Goldstone Bosons Research Articles

Scale invariant extension of the Standard Model: a nightmare scenario in cosmology

Inflationary observables of a classically scale invariant model, in which the origin of the Planck mass and the electroweak scale including the right-handed neutrino mass is chiral symmetry breaking in a QCD-like hidden sector, are studied. Despite a three-field inflation the initial-value-dependence is strongly suppressed thanks to a river-valley like potential. The model predicts the tensor-to-scalar ratio r of cosmological perturbations smaller than that of the R 2 inflation, i.e., 0.0044 ≳ r ≳ 0.0017 for e-foldings between 50 and 60: the model will be consistent even with a null detection at LiteBird/CMB-S4. We find that the non-Gaussianity parameter f NL is O(10-2), the same size as that of single-field inflation. The dark matter particles are the lightest Nambu-Goldstone bosons associated with chiral symmetry breaking, which are decay products of one of the inflatons and are heavier than 109 GeV with a strongly suppressed coupling with the standard model, implying that the dark matter will be unobservable in direct as well as indirect measurements.

Testing χPT with the Masses of the Nambu–Goldstone Bosons

Testing _χPT with the Masses of the Nambu–Goldstone Bosons

The minimal massive Majoron Seesaw Model

A convincing explanation of the smallness of neutrino masses is represented by the Type-I Seesaw mechanism, where the two measured neutrino mass differences can be generated by introducing at least two right-handed neutrinos. In an ultraviolet complete model, it is possible to dynamically generate the heavy Majorana scale through the spontaneous symmetry breaking of a global Abelian symmetry and the most economical realisation consists in coupling the two exotic neutral leptons to a singlet complex scalar field. The associated Goldstone boson is often dubbed as Majoron, which may achieve a non-vanishing mass by means of a small term that explicitly breaks the Abelian symmetry. In a generic model, the neutrino and Majoron mass generation mechanisms are completely uncorrelated. In this paper, instead, we reduce the landscape of possible models proposing a unique, minimal and predictive framework in which these two types of masses are strictly tied and arise from the same source. Bounds from various terrestrial and astrophysical experiments are discussed.

When the moduli space is an orbifold: spontaneous breaking of continuous non-invertible symmetries

We investigate theories of Nambu-Goldstone bosons where the spontaneously broken continuous symmetry is non-invertible. In such theories, the vacua generically parameterize an orbifold. We study in detail the simplest example of a single free scalar with shift symmetry, modded by reflection symmetry. At singular points of the vacuum manifold, we show that the spectrum of NG excitations is reduced, in particular there are no single-particle states. At the smooth points, on the other hand, single NG modes are present. We show that this is a consequence of the fact that at those points one can construct invertible operators implementing the continuous symmetry on the Hilbert space.

Bounds on scattering of neutral Goldstones

We study the space of 2 → 2 scattering amplitudes of neutral Goldstone bosons in four space-time dimensions. We establish universal bounds on the first two non-universal Wilson coefficients of the low energy Effective Field Theory (EFT) for such particles. We reconstruct the analytic, crossing-symmetric, and unitary amplitudes saturating our bounds, and we study their physical content. We uncover non-perturbative Regge trajectories by continuing our numerical amplitudes to complex spins. We then explore the consequence of additional constraints arising when we impose the knowledge about the EFT up to the cut-off scale. In the process, we improve on some aspects of the numerical S-matrix bootstrap technology for massless particles.

The landscape of composite Higgs models

We classify all different composite Higgs models (CHMs) characterised by the coset space G\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\mathcal{G} $$\\end{document}/H\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\mathcal{H} $$\\end{document} of compact semi-simple Lie groups G\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\mathcal{G} $$\\end{document} and H\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\mathcal{H} $$\\end{document} involving up to 13 Nambu-Goldstone bosons (NGBs), together with mild phenomenological constraints. As a byproduct of this work, we prove several simple yet, to the best of our knowledge, mostly unknown results: (1) under certain conditions, a given set of massless scalars can be UV completed into a CHM in which they arise as NGBs; (2) the set of all CHMs with a fixed number of NGBs is finite, and in particular there are 642 of them with up to 13 massless scalars (factoring out models that differ by extra U(1)’s); (3) any scalar representation of the Standard Model group can be realised within a CHM; (4) Certain symmetries of the scalar sector allowed from the IR perspective are never realised within CHMs. On top of this, we make a simple statistical analysis of the landscape of CHMs, determining the frequency of models with scalar singlets, doublets, triplets and other multiplets of the custodial group as well as their multiplicity. We also count the number of models with a symmetric coset.

