Massive Neutrinos and Lepton Mixing in Unified Theories

The recent GUT (x SUSY) models which can predict the neutrino properties are reviewed.Comment: 8 pages, Talk presented at the XVI International Workshop on Weak Interactions and Neutrinos, Capri, 199

Effects of an intermediate scale in SUSY grand unification

We discuss the production of lepton flavor violation and EDMs and the viability of the $b-\tau$ unification hypothesis in SUSY grand unification with an intermediate gauge symmetry breaking scale.Comment: 3 pages (Latex, esprc2.sty used), talk given at 4th International Conference on Supersymmetry (SUSY '96, College Park, MD, May 29 - June 1, 1996

Universal Evolution of CKM Matrix Elements

We derive the two-loop evolution equations for the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix. We show that to leading order in the mass and CKM hierarchies the scaling of the mixings $|V_{ub}|^2$, $|V_{cb}|^2$, $|V_{td}|^2$, $|V_{ts}|^2$ and of the rephase-invariant CP-violating parameter $J$ is universal to all orders in perturbation theory. In leading order the other CKM elements do not scale. Imposing the constraint $\lambda _b=\lambda _{\tau}$ at the GUT scale determines the CKM scaling factor to be $\simeq 0.58$ in the MSSM.Comment: 17 pages + 2 figures not included (available upon request), revised version fixes discrepancy between S and S^{1/2}, no other changes, MAD/PH/72

Hypoalbuminaemia predicts outcome in adult patients with congenital heart disease

Background In patients with acquired heart failure, hypoalbuminaemia is associated with increased risk of death. The prevalence of hypoproteinaemia and hypoalbuminaemia and their relation to outcome in adult patients with congenital heart disease (ACHD) remains, however, unknown. Methods Data on patients with ACHD who underwent blood testing in our centre within the last 14 years were collected. The relation between laboratory, clinical or demographic parameters at baseline and mortality was assessed using Cox proportional hazards regression analysis. Results A total of 2886 patients with ACHD were included. Mean age was 33.3 years (23.6–44.7) and 50.1% patients were men. Median plasma albumin concentration was 41.0 g/L (38.0–44.0), whereas hypoalbuminaemia (<35 g/L) was present in 13.9% of patients. The prevalence of hypoalbuminaemia was significantly higher in patients with great complexity ACHD (18.2%) compared with patients with moderate (11.3%) or simple ACHD lesions (12.1%, p<0.001). During a median follow-up of 5.7 years (3.3–9.6), 327 (11.3%) patients died. On univariable Cox regression analysis, hypoalbuminaemia was a strong predictor of outcome (HR 3.37, 95% CI 2.67 to 4.25, p<0.0001). On multivariable Cox regression, after adjusting for age, sodium and creatinine concentration, liver dysfunction, functional class and disease complexity, hypoalbuminaemia remained a significant predictor of death. Conclusions Hypoalbuminaemia is common in patients with ACHD and is associated with a threefold increased risk of risk of death. Hypoalbuminaemia, therefore, should be included in risk-stratification algorithms as it may assist management decisions and timing of interventions in the growing ACHD population

Tau Signals of R-parity breaking at LEP 200

The detectability at LEP 200 of explicit $R$-parity breaking by tau-number $(L_\tau)$ violating operators is considered. The assumption of $L_\tau$-violation is motivated by the relative lack of constraints on such couplings but similar considerations apply to explicit $L_e$- or $L_\mu$-violation. The $LSP$, now unstable, and not necessarily neutral, decays via $L_\tau$-violating modes. Only signals from the production and decays of $LSP$ pairs are considered, thereby avoiding any dependence on the sparticle mass spectrum. Rather spectacular signals are predicted: spherical events with $m$ leptons (usually containing at least one $\tau$) and $n$ jets $(m,n \leq 4)$, the most characteristic of which are like-sign $\tau\tau$ events. These signals are enumerated for each $LSP$ candidate and quantitative estimates are provided for the favoured case when the $LSP$ is a neutralino. Other new physics signals, which can mimic these signatures, are also briefly discussed.Comment: 27 pages in PHYZZX, six figures (not included, available on request). TIFR/TH/92-29,UH-511-751-92,CERN-TH.6613/9

General Issues Connecting Flavor Symmetry and Supersymmetry

We motivate and construct supersymmetric theories with continuous flavor symmetry, under which the electroweak Higgs doublets transform non-trivially. Flavor symmetry is spontaneously broken at a large mass scale in a sector of gauge-singlet fields; the light Higgs multiplets naturally emerge as special linear combinations that avoid acquiring the generic large mass. Couplings of the light Higgs doublets to light moduli fields from the singlet sector could lead to important effects in the phenomenology of the Higgs sector.Comment: 5 page

Lepton Number Violating Radiative WW Decay in Models with R-parity Violation

Models with explicit R-parity violation can induce new rare radiative decay modes of the $W$ boson into single supersymmetric particles which also violate lepton number. We examine the rate and signature for one such decay, $W\rightarrow \tilde l\gamma$, and find that such a mode will be very difficult to observe, due its small branching fraction, even if the lepton number violating coupling in the superpotential is comparable in strength to electromagnetism. This parallels a similar result obtained earlier by Hewett in the case of radiative $Z$ decays.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures(available on request), LaTex, ANL-HEP-PR-92-8

Realistic Gluino Axion Model Consistent with Supersymmetry Breaking at the TeV Scale

The recently proposed model of using the dynamical phase of the gluino to solve the strong CP problem is shown to admit a specific realization in terms of fundamental singlet superfields, such that the breaking of supersymmetry occurs only at the TeV scale, despite the large axion scale of 10^{9} to 10^{12} GeV. Phenomenological implications are discussed.Comment: 12 pp, 2 fig

Electric dipole moments and b-τ\tau unification in the presence of an intermediate scale in SUSY grand unification

We show that an intermediate gauge symmetry breaking scale can be a significant source of electric dipole moments for the electron and neutron in supersymmetric grand unified theories. New phases, similar to that of the CKM matrix, appear which do not arise from the supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking operators. To illustrate, we choose some grand unified SUSY models having an intermediate gauge symmetry breaking scale with some attractive features. We also show how well the $b-\tau$ unification hypothesis works in this class of models.Comment: 14 pages(Latex), 2 PS Figures (uuencoded, epsf.tex