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Markus A. Luty

Publications and source records attributed to Markus A. Luty.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

Asymmetric Dark Matter

We consider a simple class of models in which the relic density of dark matter is determined by the baryon asymmetry of the universe. In these models a $B - L$ asymmetry generated at high temperatures is transfered to the dark matter, which is charged under $B - L$. The interactions that transfer the asymmetry decouple at temperatures above the dark matter mass, freezing in a dark matter asymmetry of order the baryon asymmetry. This explains the observed relation between the baryon and dark matter densities for dark matter mass in the range 5--15 GeV. The symmetric component of the dark matter can annihilate efficiently to light pseudoscalar Higgs particles $a$, or via $t$-channel exchange of new scalar doublets. The first possibility allows for $h^0 \to aa$ decays, while the second predicts a light charged Higgs-like scalar decaying to $τν$. Direct detection can arise from Higgs exchange in the first model, or a nonzero magnetic moment in the second. In supersymmetric models, the would-be LSP can decay into pairs of dark matter particles plus standard model particles, possibly with displaced vertices.

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The Relic Abundance of Long-lived Heavy Colored Particles

Long-lived colored particles with masses m > 200 GeV are allowed by current accelerator searches, and are predicted by a number of scenarios for physics beyond the standard model. We argue that such "heavy partons'' effectively have a geometrical cross section (of order 10 mb) for annihilation at temperatures below the QCD deconfinement transition. The annihilation process involves the formation of an intermediate bound state of two heavy partons with large orbital angular momentum. The bound state subsequently decays by losing energy and angular momentum to photon or pion emission, followed by annihilation of the heavy partons. This decay occurs before nucleosynthesis for m < 10^{11} GeV for electrically charged partons and m < TeV for electrically neutral partons. This implies that heavy parton lifetimes as long as 10^{14} sec are allowed even for heavy partons with m ~ TeV decaying to photons or hadrons with significant branching fraction.

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Starting the Universe: Stable Violation of the Null Energy Condition and Non-standard Cosmologies

We present a consistent effective theory that violates the null energy condition (NEC) without developing any instabilities or other pathological features. The model is the ghost condensate with the global shift symmetry softly broken by a potential. We show that this system can drive a cosmological expansion with dH/dt > 0. Demanding the absence of instabilities in this model requires dH/dt <~ H^2. We then construct a general low-energy effective theory that describes scalar fluctuations about an arbitrary FRW background, and argue that the qualitative features found in our model are very general for stable systems that violate the NEC. Violating the NEC allows dramatically non-standard cosmological histories. To illustrate this, we construct an explicit model in which the expansion of our universe originates from an asymptotically flat state in the past, smoothing out the big-bang singularity within control of a low-energy effective theory. This gives an interesting alternative to standard inflation for solving the horizon problem. We also construct models in which the present acceleration has w < -1; a periodic ever-expanding universe and a model with a smooth ``bounce'' connecting a contracting and expanding phase.

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Conformal Technicolor

We point out that the flavor problem in theories with dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking can be effectively decoupled if the physics above the TeV scale is strongly conformal, and the electroweak order parameter has a scaling dimension d = 1 + epsilon with epsilon \simeq 1/few. There are many restrictions on small values of epsilon: for epsilon << 1, electroweak symmetry breaking requires a fine-tuning similar to that of the standard model; large-N conformal field theories (including those obtained from the AdS/CFT correspondence) require fine-tuning for d < 2; `walking technicolor' theories cannot have d < 2, according to gap equation analyses. However, strong small-N conformal field theories with epsilon \simeq 1/few avoid all these constraints, and can give rise to natural dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking with a top quark flavor scale of order 10^{1/epsilon} TeV, large enough to decouple flavor. Small-N theories also have an acceptably small Peskin-Takeuchi S parameter. This class of theories provides a new direction for dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking without problems from flavor or electroweak precision tests. A possible signal for these theories is a prominent scalar resonance below the TeV scale with couplings similar to a heavy standard model Higgs.

