UV Scale Research Articles

Condensates and instanton – torus knot duality. Hidden Physics at UV scale

We establish the duality between the torus knot superpolynomials or the Poincaré polynomials of the Khovanov homology and particular condensates in Ω-deformed 5D supersymmetric QED compactified on a circle with 5d Chern–Simons (CS) term. It is explicitly shown that n-instanton contribution to the condensate of the massless flavor in the background of four-observable exactly coincides with the superpolynomial of the T(n,nk+1) torus knot where k is the level of CS term. In contrast to the previously known results, the particular torus knot corresponds not to the partition function of the gauge theory but to the particular instanton contribution and summation over the knots has to be performed in order to obtain the complete answer. The instantons are sitting almost at the top of each other and the physics of the “fat point” where the UV degrees of freedom are slaved with point-like instantons turns out to be quite rich. Also we see knot polynomials in the quantum mechanics on the instanton moduli space. We consider the different limits of this correspondence focusing at their physical interpretation and compare the algebraic structures at the both sides of the correspondence. Using the AGT correspondence, we establish a connection between superpolynomials for unknots and q-deformed DOZZ factors.

Novel Higgs potentials from gauge mediation of exact scale breaking

We present a gauge mediation principle for BSM theories where exact UV scale invariance is broken in a hidden sector. The relevant configurations are those in which the Standard Model and a hidden sector emanate from a scale invariant pair of UV theories that communicate only via gauge interactions. We compute the radiatively induced Higgs potential which contains logarithmic mass-squared terms that lead to unusual Higgs self-couplings. Its other couplings are unchanged.

On the predictiveness of single-field inflationary models

We re-examine the predictiveness of single-field inflationary models and discuss how an unknown UV completion can complicate determining inflationary model parameters from observations, even from precision measurements. Besides the usual naturalness issues associated with having a shallow inflationary potential, we describe another issue for inflation, namely, unknown UV physics modifies the running of Standard Model (SM) parameters and thereby introduces uncertainty into the potential inflationary predictions. We illustrate this point using the minimal Higgs Inflationary scenario, which is arguably the most predictive single-field model on the market, because its predictions for $A_s$, $r$ and $n_s$ are made using only one new free parameter beyond those measured in particle physics experiments, and run up to the inflationary regime. We find that this issue can already have observable effects. At the same time, this UV-parameter dependence in the Renormalization Group allows Higgs Inflation to occur (in principle) for a slightly larger range of Higgs masses. We comment on the origin of the various UV scales that arise at large field values for the SM Higgs, clarifying cut off scale arguments by further developing the formalism of a non-linear realization of $\rm SU_L(2) \times U(1)$ in curved space. We discuss the interesting fact that, outside of Higgs Inflation, the effect of a non-minimal coupling to gravity, even in the SM, results in a non-linear EFT for the Higgs sector. Finally, we briefly comment on post BICEP2 attempts to modify the Higgs Inflation scenario.

Bounds on dark matter interactions with electroweak gauge bosons

We investigate scenarios in which dark matter interacts with the Standard Model primarily through electroweak gauge bosons. We employ an effective field theory framework wherein the Standard Model and the dark matter particle are the only light states in order to derive model-independent bounds. Bounds on such interactions are derived from dark matter production by weak boson fusion at the LHC, indirect detection searches for the products of dark matter annihilation and from the measured invisible width of the ${Z}^{0}$. We find that limits on the UV scale, $\ensuremath{\Lambda}$, reach weak scale values for most operators and values of the dark matter mass, thus probing the most natural scenarios in the weakly interacting massive particle dark matter paradigm. Our bounds suggest that light dark matter (${m}_{\ensuremath{\chi}}\ensuremath{\lesssim}{m}_{Z}/2$ or ${m}_{\ensuremath{\chi}}\ensuremath{\lesssim}100--200\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{GeV}$, depending on the operator) cannot interact only with the electroweak gauge bosons of the Standard Model, but rather requires additional operator contributions or dark sector structure to avoid overclosing the Universe.

Dynamical mass scale and approximate scaling symmetry in the Higgs sector

We investigate basic consequences of the assumption that the mass scale of the perturbative sector responsible for the spontaneous symmetry breaking is generated dynamically in a theory with a large UV scale. It is assumed that in addition to an elementary scalar there exists an additional scalar, a modulus, which controls the dynamical hierarchy of scales in the manner similar to that of supersymmetric gaugino condensation. It is shown that a light degree of freedom appears that couples to the gauge bosons and to charged fermions in a specific way which is different from the couplings of the dilaton of the exact scale invariance.

