Cascade Decay Research Articles

Search for new phenomena in multi-body invariant masses in events with at least one isolated lepton and two jets using sqrt{s} = 13 TeV proton–proton collision data collected by the ATLAS detector

A search for resonances in events with at least one isolated lepton (e or μ) and two jets is performed using 139 fb−1 of sqrt{s} = 13 TeV proton–proton collision data recorded by the ATLAS detector at the LHC. Deviations from a smoothly falling background hypothesis are tested in three- and four-body invariant mass distributions constructed from leptons and jets, including jets identified as originating from bottom quarks. Model-independent limits on generic resonances characterised by cascade decays of particles leading to multiple jets and leptons in the final state are presented. The limits are calculated using Gaussian shapes with different widths for the invariant masses. The multi-body invariant masses are also used to set 95% confidence level upper limits on the cross-section times branching ratios for the production and subsequent decay of resonances predicted by several new physics scenarios.

Search for Light Dark Matter from the Atmosphere in PandaX-4T.

We report a search for light dark matter produced through the cascading decay of η mesons, which are created as a result of inelastic collisions between cosmic rays and Earth's atmosphere. We introduce a new and general framework, publicly accessible, designed to address boosted dark matter specifically, with which a full and dedicated simulation including both elastic and quasielastic processes of Earth attenuation effect on the dark matter particles arriving at the detector is performed. In the PandaX-4T commissioning data of 0.63 tonne·year exposure, no significant excess over background is observed. The first constraints on the interaction between light dark matter generated in the atmosphere and nucleus through a light scalar mediator are obtained. The lowest excluded cross section is set at 5.9×10^{-37} cm^{2} for a dark matter mass of 0.1 MeV/c^{2} and mediator mass of 300 MeV/c^{2}. The lowest upper limit of η to the dark matter decay branching ratio is 1.6×10^{-7}.

Energy reemission and possible radiosensitizing effect caused by the cascade decay of single vacancies in the K, L, M, and N shells of atomic silver

Cascade decays of single vacancies in the K, L, M, and N shells of the silver atom are studied using the method of straightforward construction and analysis of the cascade de-excitation trees with inclusion of additional shake-off ejections of outer-shell electrons caused by the change of atomic core potential due to cascade transitions. The spectra of the cascade-produced electrons and photons emitted upon the decay of single vacancies in 1s1/2 to 4p3/2 subshells are calculated. For each initial vacancy, the energies absorbed by the silver atom itself, and those carried away by cascade electrons and photons, are calculated. Absorption of energy by the silver atom itself is only significant upon N- and M-shell ionization (49–66% and 18–36%, respectively), i.e. in the UV to soft X-ray range. After L- to N-ionization, most of the acquired energy is reemitted with cascade electrons, respective portions making 81–85% during L-ionization, 62–82% during M-ionization, and 34–51% during N-ionization. Reemission of energy with cascade photons is dominant after K-ionization (76%). When silver atoms are used as radiosensitizing agents in radiotherapy, cascade electrons play the principal role in the energy transfer to organism tissues. Due to small free paths in the organic medium, they give their energy to the environment in rather small volumes inside a particular cell where they are placed. As for the photons emitted after K-ionization, they transfer energy to the medium in much larger volumes, and with much smaller absorbed doses.

Identical Particle and Lepton Mass Effects in the Decay $$H\rightarrow Z^*(\rightarrow \tau ^+\tau ^-)+Z^*(\rightarrow \tau ^+\tau ^-)$$

We consider identical particle and lepton mass effects in the cascade decay $H\to Z^\ast(\to\tau^+\tau^-)+Z^\ast(\to\tau^+\tau^-)$. Since the scale of the problem is set by the off-shellness $p_a^2$ and $p_b^2$ of the respective gauge bosons in the limits ($4m_\tau^2\le p_a^2,p_b^2\le (m_H-2m_\tau)^2$) and not by $m_H^2$, lepton mass effects are nonnegligible in particular close to the threshold of the off-shell decays. We calculate the rates and single angle decay distributions and compare them with the corresponding rates and single angle decay distributions for the nonidentical particle decays $H\to Z^\ast(\to e^+e^-)+Z^\ast(\to\mu^+\mu^-)$ involving negligible lepton masses.

