John March-Russell

Abstract:

In string realizations of the Randall-Sundrum scenario, the higher-spin Regge excitations of Standard Model states localized near the IR brane are warped down to close to the TeV scale. We argue that, as a consequence of the localization properties of Randall-Sundrum models of flavour, the lightest such resonance is the spin-3/2 excitation, t R*, of the right-handed top quark over a significant region of parameter space. A mild accidental cancellation allows the t R* to be as light or lighter than the Kaluza-Klein excitations of the Standard Model states. We consider from a bottom-up effective theory point of view the production and possible observability of such a spin-3/2 excitation at the LHC and Tevatron. Current limits are weaker than might be expected because of the excess of WWjj events at the Tevatron reported by CDF at M inv ≃400-500 GeV. © SISSA 2009.

Abstract:

In 5-dimensional models with gauge-Higgs unification, the F-term vacuum expectation value of the radion provides, in close analogy to the Giudice-Masiero mechanism, a natural source for the μ and Bμ term. Both the leading order gauge theory lagrangian and the supersymmetric Chern-Simons term contain couplings to the radion superfield which can be used for this purpose. We analyse the basic features of this mechanism for μ term generation and provide an explicit example, based on a variation of the SU(6) gauge-Higgs unification model of Burdman and Nomura. This construction contains all the relevant features used in our generic analysis. More generally, we expect our mechanism to be relevant to many of the recently discussed orbifold GUT models derived from heterotic string theory. This provides an interesting way of testing high-scale physics via Higgs mass patterns accessible at the LHC. © SISSA 2009.

Abstract:

String theories with topologically complex compactification manifolds suggest the simultaneous presence of many unbroken U(1)'s without any light matter charged under them. The gauge bosons associated with these U(1)'s do not have direct observational consequences. However, in the presence of low energy supersymmetry the gauge fermions associated with these U(1)'s, the "photini", mix with the Bino and extend the MSSM neutralino sector. This leads to novel signatures at the LHC. The lightest ordinary supersymmetric particle (LOSP) can decay to any one of these photini. In turn, photini may transition into each other, leading to high lepton and jet multiplicities. Both the LOSP decays and inter-photini transitions can lead to displaced vertices. When the interphotini decays happen outside the detector, the cascades can result in different photini escaping the detector leading to multiple reconstructed masses for the invisible particle. If the LOSP is charged, it stops in the detector and decays out-of-time to photini, with the possibility that the produced final photini vary from event to event. Observation of a plenitude of photini at the LHC would be evidence that we live in a string vacuum with a topologically rich compactification manifold.