arXiv subjects

R. R. Volkas

Publications and source records attributed to R. R. Volkas.

61 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv1993

Real Higgs singlet and the electroweak phase transition in the standard model, (UM-P-93/80, OZ-93/20)

The effective potential at finite temperature is constructed within the minimal standard model when a real Higgs singlet is added on. We find that a region of parameter space exists for which one can find a first order transition strong enough to prevent the erasure due to sphalerons of baryon asymmetry, while keeping the mass of the smallest Higgs boson above the experimental lower bound of about 60 GeV.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1993

Study of the simplest realistic Higgs sector in quark-lepton symmetric models

A discrete symmetry between quarks and (generalized) leptons can exist in nature, and its spontaneous symmetry breaking scale can be as low as a few TeV. Such a discrete symmetry also has interesting implications for how electroweak symmetry is spontaneously broken, because the simplest version of the theory requires two electroweak Higgs doublets rather than one in order to provide acceptable values for quark and lepton masses. The effective theory generated at electroweak-scale energies is thus a particular type of two-Higgs-doublet model. We point out in this paper that the broken discrete symmetry imposes very interesting constraints on the form of the Yukawa couplings between physical Higgs bosons and quarks and leptons. In particular, we find that the flavour-changing neutral Higgs couplings to down-sector quarks are proportional to the neutrino Dirac mass matrix. If neutrinos are Dirac particles, then the severe experimental upper bounds on their mass values renders tree-level neutral flavour-changing Higgs effects on down-quark systems like $K^0-\bar{K}^0$ negligibly small. We also discuss minimization of some relevant Higgs potentials and some other pertinent phenomenological issues.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1992

Quark-Lepton Symmetry

Quark-lepton symmetric models are a class of gauge theories motivated by the similarities between the quarks and leptons. In these models the gauge group of the standard model is extended to include a ``color'' group for the leptons. Consequently, the quarks and leptons can then be related by a $Z_2$ discrete quark-lepton symmetry which is spontaneously broken by the vacuum. Models utilizing quark-lepton symmetry with acceptable and interesting collider phenomenology have been constructed. The cosmological consequences of these models are also discussed.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1992

The effective potential at finite temperature in the left-right symmetric model

We obtain the effective potential at finite temperature within the left-right symmetric model. We take the Higgs sector to consist of two doublets and calculate its finite temperature effective potential up to the order of ``ring-diagrams'', using analogous techniques to those employed in the derivation of the effective potential in the Standard Model. We find that two first order phase transitions can exist, one at the $SU(2)_R$ breaking scale, the other at the usual $SU(2)_L\otimes U(1)_Y$ breaking scale. Even though more parameters are present than the standard model, we find that the electroweak phase transition is still too weak to allow baryon asymmetry to survive the transition, if the lower bound of the Higgs boson mass from experiment is adhered to.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1992

Discrete quark-lepton symmetry need not pose a cosmological domain wall problem

Quarks and leptons may be related to each other through a spontaneously broken discrete symmetry. Models with acceptable and interesting collider phenomenology have been constructed which incorporate this idea. However, the standard Hot Big Bang model of cosmology is generally considered to eschew spontaneously broken discrete symmetries because they often lead to the formation of unacceptably massive domain walls. We point out that there are a number of plausible quark-lepton symmetric models which do not produce cosmologically troublesome domain walls. We also raise what we think are some interesting questions concerning anomalous discrete symmetries.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1992

Electric Charge Quantization

Experimentally it has been known for a long time that the electric charges of the observed particles appear to be quantized. An approach to understanding electric charge quantization that can be used for gauge theories with explicit $U(1)$ factors -- such as the standard model and its variants -- is pedagogically reviewed and discussed in this article. This approach uses the allowed invariances of the Lagrangian and their associated anomaly cancellation equations. We demonstrate that charge may be de-quantized in the three-generation standard model with massless neutrinos, because differences in family-lepton--numbers are anomaly-free. We also review the relevant experimental limits. Our approach to charge quantization suggests that the minimal standard model should be extended so that family-lepton--number differences are explicitly broken. We briefly discuss some candidate extensions (e.g. the minimal standard model augmented by Majorana right-handed neutrinos).

hep-ph↗

arXiv1992

Bounds on mini-charged neutrinos in the minimal standard model

In the minimal Standard Model (MSM) with three generations of quarks and leptons, neutrinos can have tiny charges consistent with electromagnetic gauge invariance. There are three types of non-standard electric charge, given by $Q_{st} + ε(L_i - L_j)$, where $i, j = e, μ, τ$ $(i \neq j)$, $Q_{st}$ is standard electric charge, $L_i$ is a family-lepton--number, and $ε$ is an arbitrary parameter which is put equal to zero in the usual incarnation of the MSM. These three non-standard electric charges are of considerable theoretical interest because they are compatible with the MSM Lagrangian and $SU(3)_c \otimes SU(2)_L \otimes U(1)_Y$ gauge anomaly cancellation. The two most conspicuous implications of such non-standard electric charges are the presence of two generations of massless charged neutrinos and a breakdown in electromagnetic universality for $e$, $μ$ and $τ$. We use results from (i) charge conservation in $β$-decay, (ii) physical consequences of charged atoms in various contexts, (iii) the anomalous magnetic moments of charged leptons, (iv) neutrino-electron scattering, (v) energy loss in red giant and white dwarf stars, and (vi) limits on a cosmologically induced thermal photon mass, to place bounds on $ε$. While the constraints derived for $ε$ 10^{-21}$), the $L_μ-L_τ$ case allows $ε$ to be as large as $10^{-14}$.

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