Centre d'études et d'expertise sur les risques, l'environnement, la mobilité et l'aménagement

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We perform a state-of-the-art global fit to all Higgs data. We synthesise them into a 'universal' form, which allows to easily test any desired model. We apply the proposed methodology to extract from data the Higgs branching ratios, production cross sections, couplings and to analyse composite Higgs models, models with extra Higgs doublets, supersymmetry, extra particles in the loops, anomalous top couplings, and invisible Higgs decays into Dark Matter. Best fit regions lie around the Standard Model predictions and are well approximated by our 'universal' fit. Latest data exclude the dilaton as an alternative to the Higgs, and disfavour fits with negative Yukawa couplings. We derive for the first time the SM Higgs boson mass from the measured rates, rather than from the peak positions, obtaining M h = 124.4 ± 1.6 GeV.

During 2004, four divisions of the American Physical Society commissioned a study of neutrino physics to take stock of where the field is at the moment and where it is going in the near and far future. Several working groups looked at various aspects of this vast field. The summary was published as a main report entitled "The Neutrino Matrix" accompanied by short 50 page versions of the report of each working group. Theoretical research in this field has been quite extensive and touches many areas and the short 50 page report [1] provided only a brief summary and overview of few of the important points. The theory discussion group felt that it may be of value to the community to publish the entire study as a white paper and the result is the current article. After a brief overview of the present knowledge of neutrino masses and mixing and some popular ways to probe the new physics implied by recent data, the white paper summarizes what can be learned about physics beyond the Standard Model from the various proposed neutrino experiments. It also comments on the impact of the experiments on our understanding of the origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry of the Universe and the basic nature of neutrino interactions as well as the existence of possible additional neutrinos. Extensive references to original literature are provided.2

The mechanism of the generation of dark matter and dark radiation from the evaporation of primordial black holes is very interesting. We consider the case of Kerr black holes to generalize previous results obtained in the Schwarzschild case. For dark matter, the results do not change dramatically and the bounds on warm dark matter apply similarly: in particular, the Kerr case cannot save the scenario of black hole domination for light dark matter. For dark radiation, the expectations for ∆N ef f do not change significantly with respect to the Schwarzschild case, but for an enhancement in the case of spin 2 particles: in the massless case, however, the projected experimental sensitivity would be reached only for extremal black holes.

Our peculiar velocity with respect to the CMB rest frame is known to induce a large dipole in the CMB. However, the motion of an observer has also the effect of distorting the anisotropies at all scales, as shown by Challinor and Van Leeuwen (2002), due to aberration and Doppler effects. We propose to measure independently our local motion by using off-diagonal two-point correlation functions for high multipoles. We study the observability of the signal for temperature and polarization anisotropies. We point out that Planck can measure the velocity β with an error of about 30% and the direction with an error of about 20 • . This method constitutes a cross-check, which can be useful to verify that our CMB dipole is due mainly to our velocity or to disentangle the velocity from other possible intrinsic sources.Although in this paper we focus on our peculiar velocity, a similar effect would result also from other intrinsic vectorial distortion of the CMB which would induce a dipolar lensing. Measuring the off-diagonal correlation terms is therefore a test for a preferred direction on the CMB sky.

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. *