No Arabic abstract
With a modest revision of the mass sector of the Standard Model, the systematics of the fermion masses and mixings can be fully described and interpreted as providing information on matrix elements of physics beyond the Standard Model. A by-product is a reduction of the largest Higgs Yukawa fine structure constant by an order of magnitude. The extension to leptons provides for insight on the difference between quark mixing and lepton mixing as evidenced in neutrino oscillations. The large difference between the scale for up-quark and down-quark masses is not addressed. In this approach, improved detail and accuracy of the elements of the current mixing matrices can extend our knowledge and understanding of physics beyond the Standard Model.
We follow the example of Cabibbo by revising the Standard Model (SM) to present a universal mass structure for fermions. A universal Higgs coupling for each species of fundamental fermions moves the SM towards a Theory of Matter, albeit without correctly describing the observed mass spectrum. It exposes a need for a complete Theory of Matter to include components from physics beyond the Standard Model (BSM). Describing the effect of these components phenomenologically provides a means to infer the nature of some of the BSM physics required. Our results also provide constraints on some BSM matrix elements. Here we apply this concept to quarks; the application to leptons will appear in a separate paper. An immediate benefit for theory is the reduction of the largest fine structure constant for the Higgs coupling to fermions by an order of magnitude, which improves the perturbative appearance of the weak interactions. The small mixing of the third generation of each fermion in the fermion families to the others is attributed to the small BSM perturbations that produce the small mass ratio of the lighter generations to the most massive one.
Local supersymmetry (SUSY) provides an attractive framework for the incorporation of gravity and unification of gauge interactions within Grand Unified Theories (GUTs). Its breakdown can lead to a variety of models with softly broken SUSY at low energies. In this review article we focus on the SUSY extension of the Standard Model (SM) with an extra U(1)_{N} gauge symmetry originating from a string-inspired E_6 grand unified gauge group. Only in this U(1) extension of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) inspired by E_6 GUTs the right-handed neutrinos can be superheavy providing a mechanism for the generation of the lepton and baryon asymmetry of the Universe. The particle content of this exceptional supersymmetric standard model (E_6SSM) includes three 27 representations of the E_6 group, to ensure anomaly cancellation, plus a pair of SU(2)_W doublets as required for gauge coupling unification. Thus E_6SSM involves extra exotic matter beyond the MSSM. We consider symmetries that permit to suppress non-diagonal flavour transitions and rapid proton decay, as well as gauge coupling unification, the breakdown of the gauge symmetry and the spectrum of Higgs bosons in this model. The possible Large Hadron Collider (LHC) signatures caused by the presence of exotic states are also discussed.
The physics responsible for neutrino masses and lepton mixing remains unknown. More experimental data are needed to constrain and guide possible generalizations of the standard model of particle physics, and reveal the mechanism behind nonzero neutrino masses. Here, the physics associated with searches for the violation of lepton-flavor conservation in charged-lepton processes and the violation of lepton-number conservation in nuclear physics processes is summarized. In the first part, several aspects of charged-lepton flavor violation are discussed, especially its sensitivity to new particles and interactions beyond the standard model of particle physics. The discussion concentrates mostly on rare processes involving muons and electrons. In the second part, the status of the conservation of total lepton number is discussed. The discussion here concentrates on current and future probes of this apparent law of Nature via searches for neutrinoless double beta decay, which is also the most sensitive probe of the potential Majorana nature of neutrinos.
We elaborate on the dichotomy between the description of the semileptonic decays of heavy hadrons on the one hand and the semileptonic decays of light hadrons such as neutron $beta$ decays on the other hand. For example, almost without exception the semileptonic decays of heavy baryons are described in cascade fashion as a sequence of two two-body decays $B_1 to B_2 + W_{rm off-shell}$ and $W_{rm off-shell} to ell + u_ell$ whereas neutron $beta$ decays are analyzed as true three-body decays $n to p + e^- +bar u_e$. Within the cascade approach it is possible to define a set of seven angular observables for polarized neutron $beta$ decays as well as the longitudinal, transverse and normal polarization of the decay electron. We determine the dependence of the observables on the usual vector and axial vector form factors. In order to be able to assess the importance of recoil corrections we expand the rate and the $q^2$ averages of the observables up to NLO and NNLO in the recoil parameter $delta=(M_n-M_p)/(M_n+M_p)= 0.689cdot 10^{-3}$. Remarkably, we find that the rate and three of the four parity conserving polarization observables that we analyze are protected from NLO recoil corrections when the second class current contributions are set to zero.
We review our expectations in the last year before the LHC commissioning.