theories with Global Symmetry

We explore the constraining power of OPE associativity in 4D Conformal Field Theory with a continuous global symmetry group. We give a general analysis of crossing symmetry constraints in the 4-point function , where Phi is a primary scalar operator in a given representation R. These constraints take the form of 'vectorial sum rules' for conformal blocks of operators whose representations appear in R x R and R x Rbar. The coefficients in these sum rules are related to the Fierz transformation matrices for the R x R x Rbar x Rbar invariant tensors. We show that the number of equations is always equal to the number of symmetry channels to be constrained. We also analyze in detail two cases - the fundamental of SO(N) and the fundamental of SU(N). We derive the vectorial sum rules explicitly, and use them to study the dimension of the lowest singlet scalar in the Phi x Phi* OPE. We prove the existence of an upper bound on the dimension of this scalar. The bound depends on the conformal dimension of Phi and approaches 2 in the limit dim(Phi)-->1. For several small groups, we compute the behavior of the bound at dim(Phi)>1. We discuss implications of our bound for the Conformal Technicolor scenario of electroweak symmetry breaking.Comment: 30 page