CP-violating top-Higgs coupling in SMEFT

The total cross section of the process μ−μ+→νμν¯μtt¯H has strong dependence on the CP phase ξ of the top Yukawa coupling, where the ratio of ξ=π and ξ=0 (SM) grows to 670 at s=30 TeV, 3400 at 100 TeV. We study the cause of the strong energy dependence and identify its origin as the (E/mW)2 growth of the weak boson fusion sub-amplitudes, WL−WL+→tt¯H, with the two W's are longitudinally polarized. We repeat the study in the SMEFT framework where EW gauge invariance is manifest and find that the highest energy cross section is reduced to a quarter of the complex top Yukawa model result, with the same energy power. By applying the Goldstone boson (GB) equivalence theorem, we identify the origin of this strong energy growth of the SMEFT amplitudes as associated with the dimension-6 π−π+ttH vertex, where π± denotes the GB of W±. We obtain the unitarity bound on the coefficient of the SMEFT operator by studying all 2→2 and 2→3 cross sections in the J=0 channel.

Effective field theories of axion, ALP and dark photon

With the help of Young tensor technique, we enumerate the complete and independent set of effective operators up to dim-8 for the extension of the standard model with a Goldstone boson by further imposing the Adler’s zero condition in the soft momentum limit. Such basis can be reduced to describe the axion or majoron effective Lagrangian if further (symmetry) constraints are imposed. Then reformulating dark photon as combination of Goldstone boson and transverse gauge boson, the effective operators of the Goldstone boson can be extended to effective chiral Lagrangian description of the dark photon. For the first time we obtain 0 (0), 6 (44), 1 (1), 44 (356), 32 (520) operators in Goldstone effective field theory, and 9 (49), 0 (0), 108 (676), 10 (426), 1904 (40783) operators in dark photon effective field theory at the dimension 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 for one (three) generation of fermions.

Inflation based on the Tsallis entropy

We study the inflationary scenario in the Tsallis entropy-based cosmology. The Friedmann equations in this setup can be derived by using the first law of thermodynamics. To derive the relations of the power spectra of the scalar and tensor perturbations in this setup, we reconstruct an f(R) gravity model which is thermodynamically equivalent to our model in the slow-roll approximation. In this way, we find the inflationary observables, including the scalar spectral index and the tensor-to-scalar ratio in our scenario. Then, we investigate two different potentials in our scenario, including the quadratic potential and the potential associated with the natural inflation in which the inflaton is an axion or a pseudo-Nambu–Goldstone boson. We examine their observational viability in light of the Planck 2018 CMB data. We show that although the results of these potentials are in tension with the observations in the standard inflationary setting, their consistency with the observations can be significantly improved within the setup of the Tsallis entropy-based inflation. Moreover, we place constraints on the parameters of the considered inflationary models by using the current observational data.

Constraints on axion-like particles with the Perseus Galaxy Cluster with MAGIC

Axion-like particles (ALPs) are pseudo-Nambu–Goldstone bosons that emerge in various theories beyond the standard model. These particles can interact with high-energy photons in external magnetic fields, influencing the observed gamma-ray spectrum. This study analyzes 41.3 h of observational data from the Perseus Galaxy Cluster collected with the MAGIC telescopes. We focused on the spectra the radio galaxy in the center of the cluster: NGC 1275. By modeling the magnetic field surrounding this target, we searched for spectral indications of ALP presence. Despite finding no statistical evidence of ALP signatures, we were able to exclude ALP models in the sub-micro electronvolt range. Our analysis improved upon previous work by calculating the full likelihood and statistical coverage for all considered models across the parameter space. Consequently, we achieved the most stringent limits to date for ALP masses around 50 neV, with cross sections down to gaγ=3×10−12 GeV−1.

The majoron coupling to charged leptons

The particle spectrum of all Majorana neutrino mass models with spontaneous violation of global lepton number include a Goldstone boson, the so-called majoron. The presence of this massless pseudoscalar changes the phenomenology dramatically. In this work we derive general analytical expressions for the 1-loop coupling of the majoron to charged leptons. These can be applied to any model featuring a majoron that have a clear hierarchy of energy scales, required for an expansion in powers of the low-energy scale to be valid. We show how to use our general results by applying them to some example models, finding full agreement with previous results in several popular scenarios and deriving novel ones in other setups.

