Grand Unification Scale Research Articles

Dynamical Higgs field alignment in the NMSSM

Experimental probes of the recently discovered Higgs boson show that its behavior is close to that of the Standard Model (SM) Higgs particle. Extensions of the SM which include extra Higgs bosons are constrained by these observations, implying either the decoupling of the heavy non-standard Higgs particles or the realization of alignment, associated with vanishing mixing of the SM-like Higgs boson with the non-standard ones. Quite generally, alignment is not enforced by symmetry considerations and hence it is interesting to look for dynamical ways in which this condition can be realized. We show that this is possible in the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM), in which alignment is achieved for values of the coupling of the Higgs fields to the singlet field that become large close to the Grand Unification (GUT) scale. This, in turn, can be explained by the composite nature of the Higgs fields, with a compositeness scale close to the GUT scale. In this article we present this dynamical scenario and discuss its phenomenological properties.

Alternative renormalizable SO(10) GUTs and data fitting

The alternative renormalizable minimal SO(10) model is composed of the Yukawa couplings with 10⊕120 Higgs fields, whereas the right-handed (RH) neutrino Majorana masses are generated via the Witten mechanism. The gauge coupling unification is achieved together with a unique pattern of the fermion masses and mixing at the grand unification scale due to additional contributions of vector-like quarks to the standard model renormalization group equations. We perform the fitting of the model to the experimental data of charged fermion masses and the CKM matrix. The best fit point is obtained with large pulls for mc, ms, mb, and mτ. For the modifications to the minimal model by adding either 10′ or 120′, a large deviation for the tau mass rules out all these models. In the case with the bottom and vector-like quark mixing, the mass matrices are well fitted the charged fermions but the bound on the light neutrino mass scale excludes this scenario. To ameliorate this deficit, we consider the two-step symmetry breaking scenario, SO(10)→SU(5)→SU(3)C×SU(2)L×U(1)Y, with the SO(10) breaking at the Planck scale leading to the radiatively generated RH neutrino Majorana masses being at the ordinary seesaw scale. For this case, we find the best fit point with χ2=7.8 consistent with experimental results including the neutrino sector. The largest deviation is 2.3σ corresponding to the strange quark mass. Hence, a more precise determination of the strange quark mass can test this model. For the best fit point, we find the effective Majorana neutrino mass of mββ=0.22 meV and the sum of light neutrino masses as Σ=0.078 eV, which are consistent with the current constraints from the search for the neutrinoless double beta decay and the CMB anisotropy measurement.

Prospect of dark matter searches in split SUSY models

The results from the XENON1T/Panda-X and IceCube experiments have set severe upper limits on spin-independent (SI) and spin-dependent (SD) scattering cross section of weakly interacting massive particles on nuclei. In the framework of split supersymmetry scenario supported by the LHC constraints, we investigate the prospect of dark matter (DM) direct and indirect detection experiments. Assuming a relation among gaugino masses at the grand unification scale, we have specified the parameter regions that predict the right DM relic abundance as well as satisfy the constraints on SI and SD scattering cross sections of DM. In the case of universal gaugino masses, the XENON1T/Panda-X results have ruled out completely the well-tempered neutralino region. We have found that 200 times smaller than the current IceCube bound is the sensitivity limit that a future DM indirect detection experiment should have at least in order to have a certain impact beyond the current XENON1T/Panda-X results. The future results from XENON1T will be able to test a signification portion of the Higgsino-like region. Although there are points in the Higgsino-like region that cannot be reached by future DM detection experiments, direct production channels of neutralino/chargino can be used to test the model at the LHC/HL-HLC. In the case of non-universal gaugino masses, beside showing the allowed parameter space, we have specified the regions that can be tested at both future DM direct and indirect detection experiments. One of them are Higgsino-like region, while the others two predict a well mixed bino-wino DM. The DM properties in each region have been examined and demonstrated with a benchmark of-ino spectrum. Interestingly, points in the mixed bino-wino region with rather light chargino can be tested the LHC 14 TeV.