Sommerfeld enhancement from multiple mediators

We study the Sommerfeld enhancement experienced by a scattering object that couples to a tower of mediators. This can occur in, e.g., models of secluded dark matter when the mediator scale is generated naturally by hidden-sector confinement. Specializing to the case of a confining CFT, we show that off-resonant values of the enhancement can be increased by ~ 20% for cases of interest when (i) the (strongly-coupled) CFT admits a weakly-coupled dual description and (ii) the conformal symmetry holds up to the Planck scale. Larger enhancements are possible for lower UV scales due to an increase in the coupling strength of the tower.

A shift symmetry in the Higgs sector: experimental hints and stringy realizations

We interpret reported hints of a Standard Model Higgs boson at ~ 125 GeV in terms of high-scale supersymmetry breaking with a shift symmetry in the Higgs sector. More specifically, the Higgs mass range suggested by recent LHC data extrapolates, within the (non-supersymmetric) Standard Model, to a vanishing quartic Higgs coupling at a UV scale between 10^6 and 10^18 GeV. Such a small value of lambda can be understood in terms of models with high-scale SUSY breaking if the Kahler potential possesses a shift symmetry, i.e., if it depends on H_u and H_d only in the combination (H_u+\bar{H}_d). This symmetry is known to arise rather naturally in certain heterotic compactifications. We suggest that such a structure of the Higgs Kahler potential is common in a wider class of string constructions, including intersecting D7- and D6-brane models and their extensions to F-theory or M-theory. The latest LHC data may thus be interpreted as hinting to a particular class of compactifications which possess this shift symmetry.

Gravity on a little warped space

We investigate the consistent inclusion of 4D Einstein gravity on a truncated slice of ${\mathrm{AdS}}_{5}$ whose bulk-gravity and UV scales are much less than the 4D Planck scale, ${M}_{*}\ensuremath{\ll}{M}_{\mathrm{Pl}}$. Such ``Little Warped Spaces'' have found phenomenological utility and can be motivated by string realizations of the Randall-Sundrum framework. Using the interval approach to brane-world gravity, we show that the inclusion of a large UV-localized Einstein-Hilbert term allows one to consistently incorporate 4D Einstein gravity into the low-energy theory. We detail the spectrum of Kaluza-Klein metric fluctuations and, in particular, examine the coupling of the little radion to matter. Furthermore, we show that Goldberger-Wise stabilization can be successfully implemented on such spaces. Our results demonstrate that realistic low-energy effective theories can be constructed on these spaces, and have relevance for existing models in the literature.

Switching azonaphthols containing a side chain with limited flexibility. Part 1. Synthesis and tautomeric properties

A series of azo dyes, possessing amide fragments with restricted flexibility tethered to 4-(phenyldiazenyl)naphthalen-1-ol, was obtained from 1-hydroxy-2-naphthoic acid by subsequent conversion to amides and diazo coupling. It was shown that the position of the tautomeric equilibrium in solution strongly depends on the solvent in both UV and NMR concentration scale. The compounds exist as pure enol forms in chloroform and hydrocarbons, while in polar solvents (acetone, acetonitrile, alcohols) a tautomeric mixture is observed. According to the quantum-chemical calculations the aggregation of the keto tautomer is the possible reason for this shift in the position of the tautomeric equilibrium. To support the theoretical predictions, it was found that from acetone the keto form crystallizes as a dimer with hydrogen bonding between N 1– H in the one molecule and amide C O in the other forming a three-dimensional structure. The importance of the side-chain nitrogen atom on the dimer formation was confirmed by solution and solid state study of 4-(phenyldiazenyl)-2-acetylnaphthalen-1-ol. The results indicate that the new azo-dyes obtained could be suitable candidates for switching and sensing applications in non-polar solvents.

Zero-point quantum fluctuations and dark energy

In the Hamiltonian formulation of General Relativity the energy associated to an asymptotically flat space-time with metric $g_{\mu\nu}$ is related to the Hamiltonian $H_{GR}$ by $E=H_{GR}[g_{\mu\nu}]-H_{\rm GR}[\eta_{\mu\nu}]$, where the subtraction of the flat-space contribution is necessary to get rid of an otherwise divergent boundary term. This classic result indicates that the energy associated to flat space does not gravitate. We apply the same principle to study the effect of zero-point fluctuations of quantum fields in cosmology, proposing that their contribution to the cosmic expansion is obtained computing the vacuum energy of quantum fields in a FRW space-time with Hubble parameter $H(t)$ and subtracting from it the flat-space contribution. [...] After renormalization, this produces a renormalized vacuum energy density $\sim M^2H^2(t)$, where $M$ is the scale where quantum gravity sets is, so for $M$ of order of the Planck mass a vacuum energy density of the order of the critical density can be obtained without any fine tuning. The counterterms can be chosen so that the renormalized energy density and pressure satisfy $p=w\rho$, with $w$ a parameter that can be fixed by comparison to the observed value, so in particular one can chose $w=-1$. An energy density evolving in time as $H^2(t)$ is however observationally excluded as an explanation for the dominant dark energy component which is responsible for the observed acceleration of the universe. We rather propose that zero-point vacuum fluctuations provide a new subdominant "dark" contribution to the cosmic expansion that, for a UV scale $M$ slightly smaller than the Planck mass, is consistent with existing limits and potentially detectable.