Charged Higgs prospects in extended gauge models

In this paper, we explore the collider phenomenology of charged Higgs bosons in the context of a generic Beyond Standard Model scenario with extended gauge and scalar sectors. In such scenarios, the charged Higgs boson can decay via the W^{'}Z/ WZ^{'} channels. We formulate a search strategy for the H^{pm } in the channel sigma (g b rightarrow H^{pm }t){mathcal{B}mathcal{R}}(H^{pm } rightarrow W' Z) considering the interesting cascade decay chain H^{pm } rightarrow W^{'} Z rightarrow W^{pm } Z Z. We find that the charged Higgs can be discovered in final states with multiple hard leptons and/or b-quarks which future LHC experiments with sufficiently large luminosity ({mathcal {L}} = 1000~text {fb}^{-1} and above) can probe. We then study the phenomenological implications of our findings in the context of a generic toy model with a H^{pm } as well as in a more realistic electroweak symmetry breaking scenario.

Testing the scalar triplet solution to CDF’s heavy W problem at the LHC

The Type II Seesaw model remains a popular and viable explanation of neutrino masses and mixing angles. By hypothesizing the existence of a scalar that is a triplet under the weak gauge interaction, the model predicts strong correlations among neutrino oscillation parameters, signals at lepton flavor experiments, and collider observables at high energies. We investigate reports that the Type II Seesaw can naturally accommodate recent measurements by the CDF collaboration, which finds the mass of the $W$ boson to be significantly larger than allowed by electroweak precision data, while simultaneously evading constraints from direct searches. Experimental scrutiny of this parameter space in the Type II Seesaw has long been evaded since it is not characterized by ``golden channels'' at colliders but instead by cascade decays, moderate mass splittings, and many soft final states. In this work, we test this parameter space against publicly released measurements made at the Large Hadron Collider. By employing a newly developed tool chain combining MadGraph5\_aMC@NLO and Contur, we find that most of the favored space for this discrepancy is already excluded by measurements of Standard Model final states. We give suggestions for further exploration at Run III of the LHC, which is now underway.

Cascade energy reemission after inner-shell ionization of atomic gold. Role of photo- and cascade-produced electrons in radiosensitization using gold-containing agents

A method of straightforward construction and analysis of the cascade decay trees is applied to calculate photon and electron spectra emitted upon the cascade de-excitation of single inner-shell vacancies in the gold atom produced by photoionization. The energy acquired by the gold atom upon photoionization is split into the following channels: i) energy absorbed by the gold atom itself, ii) energy carried away by the cascade electrons, and iii) energy carried away by the cascade photons. The energies absorbed through channels i–iii are analyzed for the cascade decay of each single vacancy in O to K shells, and presented as functions of incident photon energies based on calculated partial photoionization cross sections. Energy reemitted through channels ii and iii in the cases of O-, N-, M-, L-, and K-ionization make, respectively, 47–60%, 55–69%, 85–89%, 94–96%, and 99% of the initially acquired energy. Cascade-produced electrons and photons eventually transfer their energy to the medium which lays the base for using gold-containing compounds and gold nanoparticles as radiosensitizing agents in radiotherapy. Cascade-produced electrons, as well as photoelectrons, are found to be the principal transmitters of energy to atoms of the environment in the vicinity of the sites of initial ionization. Their relative role in possible radiosensitizing effect is analyzed on the incident photon energy range of 0.01–1000 keV.

Final ion charge spectra upon cascade decay of inner-shell vacancies in atomic Au

Final ion charge spectra produced by the cascade de-excitations of 1s- to 5p 3/2-vacancies of the gold atom are calculated by direct construction and analysis of the cascade decay trees. The energies of multivacancy configurations arising in the course of the cascade development, and the partial widths of radiation and radiationless cascade transitions are calculated using the Pauli–Fock approximation. The energies of the cascade transitions are calculated as the differences of total Pauli–Fock energies of initial and final ionic configurations which allowed excluding energy-forbidden radiationless transitions in numerous multivacancy configurations. Partial widths of transitions are expressed in the form that allowed accounting for the effect of electron subshell populations on the transition widths. The partial widths of the transitions between the states of the overlapping initial and final state multiplets are corrected so as to exclude energy-forbidden transitions between the multiplet states. It is demonstrated that accurate accounting for possible forbiddance of transitions between cascade configurations and the exclusion of energy-forbidden term-to-term transitions between the multiplets’ states are crucial in deep-initial-vacancy cascade simulations.

Влияние дополнительных монопольных выбросов электронов на зарядовые спектры конечных ионов при каскадном распаде электронных вакансий в атоме золота

The probabilities of the formation of final ions produced by the cascade decays of vacancies in the K, L, M, N, and O shells of the gold atom are calculated. Simulation of the cascade decays of vacancies is performed by direct construction and analysis of decay trees using branching ratios and transition energies calculated in the Pauli–Fock approximation for multivacancy electron configurations arising in the course of the cascade decay. Accounting for additional monopole ejections of electrons (shake-off) accompanying the cascade transitions leads to a slight increase in the average charges of the final ions, by 0.15–0.23e. The largest relative increase in the calculated average charges of the final ions (by 3.6–3.9%) is observed upon the cascade decay of vacancies in 4p3/2, 4d3/2, and 4d5/2 subshells, and the smallest (by 0.8%) occurs in the decay of 4f-vacancy. Despite insignificant changes in the average ion charges, the structure of the charge spectra in some cases changes noticeably enough when additional electron ejections are taken into account. It is expected that in simulation of the cascade energy reemission processes when heavy atoms are used as radiosensitizers, the effect of accounting for shake-off processes will be insignificant.