Testing the Seesaw Mechanism and Leptogenesis with Gravitational Waves.

We present the possibility that the seesaw mechanism with thermal leptogenesis can be tested using the stochastic gravitational background. Achieving neutrino masses consistent with atmospheric and solar neutrino data, while avoiding nonperturbative couplings, requires right handed neutrinos lighter than the typical scale of grand unification. This scale separation suggests a symmetry protecting the right-handed neutrinos from getting a mass. Thermal leptogenesis would then require that such a symmetry be broken below the reheating temperature. We enumerate all such possible symmetries consistent with these minimal assumptions and their corresponding defects, finding that in many cases, gravitational waves from the network of cosmic strings should be detectable. Estimating the predicted gravitational wave background, we find that future space-borne missions could probe the entire range relevant for thermal leptogenesis.

Cosmic microwave background dipole asymmetry could be explained by axion monodromy cosmic strings

Observations by the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe and the Planck mission suggest a hemispherical power amplitude asymmetry in the cosmic microwave background, with a correlation length on the order of the size of the observable Universe. We find that this anomaly can be naturally explained by an axion-like particle (ALP) cosmic string formed near our visible Universe. The field variation associated to this cosmic string creates particle density fluctuations after inflation, which consequently decay into radiation before the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) era and resulted in the observed power asymmetry. We find in this scenario that the hemispherical power amplitude asymmetry is strongly scale dependent: $A(k)\propto {\rm exp}(-kl)/k$. Admittedly, typical inflation models predict a relic number density of topological defects of order one per observable Universe and so in our model the cosmic string must be tuned to have an impact factor of order $1/H_0$. Interestingly, the constraints based on purely cosmological considerations also give rise to a Peccei-Quinn scale $F_a$ of order $10^3$ larger then the Hubble scale of inflation $H_I$. Assuming $H_I\sim 10^{13}$GeV, we then have an ALP with $F_a\sim 10^{16}$GeV, which coincides with the presumed scale of grand unification. As we require ALP decays occur before the BBN era, which implies a relatively heavy mass or strong self-coupling, and considering that the associated potential should break the shift symmetry softly in order to protect the system from radiative corrections, we also conclude that the required ALP potential should be monodromic in nature.

Baryon-dark matter coincidence in mirrored unification

About 80\% of the mass of the present Universe is made up of the unknown (dark matter), while the rest is made up of ordinary matter. It is a very intriguing question why the {\it mass} densities of dark matter and ordinary matter (mainly baryons) are close to each other. It may be hinting the identity of dark matter and furthermore structure of a dark sector. A mirrored world provides a natural explanation to this puzzle. On the other hand, if mirror-symmetry breaking scale is low, it tends to cause cosmological problems. In this letter, we propose a mirrored unification framework, which breaks mirror-symmetry at the grand unified scale, but still addresses the puzzle. The dark matter mass is strongly related with the dynamical scale of QCD, which explains the closeness of the dark matter and baryon masses. Intermediate-energy portal interactions share the generated asymmetry between the visible and dark sectors. Furthermore, our framework is safe from cosmological issues by providing low-energy portal interactions to release the superfluous entropy of the dark sector into the visible sector.

Composite Nambu–Jona-Lasinio inflation near infrared fixed point of the Hořava-Lifshitz theory

In this work, we first propose a cosmological scenario inherently based on the effective Nambu–Jona-Lasio (NJL) model near the infrared (IR) limit of the Hořava-Lifshitz (HL) theory. Having used the one-loop correction, we employ the NJL framework in the ultraviolet (UV) limit of the HL theory, with critical exponent z=3, to demonstrate in the IR limit that the symmetry of the potential at the critical coupling value is broken at z=1. We also derive the effective Higgs-like potential in the low energy regimes. Here the symmetry of the effective potential will be broken near z=1 at a certain value of the critical coupling. In our scenario, the scalar channel of the NJL model plays the role of a composite inflaton. We find that the Lorentz invariance (LI) appears at the IR regime of the HL theory and employ the standard inflationary (slow-roll) paradigm as a probe of physics at very high energy. We compute inflationary parameters and compare them with recent Planck 2015 data. Interestingly, we discover that the predictions of the model are in perfect agreement with the Planck analysis. Our salient feature is that we used inflation to quantify the IR and UV fixed points of underlying theory. We discover that the IR fixed point of HL gravity is compatible with the grand unified energy scale; whilst the UV fixed point is the Planck energy scale.

