arXiv subjects

James D. Wells

Publications and source records attributed to James D. Wells.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

arXiv2003

Neutrino-induced lepton flavor violation in gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking

Gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking is known to greatly suppress flavor changing neutral current effects. However, we show that gauge mediation in the context of leptogenesis implies potentially large lepton flavor violating signals. If the heavy right-handed neutrinos that participate in leptogenesis are lighter than the messenger scale of gauge mediation, they will induce flavor off-diagonal masses to the sleptons which in turn can induce large effects in mu to e gamma, tau to mu gamma, and mu-e conversion in nuclei. We demonstrate this result and compute numerically the lepton-flavor violating decay and conversion rates in scenarios of direct gauge mediation.

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arXiv2003

Implications of Supersymmetry Breaking with a Little Hierarchy between Gauginos and Scalars

From a theoretical point of view it is not hard to imagine gaugino masses being much lighter than scalar masses. The dominant contributions to gaugino masses are then their anomaly-mediated values. Given current lower bounds on gauginos, which are near the W-mass scale, considering a little hierarchy between weak-scale gauginos and much heavier scalars requires suspending normal intuition on finetuning and naturalness of the Higgs potential. Nevertheless, tantalizing perks come from the hypothesis: lessened flavor and CP violation problems, more compatibility with gauge coupling unification and third generation Yukawa unification, suppressed dimension-five proton decay operators, and no problems satisfying the current Higgs mass constraint for any value of tan(beta) consistent with the top and bottom Yukawa couplings remaining finite up to the grand unified scale. The Tevatron has little chance of finding any evidence of this theory given current constraints. The LHC does well looking for pair production of gluinos which three-body decay into potentially spectacular final states. Dark matter relic abundance can be cosmologically interesting, but table-top experiments will not see LSPs scattering off nucleons. On the other hand, experiments looking for monochromatic photons from LSP annihilations in the galactic halo may find them.

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arXiv2003

Abelian D-terms and the superpartner spectrum of anomaly-mediated supersymmetry breaking

We address the tachyonic slepton problem of anomaly mediated supersymmetry breaking using abelian D-terms. We demonstrate that the most general extra U(1) symmetry that does not disrupt gauge coupling unification has a large set of possible charges that solves the problem. It is shown that previous studies in this direction that added both an extra hypercharge D-term and another D-term induced by B-L symmetry (or similar) can be mapped into a single D-term of the general ancillary U(1)_a. The U(1)_a formalism enables identifying the sign of squark mass corrections which leads to an upper bound of the entire superpartner spectrum given knowledge of just one superpartner mass.

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arXiv2003

Revisiting Top-Bottom-Tau Yukawa Unification in Supersymmetric Grand Unified Theories

Third family Yukawa unification, as suggested by minimal SO(10) unification, is revisited in light of recent experimental measurements and theoretical progress. We characterize unification in a semi-model-independent fashion, and conclude that finite $b$ quark mass corrections from superpartners must be nonzero, but much smaller than naively would be expected. We show that a solution that does not require cancellations of dangerously large tanbeta effects in observables implies that scalar superpartner masses should be substantially heavier than the Z scale, and perhaps inaccessible to all currently approved colliders. On the other hand, gauginos must be significantly lighter than the scalars. We demonstrate that a spectrum of anomaly-mediated gaugino masses and heavy scalars works well as a theory compatible with third family Yukawa unification and dark matter observations.

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arXiv2002

Extra Dimensions and the Universal Suppression of Higgs Boson Observables at High Energy Colliders

Precision electroweak data suggests the existence of a light Standard Model Higgs boson. Its width is very narrow by an accident of the fermion mass hierarchies, and so slight perturbations to the theory induce dramatic changes in the phenomenology of direct Higgs boson production. Several theory ideas motivated by low-scale extra dimensions lead to a universal rate suppression of Higgs boson observables. The Tevatron and LHC will have difficulty accruing compelling evidence for small universal suppression of rate observables, and even more difficulty discerning the underlying cause. A high energy e+e- collider would have relatively little trouble.

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arXiv2002

Super-conservative interpretation of muon g-2 results applied to supersymmetry

The recent developments in theory and experiment related to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon are applied to supersymmetry. We follow a very cautious course, demanding that the supersymmetric contributions fit within five standard deviations of the difference between experiment and the standard model prediction. Arbitrarily small supersymmetric contributions are then allowed, so no upper bounds on superpartner masses result. Nevertheless, non-trivial exclusions are found. We characterize the substantial region of parameter space ruled out by this analysis that has not been probed by any previous experiment. We also discuss some implications of the results for forthcoming collider experiments.

