Ezequiel Alvarez

Vacuum polarization around stars: Nonlocal approximation

We compute the vacuum polarization associated with quantum massless fields around stars with spherical symmetry. The nonlocal contribution to the vacuum polarization is dominant in the weak field limit and induces quantum corrections to the static exterior metric that depend on the inner structure of the star. It also violates the null energy conditions. We argue that similar results also hold in the low energy limit of quantum gravity. Previous calculations of the vacuum polarization in spherically symmetric spacetimes, based on local approximations, are not adequate for Newtonian stars.

Leptonic monotops at the LHC

We study the possibility of detecting New Physics (NP) phenomena at the LHC through a new search strategy looking at the monotop (top plus missing energy) signature which is common to a variety of NP models. We focus on the leptonic top decay mode and study the discovery or exclusion reach of the 2012 LHC data for three example models. Contrary to the hadronic mode, in this case the problematic QCD multijet background can be safely neglected. We find that the key kinematic variable to suppress most of the remaining SM backgrounds is the transverse mass of the charged lepton and missing energy. In fact, one could expect that the single-top production measurements already address the monotop signature in this mode. This is however not the case because in the SM single-top production the transverse mass has an end point determined by the W mass, while the NP signals typically have an additional source of missing energy. We compare, under the same conditions, our monotop search strategy with existing single-top measurements and find a considerable improvement in the monotop signature reach.

CPT violation in entangled B-0-B-0 states and the demise of flavour tagging

Abstract We discuss the demise of flavour tagging due to the loss of the particle–antiparticle identity of neutral B -mesons in the Einstein–Podolsky–Rosen correlated states. Such a situation occurs in cases where the CPT operator is ill-defined, as happens, for example, in quantum gravity models with induced decoherence in the matter sector. The time evolution of the perturbed B 0 – B ¯ 0 initial state, as produced in B -factories, is sufficient to generate new two-body states. For flavour specific decays at equal times, we discuss two definite tests of the two body entanglement: (i) search for the would-be forbidden B 0 B 0 and B ¯ 0 B ¯ 0 states; (ii) deviations from the indistinguishable probability between the permuted states B ¯ 0 B 0 and B 0 B ¯ 0 .

DIRECT TEST OF TIME REVERSAL INVARIANCE VIOLATION IN B-MESONS

In this letter we reinterpret and reanalyze the available data of the B-meson factories showing the existence of direct experimental evidence of time reversal invariance violation in B-mesons. This reinterpretation consists of using the available observables to define a new observable which, in a model-independent way and without assuming CPT invariance, compares a transition between a B0 and a here-defined Bα-state, with its time reversed transition. The observable then offers a direct way to probe time reversal invariance and it is therefore independent of any conclusion obtained from current experimental information on CP violation and CPT invariance. As far as we are concerned, this is the first direct evidence of time reversal invariance violation in B-mesons and also the first one obtained from decaying particles whose mean lifetime difference is negligible.

Collider Bounds on Lee-Wick Higgs Bosons

We study the constraints on the Lee-Wick Higgs sector arising from direct collider searches. We work in an effective-field theory framework, where all of the Lee-Wick partners are integrated out, with the sole exception of the Lee-Wick Higgs bosons. The resulting theory is a two-Higgs doublet model where the second doublet has wrong-sign kinetic and mass terms. We include the bounds coming from direct Higgs searches at both LEP and Tevatron using the code HiggsBounds, and show the currently excluded parameter space. We also analyze the prospects of LHC Run-I, finding that with a total integrated luminosity of 5 fb

The demise of flavour tagging and its Delta t-dependence

^{-1}

Correlated neutral B meson decays into CP eigenstates

and a center-of-mass energy of 7 TeV, most of the parameter space for the SM-like CP-even Higgs will be probed.

Graviton resonance phenomenology and a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson Higgs at the LHC

In this work we discuss how the loss of particle-antiparticle identity due to CPT violation affects the observables in the decay of two neutral EPR-correlated

Right handed currents and FSI phases in B0 ---> phi K*0

B

Covariant perturbation theory and the Randall–Sundrum picture

-mesons. We study this possible new effect in the context of equal-sign flavour specific decays and we find a considerable modification in the