arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to S. Khalil.
We present the activities of the "New Physics" working group for the "Physics at TeV Colliders" workshop (Les Houches, France, 30 May-17 June, 2011). Our report includes new agreements on formats for interfaces between computational tools, new tool developments, important signatures for searches at the LHC, recommendations for presentation of LHC search results, as well as additional phenomenological studies.
If dark matter (DM) annihilation accounts for the tantalizing excess of cosmic ray electron/positrons, as reported by the PAMELA, ATIC, HESS and FERMI observatories, then the implied annihilation cross section must be relatively large. This results, in the context of standard cosmological models, in very small relic DM abundances that are incompatible with astrophysical observations. We explore possible resolutions to this apparent conflict in terms of non-standard cosmological scenarios; plausibly allowing for large cross sections, while maintaining relic abundances in accord with current observations.
We analyze the flavor violation in warped extra dimension due to radion mediation. We show that ΔS=2 and ΔB=2 flavor violating processes impose stringent constraints on radion mass, m_ϕand the scale Λ_ϕ. In particular, for Λ_ϕ~ O(1) TeV, B_d^0-\bar{B}^0_d implies that m_ϕ~ 65 GeV. We also study radion contributions to lepton flavor violating processes: τ-> (e,μ) ϕ, τ-> eμ^+μ^- and B -> l_i l_j. We show that BR(B_s -> μ^+ μ^-) can be of order 10^{-8}, which is reachable at the LHCb. The radion search at LHC, through the flavor violation decays into τμor top-charm quarks, is also considered.
In the context of the Supersymmetric (SUSY) B-L (Baryon minus Lepton number) model with an inverse seesaw mechanism, we calculate the one-loop radiative corrections due to right-handed (s)neutrinos to the mass of the lightest Higgs boson when the latter is Standard Model (SM)-like. We show that such effects can be as large as O(100) GeV, thereby giving an absolute upper limit on such a mass around 200 GeV. The importance of this result from a phenomenological point of view is twofold. On the one hand, this enhancement greatly reconciles theory and experiment, by alleviating the so-called `little hierarchy problem' of the minimal SUSY realization, whereby the current experimental limit on the SM-like Higgs mass is very near its absolute upper limit predicted theoretically, of 130 GeV. On the other hand, a SM-like Higgs boson with mass below 200 GeV is still well within the reach of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), so that the SUSY realization discussed here is just as testable as the minimal version.
We analyze the adjoint field inflation in supersymmetric (SUSY) SU(5) model. In minimal SUSY SU(5) hybrid inflation monopoles are produced at the end of inflation. We therefore explore the non-minimal model of inflation based on SUSY SU(5), like shifted hybrid, which provides a natural solution for the monopole problem. We find that the supergravity corrections with non-minimal Kahler potential are crucial to realize the central value of the scalar spectral index n_s ~ 0.96 consistent with the seven year WMAP data. The tensor to scalar ratio r is quite small, taking on values r < 10^{-5}. Due to R-symmetry massless SU(3) octet and SU(2) triplet Higgs bosons are present and could spoil for gauge coupling unification. To keep gauge coupling unification intact, light vector-like particles are added which are expected to be observed at LHC.
We analyze the $5σ$ difference between the CP asymmetries of the $B^0 \to K^+ π^-$ and $B^+ \to K^+ π^0$ decays within the Soft Collinear Effective Theory. We find that in the Standard Model, such a big difference cannot be achieved. We classify then the requirements for the possible New Physics models, which can be responsible for the experimental results. As an example of a New Physics model we study minimal supersymmetric models, and find that the measured asymmetry can be obtained with non-minimal flavor violation.
Using a large sample (~11800 events) of D^+ into K^- pi^+ e^+ nu_e and D^+ into K^- pi^+ mu^+ nu_mu decays collected by the CLEO-c detector running at the psi(3770), we measure the helicity basis form factors free from the assumptions of spectroscopic pole dominance and provide new, accurate measurements of the absolute branching fractions for D^+ into K^- pi^+ e^+ nu_e and D^+ into K^- pi^+ mu^+ nu_mu decays. We find branching fractions which are consistent with previous world averages. Our measured helicity basis form factors are consistent with the spectroscopic pole dominance predictions for the three main helicity basis form factors describing D^+ into anti-K*0 ell^+ nu_mu decay. The ability to analyze D^+ into K^- pi^+ mu^+ nu_mu allows us to make the first non-parametric measurements of the mass-suppressed form factor. Our result is inconsistent with existing Lattice QCD calculations. Finally, we measure the form factor that controls non-resonant s-wave interference with the D^+ into anti-K*0 ell^+ nu_mu amplitude and search for evidence of possible additional non-resonant d-wave or f-wave interference with the anti-K*0.
We report evidence for the ground state of bottomonium, eta_b(1S), in the radiative decay Upsilon(3S) --> gamma eta_b in e^+e^- annihilation data taken with the CLEO III detector. Using 6 million Upsilon(3S) decays, and assuming Gamma(eta_b) = 10 MeV/c^2, we obtain B(Upsilon(3S) --> gamma eta_b) = (7.1 +- 1.8 +- 1.1) X 10^{-4}, where the first error is statistical and the second is systematic. The statistical significance is about 4 sigma. The mass is determined to be M(eta_b) = 9391.8 +- 6.6 +- 2.0 MeV/c^2, which corresponds to the hyperfine splitting Delta M_{hf}(1S)_b = 68.5 +- 6.6 +- 2.0 MeV/c^2. Using 9 million Upsilon(2S) decays, we place an upper limit on the corresponding Y(2S) decay, B(Y(2S) --> gamma eta_b) < 8.4 X 10^{-4} at 90 % confidence level.