Goldstone bosons on celestial sphere and conformal soft theorems

In this paper, we study celestial amplitudes of Goldstone bosons and conformal soft theorems. Motivated by the success of soft bootstrap in momentum space and the important role of the soft limit behavior of tree-level amplitudes, our goal is to extend some of the methods to the celestial sphere. The crucial ingredient of the calculation is the Mellin transformation, which transforms four-dimensional scattering amplitudes to correlation functions of primary operators in the celestial CFT. The soft behavior of the amplitude is then translated to the singularities of the correlator. Only for amplitudes in “UV completed theories” (with sufficiently good high energy behavior) the Mellin integration can be properly performed. In all other cases, the celestial amplitude is only defined in a distributional sense with delta functions. We provide many examples of celestial amplitudes in UV-completed models, including linear sigma models and Z-theory, which is a certain completion of the SU(N) non-linear sigma model. We also comment on the BCFW-like and soft recursion relations for celestial amplitudes and the extension of soft bootstrap ideas.

Aspects of the Domain-Wall Standard Model

Abstract In the “Domain-Wall Standard Model,” all the Standard Model (SM) fields are localized in certain domains in a non-compact 5D space-time. While the SM is realized as a 4D effective theory at low energies, the model involves Kaluza–Klein (KK) modes of the SM particles. In this paper we introduce two simple solvable examples which lead to domain-wall configurations for the SM particles and their KK-modes. Based on the examples, we address a variety of phenomenologies of the Domain-Wall SM, such as the KK-mode gauge boson phenomenology at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the effect of the KK-mode SM fermions on Higgs boson phenomenology, and the KK-mode fermion search at the LHC with its decay into a corresponding SM fermion and a Nambu–Goldstone boson associated with a spontaneous breaking of the translational invariance in the 5th dimension. We also propose a simple unified picture of localizing all the SM fields.

BubbleDet: a Python package to compute functional determinants for bubble nucleation

We present a Python package BubbleDet for computing one-loop functional determinants around spherically symmetric background fields. This gives the next-to-leading order correction to both the vacuum decay rate, at zero temperature, and to the bubble nucleation rate in first-order phase transitions at finite temperature. For predictions of gravitational wave signals from cosmological phase transitions, this is expected to remove one of the leading sources of theoretical uncertainty. BubbleDet is applicable to arbitrary scalar potentials and in any dimension up to seven. It has methods for fluctuations of scalar fields, including Goldstone bosons, and for gauge fields, but is limited to cases where the determinant factorises into a product of separate determinants, one for each field degree of freedom. To our knowledge, BubbleDet is the first package dedicated to calculating functional determinants in spherically symmetric backgrounds.

Shapes of the cosmological low-speed collider

Abstract Massive particles produced during inflation leave specific signatures in soft limits of correlation functions of primordial fluctuations. When the Goldstone boson of broken time translations acquires a reduced speed of sound, implying that de Sitter boosts are strongly broken, we introduce a novel discovery channel to detect new physics during inflation, called the cosmological low-speed collider signal. This signal is characterised by a distinctive resonance lying in mildly-soft kinematic configurations of cosmological correlators, indicating the presence of a heavy particle, whose position enables to reconstruct its mass. We show that this resonance can be understood in terms of a non-local single-field effective field theory, in which the heavy field becomes effectively non-dynamical. This theory accurately describes the full dynamics of the Goldstone boson and captures all multi-field physical effects distinct from the non-perturbative particle production leading to the conventional cosmological collider signal. As such, this theory provides a systematic and tractable way to study the imprint of massive fields on cosmological correlators. We conduct a thorough study of the low-speed collider phenomenology in the scalar bispectrum, showing that large non-Gaussianities with new shapes can be generated, in particular beyond weak mixing. We also provide a low-speed collider template for future cosmological surveys.

Forbidden conformal dark matter at a GeV

We introduce a model of dark matter (DM) where the DM is a composite of a spontaneously broken conformal field theory. The DM is a thermal relic with its abundance determined by the freeze-out of annihilations to dilatons, the Goldstone boson of broken conformal symmetry. If the dilaton is heavier than the DM this is an example of forbidden DM. We explore the phenomenology of this model in its 5D dual description, corresponding to a warped extra dimension with the Standard Model on the ultraviolet brane and the DM on the infrared brane. We find the model is compatible with theoretical and experimental constraints for DM masses in the 0.1–10 GeV range. The conformal phase transition is supercooled and strongly first-order. It can source large stochastic gravitational wave signals consistent with those recently observed at pulsar timing arrays like NANOGrav. The majority of the viable parameter space will be probed by future detectors designed to search for long-lived particles, including most of the region favored by the NANOGrav signal. The rest of the parameter space can be probed at future direct detection experiments.

