Lepton Flavor Violation and Supersymmetric Dirac Leptogenesis

Dirac leptogenesis (or Dirac neutrinogenesis), in which neutrinos are purely Dirac particles, is an interesting alternative to the standard leptogenesis scenario. In its supersymmetric version, the modified form of the superpotential required for successful baryogenesis contributes new, generically non-flavor-diagonal terms to the slepton and sneutrino mass matrices. In this work, we examine how current experimental bounds on flavor-changing effects in the lepton sector (and particularly the bound on Mu -> e Gamma) constrain Dirac leptogenesis and we find that it is capable of succeeding with superpartner masses as low as 100 GeV. For such light scalars and electroweakinos, upcoming experiments such as MEG are generically expected to observe signals of lepton flavor violation.Comment: 15 pages, 4 figures, corrected parametric dependance on leading LFV term, figure 2 and discussion modified accordingly, conclusions unchange

Baryogenesis and Late-Decaying Moduli

Late-decaying string moduli dilute the baryon asymmetry of the universe created in any previous era. The reheat temperature for such moduli is below a GeV, thus motivating baryogenesis at very low temperatures. We present an extension of the minimal supersymmetric standard model with TeV-scale colored fields that can yield the correct baryon asymmetry of the universe in this context. Modulus decay, which reheats the universe at a temperature below GeV, produces the visible sector fields and neutralino dark matter in non-thermal fashion. We discuss various possibilities for baryogenesis from TeV scale colored fields and show that they can generate an acceptable baryon asymmetry, while being compatible with phenomenological constraints like neutron-antineutron oscillation.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figure

Hierarchy from Baryogenesis

We study a recently proposed mechanism to solve the hierarchy problem in the context of the landscape, where the solution of the hierarchy problem is connected to the requirement of having baryons in our universe via Electroweak Baryogenesis. The phase transition is triggered by the fermion condensation of a new gauge sector which becomes strong at a scale Lambda determined by dimensional transmutation, and it is mediated to the standard model by a new singlet field. In a ``friendly'' neighborhood of the landscape, where only the relevant operators are ``scanned'' among the vacua, baryogenesis is effective only if the higgs mass m_h is comparable to this low scale Lambda, forcing m_h to be of order Lambda, and solving the hierarchy problem. A new CP violating phase is needed coupling the new singlet and the higgs field to new matter fields. We study the constraints on this model given by baryogenesis and by the electron electric dipole moment (EDM), and we briefly comment on gauge coupling unification and on dark matter relic abundance. We find that next generation experiments on the EDM will be sensitive to essentially the entire viable region of the parameter space, so that absence of a signal would effectively rule out the model.Comment: 28 pages, 4 figures. v2: Added comments and references. Corrected one typo in eq.(81). Conclusions unaltere

Higgs Boson Exempt No-Scale Supersymmetry with a Neutrino Seesaw: Implications for Lepton Flavor Violation and Leptogenesis

Motivated by the observation of neutrino oscillations, we extend the Higgs boson exempt no-scale supersymmetry model (HENS) by adding three heavy right-handed neutrino chiral supermultiplets to generate the light neutrino masses and mixings. The neutrino Yukawa couplings can induce new lepton flavor violating couplings among the soft terms in the course of renormalization group running down from the boundary scale. We study the effects this has on the predictions for low-energy probes of lepton flavor violation(LFV). Heavy right-handed neutrinos also provide a way to generate the baryon asymmetry through leptogenesis. We find that consistency with LFV and leptogenesis puts strong requirements on either the form of the Yukawa mass matrix or the smallness of the Higgs up soft mass. In all cases, we generically expect that new physics LFV is non-zero and can be found in a future experiment.Comment: 25 pages, 11 figures; Added a referenc

