Light Signals from a Lighter Higgs

With the Higgs search program already quite mature, there is the exciting possibility of discovering a new particle with rates near that of the SM Higgs. We consider models with a signal in $\gamma \gamma$ below the SM Higgs mass, taking the recent $2.9\, \sigma$ (local) CMS excess at 95 GeV as a target. We discuss singlet models with additional vectorlike matter, but argue that a Type-I two Higgs doublet model provides a more economical scenario. In such a setup, going into regions of moderate-to-strong fermiophobia, the enhanced $\gamma \gamma$ branching ratio allows signals from $VH$+VBF production to yield $\sigma \times BR_{\gamma\gamma}$ comparable to total SM rates. Light $H$ production can be dominated via rare top decays $t \rightarrow b H^+ \rightarrow b W^{*} H$, which provides an alternate explanation of the excess. We consider this in the context of other Higgs anomalies, namely the LEP Higgs excess near the same mass, and excesses in $t\bar{t}h$ searches at Tevatron and LHC. We find that with $140\, \mathrm{GeV} < m_{H^+} < 160\, \mathrm{GeV}$, $\tan \beta \sim 5$ and a coupling to gauge bosons of $\sin^2 \delta \sim 0.1$, such a scenario can produce all the excesses simultanously, where $tth$ arise from contamination from the rare top decays, as previously proposed. An implication of the Type-I scenario is that any $\gamma \gamma$ excess should be associated with additional elements that could reduce background, including $b$-jets, forward jets or signs of vector boson production.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figure

Information Through the Lens of Safety and Security

On April 20, 2023, Dr. Patrick Neal, Senior Research Fellow at the Canadian Centre for Identity-Based Conflict and Vice President of Cyber Research at CASIS Vancouver, presented Information Through the Lens of Safety and Security at the April 2023 CASIS Digital Roundtable. The presentation was followed by a question-and-answer period with questions from the audience. The key points discussed were how information has shifted to shape culture, the future evolution of Public and National Safety, and transformations in technology from language analysis. Received: 2023-05-11 Revised: 2023-05-1

The Path Between Value Pluralism and Liberal Political Order: Questioning the Connection

After a few terminological preliminaries in Part II, I turn to two primary tasks. First, in Part III, I raise questions that seem to me to confront the basic logic of the connection between value pluralism and liberalism. Second, in Part IV, I discuss at length the argument from diversity articulated by George Crowder in support of the view that value pluralism supports liberalism. This line of argument is only one of a number that Crowder advances in support of that view, and so doubts about its success do not necessarily implicate the other lines of argument he pursues. However, the argument from diversity is a particularly interesting and prevalent form of argument in defense of liberalism - in the form of the spatial argument referred to later - and hence, I trust, worth the extensive and exclusive attention given it here

Does Information Make Us Safer or More Secure?

On October 19th, 2023, Dr. Patrick Neal, Chief Social Scientist at AQ-IQ, presented Does Information Make Us Safer or More Secure? The presentation was followed by a question-and-answer period with questions from the audience and CASIS Vancouver executives. The key points discussed were data protection responsibilities and obligations, and management of excessive data for future-proofing projects and security

Visible Cascade Higgs Decays to Four Photons at Hadron Colliders

The presence of a new singlet scalar particle a can open up new decay channels for the Higgs boson, through cascades of the form h -> 2a -> X, possibly making discovery through standard model channels impossible. If a is CP-odd, its decay products are particularly sensitive to physics beyond the standard model. Quantum effects from heavy fields can naturally make gluonic decay, a -> 2g, the dominant decay mode, resulting in a h -> 4 g decay which is difficult to observe at hadron colliders, and is allowed by LEP for m_h > 82 GeV. However, there are usually associated decays with photons, either h -> 2g 2gamma or h -> 4gamma, which are more promising. The decay h -> 2g 2gamma only allows discovery of the a particle and not the Higgs whereas h -> 4gamma is a clean channel that can discover both particles. We determine what branching ratios are required for discovery at LHC and find that with 300 fb^-1 of luminosity, a branching ratio of order 10^-4 is sufficient for a large region of Higgs masses. Due to a lower expected luminosity of ~ 8 fb^-1, discovery at the Tevatron requires more than 5 x 10^-3 in branching ratio.Comment: 6 pages, 2 color figures, revtex4 forma

Horticultural activities and demographic factors influence childrens's self-esteem

Call number: LD2668 .T4 HORT 1987 W54Master of ScienceHorticulture, Forestry, and Recreation Resource

Doctor of Philosophy

dissertationThis dissertation demonstrates the Victorian novel's preoccupation with what it understands as liberal society's disavowed reliance on arbitrary and often violent decisions as a means of overcoming political and moral incommensurability, or, in other words, what Carl Schmitt has rather infamously called the "exception." Precisely opposed to Schmitt's concept of the sovereign decision is the position of procedural liberalism, in which abstract and objective concepts of right arrived at through deliberative procedures are understood to motivate legal processes that induce justice. Because the absolutist commitment to the sovereign decision is precisely antithetical to liberal ideals, the decision must either be deferred-only to begin a chain of deferrals-or, once implemented, its use must be disavowed. Novels from Thackeray to Conrad all recognize, I argue, the existence of what I call the "crypto-decisionism" obscured by the rhetoric and operations of procedural liberalism. Victorian demands of propriety and public morality, I argue, require the collective disavowal of whatever is antithetical to publicity. My focus then is on the way that the Victorian novel self-consciously reproduces the relationship between violence and disavowal that it portrays as essential to social harmony within the liberal context. The novels I consider in this dissertation present worlds in which the essential role of violence to preserving community stability is known but not acknowledged precisely because any open acknowledgement of the role of violence in maintaining social equanimity at the same time threatens to destroy the equanimity it secures. Ultimately the contradiction between deliberative procedures meant to produce consensual action on the one hand, and the violent decision on the other hand, creates a tension, I argue, that shapes the narrative structures of the novel in its image. In the novels I examine narrative conflict takes the form of incongruities or disturbances against which the novel must marshal exceptional means-a sort of internal, aesthetic decisionism-in order to secure aesthetic coherence or closure. In this way the novel form, I contend, mimetically reproduces Victorian anxieties regarding liberal forms of individual and community self-understanding

A Geographic Study Of The Laotian Hydropower Sector

The country of Laos is a developing nation that is geographically endowed with significant hydropower assets. Hydropower represents one of very few quick and profitable, exportable resources for Laos as a least developed country, and is seen as the avenue of escape from poverty for the nation. In the past two decades, Laos has seen both booms and busts in hydropower development, which has raised questions to hydropower\u27s actual contributions to economic growth, and the consequences of large scale hydropower development. This research examines trends and patterns in Laotian hydropower development in the past two decades. The study analyzes contributing factors to development patterns in terms of investment, policy, and geopolitic. Several consequences of hydropower development in Laos are also discussed. Overall I find that despite positive statements concerning hydropower, the actual contributions hydropower has in the Laotian context are smaller than anticipated. These benefits need to be weighed against the potential consequences that this type of development may have over longer periods of time