arXiv subjects

Raman Sundrum

Publications and source records attributed to Raman Sundrum.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

Naturalness in the Dark at the LHC

We revisit the Twin Higgs scenario as a "dark" solution to the little hierarchy problem, identify the structure of a minimal model and its viable parameter space, and analyze its collider implications. In this model, dark naturalness generally leads to Hidden Valley phenomenology. The twin particles, including the top partner, are all Standard-Model-neutral, but naturalness favors the existence of twin strong interactions -- an asymptotically-free force that confines not far above the Standard Model QCD scale -- and a Higgs portal interaction. We show that, taken together, these typically give rise to exotic decays of the Higgs to twin hadrons. Across a substantial portion of the parameter space, certain twin hadrons have visible and often displaced decays, providing a potentially striking LHC signature. We briefly discuss appropriate experimental search strategies.

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arXiv2015

Natural Inflation and Quantum Gravity

Cosmic Inflation provides an attractive framework for understanding the early universe and the cosmic microwave background. It can readily involve energies close to the scale at which Quantum Gravity effects become important. General considerations of black hole quantum mechanics suggest nontrivial constraints on any effective field theory model of inflation that emerges as a low-energy limit of quantum gravity, in particular the constraint of the Weak Gravity Conjecture. We show that higher-dimensional gauge and gravitational dynamics can elegantly satisfy these constraints and lead to a viable, theoretically-controlled and predictive class of Natural Inflation models.

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arXiv2014

Holography of the BTZ Black Hole, Inside and Out

We propose a 1+1 dimensional CFT dual structure for quantum gravity and matter on the extended 2+1 dimensional BTZ black hole, realized as a quotient of the Poincare patch of AdS$_3$. The quotient spacetime includes regions beyond the singularity, "whiskers", containing timelike and lightlike closed curves, which at first sight seem unphysical. The spacetime includes the usual AdS-asymptotic boundaries outside the horizons as well as boundary components inside the whiskers. We show that local boundary correlators with some endpoints in the whisker regions: (i) are a protected class of amplitudes, dominated by effective field theory even when the associated Witten diagrams appear to traverse the singularity, (ii) describe well-defined diffeomorphism-invariant quantum gravity amplitudes in BTZ, (iii) sharply probe some of the physics inside the horizon but outside the singularity, and (iv) are equivalent to correlators of specific non-local CFT operators in the standard thermofield entangled state of two CFTs. In this sense, the whisker regions can be considered as purely auxiliary spacetimes in which these useful non-local CFT correlators can be rendered as local boundary correlators, and their diagnostic value more readily understood. Our results follow by first performing a novel reanalysis of the Rindler view of standard AdS/CFT duality on the Poincare patch of AdS, followed by exploiting the simple quotient structure of BTZ which turns the Rindler horizon into the BTZ black hole horizon. While most of our checks are within gravitational effective field theory, we arrive at a fully non-perturbative CFT proposal to probe the UV-sensitive approach to the singularity.

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arXiv2012

Baryogenesis for WIMPs

We propose a robust, unified framework, in which the similar baryon and dark matter cosmic abundances both arise from the physics of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), with the rough quantitative success of the so-called "WIMP miracle". In particular the baryon asymmetry arises from the decay of a meta-stable WIMP after its thermal freezeout at or below the weak scale. A minimal model and its embedding in R-parity violating (RPV) SUSY are studied as examples. The new mechanism saves RPV SUSY from the potential crisis of washing out primordial baryon asymmetry. Phenomenological implications for the LHC and precision tests are discussed.

