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This paper presents a methodological approach based on the use of complex networks to analyze the structure and content of curricula. We analyze the concept network built from the final year of a particular high school Physics curriculum, as well as that of Mathematics. We examine the most central nodes in each case, the community structures (coherent units or groupings), and the changes that occurred when the network was considered in isolation or integrated with Mathematics. The results show that the integrated Physics and Mathematics network has a higher average degree compared to the individual networks, driven by numerous interdisciplinary connections. The modularity analysis indicates similarities with the original curriculum layout, but also interesting differences that may suggest alternative ways of organizing the content. The differences between separated and integrated networks also highlights the prominence of certain key concepts., Comment: 11 pages, 5 figures, 3 tables

Models of social diffusion reflect processes of how new products, ideas or behaviors are adopted in a population. These models typically lead to a continuous or a discontinuous phase transition of the number of adopters as a function of a control parameter. We explore a simple model of social adoption where the agents can be in two states, either adopters or non-adopters, and can switch between these two states interacting with other agents through a network. The probability of an agent to switch from non-adopter to adopter depends on the number of adopters in her network neighborhood, the adoption threshold $T$ and the adoption coefficient $a$, two parameters defining a Hill function. In contrast, the transition from adopter to non-adopter is spontaneous at a certain rate $\mu$. In a mean-field approach, we derive the governing ordinary differential equations and show that the nature of the transition between the global non-adoption and global adoption regimes depends mostly on the balance between the probability to adopt with one and two adopters. The transition changes from continuous, via a transcritical bifurcation, to discontinuous, via a combination of a saddle-node and a transcritical bifurcation, through a supercritical pitchfork bifurcation. We characterize the full parameter space. Finally, we compare our analytical results with Montecarlo simulations on annealed and quenched degree regular networks, showing a better agreement for the annealed case. Our results show how a simple model is able to capture two seemingly very different types of transitions, i.e., continuous and discontinuous and thus unifies underlying dynamics for different systems. Furthermore the form of the adoption probability used here is based on empirical measurements., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures

String theory constructions using D-brane physics offer a framework where ingredients like extra abelian factors in the gauge group, more than one Higgs doublet and a generalized Green-Schwarz mechanism appear at the same time. Motivated by works towards the direction of obtaining the Standard Model in orientifold constructions, we study in the present work a Stueckelberg extension of the two-Higgs-doublet model. The distinctive features of our model are i) a sharp decay width for the heavy gauge boson, and ii) a charged Higgs boson having two main decay channels at tree level with equal branching ratios., Comment: 17 pages, 9 figures

In the two-Higgs-doublet model the alignment of the Yukawa matrices in flavour space guarantees the absence of flavour-changing neutral currents at tree level, while introducing new sources for CP violation parametrized in a very economical way. This implies potentially large influence in a number of processes, b -> s gamma being a prominent example where rather high experimental and theoretical precision meet. We analyze the CP rate asymmetry in this inclusive decay and determine the resulting constraints on the model parameters. We demonstrate the compatibility with previously obtained limits. Moreover we extend the phenomenological analysis of the branching ratio, and examine the influence of resulting correlations on the like-sign dimuon charge asymmetry in B decays., Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures. Submitted to Phys.Rev.D

The Aligned Two-Higgs-Doublet Model (A2HDM) describes a particular way of enlarging the scalar sector of the Standard Model, with a second Higgs doublet which is aligned to first the one in flavour space. This implies the absence of flavour-changing neutral currents at tree level and the presence of three complex parameters. Within this general approach, we analyze the charged Higgs phenomenology, including CP asymmetries in the K and B systems., Comment: 6 pages, 5 figures. Talk given at QCD10 International Conference (Montpellier, France, 28 June - 3 July, 2010) and at PASCOS 2010 International Symposium on particles, strings and cosmology (Val\`encia, Spain, 19 - 23 July, 2010)

The alignment in flavour space of the Yukawa matrices of a general two-Higgs-doublet model results in the absence of tree-level flavour-changing neutral currents. In addition to the usual fermion masses and mixings, the aligned Yukawa structure only contains three complex parameters, which are potential new sources of CP violation. For particular values of these three parameters all known specific implementations of the model based on discrete Z_2 symmetries are recovered. One of the most distinctive features of the two-Higgs-doublet model is the presence of a charged scalar. In this work, we discuss its main phenomenological consequences in flavour-changing processes at low energies and derive the corresponding constraints on the parameters of the aligned two-Higgs-doublet model., Comment: 46 pages, 19 figures. Version accepted for publication in JHEP. References added. Discussion slightly extended. Conclusions unchanged

In the two-Higgs-Doublet model the alignment of the Yukawa flavour matrices of the two scalar doublets guarantees the absence of tree-level flavour-changing neutral couplings. The resulting fermion-scalar interactions are parameterized in terms of three complex parameters, leading to a generic Yukawa structure which contains as particular cases all known specific implementations of the model based on Z2 symmetries. These three complex parameters are potential new sources of CP violation., Comment: 7 pages

In multi-Higgs-doublet models the alignment in flavour space of the relevant Yukawa matrices guarantees the absence of tree-level flavour-changing couplings of the neutral scalar fields. We analyze the consequences of this condition within the two-Higgs-doublet model and show that it leads to a generic Yukawa structure which contains as particular cases all known specific implementations of the model based on Z_2 symmetries. All possible freedom in the Yukawa sector gets parametrized in terms of three complex couplings. In spite of having flavour conservation in the neutral scalar couplings, the phases of these three parameters represent potential new sources of CP violation.

We assess the model discriminating power of a combined phenomenological analysis of mu -> e gamma and mu -> e conversion on different target nuclei, including the current hadronic uncertainties. We find that the theoretical uncertainties can be largely reduced by using input from lattice QCD and do not constitute a limiting factor in discriminating models where one or at most two underlying operators (dipole, scalar, vector) provide the dominant source of lepton flavor violation. Our results show that a realistic discrimination among underlying mechanisms requires a measurement of the ratio of conversion rates at the 5% level (two light nuclei) or at the 20% level (one light and one heavy nucleus). We have illustrated these main conclusions also in the context of a supersymmetric model., Comment: 23 pages, 12 figures, 1 table