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arXiv2002

Higgs boson mass limits in perturbative unification theories

Motivated in part by recent demonstrations that electroweak unification into a simple group may occur at a low scale, we detail the requirements on the Higgs mass if the unification is to be perturbative. We do this for the Standard Model effective theory, minimal supersymmetry, and next-to-minimal supersymmetry with an additional singlet field. Within the Standard Model framework, we find that perturbative unification with sin2(thetaW)=1/4 occurs at Lambda=3.8 TeV and requires mh<460 GeV, whereas perturbative unification with sin2(thetaW)=3/8 requires mh<200 GeV. In supersymmetry, the presentation of the Higgs mass predictions can be significantly simplified, yet remain meaningful, by using a single supersymmetry breaking parameter Delta_S. We present Higgs mass limits in terms of Delta_S for the minimal supersymmetric model and the next-to-minimal supersymmetric model. We show that in next-to-minimal supersymmetry, the Higgs mass upper limit can be as large as 500 GeV even for moderate supersymmetry masses if the perturbative unification scale is low (e.g., Lambda=10 TeV).

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arXiv2002

Transplanckian Collisions at the LHC and Beyond

Elastic collisions in the transplanckian region, where the center-of-mass energy is much larger than the fundamental gravity mass scale, can be described by linearized general relativity and known quantum-mechanical effects as long as the momentum transfer of the process is sufficiently small. For larger momentum transfer, non-linear gravitational effects become important and, although a computation is lacking, black-hole formation is expected to dominate the dynamics. We discuss how elastic transplanckian collisions can be used at high-energy colliders to study, in a quantitative and model-independent way, theories in which gravity propagates in flat extra dimensions. At LHC energies, however, incalculable quantum-gravity contributions may significantly affect the experimental signal.

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arXiv2002

How Can a Heavy Higgs Boson be Consistent with the Precision Electroweak Measurements?

The fit of precision electroweak data to the Minimal Standard Model currently gives an upper limit on the Higgs boson mass of 170 GeV at 95% confidence. Nevertheless, it is often said that the Higgs boson could be much heavier in more general models. In this paper, we critically review models that have been proposed in the literature that allow a heavy Higgs boson consistent with the precision electroweak constraints. All have unusual features, and all can be distinguished from the Minimal Standard Model either by improved precision measurements or by other signatures accessible to next-generation colliders.

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arXiv2001

D-term challenges for supersymmetric gauged abelian flavor symmetries

Attention is called to potentially dangerous lepton-flavor violation (LFV) induced by the D-terms of additional U(1) flavor-dependent gauge symmetries in supersymmetric models. In such models, LFV persists despite an arbitrarily high scale for the U(1) breaking and despite arbitrarily small gauge couplings. In light of recent experimental observations of neutrino oscillations, these models are highly motivated experimentally and theoretically. Taking into account also the recent measurement of the muon anomalous magnetic moment, strong bounds are calculated for the magnitude of the D-term-induced LFV. Using current data we find that the slepton mass-mixing parameter (m_{\tilde l_L}^2)_{12}/m_{\tilde l_L}^2 is required to be less than O(10^{-4}) -- a value perhaps already too low compared to expectations. Near future probes will increase sensitivity to 10^{-6}.

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arXiv2001

Complementarity of muon-conversion and linear collider-based experiments for lepton-flavor violating U(1) gauge bosons

In general, attempts to extend the standard model will include extra gauge structure. We parameterize string and technicolor models for a Z' boson with primitive lepton flavor violating interactions. Calculations for its muon conversion rate (mu N -> e N) on Titanium are made and used to show the potential of forthcoming experiments MECO at Brookhaven National Laboratory and PRIME at the Japan Hadron Facility (to be renamed). For reasonable choices of parameters, such U(1) bosons with masses the order 10 TeV and mu-e Z' charge as low as ~10^-5 are demonstrated to be accessible for MECO and PRIME. Also, a demonstration of the complementarity of parameter space coverage for future colliders and muon conversion experiments is given.

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arXiv2001

Extra dimensions vs. supersymmetric interpretation of missing energy events at a linear collider

The photon plus missing energy signature is a primary handle on two important classes of theories. Theories with large extra dimensions predict the production of photons in association with Kaluza-Klein excitations of the graviton. In supersymmetric theories with superlight gravitinos, photons can be produced in association with gravitino pairs. The signatures for these two theories are compared, and it is found that they can be distinguished by studying the photon energy distributions and scaling of the cross section with center-of-mass energy. Both these methods fail, however, if there are six extra dimensions. In that case, additional phenomena predicted by the theories would be required to narrow down the underlying causes of the photon plus missing energy signal. We also study the ability of these measurements to determine the number of extra dimensions.