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Dynamics of Gravity in a Higgs Phase

We investigate the universal low-energy dynamics of the simplest Higgs phase for gravity, `ghost condensation.' We show that the nonlinear dynamics of the `ghostone' field dominate for all interesting gravitational sources. Away from caustic singularities, the dynamics is equivalent to the irrotational flow of a perfect fluid with equation of state p \propto ρ^2, where the fluid particles can have negative mass. We argue that this theory is free from catastrophic instabilities due to growing modes, even though the null energy condition is violated. Numerical simulations show that solutions generally have singularities in which negative energy regions shrink to zero size. We exhibit partial UV completions of the theory in which these singularities are smoothly resolved, so this does not signal any inconsistency in the effective theory. We also consider the bounds on the symmetry breaking scale M in this theory. We argue that the nonlinear dynamics cuts off the Jeans instability of the linear theory, and allows M \lsim 100GeV.

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Spontaneous Lorentz Breaking at High Energies

Theories that spontaneously break Lorentz invariance also violate diffeomorphism symmetries, implying the existence of extra degrees of freedom and modifications of gravity. In the minimal model (``ghost condensation'') with only a single extra degree of freedom at low energies, the scale of Lorentz violation cannot be larger than about M ~ 100GeV due to an infrared instability in the gravity sector. We show that Lorentz symmetry can be broken at much higher scales in a non-minimal theory with additional degrees of freedom, in particular if Lorentz symmetry is broken by the vacuum expectation value of a vector field. This theory can be constructed by gauging ghost condensation, giving a systematic effective field theory description that allows us to estimate the size of all physical effects. We show that nonlinear effects become important for gravitational fields with strength \sqrtΦ > g, where g is the gauge coupling, and we argue that the nonlinear dynamics is free from singularities. We then analyze the phenomenology of the model, including nonlinear dynamics and velocity-dependent effects. The strongest bounds on the gravitational sector come from either black hole accretion or direction-dependent gravitational forces, and imply that the scale of spontaneous Lorentz breaking is M < Min(10^{12}GeV, g^2 10^{15}GeV). If the Lorentz breaking sector couples directly to matter, there is a spin-dependent inverse-square law force, which has a different angular dependence from the force mediated by the ghost condensate, providing a distinctive signature for this class of models.

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Mixed Gauge and Anomaly Mediation From New Physics at 10 TeV

In the context of anomaly-mediated supersymmetry breaking, it is natural for vectorlike fields and singlets to have supersymmetry breaking masses of order 10 TeV, and therefore act as messengers of supersymmetry breaking. We show that this can give rise to phenomenologically viable spectra compatible with perturbative gauge coupling unification. The minimal model interpolates continuously between pure anomaly mediation and gauge mediation with a messenger scale of order 10 TeV. It is also possible to have non-minimal models with more degenerate specta, with some squarks lighter than sleptons. These models reduce to the MSSM at low energies and incorporate a natural solution of the mu problem. The minimal model has four continuous parameters and one discrete parameter (the number of messengers). The LEP Higgs mass bound can be satisfied in the minimal model by tuning parameters at the GUT scale to one part in 50.

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2004 TASI Lectures on Supersymmetry Breaking

These lectures give an introduction to the problem of finding a realistic and natural extension of the standard model based on spontaneously broken supersymmetry. Topics discussed at some length include the effective field theory paradigm, coupling constants as superfield spurions, gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking, and anomaly mediated supersymmetry breaking, including an extensive introduction to supergravity relevant for phenomenology.

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Ghost Condensation and a Consistent Infrared Modification of Gravity

