Minimal Flavor Violation Research Articles

Flavor-changing neutral currents in the Higgs sector

This review considers models with extended Higgs sectors in which there are tree-level flavor-changing neutral currents (FCNC) mediated by scalars. After briefly reviewing models without tree-level FCNC, several models with such currents are discussed. A popular mass-matrix ansatz, in which the flavor-changing couplings are the geometric mean of the individual flavor couplings, is presented. While it provided a target for experimentalists for three decades, it is now being severely challenged by experiments. Couplings expected to be of [Formula: see text] must be substantially smaller and the ansatz is now not favored. The minimal flavor violation hypothesis is introduced. Then specific models are presented, including the Branco–Grimus–Lavoura models. These models are not yet excluded experimentally, but they are highly predictive and will be tested once heavy Higgs bosons are discovered. We then turn to flavorful models and flavor-changing decays of heavy Higgs bosons, and it is shown that in many of these models, the heavy Higgs could predominantly decay in a flavor-changing manner (such as [Formula: see text] or [Formula: see text]) and experimentalists are encouraged to include these possibilities in their searches.

Lessons from the LHCb measurement of CP violation in Bs→ K+K−

The LHCb experiment measured the time-dependent CP asymmetries CKK and SKK in Bs→ K+K− decay. Combining with the corresponding CP asymmetries Cππ and Sππ in B → π+π− decay, we find that the size of U-spin breaking in this system is of order 20%. Moreover, the data suggest that these effects are dominated by factorizable contributions. We further study the constraints on new physics contributions to b → uoverline{u}q (q = s, d). New physics that is minimally flavor violating (MFV) cannot be distinguished from the Standard Model (SM) in these decays. However, new physics that is not MFV can mimic large U-spin breaking. Requiring that the U-spin breaking parameters remain below the size implied by the data leads to a lower bound of 5 − 10 TeV on the scale of generic new physics. If the new physics is subject to the selection rules that follow from the Froggatt-Nielsen (FN) mechanism or from General Minimal Flavor Violation (GMFV), the bound is relaxed to 2 TeV.

Tasting flavoured Majorana dark matter

We study a simplified model of flavoured Majorana dark matter in the Dark Minimal Flavour Violation framework. The model extends the Standard Model by a dark matter flavour triplet and a scalar mediator, through which the new dark fermions couple to right-handed up-type quarks. This interaction is governed by a new coupling matrix λ which is assumed to constitute the only new source of flavour and CP violation. We analyse the parameter space of this model by using constraints from collider searches, D0− overline{D} 0 mixing, cosmology and direct dark matter searches. Throughout our study, we point out crucial differences between the Majorana and Dirac dark matter cases. After performing a combined analysis within the context of all the experimental constraints mentioned above, we analyse which flavour for the dark matter particle is preferred by experimental data. We further investigate if this model is capable of explaining the large measured value of the direct CP asymmetry Delta {A}_{mathrm{CP}}^{mathrm{dir}} in charm decays. We find that significant enhancements with respect to the Standard Model expectation are compatible with all constraints, and even the central value of the measurement can be reached. We also advertise the flavour-violating final state with two same-sign top quarks produced in association with missing transverse energy as a smoking-gun signature for flavoured Majorana dark matter at the LHC.

Searching for BSM physics in Yukawa couplings and flavour symmetries

In the framework of the Standard Model Effective Field Theory, we compare the lower bounds on the scale of new physics possibly contributing to the foverline{f}h effective couplings, obtained from the measurements of different observables, under the assumption that the Wilson coefficients of the relevant dim 6 operators respect certain flavour structure: either the Minimal Flavour Violation (MFV) ansatz or a flavour symmetry, often invoked to explain the observed pattern of fermion masses and mixings. We perform a global analysis of the bounds following from the limits on the diagonal couplings measured in the Higgs boson production and decays at the LHC experiments. Another set of bounds is obtained from the limits on non-diagonal couplings constrained by the variety of flavour changing neutral current (FCNC) and radiative decay processes. With the present precision of the LHC data, the FCNC data give stronger bounds on the scale of new physics than the collider data (obviously, for the MFV ansatz only collider data are relevant): once the Wilson coefficients respect some flavour structure, the obtained bounds are in the TeV range. In the quark case, these limits are compatible with a few percent deviations from the SM Yukawa couplings and only mildly more stringent than those obtained from the available collider data. For leptons, instead, the FCNC bounds are stronger and then a signal in the near future collider data would mean the violation of the flavour symmetry or indicate the presence of additional beyond the Standard Model contributions, affecting the flavour observables, that leads to cancellations.