Primordial non-Gaussianity as a probe of seesaw and leptogenesis

We present the possibility that the seesaw mechanism and nonthermal leptogenesis can be investigated via primordial non-Gaussianities in the context of a majoron curvaton model. Originating as a massless Nambu-Goldstone boson from the spontaneous breaking of the global baryon (B) minus lepton (L) number symmetry at a scale vB−L, majoron becomes massive when it couples to a new confining sector through anomaly. Acting as a curvaton, majoron produces the observed red-tilted curvature power spectrum without relying on any inflaton contribution, and its decay in the post-inflationary era gives rise to a nonthermal population of right-handed neutrinos that participate in leptogenesis. A distinctive feature of the mechanism is the generation of observable non-Gaussianity, in the parameter space where the red-tilted power spectrum and sufficient baryon asymmetry are produced. We find that the non-Gaussianity parameter fNL ≳ O\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\mathcal{O} $$\\end{document}(0.1) is produced for high-scale seesaw (vB−L at O\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\mathcal{O} $$\\end{document}(1014−17) GeV) and leptogenesis (M1 ≳ O\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$ \\mathcal{O} $$\\end{document}(106) GeV) where the latter represents the lightest right-handed neutrino mass. While the current bounds on local non-Gaussianity excludes some part of parameter space, the rest can be fully probed by future experiments like CMB-S4, LSST, and 21 cm tomography.

Stop comparing resummation methods

I argue that the consistency of any resummation method can be established if the method follows a power counting derived from a hierarchy of scales. I.e. whether it encodes a top-down effective field theory. This resolves much confusion over which resummation method to use once an approximation scheme is settled on. And if no hierarchy of scales exists, you should be wary about resumming. I give evidence from the study of phase transitions in thermal field theory, where adopting a consistent power-counting scheme and performing a strict perturbative expansion dissolves many common problems of such studies: gauge dependence, strong renormalization scale dependence, the Goldstone boson catastrophe, IR divergences, imaginary potentials, mirages (illusory barriers), perturbative breakdown, and linear terms.

On the dynamical origin of the η′ potential and the axion mass

We investigate the dynamics responsible for generating the potential of the η′, the (would-be) Goldstone boson associated with the anomalous axial U(1) symmetry of QCD. The standard lore posits that pure QCD dynamics generates a confining potential with a branched structure as a function of the θ angle, and that this same potential largely determines the properties of the η′ once fermions are included. Here we test this picture by examining a supersymmetric extension of QCD with a small amount of supersymmetry breaking generated via anomaly mediation. For pure SU(N) QCD without flavors, we verify that there are N branches generated by gaugino condensation. Once quarks are introduced, the flavor effects qualitatively change the strong dynamics of the pure theory. For F flavors we find |N − F| branches, whose dynamical origin is gaugino condensation in the unbroken subgroup for F < N – 1, and in the dual gauge group for F > N + 1. For the special cases of F = N – 1, N, N + 1 we find no branches and the entire potential is consistent with being a one-instanton effect. The number of branches is a simple consequence of the selection rules of an anomalous U(1)R symmetry. We find that the η′ mass does not vanish in the large N limit for fixed F/N, since the anomaly is non-vanishing. The same dynamics that is responsible for the η′ potential is also responsible for the axion potential. We present a simple derivation of the axion mass formula for an arbitrary number of flavors.

Helicity amplitudes without gauge cancellation for electroweak processes

In the 5-component representation of weak bosons, the first four components make a Lorentz four vector, representing the transverse and longitudinal polarizations excluding the scalar component of the weak bosons, whereas its fifth component corresponds to the Goldstone boson. We obtain the 5×5\\documentclass[12pt]{minimal} \\usepackage{amsmath} \\usepackage{wasysym} \\usepackage{amsfonts} \\usepackage{amssymb} \\usepackage{amsbsy} \\usepackage{mathrsfs} \\usepackage{upgreek} \\setlength{\\oddsidemargin}{-69pt} \\begin{document}$$5\ imes 5$$\\end{document} component propagators of off-shell weak bosons, proposed previously and named after the Goldstone boson equivalence theorem, by starting from the unitary-gauge representation of the tree-level scattering amplitudes, and by applying the BRST (Becchi–Rouet–Stora–Tyutin) identities to the two sub-amplitudes connected by each off-shell weak-boson line. By replacing all weak boson vertices with those among the off-shell 5-component wavefunctions, we arrive at the expression of the electroweak scattering amplitudes, where the magnitude of each Feynman amplitude has the correct on-shell limits for all internal propagators, and hence with no artificial gauge cancellation among diagrams. Although our derivation is limited to the tree-level only, it allows us to study the properties of each Feynman amplitude separately, and then learn how they interfere in the full amplitudes. We implement the 5-component weak boson propagators and their vertices in the numerical helicity amplitude calculation code HELAS (Helicity Amplitude Subroutines), so that an automatic amplitude generation program such as MadGraph can generate the scattering amplitudes without gauge cancellation. We present results for several high-energy scattering processes where subtle gauge-theory cancellation among diagrams takes place in all the other known approaches.