Abstract: The framed standard model (FSM) is obtained from the standard model by incorporating, as field variables, the frame vectors (vielbeins) in internal symmetry space. It gives the standard Higgs boson and 3 generations of quarks and leptons as immediate consequences. It gives moreover a fermion mass matrix of the form: m = mT alpha alpha dagger, where alpha is a vector in generation space independent of the fermion species and rotating with changing scale, which has already been shown to lead, generically, to up-down mixing, neutrino oscillations and mass hierarchy. In this paper, pushing the FSM further, one first derives to 1-loop order the RGE for the rotation of alpha, and then applies it to fit mass and mixing data as a first test of the model. With 7 real adjustable parameters, 18 measured quantities are fitted, most (12) to within experimental error or to better than 0.5 percent, and the rest (6) not far off. (A summary of this fit can be found in Table 2 of this paper.) Two notable features, both generic to FSM, not just specific to the fit, are: (i) that a theta-angle of order unity in the instanton term in QCD would translate via rotation into a Kobayashi-Maskawa phase in the CKM matrix of about the observed magnitude (J similar to 10(-5)), (ii) that it would come out correctly that m(u) < m(d), despite the fact that m(t) >> m(b), m(c) >> m(s). Of the 18 quantities fitted, 12 are deemed independent in the usual formulation of the standard model. In fact, the fit gives a total of 17 independent parameters of the standard model, but 5 of these have not been measured by experiment.

Abstract: This closer study of the FSM (1) retains the earlier results of Ref. 1 in offering explanation for the existence of three fermion generations, as well as the hierarchical mass and mixing patterns of leptons and quarks; (II) predicts a vector boson G with mass of order TeV which mixes gamma with and Z of the standard model. The subsequent deviations from the standard mixing scheme are calculable in terms of the G mass. While these deviations for (i) mz – mw, (ii) Gamma(Z -> l (+)l( -)), and (iii) F(Z -> hadrons) are all within present experimental errors so long as mG > 1 TeV, they should soon be detectable if the G mass is not too much bigger; (III) suggests that in parallel to the standard sector familiar to us, there is another where the roles of flavour and colour are interchanged. Though quite as copiously populated and as vibrant in self-interactions as our own, it communicates but little with the standard sector except via mixing through a couple of known portals, one of which is the gamma – Z – G complex noted in (II), and the other is a scalar complex which includes the standard model Higgs. As a result, the new sectors paper. appears hidden to us as we appear hidden to them, and so its lowest members with masses of order 10 MeV, being electrically neutral and seemingly stable, but abundant, may make eligible candidates as constituents of dark matter. A more detailed summary of these results together with some remarks on the model's special theoretical features can be found in the last section of this paper.

Abstract: We illustrate how recently improved low-redshift cosmological measurements can tighten constraints on neutrino properties. In particular we examine the impact of the assumed cosmological model on the constraints. We first consider the new HST H-0 = 74.2 +/- 3.6 measurement by Riess et al. (2009) and the sigma(8)(Omega(m)/0.25)(0.41) = 0.832 +/- 0.033 constraint from Rozo et al. (2009) derived from the SDSS maxBCG Cluster Catalog. In a ACDM model and when combined with WMAP5 constraints, these low-redshift measurements constrain Sigma m(v) < 0.4 eV at the 95% confidence level. This bound does not relax when allowing for the running of the spectral index or for primordial tensor perturbations. When adding also Supernovae and BAO constraints, we obtain a 95% upper limit of Sigma m(v) < 0.3eV. We test the sensitivity of the neutrino mass constraint to the assumed expansion history by both allowing a dark energy equation of state parameter w not equal -1 and by studying a model with coupling between dark energy and dark matter, which allows for variation in w, Omega(k), and dark coupling strength xi. When combining CMB, H-0 and the SDSS LRG halo power spectrum from Reid et al. 2009, we find that in this very general model, Sigma m(v) < 0.51 eV with 95% confidence. If we allow the number of relativistic species N-rel to vary in a ACDM model with Sigma m(v) = 0, we find N-rel = 3.76(-0.68)(+0.63)(+1.38 -1.21) for the 68% and 95% confidence intervals. We also report prior-independent constraints, which are in excellent agreement with the Bayesian constraints.