Photon Polarization Correlations in a Cascade Decay

Photon Polarization Correlations in a Cascade Decay

Discrete symmetry tests using hyperon-antihyperon pairs

The BESIII experiment has accumulated millions of spin entangled hyperon–antihyperon pairs from the decays of the J/ψ and ψ(2S ) mesons produced in electron–positron collisions. Using multi-dimensional methods to analyze the angular distributions in the sequential decays the hyperon and antihyperon decay amplitudes are studied and tests of the combined charge-conjugation–parity (CP) symmetry are performed. Implications of the recent results using J/ψ decays into Λ$ \bar \Lambda $ and Ξ−$ \bar {\Xi}^{+} $ are presented. For the cascade decay chain, the exclusive measurement allows for three independent CP tests and the first direct determination of the weak phases.

Radiative Recombination Studies for Bare Lead Ions Interacting with Low-Energy Electrons

X-ray emission as a result of radiative recombination (RR) at threshold energies in the electron cooler of CRYRING@ESR was investigated for decelerated bare lead ions at a beam energy of 10 MeV/u. The recorded spectra are dominated by characteristic transitions in Pb81+, namely, the Lyman, Balmer and Paschen series, as a result of decay cascades from high-n states that are preferentially populated by the RR processes. In addition, a rigorous theoretical model is applied for the interpretation of measured X-ray spectra, and shows good agreement.

Leptonic cascade decays of a heavy Higgs boson through vectorlike leptons at the LHC

We demonstrate the potential of fully leptonic cascade decays of a heavy neutral Higgs boson through vectorlike leptons as a simultaneous probe for extended Higgs sectors and extra matter particles at the LHC. The processes we explore are unique in that their event topologies lead to di-boson-like leptonic final states with a lepton pair which does not reconstruct the mass of a gauge boson. By recasting existing 2ell +{E}_R^{textrm{miss}} and 3/4ℓ searches channels using run2 data from the LHC we obtain model independent bounds on the masses of heavy scalars and vectorlike leptons and use these results to explore future prospects at the HL-LHC. Our results can be directly applied to any kind of new physics scenarios sharing the final states and the event topology. For concreteness, we apply our results to a benchmark scenario: a two Higgs doublet model type-II augmented with vectorlike leptons. Remarkably, even with current data the sensitivity of our analysis shows a reach for masses of a heavy neutral Higgs and vectorlike leptons up to 2 TeV and 1.5 TeV, respectively. Even for low tan β ≳ 1, the analysis retains sensitivity to heavy Higgs masses slightly above 1 TeV. The future sensitivities at the HL-LHC extend the reach for heavy Higgses and new leptons to 2.7 TeV and 2 TeV, respectively.

Time-reversal asymmetries in Λb semileptonic decays

We study the decays of $\Lambda_b \to \Lambda_c(\to B_n f) \ell ^- \overline{\nu}$ with $\ell = e, \mu, \tau$, where $B_n$ and $f$ are the daughter baryons and the rest of the particles in $\Lambda_c$ cascade decays, respectively. In particular, we examine the full angular distributions with polarized $\Lambda_b$ and lepton mass effects, in which the time-reversal asymmetries are identified. We concentrate on the decay modes of $\Lambda_b \to \Lambda_c(\to p K^- \pi^+) \ell ^- \overline{\nu}$ to demonstrate their experimental feasibility. We show that the observables associated with the time-reversal asymmetries are useful to search for new physics as they vanish in the standard model. Explicitly, we find that they are sensitive to the right-handed current from new physics, and possible to be observed at LHCb.

Multiple photoionization for the 2s subshell in the iron atom

ABSTRACT Multiple photoionization is analysed as a result of radiative and Auger cascade following ionization by photon from the 2s subshell. The study includes 34 levels of the 3d64s2 configuration of the Fe atom. The multiple-photoionization cross-sections from the levels of the ground configuration to the generated ions and their configurations are analysed. This study demonstrates that the photoionization of the 2s subshell produces mainly states of the Fe5+ ion. The highest charge state produced by the photoionization equals Fe6+. The difference of the ion yields from the investigated levels of the iron atom reaches ∼ 4% for the Fe 5+ and Fe6+ ions. Main branches of the cascade decay are identified in the study. It is determined that the two strongest branches of the cascade lead to states of the Fe5+ ion.