Minimal dark matter model for muon g−2 with scalar lepton partners up to the TeV scale

The E989 experiment at the Fermi National Laboratory reported a $4.2\ensuremath{\sigma}$ discrepancy between the measured magnetic dipole moment of the muon, and its prediction in the Standard Model (SM). In this study, we address the anomaly by considering a minimal and generic extension to the SM which also provides for a dark matter (DM) candidate. The extra states in this framework are: a SM singlet Majorana fermion, referred to as the Bino, playing the role of DM; and muonic scalars, referred to as sleptons. The couplings between the sleptons, SM muons and the Bino can account for the muon $g\ensuremath{-}2$ anomaly if the scalar muon partners, or smuons, mix chirality. On the other hand, the DM relic density is satisfied primarily through coannihilation effects involving the Bino and the lighter sleptons. The viable parameter space of our model includes regions with relatively light coannihilating particles, similar to what has been found in previous scans of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). Relaxing the assumption of minimal flavor violation typically assumed in the MSSM, we see that scenarios with sizable smuon mixing and large mass splittings between the smuons can satisfy both the muon $g\ensuremath{-}2$ anomaly and the DM relic density for coannihilating particle masses up to and beyond the TeV scale. When we specify the origin of the left-right smuon mixing to be trilinear couplings between the smuons and the SM Higgs boson, the constraints on these scenarios arising from perturbative unitarity and electroweak vacuum stability confine the coannihilating particle masses to be $\ensuremath{\lesssim}1\text{ }\text{ }\mathrm{TeV}$. We demonstrate that next generation direct detection experiments are only marginally sensitive to the viable parameter space of our model, and, thus, a future lepton collider could be the essential probe necessary to distinguish our model from other solutions to the muon $g\ensuremath{-}2$ anomaly which involve extra states beyond the SM.

A Bottom-up Approach: The Data Driven Flavour Model$${}^{\mathbf{\#}}$$

A bottom-up approach has been adopted to identify a flavour model that agrees with present experimental measurements. The charged fermion mass hierarchies suggest that only the top Yukawa term should be present at the renormalisable level. The flavour symmetry of the Lagrangian including the fermionic kinetic terms and only the top Yukawa is then a combination of $$U(2)$$ and $$U(3)$$ factors. Lighter charged fermion and active neutrino masses and quark and lepton mixings arise considering specific spurion fields. The associated phenomenology is investigated and the model turns out to have almost the same flavour protection of the minimal flavour violation, in both quark and lepton sectors. Promoting the spurions to be dynamical fields, the associated scalar potential is also studied and a minimum is identified such that fermion masses and mixings are correctly reproduced.