We propose a theoretically consistent modification of gravity in the infrared, which is compatible with all current experimental observations. This is an analog of Higgs mechanism in general relativity, and can be thought of as arising from ghost condensation--a background where a scalar field ϕhas a constant velocity, <\dotϕ> = M^2. The ghost condensate is a new kind of fluid that can fill the universe, which has the same equation of state, ρ= -p, as a cosmological constant, and can hence drive de Sitter expansion of the universe. However, unlike a cosmological constant, it is a physical fluid with a physical scalar excitation, which can be described by a systematic effective field theory at low energies. The excitation has an unusual low-energy dispersion relation ω^2 \sim k^4 / M^2. If coupled to matter directly, it gives rise to small Lorentz-violating effects and a new long-range 1/r^2 spin dependent force. In the ghost condensate, the energy that gravitates is not the same as the particle physics energy, leading to the possibility of both sources that can gravitate and antigravitate. The Newtonian potential is modified with an oscillatory behavior starting at the distance scale M_{Pl}/M^2 and the time scale M_{Pl}^2/M^3. This theory opens up a number of new avenues for attacking cosmological problems, including inflation, dark matter and dark energy.

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Supersymmetry without Supersymmetry

We investigate the possibility that supersymmetry is not a fundamental symmetry of nature, but emerges as an accidental approximate global symmetry at low energies. This can occur if the visible sector is non-supersymmetric at high scales, but flows toward a strongly-coupled superconformal fixed point at low energies; or, alternatively, if the visible sector is localized near the infrared brane of a warped higher-dimensional spacetime with supersymmetry broken only on the UV brane. These two scenarios are related by the AdS/CFT correspondence. In order for supersymmetry to solve the hierarchy problem, the conformal symmetry must be broken below 10^{11} GeV. Accelerated unification can naturally explain the observed gauge coupling unification by physics below the conformal breaking scale. In this framework, there is no gravitino and no reason for the existence of gravitational moduli, thus eliminating the cosmological problems associated with these particles. No special dynamics is required to break supersymmetry; rather, supersymmetry is broken at observable energies because the fixed point is never reached. In 4D language, this can be due to irrelevant supersymmetry breaking operators with approximately equal dimensions. In 5D language, the size of the extra dimension is stabilized by massive bulk fields. No small input parameters are required to generate a large hierarchy. Supersymmetry can be broken in the visible sector either through direct mediation or by the F term of the modulus associated with the breaking of conformal invariance.

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Supergravity loop contributions to brane world supersymmetry breaking

We compute the supergravity loop contributions to the visible sector scalar masses in the simplest 5D `brane-world' model. Supersymmetry is assumed to be broken away from the visible brane and the contributions are UV finite due to 5D locality. We perform the calculation with N = 1 supergraphs, using a formulation of 5D supergravity in terms of N = 1 superfields. We compute contributions to the 4D effective action that determine the visible scalar masses, and we find that the mass-squared terms are negative.

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Strong Interactions and Stability in the DGP Model

The model of Dvali, Gabadadze, and Porrati (DGP) gives a simple geometrical setup in which gravity becomes 5-dimensional at distances larger than a length scale λ_{DGP}. We show that this theory has strong interactions at a length scale λ_3 ~ (λ_{DGP}^2 / M_P)^{1/3}. If λ_{DGP} is of order the Hubble length, then the theory loses predictivity at distances shorter than λ_3 ~ 1000 km. The strong interaction can be viewed as arising from a longitudinal `eaten Goldstone' mode that gets a small kinetic term only from mixing with transverse graviton polarizations, analogous to the case of massive gravity. We also present a negative-energy classical solution, which can be avoided by cutting off the theory at the same scale scale λ_3. Finally, we examine the dynamics of the longitudinal Goldstone mode when the background geometry is curved.

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Almost No-Scale Supergravity

We construct an explicit 5-dimensional supergravity model that realizes the "no scale" mechanism for supersymmetry breaking with no unstable moduli. Supersymmetry is broken by a constant superpotential localized on a brane, and the radion is stabilized by Casimir energy from supergravity and massive hypermultiplets. If the standard model gauge and matter fields are localized on a brane, then visible sector supersymmetry breaking is dominated by gravity loops and flavor-violating hypermultiplet loops, and gaugino masses are smaller than scalar masses. We present a realistic model in which the the standard model gauge fields are partly localized. In this model visible sector supersymmetry breaking is naturally gaugino mediated, while masses of the gravitino and gravitational moduli are larger than the weak scale.