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arXiv2001

Supersymmetry and the positron excess in cosmic rays

Recently the HEAT balloon experiment has confirmed an excess of high-energy positrons in cosmic rays. They could come from annihilation of dark matter in the galactic halo. We discuss expectations for the positron signal in cosmic rays from the lightest superpartner. The simplest interpretations are incompatible with the size and shape of the excess if the relic LSPs evolved from thermal equilbrium. Non-thermal histories can describe a sufficient positron rate. Reproducing the energy spectrum is more challenging, but perhaps possible. The resulting light superpartner spectrum is compatible with collider physics, the muon anomalous magnetic moment, Z-pole electroweak data, and other dark matter searches.

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arXiv2001

Graviton emission from a soft brane

Theories with compact extra spatial dimensions felt only by gravity are subject to direct experimental tests if the compactification volume is large. Estimates of high-energy collider observables induced by graviton radiation into extra dimensions are usually given assuming rigid branes. This may overestimate the accessibility of these theories. Brane fluctuations soften the coupling of graviton radiation, and reduce our ability to see effects in high-energy collisions. We calculate the size of this suppression on single jet plus gravitons at the LHC and single photon plus gravitons at an e+e- linear collider. We advocate the use of a brane softening variable as an additional parameter when comparing theory predictions to data.

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arXiv2001

Muon anomalous magnetic dipole moment in supersymmetric theories

We study the muon anomalous magnetic dipole moment in supersymmetric theories. The impact of the recent Brookhaven E821 experimental measurement on both model-independent and model-dependent supersymmetric parameter spaces is discussed in detail. We find that values of tanβas low as 3 can be obtained while remaining within the E821 one-sigma bound. This requires a light smuon; however, we show that, somewhat surprisingly, no model-independent bound can be placed on the mass of the lightest chargino for any tanβgreater than or equal to 3. We also show that the maximum contributions to the anomalous magnetic moment are insensitive to CP-violating phases. We provide analyses of the supersymmetric contribution to the muon anomalous magnetic moment in dilaton-dominated supergravity models and gauge-mediated supersymmetry-breaking models. Finally, we discuss how other phenomena, such as $B(b\to sγ)$, relic abundance of the lightest superpartner, and the Higgs mass may be correlated with the anomalous magnetic moment, but do not significantly impact the viability of a supersymmetric explanation, or the mass limits obtainable on smuons and charginos.

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arXiv2001

Nucleon scattering with higgsino and wino cold dark matter

Neutralinos that are mostly wino or higgsino are shown to be compatible with the recent DAMA annual modulation signal. The nucleon scattering rates for these dark matter candidates are typically an order of magnitude above the oft-considered bino. Although thermal evolution of higgsino and wino number densities in the early universe implies that they are not viable dark matter candidates, non-thermal sources, such as from gravitino or moduli decay in anomaly mediated supersymmetry breaking, suggest that they can be the dominant source of cold dark matter. Their stealthiness at high energy colliders gives even more impetus to analyze nucleon scattering detection methods. We also present calculations for their predicted scattering rate with Germanium detectors, which have yet to see evidence of WIMP scattering.

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arXiv2000

The role of supersymmetry phenomenology in particle physics

Supersymmetry phenomenology is an important component of particle physics today. I provide a definition of supersymmetry phenomenology, outline the scope of its activity, and argue its legitimacy. This essay derives from a presentation given at the 2000 SLAC Summer Institute.

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arXiv2000

Constraints on ultraviolet-stable fixed points in supersymmetric gauge theories

We consider the possibility that some supersymmetric gauge theories which are not asymptotically free can be governed by ultraviolet-stable fixed points. If this scenario can be realized, gaugino masses will exhibit power-law running with scale, providing a possible solution to the supersymmetric flavor problem. While naive perturbative calculations hint at the appearance of ultraviolet-stable fixed points in certain theories, there are strong constraints following from limits on the scaling dimensions of gauge-invariant operators, positivity of central charges, and Cardy's conjectured constraint on the flow of the Euler coefficient in the stress tensor trace anomaly. Also, we prove that if ultraviolet-stable fixed points do exist, they cannot occur in the perturbative regime of a renormalizable model, and that all-orders results in the limit of large numbers of chiral superfields are necessarily inconclusive. However, we argue that the general idea of ultraviolet-stable fixed points in supersymmetric gauge theories is viable, and exhibit models that can satisfy all known constraints.

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