Physics at the High-Energy Frontier: Phenomenological Studies of Charged Higgs Bosons and Cosmic Neutrino Detection
2009 (English)Doctoral thesis, comprehensive summary (Other academic)
Abstract [en]
The Standard Model of particle physics successfully describes present collider data. Nevertheless, theoretical and cosmological results call for its extension. A softly broken supersymmetric completion around the TeV scale solves several of the outstanding issues. Supersymmetry requires two Higgs doublets, leading to five physical Higgs states. These include a pair of charged Higgs bosons H±, which are a generic feature of theories with multiple Higgs doublets. Using results from high-energy colliders and flavour physics, constraints are derived on the charged Higgs boson mass and couplings; both for constrained scenarios in the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) with grand unification, and for general two-Higgs-doublet models. The MSSM results are compared to the projected reach for charged Higgs searches at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). At the LHC, a light charged Higgs is accessible through top quark decay. Beyond a discovery, it is demonstrated how angular distributions sensitive to top quark spin correlations can be used to determine the structure of the H±tb coupling. The public code 2HDMC, which performs calculations in a general, CP-conserving, two-Higgs-doublet model, is introduced.
In parallel to the developments at colliders, the most energetic particles ever recorded are the ultra-high-energy (UHE) cosmic rays. To gain more insight into their origin, new experiments are searching for UHE neutrinos. These searches require detectors of vast volume, which can be achieved by searching for coherent radio pulses arising from the Askaryan effect. The prospects of using a satellite orbiting the Moon to search for neutrino interactions are investigated, and a similar study for an Earth-based radio telescope is presented. In both cases, the method is found competitive for detection of the very highest energy neutrinos considered.
Place, publisher, year, edition, pages
Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis , 2009. , p. 71
Series
Digital Comprehensive Summaries of Uppsala Dissertations from the Faculty of Science and Technology, ISSN 1651-6214 ; 699
Keywords [en]
particle physics, Standard Model, beyond the Standard Model, supersymmetry, Higgs physics, charged Higgs boson, LHC, flavour physics, ultra-high-energy neutrinos, Askaryan effect, radio detection, lunar satellites
National Category
Subatomic Physics
Research subject
High Energy Physics
Identifiers
URN: urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-111162ISBN: 978-91-554-7682-3 (print)OAI: oai:DiVA.org:uu-111162DiVA, id: diva2:279570
Public defence
2010-01-29, Häggsalen, Ångströmlaboratoriet, Uppsala, 13:15 (English)
Opponent
Supervisors
2010-01-072009-12-042010-01-07Bibliographically approved
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