We present a detailed analysis of the rare exclusive Higgs-boson decays into a single vector meson and a photon and investigate the possibility of using these processes to probe the light-quark Yukawa couplings. We work with an effective Lagrangian w
ith modified Higgs couplings to account for possible new-physics effects in a model-independent way. The h->Vgamma{} decay rate is governed by the destructive interference of two amplitudes, one of which involves the Higgs coupling to the quark anti-quark pair inside the vector meson. We derive this amplitude at next-to-leading order in alpha_s using QCD factorization, including the resummation of large logarithmic corrections and accounting for the effects of flavor mixing. The high factorization scale mu~m_h ensures that our results are rather insensitive to the hadronic parameters characterizing the light-cone distribution amplitude of the vector meson. The second amplitude arises from the loop-induced effective hgammagamma* and hgamma Z* couplings, where the off-shell gauge boson converts into the vector meson. We devise a strategy to eliminate theoretical uncertainties related to this amplitude to almost arbitrary precision. This opens up the possibility to probe for O(1) modifications of the c- and b-quark Yukawa couplings and O(30) modifications of the s-quark Yukawa coupling in the high-luminosity LHC run. In particular, we show that measurements of the ratios Br(h->Upsilon(nS)gamma)/Br(h->gammagamma) and Br(h->bb)/Br(h->gammagamma) can provide complementary information on the real and imaginary parts of the b-quark Yukawa coupling. More accurate measurements would be possible at a future 100 TeV proton-proton collider.
We derive two relations involving spin polarizabilities of a spin-1/2 particle and consider their empirical implications for the proton. Using the empirical values of the proton anomalous magnetic moment, electric and magnetic charge radii, moments o
f the spin structure functions $g_1$, $g_2$, and of two spin polarizabilities, the present relations constrain the low-momentum behavior of generalized polarizabilities appearing in virtual Compton scattering. In the case of the proton, the dispersive model evaluations of the spin and generalized polarizabilities appear to be consistent with these relations. The ongoing measurements of different electromagnetic observables at the MAMI, Jefferson Lab, and HI$gamma$S facilities may be able to put these relations to a test, or use them to unravel the low-energy spin structure of the nucleon.
We apply a subtracted dispersion relation formalism with the aim to improve predictions for the two-photon exchange corrections to elastic electron-proton scattering observables at finite momentum transfers. We study the formalism on the elastic cont
ribution, and make a detailed comparison with existing data for unpolarized cross sections as well as polarization transfer observables.
We use renormalization-group methods in effective field theory to improve the theoretical prediction for the cross section for Higgs-boson production at hadron colliders. In addition to soft-gluon resummation at NNNLL, we also resum enhanced contribu
tions of the form (C_Apialpha_s)^n, which arise in the analytic continuation of the gluon form factor to time-like momentum transfer. This resummation is achieved by evaluating the matching corrections arising at the Higgs-boson mass scale at a time-like renormalization point mu^2<0, followed by renormalization-group evolution to mu^2>0. We match our resummed result to NNLO fixed-order perturbation theory and give numerical predictions for the total production cross section as a function of the Higgs-boson mass. Resummation effects are significant even at NNLO, where our improved predictions for the cross sections at the Tevatron and the LHC exceed the fixed-order predictions by about 13% and 8%, respectively, for m_H=120 GeV. We also discuss the application of our technique to other time-like processes such as Drell-Yan production, e^+ e^- --> hadrons, and hadronic decays of the Higgs boson.
Amplitude and partial wave analyses for pion, eta or kaon photoproduction are discussed in the context of `complete experiments. It is shown that the model-independent helicity amplitudes obtained from at least 8 polarization observables including be
am, target and recoil polarization can not be used to determine underlying resonance parameters. However, a truncated partial wave analysis, which theoretically requires only 5 observables will be possible with minimal model input.