Fermion masses in emergent electroweak symmetry breaking

We consider the generation of fermion masses in an emergent model of electroweak symmetry breaking with composite W,Z gauge bosons. A universal bulk fermion profile in a warped extra dimension is used for all fermion flavors. Electroweak symmetry is broken at the UV (or Planck) scale where boundary mass terms are added to generate the fermion flavor structure. This leads to flavor-dependent nonuniversality in the gauge couplings. The effects are suppressed for the light fermion generations but are enhanced for the top quark where the \( Zt\bar{t} \) and \( Wt\bar{b} \) couplings can deviate at the 10–20% level in the minimal setup. By the AdS/CFT correspondence our model implies that electroweak symmetry is not a fundamental gauge symmetry. Instead the Standard Model with massive fermions and W,Z gauge bosons is an effective chiral Lagrangian for some underlying confining strong dynamics at the TeV scale, where mass is generated without a Higgs mechanism.

Emergent electroweak symmetry breaking with compositeW, Zbosons

We present a model of electroweak symmetry breaking in a warped extra dimension where electroweak symmetry is broken at the UV (or Planck) scale. An underlying conformal symmetry is broken at the IR (or TeV) scale generating masses for the electroweak gauge bosons without invoking a Higgs mechanism. By the AdS/CFT correspondence the W,Z bosons are identified as composite states of a strongly-coupled gauge theory, suggesting that electroweak symmetry breaking is an emergent phenomenon at the IR scale. The model satisfies electroweak precision tests with reasonable fits to the S and T parameter. In particular the T parameter is sufficiently suppressed since the model naturally admits a custodial SU(2) symmetry. The composite nature of the W,Z-bosons provide a novel possibility of unitarizing WW scattering via form factor suppression. Constraints from LEP and the Tevatron as well as discovery opportunities at the LHC are discussed for these composite electroweak gauge bosons.

Relativistic quantum gravity at a Lifshitz point

We show that the Horava theory for the completion of General Relativity at UV scales can be interpreted as a gauge fixed theory, and it can be extended to an invariant theory under the full group of four-dimensional diffeomorphisms. In this respect, although being fully relativistic, it results to be locally anisotropic in the time-like and space-like directions defined by a family of irrotational observers. We show that this theory propagates generically three degrees of freedom: two of them are related to the four-dimensional diffeomorphism invariant graviton (the metric) and one is related to a propagating scalar mode. Finally, we note that in the present formulation, matter can be consistently coupled to gravity.

Mass corrections in string theory and lattice field theory

Kaluza-Klein (KK) compactifications of higher-dimensional Yang-Mills theories contain a number of 4-dimensional scalars corresponding to the internal components of the gauge field. While at tree level the scalar zero modes are massless, it is well known that quantum corrections make them massive. We compute these radiative corrections at 1 loop in an effective field theory framework, using the background field method and proper Schwinger-time regularization. In order to clarify the proper treatment of the sum over KK modes in the effective field theory approach, we consider the same problem in two different UV completions of Yang-Mills: string theory and lattice field theory. In both cases, when the compactification radius $R$ is much bigger than the scale of the UV completion ($R\ensuremath{\gg}\sqrt{{\ensuremath{\alpha}}^{\ensuremath{'}}}$, $a$), we recover a mass renormalization that is independent of the UV scale and agrees with the one derived in the effective field theory approach. These results support the idea that the value of the mass corrections is, in this regime, universal for any UV completion that respects locality and gauge invariance. The string analysis suggests that this property holds also at higher loops. The lattice analysis suggests that the mass of the adjoint scalars appearing in $\mathcal{N}=2$, 4 super Yang-Mills is highly suppressed, even if the lattice regularization breaks all supersymmetries explicitly. This is due to an interplay between the higher-dimensional gauge invariance and the degeneracy of bosonic and fermionic degrees of freedom.

