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

Vector Galileon and inflationary magnetogenesis

Cosmological inflation provides the initial conditions for the structure formation. However, the origin of large-scale magnetic fields cannot be addressed in this framework. The key issue for this long-standing problem is the conformal invariance of the electromagnetic (EM) field in 4-D. While many approaches have been proposed in the literature for breaking conformal invariance of the EM action, here, we provide a completely new way of looking at the modifications to the EM action and generation of primordial magnetic fields during inflation. We explicitly construct a higher derivative EM action that breaks conformal invariance by demanding three conditions - theory be described by vector potential $A_\mu$ and its derivatives, Gauge invariance be satisfied, and equations of motion be linear in second derivatives of vector potential. The unique feature of our model is that appreciable magnetic fields are generated at small wavelengths while tiny magnetic fields are generated at large wavelengths that are consistent with current observations.Comment: 20 pages, 0 figure, updated references, published in JCA