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Five dimensional supergravity in N = 1 superspace

We give a formulation of linearized minimal 5-dimensional supergravity in N = 1 superspace. Infinitesimal local 5D diffeomorphisms, local 5D Lorentz transformations, and local 5D supersymmetry are all realized as off-shell superfield transformations. Compactification on an S^1 / Z_2 orbifold and couplings to brane-localized supermultiplets are very simple in this formalism. We use this to show that 5-dimensional supergravity can naturally generate mu and B mu terms of the correct size in gaugino- or radion-mediated supersymmetry breaking. We also include a self-contained review of linearized minimal 4D supergravity in superspace.

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Weak Scale Supersymmetry Without Weak Scale Supergravity

It is generally believed that weak scale supersymmetry implies weak scale supergravity, in the sense that the masses of the gravitino and gravitationally coupled moduli have masses below 100 TeV. This paper presents a realistic framework for supersymmetry breaking in the hidden sector in which the masses of the gravitino and gravitational moduli can be much larger. This cleanly eliminates the cosmological problems of hidden sector models. Supersymmetry breaking is communicated to the visible sector by anomaly-mediated supersymmetry breaking. The framework is compatible with perturbative gauge coupling unification, and can be realized either in models of "warped" extra dimensions, or in strongly-coupled four-dimensional conformal field theories.

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Realistic Anomaly Mediation with Bulk Gauge Fields

We present a simple general framework for realistic models of supersymmetry breaking driven by anomaly mediation. We consider a 5-dimensional "brane universe" where the visible and hidden sectors are localized on different branes, and the standard model gauge bosons propagate in the bulk. In this framework there can be charged scalar messengers that have contact interactions with the hidden sector, either localized in the hidden sector or in the bulk. These scalars obtain soft masses that feed into visible sector scalar masses at two loop order via bulk gauge interactions. This contribution is automatically flavor-blind, and can be naturally positive. If the messengers are in the bulk this contribution is automatically the same order of magnitude as the anomaly mediated contribution, independent of the brane spacing. If the messengers are localized to a brane the two effects are of the same order for relatively small brane spacings. The gaugino masses and A terms are determined completely by anomaly mediation. In order for anomaly mediation to dominate over radion mediation the radion must be is stabilized in a manner that preserves supersymmetry, with supergravity effects included. We show that this occurs in simple models. We also show that the mu problem can be solved by the vacuum expectation value of a singlet in this framework.

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Supersymmetry Breaking and Composite Extra Dimensions

We study supergravity models in four dimensions where the hidden sector is superconformal and strongly-coupled over several decades of energy below the Planck scale, before undergoing spontaneous breakdown of scale invariance and supersymmetry. We show that large anomalous dimensions can suppress Kahler contact terms between the hidden and visible sectors, leading to models in which the hidden sector is "sequestered" and anomaly-mediated supersymmetry breaking can naturally dominate, thus solving the supersymmetric flavor problem. We construct simple, explicit models of the hidden sector based on supersymmetric QCD in the conformal window. The present approach can be usefully interpreted as having an extra dimension responsible for sequestering replaced by the many states of a (spontaneously-broken) strongly-coupled superconformal hidden sector, as dictated by the AdS/CFT correspondence.

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Hierarchy Stabilization in Warped Supersymmetry

We show that exponentially large warp factor hierarchies can be dynamically generated in supersymmetric compactifications. The compactification we consider is the supersymmetric extension of the Randall-Sundrum model. The crucial issue is the stabilization of the radius modulus for large warp factor. The stabilization sector we employ is very simple, consisting of two pure Yang--Mills sectors, one in the bulk and the other localized on a brane. The only fine-tuning required in our model is the cancellation of the cosmological constant, achieved by balancing the stabilization energy against supersymmetry breaking effects. Exponentially large warp factors arise naturally, with no very large or small input parameters. To perform the analysis, we derive the 4-dimensional effective theory for the supersymmetric Randall-Sundrum model, with a careful treatment of the radius modulus. The manifestly (off-shell) supersymmetric form of this effective lagrangian allows a straightforward and systematic treatment of the non-perturbative dynamics of the stabilization sector.

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