17207830
QCD functional integrals for systems with nonzero chemical potential
This paper reviews some recent progress on QCD functional integrals at nonzero chemical potentials. One issue discussed is the use of QCD inequalities for this regime. In particular, the positivity of the integrand of particular Euclidean space functional integrals for two-flavor QCD with degenerate quark masses is used to demonstrate that the free energy per unit volume for QCD with a baryon chemical potential $\mu_B$ (and zero isospin chemical potential) is necessarily greater than the free energy with isospin chemical potential $\mu_I = \frac{2 \mu_B}{N_c} $ (and zero baryon chemical potential). This result may be of use in model finite density systems. A corollary to this result is a rigorous {\it ab initio} bound on the nucleon mass. The second major issue addressed is the so-called ``Silver Blaze'' problem: the fact that at zero temperature and chemical potentials less than some critical value the free energy remains as that of the vacuum. This is puzzling in the context of a functional integral since a chemical potential affects the functional determinant of the Dirac operator and any nonzero $\mu$ changes every eigenvalue of the Dirac operator compared to the $\mu=0$ value. The isospin Silver Blaze problem is solved through the study of the spectrum of the operator $\gamma_0 (\dslash + m)$. The status of the baryon Silver Blaze problem is briefly discussed.
118729457
A sticky business: the status of the conjectured viscosity/entropy density bound
There have been a number of forms of a conjecture that there is a universal lower bound on the ratio, η/s, of the shear viscosity, η, to entropy density, s, with several different domains of validity. We examine the various forms of the conjecture. We argue that a number of variants of the conjecture are not viable due to the existence of theoretically consistent counterexamples. We also note that much of the evidence in favor of a bound does not apply to the variants which have not yet been ruled out.
126291695
Nuclear and Hadronic Physics at Large N c
This talk briefly surveys some of the advances in large Nc QCD in nuclear and hadronic physics during the past decade or so. It highlights recent results including an analytic result for the total nucleon-nucleon cross section in nucleon-nucleon scattering in the extreme large Nc limit (logNc 1)); it is given by s total = 2p log 2 (Nc) m 2 for p s much larger than the QCD scale. The talk also stresses a demonstration that given certain technical assumptions, it can be shown that QCD must have a Hagedorn spectrum (i.e., a spectrum where the number of hadrons grows exponentially with hadron mass) . Another theme in the talk is the phenomenology of a variant of the large Nc limit based on quarks in the two-index antisymmetric representation. This variant of large Nc QCD is qualitatively different from the conventional one in which quarks are in the fundamental representation and corresponds to a distinct large Nc limit with a distinct 1=Nc expansion. The description of nuclear forces and nuclear matter in both variants of the largeNc limit are discussed.
9144282
QCD inequalities for the nucleon mass and the free energy of baryonic matter.
The positivity of the integrand of certain Euclidean space functional integrals for two flavor QCD with degenerate quark masses implies that the free energy per unit volume for QCD with a baryon chemical potential mu(B) (and zero isospin chemical potential) is greater than the free energy with an isospin chemical potential mu(I)=(2 mu(B)/N(c)) (and zero baryon chemical potential). The same result applies to QCD with any number of heavy flavors in addition to the two light flavors so long as the chemical potential is understood as applying to the light quark contributions to the baryon number. This relation implies a bound on the nucleon mass: there exists a particle X in QCD (presumably the pion) such that M(N)> or =(N(c) m(X)/2 I(X)) where m(X) is the mass of the particle and I(X) is its isospin.
37449512
Is there a "most perfect fluid" consistent with quantum field theory?
It was recently conjectured that the ratio of the shear viscosity to entropy density eta/s for any fluid always exceeds [formula: see text]. A theoretical counterexample to this bound can be constructed from a nonrelativistic gas by increasing the number of species in the fluid while keeping the dynamics essentially independent of the species type. The question of whether the underlying structure of relativistic quantum field theory generically inhibits the realization of such a system and thereby preserves the possibility of a universal bound is considered here. Using rather conservative assumptions, it is shown here that a metastable gas of heavy mesons in a particular controlled regime of QCD provides a realization of the counterexample and is consistent with a well-defined underlying relativistic quantum field theory. Thus, quantum field theory appears to impose no lower bound on eta/s, at least for metastable fluids.