The difference between the CP asymmetries of the $B^0 \to K^+ π^-$ and $B^+ \to K^+ π^0$ decays has been recently confirmed with an evidence larger than $5σ$'s. We discuss it as a possible signal of new physics associated with new (large) CP violation in the electroweak penguin contributions. We propose a supersymmetry breaking scheme where such new sources of CP violation occur in the flavor non-universal trilinear scalar couplings.
We analyze the dark matter problem in the context of supersymmetric U(1)_{B-L} model. In this model, the lightest neutalino can be the B-L gaugino widetilde {Z}_{B-L} or the extra Higgsinos widetilde{chi}_{1,2} dominated. We compute the thermal relic abundance of these particles and show that, unlike the LSP in MSSM, they can account for the observed relic abundance with no conflict with other phenomenological constraints. The prospects for their direct detection, if they are part of our galactic halo, are also discussed.
We address the issue of the neutrino masses and mixing in TeV scale $B-L$ extension of the Standard Model. We show that if Dirac neutrino masses are of order $10^{-4}$ Gev, then the measured neutrino masses are correctly obtained. We propose a mass relation between quarks and leptons that may account for such small Dirac neutrino masses. We analyze the leptogenesis in this type of models and provide analytical expressions for the new contributions due to the predicted extra Higgs and extra neutral gauge boson. We find that thermal leptogenesis, with a resonant enhancement due to nearly degenerate right-handed neutrinos, can yield sufficient baryon asymmetry. Finally, we comment on a possible scheme for non-thermal leptogenesis, which is due to the decay of extra Higgs into right-handed neutrino.
We propose a scheme where the three relevant physics scales related to the supersymmetry, electroweak, and baryon minus lepton (B-L) breakings are linked together and occur at the TeV scale. The phenomenological implications in the Higgs and leptonic sectors are discussed.
We analyze the CP violation in the semileptonic | ΔS|=1 tau-decays in supersymmetric extensions of the standard model (SM) with R parity violating term. We show that the CP asymmetry of tau-decay is enhanced significantly and the current experimental limits obtained by CLEO collaborations can be easily accommodated. We argue that observing CP violation in semi leptonic tau-decay would be a clear evidence for R-parity violating SUSY extension of the SM.
The phenomenology of the low scale U(1)_{B-L} extension of the standard model and its implications at LHC is presented. In this model, an extra gauge boson corresponding to B-L gauge symmetry and an extra SM singlet scalar (heavy Higgs) are predicted. We show a detailed analysis of both heavy and light Higgses decay and production in addition to the possible decay channels of the new gauge boson. We find that the cross sections of the SM-like Higgs production are reduced by ~ 20%-30%, while its decay branching ratios remain intact. The extra Higgs has relatively small cross sections and the branching ratios of Z'-> l^+ l^- are of order ~20% compared to ~ 3% of the SM resuls. Hence, the search for Z' is accessible via a clean dilepton signal at LHC.
We compute the SUSY effective hamiltonian that describes the |ΔS|=1 semileptonic decays of tau leptons. We provide analytical expressions for supersymmetric contribution to tau --> u bar{s} nu_{tau} transition in mass insertion approximation. We show that SUSY contributions may enhance the CP asymmetry of tau --> K pi nu_{tau} decays by several orders of magnitude than the standard model expectations. However, the resulting asymmetry is still well below the current experimental limits obtained by CLEO collaborations. We emphasize that measuring CP rate asymmetry in this decay larger than 10^{-6} would be a clear evidence of physics beyond the supersymmetric extensions of the standard model.
We analyze the dark matter problem in the context of brane cosmology. We investigate the impact of the non-conventional brane cosmology on the relic abundance of non-relativistic stable particles in high and low reheating scenarios. We show that in case of high reheating temperature, the brane cosmology may enhance the dark matter relic density by many order of magnitudes and a stringent lower bound on the five dimensional scale is obtained. We also consider low reheating temperature scenarios with chemical equilibrium and non-equilibrium. We emphasize that in non-equilibrium case, the resulting relic density is very small. While with equilibrium, it is increased by a factor of O(10^2) with respect to the standard thermal production. Therefore, dark matter particles with large cross section, which is favored by detection expirements, can be consistent with the recent relic density observational limits.
We study the effect of adding charged matter fields to both D3 and D7 branes in type IIB string theory compactification with fluxes. Generically, charged matter fields induce additional terms to the Kahler form, the superpotential and the D-terms. These terms allow for minima with positive or zero cosmological constants, even in the absence of non-perturbative effects. We show this result first by decoupling the dilaton field along the lines of the KKLT, and second by reincorporating it in the action with the Kahler moduli.
We give an overview of recent progress in the study of fermion mass and flavor mixing phenomena. Mass matrix ansatze are considered within the SM and SUSY GUTs where some predictive frameworks based on SU(5) and SO(10) are reviewed. We describe a variety of schemes to construct quark mass matrices in extra dimensions focusing on four major classes: models with the SM residing on 3-brane, models with universal extra dimensions, models with split fermions and models with warped extra dimensions. We outline how realistic patterns of quark mass matrices could be derived from orbifold models in heterotic superstring theory. Finally, we address the fermion mass problem in intersecting D-branes scenarios, and present models with D6-branes able to give a good quantitatively description of quark masses and mixing. The role of flavor/CP violation problem as a probe of new physics is emphasized.