Electroweak and Flavor Physics in Extensions of the Standard Model with Large Extra Dimensions

TL;DR

This paper investigates how large extra dimensions affect electroweak and flavor physics, deriving bounds on the size of extra dimensions and exploring scenarios with different fermion localizations and supersymmetry.

Contribution

It provides comprehensive bounds on the size of extra dimensions from electroweak data and analyzes flavor violation constraints in models with fermions at different points.

Findings

Lower bounds on 1/R are 2-5 TeV from electroweak fits.

Some models improve the fit to the weak charge Q_W.

Flavor-violating interactions impose bounds up to 5000 TeV.

Abstract

We study the implications of extra dimensions of size $R\sim 1/TeV$ on electroweak and flavor physics due to the presence of Kaluza-Klein excitations of the SM gauge-bosons. We consider several scenarios with the SM fermions either living in the bulk or being localized at different points of an extra dimension. Global fits to electroweak observables provide lower bounds on 1/R, which are generically in the 2-5 TeV range. We find, however, certain models where the fit to electroweak observables is better than in the SM, because of an improvement in the prediction to the weak charge Q_W. We also consider the case of softly-broken supersymmetric theories and we find new non-decoupling effects that put new constraints on 1/R. If quarks of different families live in different points of the extra dimension, we find that the Kaluza-Klein modes of the SM gluons generate (at tree level) dangerous flavor and CP-violating interactions. The lower bounds on 1/R can increase in this case up to 5000 TeV, disfavoring these scenarios in the context of TeV-strings.