arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Sandip Pakvasa.
Rare FCNC decay modes of charmed mesons are reviewed. The standard model predictions, including both short and long distance contributions, are summarized. Several new physics options that can give detectable signals are described.
It is shown that high energy neutrino beams from very distant sources can beutilized to learn about some properties fof neutrinos such as lifetimes and mass hierarchy etc. Furthermore, even mixing elements such as U-e3 and the CPV phase can be measured in principle. Pseudo-Dirac mass differences as small as 10^-18 eV^2 can be probed as well.
It is shown that empirical relations between the charged lepton spectra and the quark spectra together with a bimaximal or near bimaximal neutrino mixing matrix necessarily imply that there is a contribution to U(e3) given by thetaC/3/sqrt(2) ~ sqrt(m_{e}/2m_{mu}) ~ 0.052, where thetaC is the Cabibbo angle. This prediction could be tested in the near future reactor experiments. The charged lepton mixing also generates a less robust prediction for the angle theta(23) and a small contribution to the phase delta.
It is shown how high energy neutrino beams from very distant sources can be utilised to learn about some properties of neutrinos such as lifetimes, mass hierarchy etc. Furthemore, even mixing elements such as U_e3 and the CPV phase in the neutrino mixing matrix can be measured in principle. Pseudo-Dirac mass differences as small as 10^-18 eV^2 can be probed as well.
If the narrow exotic baryon resonances $Θ^+(1540)$ and $Ξ_{{3/2}(1862)$ are members of the $J^P = {1/2}1/2^+$ antidecuplet with $N^*(1710)$, the octet-antidecuplet mixing is required not only by the mass spectrum but also by the decay pattern of $N^*(1710)$. This casts doubt on validity of the $Θ^+$ mass prediciton by the chiral soliton model. While all pieces of the existing experimental information point to a small octet-antidecuplet mixing, the magnitude of mixing required by the mass spectrum is not consistent with the value needed to account for the hadronic decay rates. The discrepancy is not resolved even after the large experimental uncertainty is taken into consideration. We fail to find an alternative SU(3) assignment even with different spin-parity assignment.
Neutrinos may be pseudo-Dirac states, such that each generation is actually composed of two maximally-mixed Majorana neutrinos separated by a tiny mass difference. The usual active neutrino oscillation phenomenology would be unaltered if the pseudo-Dirac splittings are $δm^2 \alt 10^{-12}$ eV$^2$; in addition, neutrinoless double beta decay would be highly suppressed. However, it may be possible to distinguish pseudo-Dirac from Dirac neutrinos using high-energy astrophysical neutrinos. By measuring flavor ratios as a function of $L/E$, mass-squared differences down to $δm^2 \sim 10^{-18}$ eV$^2$ can be reached. We comment on the possibility of probing cosmological parameters with neutrinos.
We propose an explanation of the new resonances observed in $D_s^{(*)+} π^0$ decays. We suggest that the data can be explained by the mixing of conventional p-wave excited $D_s^+$ mesons with 4-quark states. The narrow states observed in $D_s^+ π^0$ and $D_s^{*+}π^0$ are primarily p-wave $D_{sJ}^{*}$ states, while the predominantly 4-quark states are shifted above $D^{(*)} K$ threshold and should be broad. Ranges for the mixing parameter and mass of the 4-quark state in this scenario are given. Other experimental consequences are discussed.
We discuss some puzzling aspects of the narrow hidden charm resonance that was recently discovered by the Belle Collaboration at mass 3872 MeV. In order to determine its quantum numbers, a crucial piece of information is the spin of the dipion in the decay final state pi^+pi^-J/psi. We give the angular distributions and correlations of the final particles in the decay which will give this information about the nature of this resonance.
We have previously shown that the decay of high-energy neutrinos from distant astrophysical sources would be revealed by flavor ratios that deviate strongly from the $ϕ_{ν_e}:ϕ_{ν_μ}:ϕ_{ν_τ} = 1:1:1$ expected from oscillations alone. Here we show that the deviations are significantly larger when the mixing angle $θ_{13}$ and the CP phase $δ$ are allowed to be nonzero. If neutrinos decay, this could allow measurement of $θ_{13}$ and $δ$ in IceCube and other near-term neutrino telescopes.
Existing limits on the non-radiative decay of one neutrino to another plus a massless particle (e.g., a singlet Majoron) are very weak. The best limits on the lifetime to mass ratio come from solar neutrino observations, and are $τ/m \agt 10^{-4}$ s/eV for the relevant mass eigenstate(s). For lifetimes even several orders of magnitude longer, high-energy neutrinos from distant astrophysical sources would decay. This would strongly alter the flavor ratios from the $ϕ_{ν_e}:ϕ_{ν_μ}:ϕ_{ν_τ} = 1:1:1$ expected from oscillations alone, and should be readily visible in the near future in detectors such as IceCube.
