Neutrino decay and neutrinoless double beta decay in a 3-3-1 model
In this work we show that the implementation of spontaneous breaking of the lepton number in the 3-3-1 model with right-handed neutrinos gives rise to fast neutrino decay with Majoron emission and generates a bunch of new contributions to the neutrinoless double beta decay.

title: Singlet Majorana fermion dark matter, DAMA, CoGeNT, and CDMS-II
abstract: We propose a model where a sterile Majorana fermion with mass in the range of 10 GeV-1 TeV can account for the whole amount of dark matter in the Universe. The model involves a right-handed singlet Majorana fermion as a weakly interacting massive particle, a charged and a neutral scalar, and all singlets by the standard model symmetry and makes use of a discrete symmetry in order to guarantee the singlet fermion stability. Also, motivated by the recent results reported by CoGeNT and CDMS-II experiments concerning excess events of the expected background, and the intriguing annual modulation observed by DAMA, we look for a possible explanation to some of these experiments. Our results show that there is a lot of room in the parameter space to make this sterile Majorana fermion a viable dark matter candidate, and, if it is realized in nature, it is also capable of explaining DAMA annual modulation signal and/or CoGeNT excess events or CDMS-II excess event candidates. Besides, a light Higgs boson is preferred in this scenario.

title: Fixed points and vacuum energy of dynamically broken gauge theories
abstract: We show that if a gauge theory with dynamical symmetry breaking has nontrivial fixed points, they will correspond to extrema of the vacuum energy. This relationship provides a different method to determine fixed points.

title: Bounds on the simplest little Higgs model mass spectrum through Z leptonic decay
abstract: We derive the leptonic neutral current in the simplest little Higgs model and compute the contribution of the model to the decay width $Z\ensuremath{\rightarrow}{e}^{+}{e}^{\ensuremath{-}}$. Using the precision electroweak data we obtain a strong lower bound $f\ensuremath{\ge}5.6\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{TeV}$ at 95% C.L. on the characteristic energy scale of the model. It results in a lower bound for the new gauge bosons ${W}^{\ensuremath{'}\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}}$ and ${Z}^{\ensuremath{'}}$ as being ${M}_{{W}^{\ensuremath{'}\ifmmode\pm\else\textpm\fi{}}}\ensuremath{\ge}2.6\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{TeV}$ and ${M}_{{Z}^{\ensuremath{'}}}\ensuremath{\ge}3.1\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{TeV}$, respectively. We also present the allowed values of the $k={f}_{1}/{f}_{2}$ which is the parameter relating the two vacuum expectation values of the scalar triplets in the model, and the $\ensuremath{\mu}$ parameter of a quadratic term, involving the triplets, necessary to provide an acceptable mass range for the standard Higgs boson.

title: Infrared Finite Gluon Propagator and the Structure of Chiral Symmetry Breaking
abstract: We study the chiral symmetry breaking in QeD, using an effective potential for composite operators, with infrared finite gluon propagators that have been found by numerical calculation of the Schwinger· Dyson equations as well. as in lattice simulations. The existence of a gluon propagator that is finite at k 2 =O modifies substantially the transition between the phases with and without chiral symmetry.

title: Scalar Bilepton Dark Matter
abstract: In this work we show that 3-3-1 model with right-handed neutrinos has a natural weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) dark matter candidate. It is a complex scalar with mass of order of some hundreds of GeV which carries two units of lepton number, a scalar bilepton. This makes it a very peculiar WIMP, very distinct from supersymmetric or extra-dimension candidates. Besides, although we have to make some reasonable assumptions concerning the several parameters in the model, no fine tuning is required in order to get the correct dark matter abundance. We also analyze the prospects for WIMP direct detection by considering recent and projected sensitivities for WIMP–nucleon elastic cross section from CDMS and XENON collaborations.

title: Generalized Chaplygin gas model, supernovae, and cosmic topology
abstract: In this work we study to which extent the knowledge of spatial topology may place constraints on the parameters of the generalized Chaplygin gas (GCG) model for unification of dark energy and dark matter. By using both the Poincar\'e dodecahedral and binary octahedral spaces as the observable spatial topologies, we examine the current type Ia supernovae (SNe Ia) constraints on the GCG model parameters. We show that the knowledge of spatial topology does provide additional constraints on the ${A}_{s}$ parameter of the GCG model but does not lift the degeneracy of the $\ensuremath{\alpha}$ parameter.

title: Gribov copies, lattice QCD and the gluon propagator
abstract: We address the problem of Gribov copies in lattice QCD. The gluon propagator is computed, in the Landau gauge, using 302 (� = 5.8) 12 4 configurations gauge fixed to different copies. The results of the simulation shows that: i) the effect of Gribov copies is small (less than 10%); ii) Gribov copies change essentially the lowest momenta components (q < 2.6 GeV); iii) within the statistical accuracy of our simulation, the effect of Gribov copies is resolved if statistical errors are multiplied by a factor of two or three. Moreover, when modelling the gluon propagator, different sets of Gribov copies produce different sets of parameters not, necessarily, compatible within one standard deviation. Finally, our data supports a gluon propagator which, for large momenta, behaves like a massive gluon propagator with a mass of 1.1 GeV.

title: Latest results and prospects of the CERN Axion Solar Telescope
abstract: The CERN Axion Solar Telescope (CAST) experiment searches for axions from the Sun converted into few keV photons via the inverse Primakoff effect in the high magnetic field of a superconducting Large Hadron Collider (LHC) decommissioned test magnet. After results obtained with vacuum in the magnet pipes (phase I of the experiment) as well as with 4He the collaboration is now immersed in the data taking with 3He, to be finished in 2011. The status of the experiment will be presented, including a preliminary exclusion plot of the first 3He data. CAST is currently sensitive to realistic QCD axion models at the sub-eV scale, and with axion-photon couplings down to the ~ 2 × 10−10 GeV−1, compatible with solar life limits. Future plans include revisiting vaccuum and 4He configurations with improved sensitivity, as well as possible additional search for non-standard signals from chamaleons, paraphotons or other WISPs. For the longer term, we study the feasibility of an altogether improved version of the axion helioscope concept, with a jump in sensitivity of about one order of magnitude in gaγ beyond CAST.

title: Search for baryon number violation in top-quark decays
abstract: A search for baryon number violation (BNV) in top-quark decays is performed using pp collisions produced by the LHC at sqrt(s) = 8 TeV. The top-quark decay considered in this search results in one light lepton (muon or electron), two jets, but no neutrino in the final state. Data used for the analysis were collected by the CMS detector and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.5 inverse femtobarns. The event selection is optimized for top quarks produced in pairs, with one undergoing the BNV decay and the other the standard model hadronic decay to three jets. No significant excess of events over the expected yield from standard model processes is observed. The upper limits at 95% confidence level on the branching fraction of the BNV top-quark decay are calculated to be 0.0016 and 0.0017 for the muon and the electron channels, respectively. Assuming lepton universality, an upper limit of 0.0015 results from the combination of the two channels. These limits are the first that have been obtained on a BNV process involving the top quark.

title: Infrared exponents of gluon and ghost propagators from Lattice QCD
abstract: The compatibility of the pure power law infrared solution of QCD Dyson-Schwinger equations (DSE) and lattice data for the gluon and ghost propagators in Landau gauge is discussed. For the gluon propagator, the lattice data is compatible with the DSE infrared solution with an exponent $\kappa\sim0.53$, measured using a technique that suppresses finite volume effects and allows to model these corrections to the lattice data. For the ghost propagator, the lattice data does not seem to follow the infrared DSE power law solution.