Can the Higgs Impostor Hide Near the Conformal Window
We present a minimal candidate model for the composite Higgs mechanism with a fermion doublet in the two-index symmetric (sextet) representation of the SU(3) color gauge group. The model is known to be close to the conformal window with a small β-function. Chiral symmetry breaking with vacuum condensate becomes the origin of electroweak symmetry breaking from compositeness. Close to the conformal window, a light scalar state with Higgs quantum numbers is emerging. Associations with the recently observed 126 GeV Higgs boson, or with a dilaton state from broken scale invariance, are subjects of ongoing investigations.

title: Pion-pion scattering phase shifts with the stochastic LapH method
abstract: Progress in calculating scattering phase shifts on $N_f=2+1$ anisotropic clover Wilson lattices is described. The stochastic LapH method facilitates computations in large volumes and for light pion masses. Results for pion masses down to 240 MeV, keeping $m_\pi L > 4$, are presented.

title: The ﬁnite volume spectrum of excited states from lattice QCD simulations
abstract: We present results for the spectrum of excited mesons obtained from temporal correlations of spatially-extended single-hadron and multi-hadron operators computed in lattice QCD. The stochastic LapH algorithm is implemented on anisotropic, dynamical lattices for isovectors for pions of mass 390 MeV. A large correlation matrix with single-particle and two-particle probe operators is diagonalized to identify resonances. The masses of excited states in the I = 1,S = 0,T 1u channel as well as the mixing of single and multi-particle probe operators are presented.

title: Can the nearly conformal sextet gauge model hide the Higgs impostor
abstract: New results are reported from large scale lattice simulations of a frequently discussed strongly interacting gauge theory with a fermion flavor doublet in the two-index symmetric (sextet) representation of the SU(3) color gauge group. We find that the chiral condensate and the mass spectrum of the sextet model are consistent with chiral symmetry breaking in the limit of vanishing fermion mass. In contrast, sextet fermion mass deformations of spectral properties are not consistent with leading conformal scaling behavior near the critical surface of a conformal theory. A recent paper could not resolve the conformal fixed point of the gauge coupling from the slowly walking scenario of a very small nearly vanishing β -function (DeGrand et al.  ). It is argued that overall consistency with our new results is resolved if the sextet model is close to the conformal window, staying outside with a very small non-vanishing β -function. The model would exhibit then the simplest composite Higgs mechanism leaving open the possibility of a light scalar state with quantum numbers of the Higgs impostor. It would emerge as the pseudo-Goldstone dilaton state from spontaneous symmetry breaking of scale invariance. We will argue that even without association with the dilaton, the scalar Higgs-like state can be light very close to the conformal window. A new Higgs project of sextet lattice simulations is outlined to resolve these important questions.

title: Baryon spectrum in the composite sextet model
abstract: The strongly coupled near-conformal gauge theory with two fermion flavors in the two-index symmetric (sextet) representation of SU(3) is potentially a minimal realization of the composite Higgs mechanism. We discuss the staggered fermion construction of baryonic states, present our first numerical results and comment on implications for dark matter.

title: Twelve fundamental and two sextet fermion flavors
abstract: We report extended simulation results and their new analysis in two important gauge theories with twelve fermion flavors in the fundamental SU(3) color representation and two fermions in the sextet representation. We probe the $N_f=12$ model with respect to the conformal window using mass deformed finite size scaling (FSS) theory driven by the fermion mass anomalous dimension. Our results at fixed gauge coupling show problems with the conformal scenario of the $N_f=12$ model. In the sextet model with two flavors, under the conformal hypothesis, we determine large values for the anomalous fermion mass dimension with $\gamma\geq 1$. Since our sextet analysis favors the chiral symmetry breaking hypothesis without conformality, the large exponent $\gamma$ could play an important role in understanding the composite Higgs mechanism. The new results discussed here include our extended data sets and exceed what was presented at the conference.

title: Signals in Single-Event Pion Interferometry for Granular Sources of Quark-Gluon Plasma Droplets
abstract: We investigate two-pion Bose-Einstein correlations of quark-gluon plasma droplet sources in single-event measurements. We find that the distribution of the fluctuation between correlation functions of the single and mixed events provides useful signals to detect the granular structure of the source.

title: Foundation of Hydrodynamics for Systems with Strong Interactions
abstract: For a dense and strongly interacting system, such as a nucleus or a strongly-coupled quark-gluon plasma, the foundation of hydrodynamics can be better found in the quantum description of constituents moving in the strong mean fields generated by all other particles. Using the result that the Schroedinger equation and the Klein-Gordon equation can be written in hydrodynamical forms, we find that the probability currents of the many-body system in the mean-field description obey a hydrodynamical equation with stress tensors arising from many contributions: quantum effects, mean-field interactions, and thermal fluctuations. The influence of various contributions to the hydrodynamical motion is expected to vary with the temperature, as the quantum and mean-field stress tensors playing more important roles at low and moderate temperatures.

title: Heavy quarkonia and quark drip lines in quark–gluon plasma
abstract: Using the potential model and thermodynamical quantities obtained in lattice gauge calculations, we determine the spontaneous dissociation temperatures of colour-singlet quarkonia and the 'quark drip lines' which separate the region of bound quarkonium states from the unbound region. The dissociation temperatures of J/ψ and Χ b in quenched QCD are found to be 1.62T c and 1.18T c respectively, in good agreement with spectral function analyses. The dissociation temperature of J/ψ in full QCD with two flavours is found to be 1.42T c . For possible bound quarkonium states with light quarks, the characteristics of the quark drip lines severely limit the stable region close to the phase transition temperature. Bound colour-singlet quarkonia with light quarks may exist very near the phase transition temperature if their effective quark mass is of the order of 300-400 MeV.

title: The Momentum Kick Model Description of the Near-Side Ridge and Jet Quenching
abstract: In central high-energy heavy-ion collisions, jets are produced in nucleon-nucleon collisions and they interact with the dense medium produced in the interacting region. Depending on the relative azimuthal angle relative to the trigger particle, observed high-pt jets can be classified as near-side jets or away-side jets. An away-side jet is associated with a broad cone of particles pointing azimuthally opposite to the trigger particle direction. The strong attenuation of the away-side jet in its passage through the produced dense matter is one of the many notable experimental observations in relativistic heavy-ion collisions and is a signature for the production of the strongly-coupled quark-gluon plasma [1, 2, 3, 4]. On the other hand, a near-side jet is characterized by the presence of associated particles within a narrow azimuthal angle along the trigger particle direction. It retains many of the characteristics of the associated fragmentation products as those of a jet in pp and peripheral heavy-ion collisions. The near-side jet occurs when the high-pt jet emerges near the surface of the produced parton medium.

title: Molecular states of heavy quark mesons
abstract: We explore molecular states of two open heavy-quark mesons (Q qbar)-(qbar Q) in a quark-based model in terms of a four-body non-relativistic Hamiltonian with pairwise effective interactions. Molecular states are found in the combinations of {D, D*, B, B*} with {Dbar, Dbar*, Bbar, Bbar*}, including a weakly-bound D-Dbar* state near the threshold which may be qualitatively identified as the 3872 state observed recently by the Belle Collaboration.