No Arabic abstract
Most sparticle decay cascades envisaged at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) involve hadronic decays of intermediate particles. We use state-of-the art techniques based on the kt jet algorithm to reconstruct the resulting hadronic final states for simulated LHC events in a number of benchmark supersymmetric scenarios. In particular, we show that a general method of selecting preferentially boosted massive particles such as W, Z or Higgs bosons decaying to jets, using sub-jets found by the kt algorithm, suppresses QCD backgrounds and thereby enhances the observability of signals that would otherwise be indistinct. Consequently, measurements of the supersymmetric mass spectrum at the per-cent level can be obtained from cascades including the hadronic decays of such massive intermediate bosons.
We present our work on reconstructing sparticle masses in purely hadronic decay chains, using the $k_T$ jet-algorithm on Monte Carlo simulated events at LHC energies.
We show that the large corrections due to final state interactions (FSI) in the D^+to pi^-pi^+pi^+, D^+_sto pi^-pi^+pi^+, and D^+to K^-pi^+pi^+ decays can be accounted for by invoking scattering amplitudes in agreement with those derived from phase shifts studies. In this way, broad/overlapping resonances in S-waves are properly treated and the phase motions of the transition amplitudes are driven by the corresponding scattering matrix elements determined in many other experiments. This is an important step forward in resolving the puzzle of the FSI in these decays. We also discuss why the sigma and kappa resonances, hardly visible in scattering experiments, are much more prominent and clearly visible in these decays without destroying the agreement with the experimental pipi and Kpi low energy S-wave phase shifts.
We study the radiative (E1 and M1) decays of P-wave quarkonia in a strong magnetic field based on the Lagrangian of potential nonrelativistic QCD. To investigate their properties, we implement a polarized wave function basis justified in the Paschen-Back limit. In a magnetic field stronger than the spin-orbit coupling, the wave functions of the P-wave quarkonia are drastically deformed by the Hadronic Paschen-Back effect. Such deformation leads to the anisotropy of the direction of decays from the P-wave quarkonia. The analytic formulas for the radiative decay widths in the nonrelativistic limit are shown, and the qualitative decay properties are discussed.
The Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) coupling, $alpha_s$, is not a physical observable of the theory since it depends on conventions related to the renormalization procedure. We introduce a definition of the QCD coupling, denoted by $hatalpha_s$, whose running is explicitly renormalization scheme invariant. The scheme dependence of the new coupling $hatalpha_s$ is parameterized by a single parameter $C$, related to transformations of the QCD scale $Lambda$. It is demonstrated that appropriate choices of $C$ can lead to substantial improvements in the perturbative prediction of physical observables. As phenomenological applications, we study $e^+e^-$ scattering and decays of the $tau$ lepton into hadrons, both being governed by the QCD Adler function.
We describe a major extension of the SOFTSUSY spectrum calculator to include the calculation of the decays, branching ratios and lifetimes of sparticles into lighter sparticles, covering the next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model (NMSSM) as well as the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM). This document acts as a manual for the new version of SOFTSUSY, which includes the calculation of sparticle decays. We present a comprehensive collection of explicit expressions used by the program for the various partial widths of the different decay modes in the appendix.