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arXiv2012

From Fixed Points to the Fifth Dimension

4D Lorentzian conformal field theory (CFT) is mapped into 5D anti-de Sitter spacetime (AdS), from the viewpoint of "geometrizing" conformal current algebra. A large-N expansion of the CFT is shown to lead to (infinitely many) weakly coupled AdS particles, in one-to-one correspondence with minimal-color-singlet CFT primary operators. If all but a finite number of "protected" primary operators have very large scaling dimensions, it is shown that there exists a low-AdS-curvature effective field theory regime for the corresponding finite set of AdS particles. Effective 5D gauge theory and General Relativity on AdS are derived in this way from the most robust examples of protected CFT primaries, Noether currents of global symmetries and the energy-momentum tensor. Witten's prescription for computing CFT local operator correlators within the AdS dual is derived. The main new contribution is the derivation of 5D locality of AdS couplings. This is accomplished by studying a confining IR-deformation of the CFT in the large-N "planar" approximation, where the discrete spectrum and existence of an S-matrix allow the constraints of unitarity and crossing symmetry to be solved (in standard fashion) by a tree-level expansion in terms of 4D local "glueball" couplings. When the deformation is carefully removed, this 4D locality (with plausible technical assumptions specifying its precise nature) combines with the restored conformal symmetry to yield 5D AdS locality. The sense in which AdS/CFT duality illustrates the possibility of emergent relativity, and the special role of strong coupling, are briefly discussed. Care is taken to conclude each step with well-defined mathematical expressions and convergent integrals.

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arXiv2012

SUSY Stops at a Bump

We discuss collider signatures of the "natural supersymmetry" scenario with baryon-number violating R-parity violation. We argue that this is one of the few remaining viable incarnations of weak scale supersymmetry consistent with full electroweak naturalness. We show that this intriguing and challenging scenario contains distinctive LHC signals, resonances of hard jets in conjunction with relatively soft leptons and missing energy, which are easily overlooked by existing LHC searches. We propose novel strategies for distinguishing these signals above background, and estimate their potential reach at the 8 TeV LHC. We show that other multi-lepton signals of this scenario can be seen by currently existing searches with increased statistics, but these opportunities are more spectrum-dependent.

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arXiv2011

SUSY, the Third Generation and the LHC

We develop a bottom-up approach to studying SUSY with light stops and sbottoms, but with other squarks and sleptons heavy and beyond reach of the LHC. We discuss the range of squark, gaugino and Higgsino masses for which the electroweak scale is radiatively stable over the "little hierarchy" below ~ 10 TeV. We review and expand on indirect constraints on this scenario, in particular from flavor and CP tests. We emphasize that in this context, R-parity violation is very well motivated. The phenomenological differences between Majorana and Dirac gauginos are also discussed. Finally, we focus on the light subsystem of stops, sbottom and neutralino with R-parity, in order to probe the current collider bounds. We find that 1/fb LHC bounds are mild and large parts of the motivated parameter space remain open, while the 10/fb data can be much more decisive.

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arXiv2011

Warped/Composite Phenomenology Simplified

This is the first of two papers aimed at economically capturing the collider phenomenology of warped extra dimensions with bulk Standard Model fields, where the hierarchy problem is solved non-supersymmetrically. This scenario is related via the AdS/CFT correspondence to that of partial compositeness of the Standard Model. We present a purely four-dimensional, two-sector effective field theory describing the Standard Model fields and just their first Kaluza-Klein/composite excitations. This truncation, while losing some of the explanatory power and precision of the full higher-dimensional warped theory, greatly simplifies phenomenological considerations and computations. We describe the philosophy and explicit construction of our two-sector model, and also derive formulas for residual Higgs fine tuning and electroweak and flavor precision variables to help identify the most motivated parts of the parameter space. We highlight several of the most promising channels for LHC exploration. The present paper focusses on the most minimal scenario, while the companion paper addresses the even richer phenomenology of the minimal scenario of precision gauge coupling unification.

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arXiv2011

Flavourful Production at Hadron Colliders

We ask what new states may lie at or below the TeV scale, with sizable flavour-dependent couplings to light quarks, putting them within reach of hadron colliders via resonant production, or in association with Standard Model states. In particular, we focus on the compatibility of such states with stringent flavour-changing neutral current and electric-dipole moment constraints. We argue that the broadest and most theoretically plausible flavour structure of the new couplings is that they are hierarchical, as are Standard Model Yukawa couplings, although the hierarchical pattern may well be different. We point out that, without the need for any more elaborate or restrictive structure, new scalars with "diquark" couplings to standard quarks are particularly immune to existing constraints, and that such scalars may arise within a variety of theoretical paradigms. In particular, there can be substantial couplings to a pair of light quarks or to one light and one heavy quark. For example, the latter possibility may provide a flavour-safe interpretation of the asymmetry in top quark production observed at the Tevatron. We thereby motivate searches for diquark scalars at the Tevatron and LHC, and argue that their discovery represents one of our best chances for new insight into the Flavour Puzzle of the Standard Model.