Rparity from string compactification

In this paper, we embed the $\Z_{4R}$ parity as a discrete subgroup of a global symmetry \UoR\,obtained from $\Z_{12-I}$ compactification of heterotic string $\EE8$. A part of \UoR\,transformation is the shift of the anticommuting variable $\vartheta$ to $e^{i\alpha}\vartheta$ which necessarily incoorporate the transformation of internal space coordinate. Out of six internal spaces, we identify three U(1)'s whose charges are denoted as $Q_{18},Q_{20}$, and $Q_{22}$. The \UoR~is defined as \UEE$\times$\UKK~where \UEE~is the part from $\EE8$ and \UKK~is the part generated by $Q_{18},Q_{20}$, and $Q_{22}$. We propose a method to define a \UoR~direction. The needed vacuum expectation values for breaking gauge U(1)'s except U(1)$_Y$ of the standard model carry \UoR~charge 4 modulo 4 such that \UoR~is broken down to $\Z_{4R}$ at the grand unification scale. $\Z_{4R}$ is broken to $\Z_{2R}$ between the intermediate ($\sim 10^{11\,}\gev$) and the electroweak scales ($100\,\gev\sim 1\,\tev$). The conditions we impose are proton longevity, a large top quark mass, and acceptable magnitudes for the $\mu$ term and neutrino masses.

Type I Abelian Higgs strings: Evolution and cosmic microwave background constraints

We present results from the first simulations of networks of Type I Abelian Higgs cosmic strings to include both matter and radiation eras and Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) constraints. In Type I strings, the string tension is a slowly decreasing function of the ratio of the scalar and gauge mass-squared, $\beta$. We find that the mean string separation shows no dependence on $\beta$, and that the energy-momentum tensor correlators decrease approximately in proportion to the square of the string tension, with additional O(1) correction factors which asymptote to constants below $\beta \lesssim 0.01$. Strings in models with low self-couplings can therefore satisfy current CMB bounds at higher symmetry-breaking scales. This is particularly relevant for models where the gauge symmetry is broken in a supersymmetric flat direction, for which the effective self-coupling can be extremely small. If our results can be extrapolated to $\beta \simeq 10^{-15}$, even strings formed at $10^{16}$ GeV (approximately the grand unification scale in supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model) can be compatible with CMB constraints.

Chiral Symmetry Breaking for Fermions Charged under Large Lie Groups**Supported by Spanish Grant MINECO:FPA2016-75654-C2-1-P and Carried out in the Inspiring Atmosphere of the IPARCOS Institute for Particles and Cosmology

We reexamine the dynamical generation of mass for fermions charged under various Lie groups with equal charge and mass at a high Grand Unification scale, extending the Renormalization Group Equations in the perturbative regime to two loops and matching to the Dyson-Schwinger Equations in the strong coupling regime.

Affleck–Dine baryogenesis via mass splitting

We introduce a class of non-supersymmetric models explaining baryogenesis a la Affleck–Dine, which use a decay of two superheavy scalar fields with close masses. These scalars acquire non-zero expectation values during inflation through linear couplings to a function of an inflaton. After the inflaton decay, the model possesses approximate U(1)-invariance, explicitly broken by a small mass splitting. This splitting leads to the baryogenesis in the early Universe. Resulting baryon asymmetry is automatically small for the scalars with the masses about the Grand Unification scale and larger. It is fully determined by the inflaton dynamics and the Lagrangian parameters, i.e., is independent of initial pre-inflationary conditions for the scalars. As a consequence, baryon perturbations are purely adiabatic. We point out a possible origin of the mass splitting: masses of scalars degenerate at some large energy scale may acquire different loop corrections due to the interaction with the inflaton. Compared to electroweak baryogenesis and conventional Affleck–Dine scenarios, our mechanism generically leads to the proton decay suppressed by the powers of the superheavy scalar masses, which makes this scenario potentially testable.

