Abstract: We present a detailed discussion of Sommerfeld enhancements in neutralino dark matter relic abundance calculations for several popular benchmark scenarios in the general MSSM. Our analysis is focused on models with heavy wino- and higgsino-like neutralino LSI' and models interpolating between these two scenarios. This work is the first phenomenological application of effective field theory methods that we have developed in earlier work and that allow for the consistent study of Sommerfeld enhancements in nonrelativistic neutralino and chargino co-annihilation reactions within the general MSSM, away from the pure-wino and pure-higgsino limits.

Abstract: We perform a measurement of the tau -> l gamma v (v) over bar (l = e, mu) branching fractions for a minimum photon energy of 10 MeV in the tau rest frame, using 431 fb(-1) of e(+) e(-) collisions collected at the center-of-mass energy of the Upsilon(4S) resonance with the BABAR detector at the PEP-II storage rings. We find B(tau -> μgamma v (v) over bar = (3.69 +/- 0.03 +/- 0.10) x 10(-3) and B(tau -> e gamma v (v) over bar = (1.847 +/- 0.015 +/- 0.052) x 10(-2), where the first quoted error is statistical and the second is systematic. These results are substantially more precise than previous measurements.

Abstract: Symmetry transformations have been proven a bedrock tool for understanding the nature of particle interactions, formulating, and testing fundamental theories. Based on the up to now unbroken CPT symmetry, the violation of the CP symmetry between matter and antimatter by weak interactions, discovered in the decay of kaons in 1964 and observed more recently in 2001 in B mesons, strongly suggests that the behavior of these particles under weak interactions must also be asymmetric under time reversal T. However, until recent years there has not been a direct detection of the expected time-reversal violation in the time evolution of any system. This Colloquium examines the field of time-reversal symmetry breaking in the fundamental laws of physics. For transitions, its observation requires an asymmetry with exchange of initial and final states. A discussion is given of the conceptual basis for such an exchange with unstable particles, using the quantum properties of Einstein-Podolsky-Rosen entanglement available at B meson factories combined with the decay as a filtering measurement. The method allows a clear-cut separation of different transitions between flavor and CP eigenstates in the decay of neutral B mesons. These ideas have been implemented for the experiment by the BABAR Collaboration at SLAC's B factory. The results, presented in 2012, prove beyond any doubt the violation of time-reversal invariance in the time evolution between these two states of the neutral B meson.

Abstract: We use the local hidden gauge approach in order to study the B (B) over bar* and B*(B) over bar* interactions for isospin I = 1. We show that both interactions via one light meson exchange are not allowed by the Okubo-ZweigIizuka rule and, for that reason, we calculate the contributions due to the exchange of two pions, interacting and noninteracting among themselves, and also due to the heavy vector mesons. Then, to compare all these contributions, we use the potential related to the heavy vector exchange as an effective potential corrected by a factor which takes into account the contribution of the other light meson exchanges. In order to look for poles, this effective potential is used as the kernel of the Bethe-Salpeter equation. As a result, for the B (B) over bar* interaction we find a loosely bound state with mass in the range 10587-10601 MeV, very close to the experimental value of the Z(b)(10610) reported by the Belle Collaboration. For the B*(B) over bar* case, we find a cusp at 10650 MeV for all spin J = 0, 1, 2 cases.

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.