Phenomenology of Dirac Neutrinogenesis in Split Supersymmetry

In Split Supersymmetry scenarios the possibility of having a very heavy gravitino opens the door to alleviate or completely solve the worrisome "gravitino problem'' in the context of supersymmetric baryogenesis models. Here we assume that the gravitino may indeed be heavy and that Majorana masses for neutrinos are forbidden as well as direct Higgs Yukawa couplings between left and right handed neutrinos. We investigate the viability of the mechansim known as Dirac leptogenesis (or neutrinogenesis), both in solving the baryogenesis puzzle and explaining the observed neutrino sector phenomenology. To successfully address these issues, the scenario requires the introduction of at least two new heavy fields. If a hierarchy among these new fields is introduced, and some reasonable stipulations are made on the couplings that appear in the superpotential, it becomes a generic feature to obtain the observed large lepton mixing angles. We show that in this case, it is possible simultaneously to obtain both the correct neutrino phenomenology and enough baryon number, making thermal Dirac neutrinogenesis viable. However, due to cosmological constraints, its ability to satisfy these constraints depends nontrivially on model parameters of the overall theory, particularly the gravitino mass. Split supersymmetry with m_{3/2} between 10^{5} and 10^{10} GeV emerges as a "natural habitat" for thermal Dirac neutrinogenesis.Comment: 37 pages, 8 figure

Light Stop Searches at the LHC in Events with two b-Jets and Missing Energy

We propose a new method to discover light top squarks (stops) in the co-annihilation region at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). The bino-like neutralino is the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) and the lighter stop is the next-to-LSP. Such scenarios can be consistent with electroweak baryogenesis and also with dark matter constraints. We consider the production of two stops in association with two b-quarks, including pure QCD as well as mixed electroweak-QCD contributions. The stops decay into a charm quark and the LSP. For a higgsino-like light chargino the electroweak contributions can exceed the pure QCD prediction. We show the size of the electroweak contributions as a function of the stop mass and present the LHC discovery reach in the stop-neutralino mass plane.Comment: 12 pages, 10 figure

Baryon Number Violation Involving Higher Generations

Proton stability seems to constrain rather strongly any baryon number violating process. We investigate the possibility of baryon number violating processes involving right-handed dynamics or higher generation quarks. Our results strongly suggest that there will be no possibility to observe baryon number violation in tau or higher generation quark decays, at any future machine.Comment: Improved figures, small changes in the text, added reference. To appear in Phys. Rev.

CP Violation in Fourth Generation Quark Decays

We show that, if a fourth generation is discovered at the Tevatron or LHC, one could study CP violation in b' \to s decays. Asymmetries could reach 30% for b'\to sZ for m_{b'} \lesssim 350 GeV, while it could be greater than 50% for b'\to s\gamma and extend to higher m_{b'}. Branching ratios are 10^{-3}--10^{-5}, and CPV measurement requires tagging. Once measured, however, the CPV phase can be extracted with little theoretical uncertainty.Comment: 4 pages, 7 eps figure

Gravitational waves from first order phase transitions during inflation

We study the production, spectrum and detectability of gravitational waves in models of the early Universe where first order phase transitions occur during inflation. We consider all relevant sources. The self-consistency of the scenario strongly affects the features of the waves. The spectrum appears to be mainly sourced by collisions of bubble of the new phases, while plasma dynamics (turbulence) and the primordial gauge fields connected to the physics of the transitions are generally subdominant. The amplitude and frequency dependence of the spectrum for modes that exit the horizon during inflation are different from those of the waves produced by quantum vacuum oscillations of the metric or by first order phase transitions not occurring during inflation. A moderate number of slow (but still successful) phase transitions can leave detectable marks in the CMBR, but the signal weakens rapidly for faster transitions. When the number of phase transitions is instead large, the primordial gravitational waves can be observed both in the CMBR or with LISA (marginally) and especially DECIGO. We also discuss the nucleosynthesis bound and the constraints it places on the parameters of the models.Comment: minor changes in the text and the references to match the published versio

Development of the Universe and New Cosmology

Cosmology is undergoing an explosive period of activity, fueled both by new, accurate astrophysical data and by innovative theoretical developments. Cosmological parameters such as the total density of the Universe and the rate of cosmological expansion are being precisely measured for the first time, and a consistent standard picture of the Universe is beginning to emerge. Recent developments in cosmology give rise the intriguing possibility that all structures in the Universe, from superclusters to planets, had a quantum-mechanical origin in its earliest moments. Furthermore, these ideas are not idle theorizing, but predictive, and subject to meaningful experimental test. We review the concordance model of the development of the Universe, as well as evidence for the observational revolution that this field is going through. This already provides us with important information on particle physics, which is inaccessible to accelerators.Comment: 9 pages; The German translation of this mini review can be uploaded from http://www.cc.ethz.ch/bulletin/ New references are added with respective minor changes of tex