GUT-inspired MSSM in light of muon g−2 and LHC results at s=13 TeV

The recent results of the LHC search for electroweak production of supersymmetric (SUSY) particles at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV have shown improved lower limits for their masses. In addition, the projected experiment E989 will be able to measure the muon anomalous magnetic moment precisely so that the experimental uncertainty can be reduced by a factor of four. It was pointed out that if the center value of the muon $g-2$ remains unchanged the deviation between the standard model (SM) prediction and the experimental value will be as large as 7.0$\sigma$. Such a large deviation will be solid evidence for new physics beyond the SM. Motivated by these results, we investigate the minimal SUSY extension of the SM with universal gaugino masses at the grand unified scale in the light of the muon $g-2$ and the updated LHC constraints. The squarks are assumed to be heavy and decoupled from physics at low energy scales to resemble the SM-like Higgs boson mass of 125 GeV and other bounds for squark masses at the LHC. We have pinned down allowed windows for the lightest neutralino and the smuon masses as well as other input parameters relevant to the light SUSY sector. The expected results of the E989 experiment play a crucial role in narrowing these windows. The viability of the model for small mass regions can be tested at the LHC Run 3 and the High Luminosity LHC in the near future.

Axion mass prediction from minimal grand unification

We propose a minimal realization of the Peccei Quinn mechanism in a realistic SU(5) model, where the axion mass is directly connected to the grand-unification scale. By taking into account constraints from proton decay, collider searches and gauge coupling unification, we predict the axion mass: $m_a \in [4.8, 6.6]$ neV. The upper bound can be relaxed up to $m_a < 330$ neV, at the cost of tuning the flavour structure of the proton decay operators. The predicted mass window will be complementarily probed by the axion dark matter experiments ABRACADABRA and CASPER-Electric, which could provide an indirect evidence for the scale of grand unification before the observation of proton decay.

Little hierarchy in the minimally specified MSSM

We study constrained versions of the minimal supersymmetric model and investigate the hierarchy between the electroweak scale and the scale of superpartners that can be achieved without relying on specifying model parameters by more than one digit (or with better than 10% precision). This approach automatically avoids scenarios in which a large hierarchy is obtained by special choices of parameters and yet keeps scenarios that would otherwise be disfavored by various sensitivity measures. We consider models with universal gaugino and scalar masses, models with nonuniversal Higgs masses or nonuniversal gaugino masses and focus on scenarios in which all the model parameters are either of the same order or zero at the grand unification scale. We find that the maximal hierarchy between the electroweak scale and stop masses, requiring that model parameters are not specified beyond one digit, ranges from a factor of [Formula: see text][Formula: see text]10–30 for the CMSSM up to [Formula: see text][Formula: see text]300 for models with nonuniversal Higgs or gaugino masses.

High energy physics and cosmology at the unification frontier: Opportunities and challenges in the coming years