Modular symmetry in the SMEFT

We study the modular symmetric standard model effective field theory. We employ the stringy Ansatz on coupling structure that 4-point couplings ${y}^{(4)}$ of matter fields are written by a product of 3-point couplings ${y}^{(3)}$ of matter fields, i.e., ${y}^{(4)}={y}^{(3)}{y}^{(3)}$. In this framework, we discuss the flavor structure of bilinear fermion operators and 4-fermion operators, where the holomorphic and antiholomorphic modular forms appear. From the Ansatz, the ${A}_{4}$ modular-invariant semileptonic four-fermion operator $[{\overline{E}}_{R}\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}{E}_{R}][{\overline{D}}_{R}\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}{D}_{R}]$ does not lead to the flavor changing (FC) processes since this operator would be constructed in terms of gauge couplings $g$ as ${y}^{(3)}\ensuremath{\sim}g$. The chirality flipped bilinear operator $[{\overline{D}}_{R}\mathrm{\ensuremath{\Gamma}}{D}_{L}]$ also does not lead FC if the mediated mode corresponds to the Higgs boson ${H}_{d}$. In this case, the flavor structure of this operator is the exactly same as the mass matrix. On the other hand, if the flavor structure of the operator is not the exactly same as the mass matrix, the situation would change drastically. Then, we obtain the nontrivial relations of FC transitions at nearby fixed points $\ensuremath{\tau}=i,\ensuremath{\omega},i\ensuremath{\infty}$, which are testable in the future. As an application, we discuss the relations of the lepton flavor violation processes $\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}e\ensuremath{\gamma},\ensuremath{\tau}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}\ensuremath{\mu}\ensuremath{\gamma}$ and $\ensuremath{\tau}\ensuremath{\rightarrow}e\ensuremath{\gamma}$ at nearby ${\ensuremath{\tau}}_{e}=i$, where the successful lepton mass matrix was obtained. We also study the flavor changing 4-quark operators in the ${A}_{4}$ modular symmetry of quarks. As a result, the minimal flavor violation could be realized by taking relevant specific parameter sets of order one.

No-lose theorem for discovering the new physics of (g−2)μ at muon colliders

We perform a model-exhaustive analysis of all possible beyond Standard Model (BSM) solutions to the $(g-2)_\mu$ anomaly to study production of the associated new states at future muon colliders, and formulate a no-lose theorem for the discovery of new physics if the anomaly is confirmed and weakly coupled solutions below the GeV scale are excluded. Our goal is to find the highest possible mass scale of new physics subject only to perturbative unitarity, and optionally the requirements of minimum flavour violation (MFV) and/or naturalness. We prove that a 3 TeV muon collider is guaranteed to discover all BSM scenarios in which $\Delta a_\mu$ is generated by SM singlets with masses above $\sim $ GeV; lighter singlets will be discovered by upcoming low-energy experiments. If new states with electroweak quantum numbers contribute to $(g-2)_\mu$, the minimal requirements of perturbative unitarity guarantee new charged states below $\mathcal{O}(100 {\rm TeV})$, but this is strongly disfavoured by stringent constraints on charged lepton flavour violating (CLFV) decays. Reasonable BSM theories that satisfy CLFV bounds by obeying Minimal Flavour Violation (MFV) and avoid generating two new hierarchy problems require the existence of at least one new charged state below $\sim 10$ TeV. This strongly motivates the construction of high-energy muon colliders, which are guaranteed to discover new physics: either by producing these new charged states directly, or by setting a strong lower bound on their mass, which would empirically prove that the universe is fine-tuned and violates the assumptions of MFV while somehow not generating large CLFVs. The former case is obviously the desired outcome, but the latter scenario would perhaps teach us even more about the universe by profoundly revising our understanding of naturalness, cosmological vacuum selection, and the SM flavour puzzle.

Dark matter in three-Higgs-doublet models with S3 symmetry

Models with two or more scalar doublets with discrete or global symmetries can have vacua with vanishing vacuum expectation values in the bases where symmetries are imposed. If a suitable symmetry stabilises such vacua, these models may lead to interesting dark matter candidates, provided that the symmetry prevents couplings among the dark matter candidates and the fermions. We analyse three-Higgs-doublet models with an underlying S3 symmetry. These models have many distinct vacua with one or two vanishing vacuum expectation values which can be stabilised by a remnant of the S3 symmetry which survived spontaneous symmetry breaking. We discuss all possible vacua in the context of S3-symmetric three-Higgs-doublet models, allowing also for softly broken S3, and explore one of the vacuum configurations in detail. In the case we explore, only one of the three Higgs doublets is inert. The other two are active, and therefore the active sector, in many aspects, behaves like a two-Higgs-doublet model. The way the fermions couple to the scalar sector is constrained by the S3 symmetry and is such that the flavour structure of the model is solely governed by the VCKM matrix which, in our framework, is not constrained by the S3 symmetry. This is a key requirement for models with minimal flavour violation. In our model there is no CP violation in the scalar sector. We study this model in detail giving the masses and couplings and identifying the range of parameters that are compatible with theoretical and experimental constraints, both from accelerator physics and from astrophysics.

