BSM Journal Club
The particle theory graduate student journal club meets once a week to discuss topics of interest in beyond the Standard Model phenomenology and model building. Topics roughly alternate between review articles and new papers.
See also the 2013 Winter camp on AdS/CFT (tentative).
Mondays, 1:30pm -- 3:00pm
Physical Sciences Building, Room 470
Contact:
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Fall 2012 Schedule
Topics marked (R) are review talks where some previous reading is recommended but not necessary. Otherwise topics are "current papers" and everyone is expected to have read the main paper in advance.
Fall 2012 Abstracts
- A stop light for light stops?, Flip Tanedo (20 Aug 12).
Light third generation superpartners are one way to hide SUSY from early LHC bounds while stabilizing the electroweak scale. In this talk we’ll review (1) the stop sector and its contribution to naturalness, (2) classes of models that can naturally generate light stops, (3) current collider constraints on light stops, and (4) novel techniques for searching for light stops. Reference: Notes and references therein.
Composite Scalar Dark Matter, Mathieu Cliche (27 Aug 12).
Postponed... due to a particularly devastating case of mononucleosis. Reference: 1204.2808.
- talk3, None (3 Sep 12).
Labor Day Gong Show: five minute (strictly enforced) research presentations. Reference: Reference.
- Scattering Amplitudes, Dean Robinson (10 Sep 12).
We'll discuss the `on-shell approach' to the computation of perturbative scattering amplitudes. In this first foray, we'll investigate the basics of color-ordering, the spinor-helicity formalism, and, as an example of the tree-level on-shell recursion method, we'll compute the 4-pt Parke-Taylor amplitude. Reference: hep-ph/9601359.
- Gauge Mediation and a 125 GeV Higgs, Mario Martone (17 Sep 12).
In order to accommodate a 125 GeV Higgs in SUSY quite a few elaborations are in order. Not only we need very heavy stops but we also need high stops' mixing. In gauge mediated scenarios, though, the A terms are only generated radiatively since they are zero at the breaking scale. Therefore in these scenarios we can come up with pretty strict lower bounds on the SUSY breaking scale, which comes from being able to generated large enough A terms in the running.
We will first quickly review the SUSY Higgs sector, stressing the relevance of the large stops mass and R-L mixing. We will then proceed to recall the crucial features of Gauge Mediated scenarios to then finally tackle the question on what are the implications for such models of a 125 GeV Higgs. Reference: 1112.3068.
- No Talk, Marcus Luty special seminar.
Reference: Reference.
- Savouring a Super Special Spin 1 Stop Smodel, Nic Rey-Le Lorier (1 Oct 12).
In this talk I will present a SUSY model where the left-handed top superpartner is a spin 1 boson instead of the usual scalar sparticle. We will examine the ingredients and mechanisms necessary to produce such an outcome, and discuss briefly the phenomenological implications of the model.
Reference: 0806.0386.
- How I learned to worry about stops and love naturalness., Bibhushan Shakya (8 Oct 12).
Reference: 1206.6540.
- Practical Statistics for Practical Physicists, Mike Saelim (15 Oct 12).
Look, you're going to have to calculate exclusion limits and reaches eventually. The more of this stuff I teach you, the more redundant I become here at Cornell. Reference: physics/9711021,
hep-ex/9902006,
1108.2288. See also CERN OPEN-2000-205, CMS NOTE-2005-004.
- ISS: Metastable SUSY breaking, Riccardo Pavesi (22 Oct 12).
After a lightning inteoduction to SUSY QCD and Seiberg duality, we will take a look at how to use these techniques to break SUSY dynamically as done by ISS. Reference: hep-th/0602239.
- Composite Dark Matter, Mathieu Cliche (29 Oct 12).
No abstract. Reference: 1204.2808.
- Electroweak Precision Tests, Marco Farina (5 Nov 12).
No abstract. Reference: CERN-TH-6659-92, 1204.2808.
- Dynkin Diagrams, Nic Rey Le-Lorier (12 Nov 12).
Abstract. Reference: Reference.
- talk14, Marco Farina (19 Nov 12).
talk14. Reference: Reference.
- An introduction to AdS/CFT and cascading gauge theories, Part I, Paul McGuirk (26 Nov 12).