We give here an overview of recent developments in high energy physics and cosmology and their interconnections that relate to unification, and discuss prospects for the future. Thus there are currently three empirical data that point to supersymmetry as an underlying symmetry of particle physics: the unification of gauge couplings within supersymmetry, the fact that nature respects the supersymmetry prediction that the Higgs boson mass lie below 130 GeV, and vacuum stability up to the Planck scale with a Higgs boson mass at [Formula: see text][Formula: see text]125 GeV while the Standard Model does not do that. Coupled with the fact that supersymmetry solves the big hierarchy problem related to the quadratic divergence to the Higgs boson mass square along with the fact that there is no alternative paradigm that allows us to extrapolate physics from the electroweak scale to the grand unification scale consistent with experiment, supersymmetry remains a compelling framework for new physics beyond the Standard Model. The large loop correction to the Higgs boson mass in supersymmetry to lift the tree mass to the experimentally observable value, indicates a larger value of the scale of weak scale supersymmetry, making the observation of sparticles more challenging but still within reach at the LHC for the lightest ones. Recent analyses show that a high energy LHC (HE-LHC) operating at 27 TeV running at its optimal luminosity of [Formula: see text] can reduce the discovery period by several years relative to HL-LHC and significantly extend the reach in parameter space of models. In the coming years several experiments related to neutrino physics, searches for supersymmetry, on dark matter and dark energy will have direct impact on the unification frontier. Thus the discovery of sparticles will establish supersymmetry as a fundamental symmetry of nature and also lend direct support for strings. Further, discovery of sparticles associated with missing energy will constitute discovery of dark matter with LSP being the dark matter. On the cosmology front more accurate measurement of the equation of state, i.e. [Formula: see text], will shed light on the nature of dark energy. Specifically, [Formula: see text] will likely indicate the existence of a dynamical field, possibly quintessence, responsible for dark energy and [Formula: see text] would indicate an entirely new sector of physics. Further, more precise measurements of the ratio [Formula: see text] of tensor to scalar power spectrum, of the scalar and tensor spectral indices [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] and of non-Gaussianity will hopefully allow us to realize a Standard Model of inflation. These results will be a guide to further model building that incorporates unification of particle physics and cosmology.

The Discreet Charm of Higgsino Dark Matter: A Pocket Review

We give a brief review of the current constraints and prospects for detection of higgsino dark matter in low-scale supersymmetry. In the first part we argue, after performing a survey of all potential dark matter particles in the MSSM, that the (nearly) pure higgsino is the only candidate emerging virtually unscathed from the wealth of observational data of recent years. In doing so by virtue of its gauge quantum numbers and electroweak symmetry breaking only, it maintains at the same time a relatively high degree of model-independence. In the second part we properly review the prospects for detection of a higgsino-like neutralino in direct underground dark matter searches, collider searches, and indirect astrophysical signals. We provide estimates for the typical scale of the superpartners and fine tuning in the context of traditional scenarios where the breaking of supersymmetry is mediated at about the scale of Grand Unification and where strong expectations for a timely detection of higgsinos in underground detectors are closely related to the measured 125 GeV mass of the Higgs boson at the LHC.

Inflation from high-scale supersymmetry breaking

Supersymmetry breaking close to the scale of grand unification can explain cosmic inflation. As we demonstrate in this paper, this can be achieved in strongly coupled supersymmetric gauge theories, such that the energy scales of inflation and supersymmetry breaking are generated dynamically. As a consequence, both scales are related to each other and exponentially suppressed compared to the Planck scale. As an example, we consider a dynamical model in which gauging a global flavor symmetry in the supersymmetry-breaking sector gives rise to a Fayet-Iliopoulos $D$ term. This results in successful $D$-term hybrid inflation in agreement with all theoretical and phenomenological constraints. The gauged flavor symmetry can be identified with $U(1{)}_{B\ensuremath{-}L}$, where $B$ and $L$ denote baryon and lepton number, respectively. In the end, we arrive at a consistent cosmological scenario that provides a unified picture of high-scale supersymmetry breaking, viable $D$-term hybrid inflation, spontaneous $B\ensuremath{-}L$ breaking at the scale of grand unification, baryogenesis via leptogenesis, and standard model neutrino masses due to the type-I seesaw mechanism.

The Constrained NMSSM with right-handed neutrinos

In this article, we demonstrate that the inclusion of right-handed neutrino superfields in the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM) makes it possible to impose universality conditions on the soft supersymmetry-breaking parameters at the Grand Unification scale, alleviating many of the problems of the so-called Constrained NMSSM. We have studied the renormalization group equations of this model, showing that right-handed neutrinos greatly contribute to driving the singlet Higgs mass-squared parameter negative, which makes it considerably easier to satisfy the conditions for radiative electroweak symmetry breaking. The new fields also lead to larger values of the Standard Model Higgs mass, thus making it easier to reproduce the measured value. As a consequence, all bounds from colliders and low-energy observables can be fulfilled in wide areas of the parameter space. However, the relic density in these regions is generally too high requiring some form of late entropy production to dilute the density of the lightest supersymmetric particle.

