Archive for January 2011
We study phenomena predicted by a renormalizable, CPT invariant extension of the Standard Model that contains higher-dimensional operators and violates Lorentz symmetry explicitly at energies greater than some scale $\Lambda_{L}$. In particular, we consider the Cherenkov radiation in vacuo. In a rather general class of dispersion relations, there exists an energy threshold above which radiation is emitted. The threshold is enhanced in composite particles by a sort of kinematic screening mechanism. We study the energy loss and compare the predictions of our model with known experimental bounds on Lorentz violating parameters and observations of ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays. We argue that the scale of Lorentz violation $\Lambda_{L}$ (with preserved CPT invariance) can be smaller than the Planck scale, actually as small as $10^{14}$-$10^{15}$ GeV. Our model also predicts the Cherenkov radiation of neutral particles.
Phys. Rev. D 83 (2011) 056010 | DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.83.056010
We consider renormalizable Standard-Model extensions that violate Lorentz symmetry at high energies, but preserve CPT, and do not contain elementary scalar fields. A Nambu–Jona-Lasinio mechanism gives masses to fermions and gauge bosons, and generates composite Higgs fields at low energies. We study the effective potential at the leading order of the large-$N_{c}$ expansion, prove that there exists a broken phase and study the phase space. In general, the minimum may break invariance under boosts, rotations and CPT, but we give evidence that there exists a Lorentz invariant phase. We study the spectrum of composite bosons and the low-energy theory in the Lorentz phase. Our approach predicts relations among the parameters of the low-energy theory. We find that such relations are compatible with the experimental data, within theoretical errors. We also study the mixing among generations, the emergence of the CKM matrix and neutrino oscillations.
Phys. Rev. D83 (2011) 056005 | DOI: 10.1103/PhysRevD.83.056005