arXiv subjects

Patrick J. Fox

Publications and source records attributed to Patrick J. Fox.

88 records · Page 5Linked to original sources

arXiv2009

R-symmetric gauge mediation

We present a version of Gauge Mediated Supersymmetry Breaking which preserves an R-symmetry - the gauginos are Dirac particles, the A-terms are zero, and there are four Higgs doublets. This offers an alternative way for gauginos to acquire mass in the supersymmetry-breaking models of Intriligator, Seiberg, and Shih. We investigate the possibility of using R-symmetric gauge mediation to realize the spectrum and large sfermion mixing of the model of Kribs, Poppitz, and Weiner.

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arXiv2008

Deciphering top flavor violation at the LHC with B factories

The LHC will have unprecedented sensitivity to flavor-changing neutral current (FCNC) top quark decays, whose observation would be a clear sign of physics beyond the standard model. Although many details of top flavor violation are model dependent, the standard model gauge symmetries relate top FCNCs to other processes, which are strongly constrained by existing data. We study these constraints in a model independent way, using a low energy effective theory from which the new physics is integrated out. We consider the most important operators which contribute to top FCNCs and analyze the current constraints on them. We find that the data rule out top FCNCs at a level observable at the LHC due to most of the operators comprising left-handed first or second generation quark fields, while there remains a substantial window for top decays mediated by operators with right-handed charm or up quarks. If FCNC top decays are observed at the LHC, such an analysis may help decipher the underlying physics.

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arXiv2008

Quark and lepton masses from top loops

Assuming that the leptons and quarks other than top are massless at tree level, we show that their masses may be induced by loops involving the top quark. As a result, the generic features of the fermion mass spectrum arise from combinations of loop factors. Explicitly, we construct a renormalizable model involving a few new particles, which leads to 1-loop bottom and tau masses, a 2-loop charm mass, 3-loop muon and strange masses, and 4-loop masses for first generation fermions. This realistic pattern of masses does not require any symmetry to differentiate the three generations of fermions. The new particles may produce observable effects in future experiments searching for mu to e conversion in nuclei, rare meson decays, and other processes.

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arXiv2007

Bounds on Unparticles from the Higgs Sector

We study supersymmetric QCD in the conformal window as a laboratory for unparticle physics, and analyze couplings between the unparticle sector and the Higgs sector. These couplings can lead to the unparticle sector being pushed away from its scale invariant fixed point. We show that this implies that low energy experiments will not be able to see unparticle physics, and the best hope of seeing unparticles is in high energy collider experiments such as the Tevatron and the LHC. We also demonstrate how the breaking of scale invariance could be observed at these experiments.

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arXiv2006

Reheating Metastable O'Raifeartaigh Models

In theories with multiple vacua, reheating to a temperature greater than the height of a barrier can stimulate transitions from a desirable metastable vacuum to a lower energy state. We discuss the constraints this places on various theories and demonstrate that in a class of supersymmetric models this transition does not occur even for arbitrarily high reheating temperature.

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arXiv2006

Dirac Gaugino Masses and Supersoft Supersymmetry Breaking

We introduce a new supersymmetric extension of the standard model in which the gauge sector contains complete N=2 supersymmetry multiplets. Supersymmetry breaking from the D-term vev of a hidden sector U(1) gauge field leads to Dirac soft supersymmetry breaking gaugino masses, and a new type of soft scalar trilinear couplings. The resulting squark and slepton masses are finite, calculable, positive and flavor universal. The Higgs soft mass squared is negative. The phenomenology of these theories differs significantly from the MSSM. We discuss a variety of possible origins for the soft operators and new fields, including models in both four and higher dimensions.

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arXiv2006

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.

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arXiv2006

Naturalness and Higgs Decays in the MSSM with a Singlet

The simplest extension of the supersymmetric standard model - the addition of one singlet superfield - can have a profound impact on the Higgs and its decays. We perform a general operator analysis of this scenario, focusing on the phenomenologically distinct scenarios that can arise, and not restricting the scope to the narrow framework of the NMSSM. We reexamine decays to four b quarks and four tau's, finding that they are still generally viable, but at the edge of LEP limits. We find a broad set of Higgs decay modes, some new, including those with four gluon final states, as well as more general six and eight parton final states. We find the phenomenology of these scenarios is dramatically impacted by operators typically ignored, specifically those arising from D-terms in the hidden sector, and those arising from weak-scale colored fields. In addition to sensitivity of m_Z, there are potential tunings of other aspects of the spectrum. In spite of this, these models can be very natural, with light stops and a Higgs as light as 82 GeV. These scenarios motivate further analyses of LEP data as well as studies of the detection capabilities of future colliders to the new decay channels presented.

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arXiv2005

The NMSSM, Anomaly Mediation and a Dirac Bino

We introduce a new model of supersymmetry breaking dominated by anomaly mediation. It has a viable spectrum, successful electroweak symmetry breaking, solves the mu-problem and maintains the anomaly-mediated form for soft-masses down to low energies thus solving the flavor problem. The model consists of the minimal supersymmetric standard model plus a singlet, anomaly-mediated soft masses and a dirac mass which marries the bino to the singlet. We describe a large class of models in the UV which can produce such boundary conditions. The dirac mass does not affect the so-called "UV insensitivity" of the other soft parameters to running or supersymmetric thresholds and thus flavor physics at intermediate scales would not reintroduce the flavor problem. The dirac bino is integrated out at a few TeV and produces {\it finite and positive} contributions to all hyper-charged scalars at one loop thus producing positive squared slepton masses. The theory predicts some CP violation in the Higgs sector leading to a correlation between the spectra to be seen at the LHC and electric dipole moments within experimental reach in the near future.

