Particle theory

Abstract:

A search for TeV-PeV muon neutrinos from unresolved sources was performed on AMANDA-II data collected between 2000 and 2003 with an equivalent live time of 807 days. This diffuse analysis sought to find an extraterrestrial neutrino flux from sources with nonthermal components. The signal is expected to have a harder spectrum than the atmospheric muon and neutrino backgrounds. Since no excess of events was seen in the data over the expected background, an upper limit of E2Φ90%C.L.<7.4×10-8GeVcm-2s-1sr-1 is placed on the diffuse flux of muon neutrinos with a Φ E-2 spectrum in the energy range 16 TeV to 2.5 PeV. This is currently the most sensitive Φ E-2 diffuse astrophysical neutrino limit. We also set upper limits for astrophysical and prompt neutrino models, all of which have spectra different from Φ E-2. © 2007 The American Physical Society.

Abstract:

We study the dynamics of the finite-temperature phase transition for warped Randall-Sundrum(RS)-like throat models related to the Klebanov-Tseytlin solution. We find that, for infrared branes stabilized near the tip of the throat, the bounce action has a mild N^2 dependence, where N(y) \sim [M_5 L(y)]^{3/2} is the effective number of degrees of freedom of the holographic dual QFT, and where L(y) is the local curvature radius, which decreases in the infrared. In addition, the bounce action is not enhanced by large numbers. These features allow the transition to successfully complete over a wider parameter range than for Goldberger-Wise stabilized RS models. Due to the increase of L(y) in the ultraviolet, the throat has a reliable gravitational description even when the number of infrared degrees of freedom is small. We also comment on aspects of the thermal phase transition in Higgsless models, where the gauge symmetry breaking is achieved via boundary conditions. Such models include orbifold-GUT models and the Higgsless electroweak symmetry breaking theories of Csaki et al., with Standard Model gauge fields living in the bulk.

Abstract:

We study the behaviour of the string loop corrections to the N=1 4D supergravity Kaehler potential that occur in flux compactifications of IIB string theory on general Calabi-Yau three-folds. We give a low energy interpretation for the conjecture of Berg, Haack and Pajer for the form of the loop corrections to the Kaehler potential. We check the consistency of this interpretation in several examples. We show that for arbitrary Calabi-Yaus, the leading contribution of these corrections to the scalar potential is always vanishing, giving an "extended no-scale structure". This result holds as long as the corrections are homogeneous functions of degree -2 in the 2-cycle volumes. We use the Coleman-Weinberg potential to motivate this cancellation from the viewpoint of low-energy field theory. Finally we give a simple formula for the 1-loop correction to the scalar potential in terms of the tree-level Kaehler metric and the correction to the Kaehler potential. We illustrate our ideas with several examples. A companion paper will use these results in the study of Kaehler moduli stabilisation.