Neutral Currents Beyond The Standard Model

Abstract

The electroweak standard model (Salam-Weinberg) is well-known to be a satisfactory and consistent theoretical description of all the experimental data we have obtained so far. In this thesis, we discuss possible phenomenology which goes beyond the standard model, with particular emphasis on the neutral current effects. First of all, the left-right symmetric extension of the standard model is discussed and we find limits on its parameters. We show that this model cannot explain certain newly reported and highly speculative events at the CERN collider [3], which in principle could be caused by the decay into two W's of a new heavy Z. We then discuss composite models where there is a strong expectation that there should be two neutral Z's of similar mass. We study the effects of these on neutral current phenomenology and show that in general the extra Z would be very hard to detect. A comparison of our model with a particular superstring model [6] is also made.