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arXiv2004

Localized Supersoft Supersymmetry Breaking

We consider supersymmetry breaking models in which the MSSM is extended to include an additional chiral adjoint field for each gauge group with which the the MSSM gauginos acquire Dirac masses. We investigate a framework in which the Standard Model gauge fields propagate in the bulk of a warped extra dimension while quarks and leptons are localized on the ultraviolet brane. The adjoint fields are localized on the infrared brane, where supersymmetry is broken in a hidden sector. This setup naturally suppresses potentially large flavor violating effects, while allowing perturbative gauge coupling unification under SU(5) to be realized. The Standard Model superpartner masses exhibit a supersoft spectrum. Since the soft scalar masses are generated at very low scales of order the gaugino masses these models are significantly less fine-tuned than other supersymmetric models. The LSP in this class of models is the gravitino, while the NLSP is the stau. We show that this theory has an approximate R symmetry under which the gauginos are charged. This symmetry allows several possibilities for experimentally distinguishing the Dirac nature of the gauginos.

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arXiv2004

Catastrophic Decays of Compactified Space-Times

Witten long ago pointed out that the simplest Kaluza-Klein theory, without supersymmetry, is subject to a catastrophic instability. There are a variety of string theories which are potentially subject to these instabilities. Here we explore a number of questions: how generic are these instabilities? what happens when a potential is generated on the moduli space? in the presence of supersymmetry breaking, is there still a distinction between supersymmetric and non-supersymmetric states?

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arXiv2003

On the Possibility of Large Axion Decay Constants

The decay constant of the QCD axion is required by observation to be small compared to the Planck scale. In theories of "natural inflation," and certain proposed anthropic solutions of the cosmological constant problem, it would be interesting to obtain a large decay constant for axion-like fields from microscopic physics. String theory is the only context in which one can sensibly address this question. Here we survey a number of periodic fields in string theory in a variety of string vacua. In some examples, the decay constant can be parameterically larger than the Planck scale but the effective action then contains appreciable harmonics of order $f_A/M_p$. As a result, these fields are no better inflaton candidates than Planck scale axions.

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arXiv2003

Saxion Emission from SN1987A

We study the possibility of emission of the saxion, a superpartner of the axion, from SN1987A. The fact that the observed neutrino pulse from SN1987A is in excellent agreement with the current theory of supernovae places a strong bound on the energy loss into any non-standard model channel, therefore enabling bounds to be placed on the decay constant, f_a, of a light saxion. The low-energy coupling of the saxion, which couples at high energies to the QCD gauge field strength, is expected to be enhanced from QCD scaling, making it interesting to investigate if the saxion could place stronger bounds on f_a than the axion itself. Moreover, since the properties of the saxion are determined by f_a, a constraint on this parameter can be translated into a constraint on the supersymmetry breaking scale. We find that the bound on f_a from saxion emission is comparable with the one derived from axion emission due to a cancellation of leading-order terms in the soft-radiation expansion.

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arXiv2001

Large Extra Dimensions from a Small Extra Dimension

Models with extra dimensions have changed our understanding of the hierarchy problem. In general, these models explain the weakness of gravity by diluting gravity in a large bulk volume, or by localizing the graviton away from the standard model. In this paper, we show that the warped geometries necessary for the latter scenario can naturally induce the large volumes necessary for the former. We present a model in which a large volume is stabilized without supersymmetry. We comment on the phenomenology of this scenario and generalizations to additional dimensions.

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arXiv2001

Wave Function of the Radion in the dS and AdS Brane Worlds

We study the linearized metric perturbation corresponding to the radion for the generalization of the five dimensional two brane setup of Randall and Sundrum to the case when the curvature of each brane is locally constant but non-zero. We find the wave fuction of the radion in a coordinate system where each brane is sitting at a fixed value of the extra coordinate. We find that the radion now has a mass$^2$, which is negative for the case of de Sitter branes but positive for anti de Sitter branes. We also determine the couplings of the radion to matter on the branes, and construct the four dimensional effective theory for the radion valid at low energies. In particular we find that in AdS space the wave function of the radion is always normalizable and hence its effects, though small, remain finite at arbitrarily large brane separations.

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arXiv2001

Weakly Warped Extra Dimensions and SN1987A

The neutrino pulse from SN1987A provides one of the most rigourous constraints on models of extra dimensions. Previously, calculations have been done to bound the size of these extra dimensions in the case when the metric was factorizable. Here we consider the case of 2 `weakly warped' extra dimensions. We find that even though weak warping seems only to affect the zero mode this can have a measurable effect on the supernovae bounds. In any braneworld model such warping is necessarily present and as such should be taken into account in supernovae bounds and in searches for corrections to Newtonian gravity.

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