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arXiv2010

SUSY Splits, But Then Returns

We study the phenomenon of accidental or "emergent" supersymmetry within gauge theory and connect it to the scenarios of Split Supersymmetry and Higgs compositeness. Combining these elements leads to a significant refinement and extension of the proposal of Partial Supersymmetry, in which supersymmetry is broken at very high energies but with a remnant surviving to the weak scale. The Hierarchy Problem is then solved by a non-trivial partnership between supersymmetry and compositeness, giving a promising approach for reconciling Higgs naturalness with the wealth of precision experimental data. We discuss aspects of this scenario from the AdS/CFT dual viewpoint of higher-dimensional warped compactification. It is argued that string theory constructions with high scale supersymmetry breaking which realize warped/composite solutions to the Hierarchy Problem may well be accompanied by some or all of the features described. The central phenomenological considerations and expectations are discussed, with more detailed modelling within warped effective field theory reserved for future work.

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arXiv2010

Vectorlike Confinement at the LHC

We argue for the plausibility of a broad class of vectorlike confining gauge theories at the TeV scale which interact with the Standard Model predominantly via gauge interactions. These theories have a rich phenomenology at the LHC if confinement occurs at the TeV scale, while ensuring negligible impact on precision electroweak and flavor observables. Spin-1 bound states can be resonantly produced via their mixing with Standard Model gauge bosons. The resonances promptly decay to pseudo-Goldstone bosons, some of which promptly decay to a pair of Standard Model gauge bosons, while others are charged and stable on collider time scales. The diverse set of final states with little background include multiple photons and leptons, missing energy, massive stable charged particles and the possibility of highly displaced vertices in dilepton, leptoquark or diquark decays. Among others, a novel experimental signature of resonance reconstruction out of massive stable charged particles is highlighted. Some of the long-lived states also constitute Dark Matter candidates.

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arXiv2010

Warped Hybrid Inflation

We construct a model of hybrid inflation within a controlled five-dimensional effective field theory framework. The inflaton and waterfall fields are realized as naturally light moduli of the 5D compactification. At the quantum level, waterfall loops must be cut off at a scale considerably lower than the inflaton field transit in order to preserve slow-roll dynamics without fine-tuning. We accomplish this by a significant warping, or redshift, between the extra-dimensional regions in which the inflaton and waterfall fields are localized. The mechanisms we employ have been separately realized in string theory, which suggests that a string UV completion of our model is possible. We study a part of the parameter space in which the cosmology takes a standard form, but we point out that it is also possible for some regions of space to end inflation by quantum tunneling. Such regions may provide new cosmological signals, which we will study in future work.

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arXiv2009

Breaking the Dark Force

Recently Arkani-Hamed, Finkbeiner, Slatyer and Weiner proposed a unified explanation to the set of experimental and observational anomalies with possible connections to Dark Matter (DM). A central role is played by GeV scale "dark" gauge bosons exchanged by the weak scale DM. Motivated by this proposal, we build an explicit model of DM in the context of Weak Scale Supersymmetry (SUSY). We employ high-scale SUSY-breaking and invoke the Giudice-Masiero mechanism to generate the weak scale DM masses. By sequestering the dark sector from the SUSY-breaking "hidden" sector, it naturally acquires GeV scale soft masses that help generate the dark gauge boson mass. The visible MSSM sector is not fully sequestered and acquires gaugino-mediated soft terms at the weak scale. This hierarchy of scales naturally leads to the Sommerfeld enhancement of DM annihilations needed to account for the electron/positron excesses in the PAMELA and ATIC experiments. The possibility of co-existing species of DM is used to show how the INTEGRAL and DAMA anomalies can both be explained. We study the cosmological constraints on the new stable or long-lived light particles that appear in our models. We discuss the lepton-jet collider signals suggested by Arkani-Hamed and Weiner, and find that they are not guaranteed in our construction.

