The Higgs Penguin and its Applications : An overview

We review the effective Lagrangian of the Higgs penguin in the Standard Model and its minimal supersymmetric extension (MSSM). As a master application of the Higgs penguin, we discuss in some detail the B-meson decays into a lepton-antilepton pair. Furthermore, we explain how this can probe the Higgs sector of the MSSM provided that some of these decays are seen at Tevatron Run II and B-factories. Finally, we present a complete list of observables where the Higgs penguin could be strongly involved.Comment: 22 pages, 6 figures, Invited review article to appear in Mod. Phys. Lett. A, v2: Table 1 updated, comments and references adde

The R-Parity Violating Minimal Supergravity Model

We present the minimal supersymmetric standard model with general broken R-parity, focusing on minimal supergravity (mSUGRA). We discuss the origins of lepton number violation in supersymmetry. We have computed the full set of coupled one-loop renormalization group equations for the gauge couplings, the superpotential parameters and for all the soft supersymmetry breaking parameters. We provide analytic formule for the scalar potential minimization conditions which may be iterated to arbitrary precision. We compute the low-energy spectrum of the superparticles and the neutrinos as a function of the small set of parameters at the unification scale in the general basis. Specializing to mSUGRA, we use the neutrino masses to set new bounds on the R-parity violating couplings. These bounds are up-to five orders of magnitude stricter than the previously existing ones. In addition, new bounds on the R-parity violating couplings are also derived demanding a non-tachyonic sneutrino spectrum. We investigate the nature of the lightest supersymmetric particle and find extensive regions in parameter space, where it is not the neutralino. This leads to a novel set of supersymmetric signatures, which we classify.Comment: 42 pages, revtex4, 8 figures. Revised version corrects a factor of 2 in Eq. (86) with associated numerical corrections to Tables III,IV and Fig. I. Conclusions left unchange

Upper limit on mh in the MSSM and M-SUGRA vs. prospective reach of LEP

The upper limit on the lightest CP-even Higgs boson mass, mh, is analyzed within the MSSM as a function of tan(beta) for fixed mtop and Msusy. The impact of recent diagrammatic two-loop results on this limit is investigated. We compare the MSSM theoretical upper bound on mh with the lower bound obtained from experimental searches at LEP. We estimate that with the LEP data taken until the end of 1999, the region mh < 108.2 GeV can be excluded at the 95% confidence level. This corresponds to an excluded region 0.6 <= tan(beta) <= 1.9 within the MSSM for mtop = 174.3 GeV and Msusy <= 1 TeV. The final exclusion sensitivity after the end of LEP, in the year 2000, is also briefly discussed. Finally, we determine the upper limit on mh within the Minimal Supergravity (M-SUGRA) scenario up to the two-loop level, consistent with radiative electroweak symmetry breaking. We find an upper bound of mh \approx 127 GeV for mtop = 174.3 GeV in this scenario, which is slightly below the bound in the unconstrained MSSM.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

Mass Insertions vs. Mass Eigenstates calculations in Flavour Physics

We present and prove a theorem of matrix analysis, the Flavour Expansion Theorem (or FET), according to which, an analytic function of a Hermitian matrix can be expanded polynomially in terms of its off-diagonal elements with coefficients being the divided differences of the analytic function and arguments the diagonal elements of the Hermitian matrix. The theorem is applicable in case of flavour changing amplitudes. At one-loop level this procedure is particularly natural due to the observation that every loop function in the Passarino-Veltman basis can be recursively expressed in terms of divided differences. FET helps to algebraically translate an amplitude written in mass eigenbasis into flavour mass insertions, without performing diagrammatic calculations in flavour basis. As a non-trivial application of FET up to a third order, we demonstrate its use in calculating strong bounds on the real parts of flavour changing mass insertions in the up- squark sector of the MSSM from neutron Electric Dipole Moment (nEDM) measurements, assuming that CP-violation arises only from the CKM matrix.Comment: 23 page

Topcolor assisted technicolor models and muon anomalous magnetic moment

We discuss and estimate the contributions of the new particles predicted by topcolor assisted technicolor(TC2) models to the muon anomalous magnetic moment $a_{\mu}$. Our results show that the contributions of Pseudo Goldstone bosons are very small which can be safely ignored. The main contributions come from the ETC gauge boson $x_{\mu}$ and topcolor gauge boson $Z^{\prime}$. If we demand that the mass of $Z^{\prime}$ is consistent with other experimental constrains, its contributions are smaller than that of $x_{\mu}$. With reasonable values of the parameters in TC2 models, the observed BNL results for $a_{\mu}$ could be explained.Comment: latex file, 11 pages, several figures and references adde

Rare Top-quark Decays to Higgs boson in MSSM

In full one-loop generality and in next-to-leading order in QCD, we study rare top to Higgs boson flavour changing decay processes $t\to q h$ with $q=u,c$ quarks, in the general MSSM with R-parity conservation. Our primary goal is to search for enhanced effects on $Br(t\to q h)$ that could be visible at current and high luminosity LHC running. To this end, we perform an analytical expansion of the amplitude in terms of flavour changing squark mass insertions that treats both cases of hierarchical and degenerate squark masses in a unified way. We identify two enhanced effects allowed by various constraints: one from holomorphic trilinear soft SUSY breaking terms and/or right handed up squark mass insertions and another from non-holomorphic trilinear soft SUSY breaking terms and light Higgs boson masses. Interestingly, even with $\mathcal{O}(1)$ flavour violating effects in the, presently unconstrained, up-squark sector, SUSY effects on $Br(t\to q h)$ come out to be unobservable at LHC mainly due to leading order cancellations between penguin and self energy diagrams and the constraints from charge- and colour-breaking minima (CCB) of the MSSM vacuum. An exception to this conclusion may be effects arising from non-holomorphic soft SUSY breaking terms in the region where the CP-odd Higgs mass is smaller than the top-quark mass but this scenario is disfavoured by recent LHC searches. Our calculations for $t\to q h$ decay are made available in SUSY_FLAVOR numerical library.Comment: 32 pages, 6 figures; version accepted for publication in JHEP: additional comparison with literature added, minor misprints correcte