AdS/CFT is a powerful duality between conformal field theories in d-dimensions and gravitational theories in higher-dimensional spacetimes. I will discuss how the duality can be motivated in string constructions, focusing on the original example provided by Maldacena, and then provide some non-trivial checks of the duality. I will then give an example of a generalization of the duality to non-conformal field theories, namely the Klebanov-Stassler geometry which is dual to a product gauge theory that is best described in terms of a cascade of Seiberg dualities. Finally, I will discuss variations on these setups including the addition of flavors and the breaking of supersymmetry.The level of discussion is aimed at those with some basic familiarity with QFT and minimal knowledge of general relativity, but not necessarily any knowledge of string theory. Talk 1:
Simplest example of AdS/CFT; checks of the duality; calculation of correlation functions. Reference: hep-th/9711200, hep-th/9802150, hep-th/9802109.
- An introduction to AdS/CFT and cascading gauge theories, Part II, Paul McGuirk (3 Dec 12).
AdS/CFT is a powerful duality between conformal field theories in d-dimensions and gravitational theories in higher-dimensional spacetimes. I will discuss how the duality can be motivated in string constructions, focusing on the original example provided by Maldacena, and then provide some non-trivial checks of the duality. I will then give an example of a generalization of the duality to non-conformal field theories, namely the Klebanov-Stassler geometry which is dual to a product gauge theory that is best described in terms of a cascade of Seiberg dualities. Finally, I will discuss variations on these setups including the addition of flavors and the breaking of supersymmetry.The level of discussion is aimed at those with some basic familiarity with QFT and minimal knowledge of general relativity, but not necessarily any knowledge of string theory. Talk 2: A gravity dual of a cascading gauge theory. Reference: hep-th/9807080, hep-th/0007191.
- An introduction to AdS/CFT and cascading gauge theories, Part III, Paul McGuirk (10 Dec 12).
AdS/CFT is a powerful duality between conformal field theories in d-dimensions and gravitational theories in higher-dimensional spacetimes. I will discuss how the duality can be motivated in string constructions, focusing on the original example provided by Maldacena, and then provide some non-trivial checks of the duality. I will then give an example of a generalization of the duality to non-conformal field theories, namely the Klebanov-Stassler geometry which is dual to a product gauge theory that is best described in terms of a cascade of Seiberg dualities. Finally, I will discuss variations on these setups including the addition of flavors and the breaking of supersymmetry.The level of discussion is aimed at those with some basic familiarity with QFT and minimal knowledge of general relativity, but not necessarily any knowledge of string theory. Talk 3: Adding flavors and breaking supersymmetry. Reference: hep-th/0205236, hep-th/0311084, hep-th/0112197, 0903.0619.
2013 Workshop: January 2013
This will be a week-long, in-depth student workshop ("Winter Camp") focusing on AdS/CFT (to be confirmed), from 14 - 18 January 2012. Meetings will be roughly 10 - 5pm every day with all participants in the same room. Each day will have a convener and a closing summary talk with ample time for discussion.
Resources
Unsure about places to start looking for talk ideas? Here are a few suggestions, geared towards the pedagogical side.
- Collections of reviews and lectures: The Net Advance of Physics, Ulrich Theis' page, or The String Wiki.
- It may also be worth looking through journals that specialize in review articles: RMP, Physics Reports, Annual Reviews, Reports on Progress in Physics, Proceedings of Science, Living Reviews.
- You can also use tools like SPIRES and arXiv Structure to find papers and reviews. For example, you can search for proceedings from summer schools (TASI, Les Houches, SLAC, Cargese, Cracow)
Scanning: it is often helpful to share your notes with the journal club, especially for review talks. Hand written notes may be scanned easily using the LASSP document scanner on the 5th floor of Clark or Mann library (photocopiers with free scanning option). These have automatic document feeders and can e-mail you a pdf of your notes.
Guidelines
- Announce your topic two weeks in advance, include a link to the relevant paper(s).
- You should give one pedagogical talk and one 'new paper' talk over the course of the semester.
- All members are required to have read 'new papers' that are being presented. Pedagogical talks should be accessible without pre-reading. Review and 'new paper' talks should alternate to give students time to read the new paper.
- Use discretion when presenting a new paper; if it is based on a topic that is unfamiliar to our group, it would be better to coordinate a pedagogical talk before presenting the paper.
- Speakers should focus on leading a discussion rather than giving a 1.5 hour lecture; students are expected to participate actively. Chalkboard talks are strongly preferred.
- Because of the composition of pheno students we have, we are in a unique position to take advantage of this kind of activity. This will only work if we all make this a priority.
History
The current BSM journal club was started in 2009 by Flip Tanedo, David Curtin, Itay Nachshon, Josh Berger, and Yuhsin Tsai. Previous manifestations include a collider journal club organized by Matt Reece and Patrick Meade. In the distant past Michael Peskin explains that the students had a "Gradshteyn" seminar since it was meant to integrate the collective knowledge of the graduate students.