Search for long-lived charginos based on a disappearing-track signature using 136 fb^{-1} of pp collisions at sqrt{s} = 13 TeV with the ATLAS detector

A search for long-lived charginos produced either directly or in the cascade decay of heavy prompt gluino states is presented. The search is based on proton–proton collision data collected at a centre-of-mass energy of sqrt{s} = 13 Ttext {eV} between 2015 and 2018 with the ATLAS detector at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 136 fb^{-1}. Long-lived charginos are characterised by a distinct signature of a short and then disappearing track, and are reconstructed using at least four measurements in the ATLAS pixel detector, with no subsequent measurements in the silicon-microstrip tracking volume nor any associated energy deposits in the calorimeter. The final state is complemented by a large missing transverse-momentum requirement for triggering purposes and at least one high-transverse-momentum jet. No excess above the expected backgrounds is observed. Exclusion limits are set at 95% confidence level on the masses of the chargino and gluino for different chargino lifetimes. Chargino masses up to 660 (210) Gtext {eV} are excluded in scenarios where the chargino is a pure wino (higgsino). For charginos produced during the cascade decay of a heavy gluino, gluinos with masses below 2.1 Ttext {eV} are excluded for a chargino mass of 300 Gtext {eV} and a lifetime of 0.2 ns.

Radiosensitization with iron nanoparticles under 10–800 Ry photon irradiation: Monte Carlo simulation of particle-to-medium energy transfer

The processes in 2–128 nm iron nanoparticles (NP) under 10–800 Ry photon irradiation are studied by detailed Monte Carlo simulations, accounting for the cascade decays of inner-shell vacancies. The cascade decay of vacancies is a crucial factor in the theoretical description of the effect of ionizing radiation on matter. The NPs re-emit most of the energy of an absorbed photon into the surrounding medium with secondary electrons and photons emitted by NP. At incident photon energies under the Fe1s-ionization threshold, most of the energy is carried away by electrons; when photon energy is above the Fe1s-threshold, electrons and photons transfer the energy to the surrounding medium. In the case of large nanoparticles, many low-energy electrons are emitted by NP, over a hundred per one initial photon. Although the energy carried away by them is small, they contribute to forming a high positive charge on the NP, which results in great electric fields near the NP surface. The significance of the NP electric field effect on the DNA repair cycle is discussed.

The New Physics in LILITA_N21: An Improved Description of the Reaction 190 MeV 40Ar + 27Al

In this paper, light charged particle emission in the evaporation residue channel for the 190 MeV 40Ar + 27Al reaction leading to 67Ga composite nuclei at Ex = 91 MeV and angular momentum up to 46 ℏ has been re-analyzed. The main goal was to study the decay of 67Ga on the basis of an extended set of observables in order to provide a description of the evaporative decay cascades using the multistep Monte Carlo approach. The proton and α-particle energy spectra along with their angular distributions and ratios of differential multiplicities have been considered. The measured observables were compared with statistical model calculations. Having used a single-step Monte Carlo approach and standard parameters decades ago, the model does not provide a good description of the full dataset. Only a subset of the data was reproduced by assuming emitting nuclei with very large deformed shapes in a previous work published in the late 1980s. In the reported analysis, better agreement has been observed. Using the new transmission coefficients from the Optical Model, the parameters of which have recently been derived, the multi-step approach and the introduction of a nuclear shape description based on the nuclear stratosphere allowed us to realize a significant improvement.

Cascade reemission of energy by inner-shell-ionized iron atom

Cascade decays of vacancies produced by single K, L and M ionization of the Fe atom are simulated by direct construction of the cascade decay trees based on Pauli–Fock branching ratios and ionic configurations energies. Final ion charge spectra and the spectra of cascade-produced electrons and photons are calculated. It is shown that a large portion of energy transferred to the Fe atom in the ionization processes is reemitted by cascade electrons and photons. This circumstance must be taken into account when describing the effect of ionizing radiation on matter or living tissues.

Entangled photons from composite cascade emitters.

One of the most versatile sources for entangled photons are emitters that interact via more than one tunable mechanism. Here, we demonstrate how hybridization and dipole-dipole interactions-potentially simultaneously available in colloidal quantum dots and molecular aggregates-leveraged in conjunction can couple simple, well understood emitters into composite emitters with flexible control over the level structure. We show that cascade decay through carefully designed level structures can result in emission of frequency-entangled photons with Bell states and three-photon GHZ states as example cases. These results pave the way toward rational design of quantum optical emitters of entangled photons.