Likelihood analysis of the sub-GUT MSSM in light of LHC 13-TeV data

We describe a likelihood analysis using MasterCode of variants of the MSSM in which the soft supersymmetry-breaking parameters are assumed to have universal values at some scale M_mathrm{in} below the supersymmetric grand unification scale M_mathrm{GUT}, as can occur in mirage mediation and other models. In addition to M_mathrm{in}, such ‘sub-GUT’ models have the 4 parameters of the CMSSM, namely a common gaugino mass m_{1/2}, a common soft supersymmetry-breaking scalar mass m_0, a common trilinear mixing parameter A and the ratio of MSSM Higgs vevs tan beta , assuming that the Higgs mixing parameter mu > 0. We take into account constraints on strongly- and electroweakly-interacting sparticles from sim 36/fb of LHC data at 13 TeV and the LUX and 2017 PICO, XENON1T and PandaX-II searches for dark matter scattering, in addition to the previous LHC and dark matter constraints as well as full sets of flavour and electroweak constraints. We find a preference for M_mathrm{in}sim 10^5 to 10^9 ,, mathrm {GeV}, with M_mathrm{in}sim M_mathrm{GUT} disfavoured by Delta chi ^2 sim 3 due to the mathrm{BR}(B_{s, d} rightarrow mu ^+mu ^-) constraint. The lower limits on strongly-interacting sparticles are largely determined by LHC searches, and similar to those in the CMSSM. We find a preference for the LSP to be a Bino or Higgsino with m_{tilde{chi }^0_{1}} sim 1 ,, mathrm {TeV}, with annihilation via heavy Higgs bosons H / A and stop coannihilation, or chargino coannihilation, bringing the cold dark matter density into the cosmological range. We find that spin-independent dark matter scattering is likely to be within reach of the planned LUX-Zeplin and XENONnT experiments. We probe the impact of the (g-2)_mu constraint, finding similar results whether or not it is included.

Fate of global symmetries in the Universe: QCD axion, quintessential axion and trans-Planckian inflaton decay constant

Pseudoscalars appearing in particle physics are reviewed systematically. From the fundamental point of view at an ultraviolet completed theory, they can be light if they are realized as pseudo-Goldstone bosons of some spontaneously broken global symmetries. The spontaneous breaking scale is parametrized by the decay constant [Formula: see text]. The global symmetry is defined by the lowest order terms allowed in the effective theory consistent with the gauge symmetry in question. Since any global symmetry is known to be broken at least by quantum gravitational effects, all pseudoscalars should be massive. The mass scale is determined by [Formula: see text] and the explicit breaking terms [Formula: see text] in the effective potential and also anomaly terms [Formula: see text] for some non-Abelian gauge groups [Formula: see text]. The well-known example by non-Abelian gauge group breaking is the potential for the “invisible” QCD axion, via the Peccei–Quinn symmetry, which constitutes a major part of this review. Even if there is no breaking terms from gauge anomalies, there can be explicit breaking terms [Formula: see text] in the potential in which case the leading term suppressed by [Formula: see text] determines the pseudoscalar mass scale. If the breaking term is extremely small and the decay constant is trans-Planckian, the corresponding pseudoscalar can be a candidate for a “quintessential axion.” In general, [Formula: see text] is considered to be smaller than [Formula: see text], and hence the pseudo-Goldstone boson mass scales are considered to be smaller than the decay constants. In such a case, the potential of the pseudo-Goldstone boson at the grand unification scale is sufficiently flat near the top of the potential that it can be a good candidate for an inflationary model, which is known as “natural inflation.” We review all these ideas in the bosonic collective motion framework.