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arXiv2009

A Common Origin for Neutrino Anarchy and Charged Hierarchies

The generation of exponential flavor hierarchies from extra-dimensional wavefunction overlaps is re-examined. We find, surprisingly, that coexistence of anarchic fermion mass matrices with such hierarchies is intrinsic and natural to this setting. The salient features of charged fermion and neutrino masses and mixings can thereby be captured within a single framework. Both Dirac and Majorana neutrinos can be realized. The minimal phenomenological consequences are discussed, including the need for a fundamental scale far above the weak scale to adequately suppress flavor-changing neutral currents. Two broad scenarios for stabilizing this electroweak hierarchy are studied, warped compactification and supersymmetry. In warped compactifications and "Flavorful Supersymmetry," where non-trivial flavor structure appears in the new TeV physics, Dirac neutrinos are strongly favored over Majorana by lepton flavor violation tests. We argue that this is part of a more general result for flavor-sensitive TeV-scale physics. Our scenario strongly suggests that the supersymmetric flavor problem is not solved locally in the extra dimension, but rather at or below the compactification scale. In the supersymmetric Dirac case, we discuss how the appearance of light right-handed sneutrinos considerably alters the physics of dark matter.

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arXiv2008

Anomaly-Mediation and Sequestering from a Higher-Dimensional viewpoint

We study a five-dimensional supergravity model with boundary-localized visible sector exhibiting anomaly-mediated supersymmetry breaking, in which the central requirements of sequestering and radius stabilization are achieved perturbatively. This makes it possible to understand these various mechanisms in a more integrated and transparent fashion, mostly from the higher-dimensional viewpoint. Local supersymmetry, in the presence of visible sector quantum effects, is enforced by the formalism of the five-dimensional superconformal tensor calculus. The construction results in only mild warping, which allows a natural supersymmetry-breaking mediation mechanism of (finite) boundary-to-boundary gravity loops to co-dominate with anomaly-mediation, thereby solving the latter's tachyonic slepton problem. We make the non-trivial check that this can occur while dangerous loops of stabilizing fields remain highly suppressed. Our discussion is a well-controlled starting point for considering other generalizations of anomaly-mediation, or for string theory realizations.

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arXiv2008

Colored Resonances at the Tevatron: Phenomenology and Discovery Potential in Multijets

There exist several classes of theories beyond the Standard Model which contain massive spin-1 color octets, generically called "colorons". Indeed we argue that colorons inevitably appear in the spectrum whenever new colored particles feel an additional confining force. Colorons are distinctive at hadron colliders as this is the only environment in which they can be resonantly produced. In the simplest models we show that the coloron naturally decays to multijets via secondary resonances, which can be consistent with all existing bounds, even for colorons as light as a few hundred GeV. We perform representative case studies and show that a search in the four-jet channel at the Tevatron has strong signal significance, while the LHC faces formidable challenges for such a search.

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arXiv2008

Gravitational Lorentz Violation and Superluminality via AdS/CFT Duality

A weak quantum mechanical coupling is constructed permitting superluminal communication within a preferred region of a gravitating AdS_5 spacetime. This is achieved by adding a spatially non-local perturbation of a special kind to the Hamiltonian of a four-dimensional conformal field theory with a weakly-coupled AdS dual, such as maximally supersymmetric Yang-Mills theory. In particular, two issues are given careful treatment: (1) the UV-completeness of our deformed CFT, guaranteeing the existence of a ``deformed string theory'' AdS dual, and (2) the demonstration that superluminal effects can take place in AdS, both on its boundary as well as in the bulk. Exotic Lorentz-violating properties such as these may have implications for tests of General Relativity, addressing the cosmological constant problem, or probing "behind'' horizons. Our construction may give insight into the interpretation of wormhole solutions in Euclidean AdS gravity.

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arXiv2007

Sequestering in String Theory

We study sequestering, a prerequisite for flavor-blind supersymmetry breaking in several high-scale mediation mechanisms, in compactifications of type IIB string theory. We find that although sequestering is typically absent in unwarped backgrounds, strongly warped compactifications do readily sequester. The AdS/CFT dual description in terms of conformal sequestering plays an important role in our analysis, and we establish how sequestering works both on the gravity side and on the gauge theory side. We pay special attention to subtle compactification effects that can disrupt sequestering. Our result is a step toward realizing an appealing pattern of soft terms in a KKLT compactification.

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