18482364
Leptogenic Supersymmetry at the LHC
Leptogenic Supersymmetry is a scenario characterized by copious lepton production in cascade decays. Due to the high lepton multiplicity and the lack of significant missing energy, leptogenic supersymmetry provides very clean channels which can be probed already with the early LHC data. Furthermore, the Higgs may be discovered in the h→bb mode because the leptons accompanying Higgs production efficiently suppress the background.
18711359
Quantum Boltzmann equations in resonant leptogenesis
The quantum Boltzmann equations relevant for leptogenesis, obtained using non-equilibrium quantum field theory, are described. They manifest memory effects leading to a time-dependent CP asymmetry which depends upon the previous history of the system. This result is particularly relevant in resonant leptogenesis where the asymmetry is generated by the decays of nearly mass-degenerate right-handed neutrinos. The impact of the non-trivial time evolution of the CP asymmetry is discussed either in the generic resonant leptogenesis scenario or in the more specific Minimal Lepton Flavour Violation framework. Significant quantitative differences arise with respect to the usual approach in which the time dependence of the CP asymmetry is neglected.
118449412
Excursion set theory for generic moving barriers and non‐Gaussian initial conditions
Excursion set theory, where density perturbations evolve stochastically with the smoothing scale, provides a method for computing the mass function of cosmological structures like dark matter haloes, sheets and filaments. The computation of these mass functions is mapped into the so-called first-passage time problem in the presence of a moving barrier. In this paper we use the path-integral formulation of the excursion set theory developed recently to analytically solve the first-passage time problem in the presence of a generic moving barrier, in particular the barrier corresponding to ellipsoidal collapse. We perform the computation for both Gaussian and non-Gaussian initial conditions and for a window function which is a top-hat in wavenumber space. The expression of the halo mass function for the ellipsoidal collapse barrier and with non-Gaussianity is therefore obtained in a fully consistent way and it does not require the introduction of any form factor artificially derived from the Press–Schechter formalism based on the spherical collapse and usually adopted in the literature.
55183423
Lopsided gauge mediation
It has been recently pointed out that the unavoidable tuning among supersymmetric parameters required to raise the Higgs boson mass beyond its experimental limit opens up new avenues for dealing with the so called μ-Bμ problem of gauge mediation. In fact, it allows for accommodating, with no further parameter tuning, large values of Bμ and of the other Higgs-sector soft masses, as predicted in models where both μ and Bμ are generated at one-loop order. This class of models, called Lopsided Gauge Mediation, offers an interesting alternative to conventional gauge mediation and is characterized by a strikingly different phenomenology, with light higgsinos, very large Higgs pseudoscalar mass, and moderately light sleptons. We discuss general parametric relations involving the fine-tuning of the model and various observables such as the chargino mass and the value of tan β. We build an explicit model and we study the constraints coming from LEP and Tevatron. We show that in spite of new interactions between the Higgs and the messenger superfields, the theory can remain perturbative up to very large scales, thus retaining gauge coupling unification.
17348306
Boltzmann brains and the scale-factor cutoff measure of the multiverse
To make predictions for an eternally inflating 'multiverse', one must adopt a procedure for regulating its divergent spacetime volume. Recently, a new test of such spacetime measures has emerged: normal observers - who evolve in pocket universes cooling from hot big bang conditions - must not be vastly outnumbered by 'Boltzmann brains' - freak observers that pop in and out of existence as a result of rare quantum fluctuations. If the Boltzmann brains prevail, then a randomly chosen observer would be overwhelmingly likely to be surrounded by an empty world, where all but vacuum energy has redshifted away, rather than the rich structure that we observe. Using the scale-factor cutoff measure, we calculate the ratio of Boltzmann brains to normal observers. We find the ratio to be finite, and give an expression for it in terms of Boltzmann brain nucleation rates and vacuum decay rates. We discuss the conditions that these rates must obey for the ratio to be acceptable, and we discuss estimates of the rates under a variety of assumptions.
