In this thesis we use effective field theories of the strong interactions to improve our understanding of several quantities in the Standard Model of particle physics (SM). We also examine constraints on an extension of the SM scalar sector and study the implications for the Higgs mass.
We first examine an approach to extracting the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix element |Vub| via the relationship between the B meson decays B -> Xu l nu and B -> Xs gamma, where Xi is any final state hadron containing a quark of flavour i. Model dependence is reduced in this approach since the non-perturbative shape function at leading order is universal and drops out; however the perturbative expansion at next-to-leading order is found to be poorly behaved. We carry out a renormalon analysis of the relationship between these spectra to examine higher order perturbative corrections and compare the fixed-order and log expansions. Our analysis can be used to estimate the perturbative uncertainty in the extraction of |Vub|, which we show to be relatively small.
Next we take a step towards the broader goal of summing large phase space logarithms from a variety of jet algorithms using Soft Collinear Effective Theory (SCET). We develop a consistent approach to implementing arbitrary phase space constraints in SCET and demonstrate the connection between cutoffs in SCET and phase space limits. By considering several jet algorithms at next-to-leading order, we gain some insight into factorization of final state jets. In particular, we point out the connection between the ultraviolet regulator and factorization.
Finally we consider a scalar sector that contains a colour-octet electroweak-doublet scalar, in addition to the SM Higgs. This extension contains the only scalar representations that Yukawa-couple to quarks and are consistent with minimal flavour violation. We examine constraints from electroweak precision data, direct production from LEPII and the Tevatron, and from flavour physics. We find both the Higgs and new scalars can be simultaneously light, with masses of O(100 GeV). The data also allows all the scalars to be heavy, with masses of O(1 TeV). The presence of the additional scalars removes the preference for a light Higgs, which normally emerges from fits to electroweak precision data.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:TORONTO/oai:tspace.library.utoronto.ca:1807/26343 |
| Date | 23 February 2011 |
| Creators | Zuberi, Saba |
| Contributors | Luke, Michael E. |
| Source Sets | University of Toronto |
| Language | en_ca |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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