Sleptonarium (Constraints on the CP and Flavour Pattern of Scalar Lepton Masses)

The constraints on the flavour and CP structure of scalar lepton mass matrices are systematically collected. The display of the resulting upper bounds on the lepton -slepton misalignment parameters is designed for an easy inspection of very large classes of models and the formula are arranged so as to suggest useful approximations. Interferences among the different contributions to lepton flavour violating transitions and lepton electric and magnetic dipole moments of generic character can either tighten or loose the bounds. A combined analysis of all rare leptonic transitions can disentangle the different contributions to yield hints on several phenomenological issues. The possible impact of these results on the study of the slepton misalignment originated in the seesaw mechanism and grand-unified theories is emphasized since the planned experiments are getting close to the precision required in such tests.Comment: 29 pages, 13 figures; v3: corrected misprints in appendix

Charged Lepton Flavour and CP Violations: Theoretical Impact of Present and Future Experiments

We shortly review and emphasize how l_j -> l_i gamma experiments and the searches for lepton e.d.m. are constraining New Physics model building. They are pure signals of new phenomena around the TeV scale since the SM contributions are definitely negligible. It is quite remarkable that they also give effective tests of the LFV & CPV in seesaw couplings and in grand-unified theories. In particular, the limits on d_e nicely complement the proton decay bounds in selecting O(10) models.Comment: 6 pages, 3 figures, Proceedings of Neutrino 04 (College de France, Paris

Phenomenological Consequences of Soft Leptogenesis

Soft supersymmetry breaking terms involving heavy singlet sneutrinos can be the dominant source of leptogenesis. The relevant range of parameters is different from standard leptogenesis: a lighter Majorana mass, M < 10^9 GeV (allowing a solution of the gravitino problem), and smaller Yukawa couplings, Y_N < 10^{-4}. We investigate whether the various couplings of the singlet sneutrinos, which are constrained by the requirement of successful `soft leptogenesis', can have observable phenomenological consequences. Specifically, we calculate the contributions of the relevant soft supersymmetric breaking terms to the electric dipole moments of the charged leptons and to lepton flavor violating decays. Our result is that these contributions are small.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure; v2: an additional contribution is considered (modifying: fig. 1, eq. 10-13, 22) and a reference added. Conclusions unchange

Looking for a charge asymmetry in cosmic rays

We combine the data from PAMELA and FERMI-LAT cosmic ray experiments by introducing a simple sum rule. This allows to investigate whether the lepton excess observed by these experiments is charge symmetric or not. We also show how the data can be used to predict the positron fraction at energies yet to be explored by the AMS-02 experiment.Comment: Contribution to the proceedings of DISCRETE 2010, 5 pages, 2 figure

Yukawa coupling and anomalous magnetic moment of the muon: an update for the LHC era

We study the interplay between a soft muon Yukawa coupling generated radiatively with the trilinear A-terms of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) and the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon. In the absence of a tree-level muon Yukawa coupling the lightest smuon mass is predicted to be in the range between 750 GeV and 2700 GeV at 2 sigma, if the bino mass M_1 is below 1 TeV. Therefore, a detection of a smuon (in conjunction with a sub-TeV bino) at the LHC would directly imply a non-zero muon Yukawa coupling in the MSSM superpotential. Inclusion of slepton flavor mixing could in principle lower the mass of one smuon-like slepton below 750 GeV. However, the experimental bounds on radiative lepton decays instead strengthen the lower mass bound, with larger effects for smaller M_1, We also extend the analysis to the electron case and find that a light selectron close to the current experimental search limit may prove the MSSM electron Yukawa coupling to be non-zero.Comment: 6 pages, 2 figures, references added, version accepted for publication in PR

Probing New Physics through mu-e Universality in K->lnu

The recent NA48/2 improvement on R_K=Gamma(K->e nu_e)/Gamma(K->mu nu_mu) emphasizes the role of K_l2 decays in probing the mu-e universality. Supersymmetric (SUSY) extensions of the Standard Model can exhibit mu-e non-universal contributions. Their origin is twofold: those deriving from lepton flavor conserving couplings are subdominant with respect to those arising from lepton flavor violating (LFV) sources. We show that mu-e non-universality in K_l2 is quite effective in constraining relevant regions of SUSY models with LFV (for instance, supergravities with a see-saw mechanism for neutrino masses). A comparison with analogous bounds coming from tau LFV decays proves the relevance of the measurement of R_K to probe LFV in SUSY.Comment: v2: 5 pages, 1 figure. Comments and 2 references adde

Gamma Ray Constraints on Flavor Violating Asymmetric Dark Matter

We show how cosmic gamma rays can be used to constrain models of asymmetric Dark Matter decaying into lepton pairs by violating flavor. First of all we require the models to explain the anomalies in the charged cosmic rays measured by PAMELA, FERMI and HESS; performing combined fits we determine the allowed values of the Dark Matter mass and lifetime. For these models, we then determine the constraints coming from the measurement of the isotropic gamma-ray background by FERMI for a complete set of lepton flavor violating primary modes and over a range of DM masses from 100 GeV to 10 TeV. We find that the FERMI constraints rule out the flavor violating asymmetric Dark Matter interpretation of the charged cosmic ray anomalies.Comment: 11 pages, 3 figures. v2: constraints derivation slightly modified, conclusions unchanged; some clarifications and some references added; matches version published on JCA

Detecting the Cold Spot as a Void with the Non-Diagonal Two-Point Function

The anomaly in the Cosmic Microwave Background known as the "Cold Spot" could be due to the existence of an anomalously large spherical (few hundreds Mpc/h radius) underdense region, called a "Void" for short. Such a structure would have an impact on the CMB also at high multipoles l through Lensing. This would then represent a unique signature of a Void. Modeling such an underdensity with an LTB metric, we show that the Lensing effect leads to a large signal in the non-diagonal two-point function, centered in the direction of the Cold Spot, such that the Planck satellite will be able to confirm or rule out the Void explanation for the Cold Spot, for any Void radius with a Signal-to-Noise ratio of at least O(10).Comment: v1: 6 pages, 2 figures; v2: 6 pages, 2 figures, text improved, to appear on JCA

Up Quark Masses from Down Quark Masses

The quark and charged lepton masses and the angles and phase of the CKM mixing matrix are nicely reproduced in a model which assumes SU(3)xSU(3) flavour symmetry broken by the v.e.v.'s of fields in its bi-fundamental representation. The relations among the quark mass eigenvalues, m_u/m_c \approx m_c/m_t \approx m^2_d/m^2_s \approx m^2_s/m^2_b \approx \Lambda^2_{GUT}/M^2_{Pl}, follow from the broken flavour symmetry. Large tan(beta) is required which also provides the best fits to data for the obtained textures. Lepton-quark grandunification with a field that breaks both SU(5) and the flavour group correctly extends the predictions to the charged lepton masses. The seesaw extension of the model to the neutrino sector predicts a Majorana mass matrix quadratically hierarchical as compared to the neutrino Dirac mass matrix, naturally yielding large mixings and low mass hierarchy for neutrinos.Comment: 11 pages, 1 figure. Published version: model improved, references adde