Quantum evolution of scalar fields in Robertson-Walker space-time

We study the $\lambda \phi^4$ field theory in a flat Robertson-Walker space-time using the functional Sch\"odinger picture. We introduce a simple Gaussian approximation to analyze the time evolution of pure states and we establish the renormalizability of the approximation. We also show that the energy-momentum tensor in this approximation is finite once we consider the usual mass and coupling constant renormalizations.Comment: Revtex file, 19 pages, no figures. Compressed ps version available at http://phenom.physics.wisc.edu/pub/preprints/1995/madph-95-912.ps.Z or at ftp://phenom.physics.wisc.edu/pub/preprints/1995/madph-95-912.ps.

Signals of Two Universal Extra Dimensions at the LHC

Extensions of the standard model with universal extra dimensions are interesting both as phenomenological templates as well as model-building fertile ground. For instance, they are one the prototypes for theories exhibiting compressed spectra, leading to difficult searches at the LHC since the decay products of new states are soft and immersed in a large standard model background. Here we study the phenomenology at the LHC of theories with two universal extra dimensions. We obtain the current bound by using the production of second level excitations of electroweak gauge bosons decaying to a pair of leptons and study the reach of the LHC Run~II in this channel. We also introduce a new channel originating in higher dimensional operators and resulting in the single production of a second level quark excitation. Its subsequent decay into a hard jet and lepton pair resonance would allow the identification of a more model-specific process, unlike the more generic vector resonance signal. We show that the sensitivity of this channel to the compactification scale is very similar to the one obtained using the vector resonance.Comment: 11 pages and 6 figure

Present Bounds on New Neutral Vector Resonances from Electroweak Gauge Boson Pair Production at the LHC

Several extensions of the Standard Model predict the existence of new neutral spin-1 resonances associated to the electroweak symmetry breaking sector. Using the data from ATLAS (with integrated luminosity of L=1.02 fb^{-1}) and CMS (with integrated luminosity of L=1.55 fb^{-1}) on the production of W+W- pairs through the process pp -> l^+ l^{\prime -} \sla{E}_T, we place model independent bounds on these new vector resonances masses, couplings and widths. Our analyses show that the present data excludes new neutral vector resonances with masses up to 1-2.3 TeV depending on their couplings and widths. We also demonstrate how to extend our analysis framework to different models working a specific example.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figure

Bounds on Scalar Leptoquarks from Z Physics

We analyse the constraints on scalar leptoquarks coming from radiative corrections to $Z$ physics. We perform a global fitting to the LEP data including the contributions of the most general effective Lagrangian for scalar leptoquarks, which exhibits the $SU(2)_L \times U(1)_Y$ gauge invariance. We show that the bounds on leptoquarks that couple to the top quark are much stronger than the ones obtained from low energy experiments.Comment: RevTeX 3.0, 26 pages, 4 postscript figures included as uufil

Constraining anomalous Higgs interactions

The recently announced Higgs discovery marks the dawn of the direct probing of the electroweak symmetry breaking sector. Sorting out the dynamics responsible for electroweak symmetry breaking now requires probing the Higgs interactions and searching for additional states connected to this sector. In this work we analyze the constraints on Higgs couplings to the standard model gauge bosons using the available data from Tevatron and LHC. We work in a model--independent framework expressing the departure of the Higgs couplings to gauge bosons by dimension--six operators. This allows for independent modifications of its couplings to gluons, photons and weak gauge bosons while still preserving the Standard Model (SM) gauge invariance. Our results indicate that best overall agreement with data is obtained if the cross section of Higgs production via gluon fusion is suppressed with respect to its SM value and the Higgs branching ratio into two photons is enhanced, while keeping the production and decays associated to couplings to weak gauge bosons close to their SM prediction.Comment: v3: Added acknowledgment to FP7 ITN INVISIBLES (Marie Curie Actions PITN-GA-2011-289442). Nothing else changed with respect to v

Signals for New Spin-1 Resonances in Electroweak Gauge Boson Pair Production at the LHC

The mechanism of electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB) will be directly scrutinized soon at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC). We analyze the LHC potential to look for new vector bosons associated with the EWSB sector. We present a possible model independent approach to search for these new spin--1 resonances. We show that the analyses of the processes pp --> l^+ l^- Emiss_T, l^\pm j j Emiss_T, l^\pm l^+ l^- Emiss_T, and l^+ l^- j j (with l=e or \mu and j=jet) have a large reach at the LHC and can lead to the discovery or exclusion of many EWSB scenarios such as Higgsless models.Comment: 10 pages, 11 figure

Finding the Higgs Boson through Supersymmetry

The study of displaced vertices containing two b--jets may provide a double discovery at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC): we show how it may not only reveal evidence for supersymmetry, but also provide a way to uncover the Higgs boson necessary in the formulation of the electroweak theory in a large region of the parameter space. We quantify this explicitly using the simplest minimal supergravity model with bilinear breaking of R-parity, which accounts for the observed pattern of neutrino masses and mixings seen in neutrino oscillation experiments.Comment: 7 pages, 7 figures. Final version to appear at PRD. Discussion and results were enlarge