Black/white hole radiation from dispersive theories

We study the fluxes emitted by black holes when using dispersive field theories. We work with stationary one-dimensional backgrounds which are asymptotically flat on both sides of the horizon. The asymptotic fluxes are governed by a $3\ifmmode\times\else\texttimes\fi{}3$ Bogoliubov transformation. The fluxes emitted by the corresponding white holes are regular and governed by the inverse transformation. We numerically compute the spectral properties of these fluxes for both sub- and superluminal quartic dispersion. The leading deviations with respect to the dispersionless flux are computed and shown to be governed by a critical frequency above which there is no radiation. Unlike the UV scale governing dispersion, its value critically depends on the asymptotic properties of the background. We also study the flux outside the robust regime. In particular we show that its low-frequency part remains almost thermal but with a temperature which significantly differs from the standard one. Applications to four-dimensional black holes and Bose-Einstein condensates are in preparation.

Quantum information and gravity cutoff in theories with species

We show that lowering of the gravitational cutoff relative to the Planck mass, imposed by black hole physics in theories with N species, has an independent justification from quantum information theory. First, this scale marks the limiting capacity of any information processor. Secondly, by taking into the account the limitations of the quantum information storage in any system with species, the bound on the gravity cutoff becomes equivalent to the holographic bound, and this equivalence automatically implies the equality of entanglement and Bekenstein–Hawking entropies. Next, the same bound follows from quantum cloning theorem. Finally, we point out that by identifying the UV and IR threshold scales of the black hole quasi-classicality in four-dimensional field and high dimensional gravity theories, the bound translates as the correspondence between the two theories. In case when the high dimensional background is AdS, this reproduces the well-known AdS/CFT relation, but also suggests a generalization of the correspondence beyond AdS spaces. In particular, it reproduces a recently suggested duality between a four-dimensional CFT and a flat five-dimensional theory, in which gravity crosses over from four to five dimensional regime in far infrared.

Origin of holographic dark energy models

We investigate the origin of holographic dark energy models which were recently proposed to explain the dark energy-dominated universe. For this purpose, we introduce the spacetime foam uncertainty of δ l ⩾ l p α l α − 1 . It was argued that the case of α = 2 / 3 could describe the dark energy with infinite statistics, while the case of α = 1 / 2 can describe the ordinary matter with Bose–Fermi statistics. However, two cases may lead to the holographic energy density if the latter recovers from the geometric mean of UV and IR scales. Hence the dark energy with infinite statistics based on the entropy bound is not an ingredient for deriving the holographic dark energy model. Furthermore, it is shown that the agegraphic dark energy models are the holographic dark energy model with different IR length scales.

Large Top-Quark Mass and Nonlinear Representation of Flavor Symmetry

We consider an effective theory (ET) approach to flavor-violating processes beyond the standard model, where the breaking of flavor symmetry is described by spurion fields whose low-energy vacuum expectation values are identified with the standard model Yukawa couplings. Insisting on canonical mass dimensions for the spurion fields, the large top-quark Yukawa coupling also implies a large expectation value for the associated spurion, which breaks part of the flavor symmetry already at the UV scale Lambda of the ET. Below that scale, flavor symmetry in the ET is represented in a nonlinear way by introducing Goldstone modes for the partly broken flavor symmetry and spurion fields transforming under the residual symmetry. As a result, the dominance of certain flavor structures in rare quark decays can be understood in terms of the 1/Lambda expansion in the ET.

Damped corrections to inflationary spectra from a fluctuating cutoff

We reconsider trans-Planckian corrections to inflationary spectra by taking into account a physical effect which has been overlooked and which could have important consequences. We assume that the short length scale characterizing the new physics is endowed with a finite width, the origin of which could be found in quantum gravity. As a result, the leading corrections responsible for superimposed oscillations in the cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropies are generically damped by the blurring of the UV scale. To determine the observational ramifications of this damping, we compare it to that which effectively occurs when computing the angular power spectrum of temperature anisotropies. The former gives an overall change of the oscillation amplitudes whereas the latter depends on the angular scale. Therefore, in principle they could be distinguished. In any case, the observation of superimposed oscillations would place a tight constraint on the variance of the UV cutoff.

Cosmological implications of Károlyházy uncertainty relation

Károlyházy uncertainty relation, which can be viewed also as a relation between UV and IR scales in the framework of an effective quantum field theory satisfying a black hole entropy bound, strongly favors the existence of dark energy with its observed value. Here we estimate the dynamics of dark energy predicted by the Károlyházy relation during the cosmological evolution of the universe.