36009299
Doubly heavy hadrons and the domain of validity of doubly heavy diquark-antiquark symmetry
In the limit of heavy quark masses going to infinity, a symmetry is known to emerge in QCD relating properties of hadrons with two heavy quarks to analogous states with one heavy antiquark. A key question is whether the charm mass is heavy enough so that this symmetry is manifest in at least an approximate manner. The issue is crucial in attempting to understand the recent reports by the SELEX Collaboration of doubly charmed baryons. We argue on very general grounds that the charm quark mass is substantially too light for the symmetry to emerge automatically via color coulombic interactions. However, the symmetry could emerge approximately depending on the dynamical details of the nonperturbative physics. To treat the problem systematically, a new expansion that simultaneously incorporates NRQCD and HQET is needed.
53390439
Boosting stop searches with a 100 TeV proton collider
A bstractA proton-proton collider with center of mass energy around 100 TeV is the energy frontier machine that is likely to succeed the LHC. One of the primary physics goals will be the continued exploration of weak scale naturalness. Here we focus on the pair-production of stops that decay to a top and a neutralino. Most of the heavy stop parameter space results in highly boosted tops, populating kinematic regimes inaccessible at the LHC. New strategies for boosted top-tagging are needed and a simple, detector-independent tagger can be constructed by requiring a muon inside a jet. Assuming 20% systematic uncertainties, this future collider can discover (exclude) stops with masses up to 5.5 (8) TeV with 3000 fb−1 of integrated luminosity. Studying how the exclusion limits scale with luminosity motivates going beyond this benchmark in order to saturate the discovery potential of the machine.
119221672
Jet substructure by accident
A bstractWe propose a new search strategy for high-multiplicity hadronic final states. When new particles are produced at threshold, the distribution of their decay products is approximately isotropic. If there are many partons in the final state, it is likely that several will be clustered into the same large-radius jet. The resulting jet exhibits substructure, even though the parent states are not boosted. This “accidental” substructure is a powerful discriminant against background because it is more pronounced for high-multiplicity signals than for QCD multijets. We demonstrate how to take advantage of accidental substructure to reduce backgrounds without relying on the presence of missing energy. As an example, we present the expected limits for several R-parity violating gluino decay topologies. This approach allows for the determination of QCD backgrounds using data-driven methods, which is crucial for the feasibility of any search that targets signatures with many jets and suppressed missing energy.
119108935
Supersymmetric baryogenesis from exotic quark decays
In a simple extension of the minimal supersymmetric standard model, out-of-equilibrium decays of TeV-scale exotic vectorlike squarks may generate the baryon asymmetry of the universe. Baryon number and CP violation are present in the superpotential, so this mechanism does not rely on CP violation in supersymmetry breaking parameters. We discuss phenomenological constraints on the model as well as potential signals for the Large Hadron Collider and electronic dipole moment experiments. A variation on the TeV-scale model allows the exotic squarks to be the messengers of gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking.
118615137
Correlation between the spin-independent and spin-dependent direct detection of dark matter
We study the correlation between spin-independent and spin-dependent scattering in the context of minimal supersymmetric standard model neutralino dark matter for both thermal and nonthermal histories. We explore the generality of this relationship with reference to other models. We discuss why either fine-tuning or numerical coincidences are necessary for the correlation to break down. We derive upper bounds on spin-dependent scattering mediated by a ${Z}^{0}$ boson.
118580046
Extracting the dark matter mass from single stage cascade decays at the LHC
We explore a variant on the MT2 kinematic variable which enables dark matter mass measurements for simple, one stage, cascade decays. This will prove useful for constraining a subset of supersymmetric processes, or a class of leptophilic dark matter models at the LHC. We investigate the statistical reach of these measurements and discuss which sources of error have the largest effects. For example, we find that using only single stage cascade decays with initial state radiation, a measurement of a 150 GeV dark matter candidate can be made to $ \mathcal{O}\left( {10\% } \right) $ for a parent mass of 300 GeV with a production cross section of 100 fb and 100 fb−1 of integrated luminosity provided that backgrounds can be tightly controlled.