119185656
Conditional probabilities in the excursion set theory: generic barriers and non-Gaussian initial conditions
The excursion set theory, where density perturbations evolve stochastically with the smoothing scale, provides a method for computing the dark matter halo mass function. The computation of the mass function is mapped into the so-called first-passage time problem in the presence of a moving barrier. The excursion set theory is also a powerful formalism to study other properties of dark matter haloes such as halo bias, accretion rate, formation time, merging rate and the formation history of haloes. This is achieved by computing conditional probabilities with non-trivial initial conditions, and the conditional two-barrier first-crossing rate. In this paper we use the path integral formulation of the excursion set theory to calculate analytically these conditional probabilities in the presence of a generic moving barrier, including the one describing the ellipsoidal collapse, and for both Gaussian and non-Gaussian initial conditions. While most of our analysis associated with Gaussian initial conditions assumes Markovianity (top-hat in momentum space smoothing, rather than generic filters), the non-Markovianity of the random walks induced by non-Gaussianity is consistently accounted for. We compute, for a generic barrier, the first two scale-independent halo bias parameters, the conditional mass function and the halo formation time probability, including the effects of non-Gaussianities. We also provide the expression for the two-constant-barrier first-crossing rate when non-Markovian effects are induced by a top-hat filter function in real space.
122046903
SuperB evaluation of DIRAC Distributed Infrastructure
The SuperB asymmetric energy e+e− collider and detector to be built at the newly founded Nicola Cabibbo Lab will provide a uniquely sensitive probe of New Physics in the flavour sector of the Standard Model. SuperB distributed computing group performed a detailed evaluation of DIRAC Distributed Infrastructure for use in the SuperB experiment based on the two use cases: End User Analysis and Monte Carlo Production. Test aims to evaluate DIRAC capabilities to manage both gLite and OSG sites, File Catalog management, job and data management features in SuperB realistic use cases.
120349976
Geant4-based simulation of a beam radiation monitor for SUPERB
Abstract Radiation control in the region close to the interaction point is a crucial task for the success of the SuperB experiment. The detector itself is now in its prototyping phase, with different technologies being evaluated. One important parameter to drive the choice of the detection technology are the expected radiation levels. A preliminary result based on full-simulation is presented here, and dose estimates are reported.
62691127
Computing for the next generation flavour factories
The next generation of Super Flavor Factories, like SuperB and SuperKEKB, present significant computing challenges. Extrapolating the BaBar and Belle experience to the SuperB nominal luminosity of 1036 cm−2s−1, we estimate that the data size collected after a few years of operation is 200 PB and the amount of CPU required to process them of the order of 2000 KHep-Spec06. Already in the current phase of detector design, the amount of simulated events needed for estimating the impact on very rare benchmark channels is huge and has required the development of new simulation tools and the deployment of a worldwide production distributed system. With the collider is in operation, very large data set have to be managed and new technologies with potential large impact on the computational models, like the many core CPUs, need to be effectively exploited. In addition SuperB, like the LHC experiments, will have to make use of distributed computing resources accessible via the Grid infrastructures while providing an efficient and reliable data access model to its final users. To explore the key issues, a dedicated R&D program has been launched and is now in progress. A description of the R&D goals and the status of ongoing activities is presented.
110146913
SuperB Simulation Production System
The SuperB asymmetric e+e− collider and detector to be built at the newly founded Nicola Cabibbo Lab will provide a uniquely sensitive probe of New Physics in the flavor sector of the Standard Model. Studying minute effects in the heavy quark and heavy lepton sectors requires a data sample of 75 ab−1 and a peak luminosity of 1036 cm−2 s−1. The SuperB Computing group is working on developing a simulation production framework capable to satisfy the experiment needs. It provides access to distributed resources in order to support both the detector design definition and its performance evaluation studies. During last year the framework has evolved from the point of view of job workflow, Grid services interfaces and technologies adoption. A complete code refactoring and sub-component language porting now permits the framework to sustain distributed production involving resources from two continents and Grid Flavors. In this paper we will report a complete description of the production system status of the art, its evolution and its integration with Grid services; in particular, we will focus on the utilization of new Grid component features as in LB and WMS version 3. Results from the last official SuperB production cycle will be reported.
111077296
Exploiting new CPU architectures in the SuperB software framework
The SuperB asymmetric-energy e+e? collider and detector to be built at the newly founded Nicola Cabibbo Lab will provide a uniquely sensitive probe of New Physics in the flavour sector of the Standard Model. Studying minute effects in the heavy quark and heavy lepton sectors requires a data sample of 75ab?1 and a luminosity target of 1036cm?2s?1. These parameters require a substantial growth in computing requirements and performances. The SuperB collaboration is thus investigating the advantages of new CPU architectures (multi and many cores) and how to exploit their capability of task parallelization in the framework for simulation and analysis software. In this work we present the underlying architecture which we intend to use and some preliminary performance results of the first framework prototype.