Upper bounds on the CP asymmetry relevant for leptogenesis are reexamined and found weaker than in previous literature, both for hierarchical and for quasi-degenerate right-handed neutrinos. Successful leptogenesis implies the usual lower bound on right-handed neutrino masses, and an upper bound on left-handed neutrino masses (which we obtain to be 0.15 eV at 3sigma) only if right-handed neutrinos are assumed to be much more hierarchical than left-handed neutrinos. Other-wise both bounds can be considerably relaxed. The constraint on light neutrino masses varies assuming different interpretations of why neutrinos should be quasi-degenerate. With conservative assumptions, we find that a mild quasi-degeneracy allows neutrinos heavier than an eV compatibly with leptogenesis. We also extend computations of thermal leptogenesis to an alternative model of neutrino mass mediated by fermion triplets which was never considered so far for leptogenesis. Leptogenesis can be successful despite the effect of gauge interactions, resulting in only slightly stronger constraints on neutrino masses. (C) 2004 Published by Elsevier B.V

There has recently been a dramatic renewal of interest in hadron spectroscopy and charm physics. This renaissance has been driven in part by the discovery of a plethora of charmonium-like XYZ states at BESIII and B factories, and the observation of an intriguing proton-antiproton threshold enhancement and the possibly related X(1835) meson state at BESIII, as well as the threshold measurements of charm mesons and charm baryons. We present a detailed survey of the important topics in tau-charm physics and hadron physics that can be further explored at BESIII during the remaining operation period of BEPCII. This survey will help in the optimization of the data-taking plan over the coming years, and provides physics motivation for the possible upgrade of BEPCII to higher luminosity.

We show that the A 4 discrete symmetry that naturally leads to tri-bimaximal neutrino mixing can be simply obtained as a result of an orbifolding starting from a model in 6 dimensions. This particular orbifolding has four fixed points where 4 dimensional branes are located and the tetrahedral symmetry of A 4 connects these branes. In this approach A 4 appears after the reduction from six to four dimensions as a remnant of the 6D space-time symmetry. A previously discussed supersymmetric version of A 4 is reinterpreted along these lines.

No abstract