We examine a situation in which an information-carrying signal is sent from two sources to a common receiver. The radiation travels through free space in the presence of noise. The information resides in a relationship between the two beams. We inquire into whether itis possible, in principle, that the locations of the transmitters can be concealed from a party who receives the radiation and decodes the information. Direction finding entails making a set of measurements on asignal and constructing an analytic continuation of the time dependent fields from the results. The fact that this process is generally different in quantum mechanics and in classical electrodynamics is the basis in this investigation. We develop a model based upon encoding information into a microscopic, transverse, non-local quantum image (whose dimensions are of the order of a few wavelengths) and using a detector of a type recently proposed by Strekalov et al. The optical system, which uses SPDC (Spontaneous Parametric Down Conversion), functions like a Heisenberg microscope: the transverse length, which encodes the signal information, is conjugate to the transverse momentum of the light. In the model, reading the signal information spoils the directional resolution of the detector, while determining the directions to the sources spoils the information content. Each beam, when examined in isolation, is random and indistinguishable from the background noise. We conclude that quantum communications can, in principle, be made secure against direction-finding, even from the party receiving the communication.
We show that lepton number violating muon decays, μ^+ -> e^+ + ν_e-bar + ν_i-bar (i=e, μor τ), can consistently explain the neutrino anomaly reported by the LSND experiment. Two effective operators in the Standard Model are identified which lead to just such decays and no other processes. The scale of new physics Λmust be relatively low, Λ< 500 GeV. Extensions of the Standard Model which realize these effective operators are presented. Since new physics affects only the decay of the muon, and not of π^+-, our scenario predicts a null result for ν_μ-bar - ν_e-bar oscillation searches at the Fermilab mini--BOONE experiment. Models which realize these effective operators, while consistent with all available data, can be tested in the near future through (i) discovery of new scalar particles with masses below about 500 GeV, (ii) small but observable deviations in e^+ e^- -> μ^+ μ^- and e^+ e^- -> ννγcross sections, (iii) observable corrections to the muon g-2, and (iv) lepton number violating Z^0 decays with branching ratios of order 10^{-7}.
All existing data on neutrino oscillations (including those from the LSND experiment) imply a four neutrino scheme with six different allowed mass patterns. Some of the latter are shown to be disfavored by using a conservative upper bound on the $βbeta 0 ν$ nuclear decay rate, if neutrinos are assumed to be Majorana particles. Comparisons are also made with restrictions from tritium $β$-decay and cosmology.
We perform a comprehensive study of a number of rare charm decays, incorporating the first evaluation of the QCD corrections to the short distance contributions, as well as examining the long range effects. For processes mediated by the $c\to u\ell^+\ell^-$ transitions, we show that sensitivity to short distance physics exists in kinematic regions away from the vector meson resonances that dominate the total rate. In particular, we find that $D\toπ\ell^+\ell^-$ and $D\toρ\ell^+\ell^-$ are sensitive to non-universal soft-breaking effects in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model with R-parity conservation. We separately study the sensitivity of these modes to R-parity violating effects and derive new bounds on R-parity violating couplings. We also obtain predictions for these decays within extensions of the Standard Model, including extensions of the Higgs, gauge and fermion sectors, as well as models of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking.
We imagine that large neutrino telescopes will be built and that distant neutrino sources of high energies and fluxes exist. Some possible, if difficult, uses to which they might be put are described; including (i) detecting neutrino mass-mixing possibly upto delta m^2 of 10^{-16}eV^2; (ii) measuring neutrino cross-sections at PeV energies; (iii) detecting relic neutrinos; (iv) doing cosmology with neutrinos and (v) SETI with neutrinos.
We consider the issue of determining the D0-Dbar0 width difference Delta Gamma_D experimentally. The current situation is reviewed and suggestions for further study are given. We propose a number of D0 decay modes in addition to those studied in the recent E791, FOCUS and BELLE lifetime determination experiments. Then we address prospects for determining CF - CDS strong phase differences, like delta_{K pi} which appears in the CLEO study of D0 -> K+ pi- transitions. We show how to extract delta_{K* pi} with CDS data and furthermore show when D -> K_L pi data becomes available, that delta_{K pi} can also be obtained.
It was pointed out recently that supersymmetry can generate flavor-changing gluonic dipole operators with sufficiently large coefficients to dominate the observed value of epsilon'/epsilon. We point out that the same operators contribute to direct CP violation in hyperon decay and can generate a CP violating asymmetry A(Λ^0_-) in the range probed by the current E871 experiment. Interestingly, models that naturally reproduce the relation lambda = sqrt{m_d/m_s} do not generate epsilon'/epsilon but could lead to an A(Λ^0_-) of O(10^{-3}).
We study flavor changing processes $Υ\to B/{\bar B} X_s$ and $J/ψ\to D/{\bar D} X_u$ in the B factories and the Tau-Charm factories. In the standard model, these processes are predicted to be unobservable, so they serve as a probe of the new physics. We first perform a model independent analysis, then examine the predictions of models; such as TopColor models, MSSM with R-parity violation and the two Higgs doublet model; for the branching ratios of $Υ\to B/{\bar B} X_s$ and $J/ψ\to D/{\bar D} X_u$ . We find that these branching ratios could be as large as $10^{-6}$ and $10^{-5}$ in the presence of new physics.