We discuss a method to construct observables protected against QCD uncertainties based on the angular distribution of the exclusive Bd -> K(*0}(-> Kpi) l+ l- decay. We focus on the identification and the interpretation of all the symmetries of the di
stribution. They constitute a key ingredient to construct a set of so-called transverse observables. We work in the framework of QCD factorization at NLO supplemented by an estimate of power-suppressed Lambda/mb corrections. A discussion of the new physics properties of two of the transverse asymmetries, AT^{(2)} and AT^{(5)}, is presented. A comparison between the transverse asymmetry AT^{(2)} and the forward-backward asymmetry shows that AT^{(2)} emerges as an improved version of it.
We show that in the Standard Model the parametrically leading (by a factor 1/alpha_s) contribution to the inclusive CP asymmetry in B->X_{s,d}+gamma decays arises from a long-distance effect in the interference of the electromagnetic dipole amplitude
with the amplitude for an up-quark penguin transition accompanied by soft gluon emission. This contribution is governed by a single hadronic parameter Lambda_{17}^u related to a matrix elements of a non-local operator. In view of current experimental data, a future precision measurement of the flavor-averaged CP asymmetry in B->X_s+gamma will signal the presence of new physics only if a value below -2% is found. A cleaner probe of new physics is offered by the difference of the CP asymmetries in charged versus neutral B-meson decays.
The Gerasimov-Drell-Hearn sum rule and related dispersive integrals connect real and virtual Compton scattering to inclusive photo- and electroproduction. Being based on universal principles as causality, unitarity, and gauge invariance, these relati
ons provide a unique testing ground to study the internal degrees of freedom that hold a system together. The present contribution reviews the spin-dependent sum rules and cross sections of the nucleon. At small momentum transfer, the data sample information on the long range phenomena (Goldstone bosons and collective resonances), whereas the primary degrees of freedom (quarks and gluons) become visible at large momentum transfer (short distance). The rich body of new data covers a wide range of phenomena from coherent to incoherent processes, and from the generalized spin polarizabilities on the low-energy side to higher twist effects in deep inelastic scattering.
We propose a new coarse-grained model for the description of liquid-vapor phase separation of colloid-polymer mixtures. The hard-sphere repulsion between colloids and between colloids and polymers, which is used in the well-known Asakura-Oosawa (AO)
model, is replaced by Weeks-Chandler-Anderson potentials. Similarly, a soft potential of height comparable to thermal energy is used for the polymer-polymer interaction, rather than treating polymers as ideal gas particles. It is shown by grand-canonical Monte Carlo simulations that this model leads to a coexistence curve that almost coincides with that of the AO model and the Ising critical behavior of static quantities is reproduced. Then the main advantage of the model is exploited - its suitability for Molecular Dynamics simulations - to study the dynamics of mean square displacements of the particles, transport coefficients such as the self-diffusion and interdiffusion coefficients, and dynamic structure factors. While the self-diffusion of polymers increases slightly when the critical point is approached, the self-diffusion of colloids decreases and at criticality the colloid self-diffusion coefficient is about a factor of 10 smaller than that of the polymers. Critical slowing down of interdiffusion is observed, which is qualitatively similar to symmetric binary Lennard-Jones mixtures, for which no dynamic asymmetry of self-diffusion coefficients occurs.
A Molecular Dynamics (MD) study of static and dynamic properties of molten and glassy germanium dioxide is presented. The interactions between the atoms are modelled by the classical pair potential proposed by Oeffner and Elliott (OE) [Oeffner R D an
d Elliott S R 1998, Phys. Rev. B, 58, 14791]. We compare our results to experiments and previous simulations. In addition, an ab initio method, the so-called Car-Parrinello Molecular Dynamics (CPMD), is applied to check the accuracy of the structural properties, as obtained by the classical MD simulations with the OE potential. As in a similar study for SiO2, the structure predicted by CPMD is only slightly softer than that resulting from the classical MD. In contrast to earlier simulations, both the static structure and dynamic properties are in very good agreement with pertinent experimental data. MD simulations with the OE potential are also used to study the relaxation dynamics. As previously found for SiO2, for high temperatures the dynamics of molten GeO2 is compatible with a description in terms of mode coupling theory.