Constraints on coloured scalars from global fits

We consider a simple extension of the electroweak theory, incorporating one SU(2)L doublet of colour-octet scalars with Yukawa couplings satisfying the principle of minimal flavour violation. Using the HEPfit package, we perform a global fit to the available data, including all relevant theoretical constraints, and extract the current bounds on the model parameters. Coloured scalars with masses below 1.05 TeV are already excluded, provided they are not fermiophobic. The mass splittings among the different (charged and CP-even and CP-odd neutral) scalars are restricted to be smaller than 20 GeV. Moreover, for scalar masses smaller than 1.5 TeV, the Yukawa coupling of the coloured scalar multiplet to the top quark cannot exceed the one of the SM Higgs doublet by more than 80%. These conclusions are quite generic and apply in more general frameworks (without fine tunings). The theoretical requirements of perturbative unitarity and vacuum stability enforce relevant constraints on the quartic scalar potential parameters that are not yet experimentally tested.

The framework for a common origin of delta _{mathrm{CKM}} and delta _{mathrm{PMNS}}

We analyse a possible connection between CP violations in the quark and lepton sectors, parametrised by the CKM and PMNS phases. If one assumes that CP breaking arises from complex Yukawa couplings, both in the quark and lepton sectors, the above connection is not possible in general, since Yukawa couplings in the two sectors have independent flavour structures. We show that both the CKM and PMNS phases can instead be generated by a vacuum phase in a class of two Higgs doublet models, and in this case a connection may be established. This scenario requires the presence of scalar FCNC at tree level, both in the quark and lepton sectors. The appearance of these FCNC is an obstacle and a blessing. An obstacle since one has to analyse which models are able to conform to the strict experimental limits on FCNC, both in the quark and lepton sectors. A blessing, because this class of models is falsifiable since FCNC arise at a level which can be probed experimentally in the near future, specially in the processes mathrm{h}rightarrow e^pm tau ^mp and trightarrow mathrm{h}c. The connection between CP violations in CKM and PMNS is explicitely illustrated in models with Minimal Flavour Violation.

Freezing In with lepton flavored fermions

Dark, chiral fermions carrying lepton flavor quantum numbers are natural candidates for freeze-in. Small couplings with the Standard Model fermions of the order of lepton Yukawas are `automatic' in the limit of Minimal Flavor Violation. In the absence of total lepton number violating interactions, particles with certain representations under the flavor group remain absolutely stable. For masses in the GeV-TeV range, the simplest model with three flavors, leads to signals at future direct detection experiments like DARWIN. Interestingly, freeze-in with a smaller flavor group such as SU(2) is already being probed by XENON1T.

Complete solution to the strong CP problem: Supersymmetric extension of the Nelson-Barr model

We present a supersymmetric solution to the strong CP problem based on spontaneous CP violation which simultaneously addresses the affects coming from supersymmetry breaking. The generated CP violating phase is communicated to the quark sector by interacting with a heavy quark a la Nelson-Barr. The Majorana mass of the right handed neutrinos is generated by interactions with the CP violating sector and so does not conserve CP. This gives the neutrino sector a non-trivial CP violating phase which can then generate the baryon asymmetry of the universe through leptogeneis. The problematic phase in the supersymmetry breaking parameters are suppressed by appealing to a particular gauge mediation model which naturally suppresses the phases of the tree-level gluino mass. This suppression plus the fact that in gauge mediation all loop generated flavor and CP violation is of the minimal flavor violation variety allows for a complete and consistent solution to the strong CP problem.

The flavor of UV physics

New physics not far above the TeV scale should leave a pattern of virtual effects in observables at lower energies. What do these effects tell us about the flavor structure of a UV theory? Within the framework of the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT), we resolve the flavor structure of the Wilson coefficients in a combined analysis of top-quark and B-physics observables. We assume that the Yukawa couplings are the only sources of flavor symmetry breaking, a framework known as Minimal Flavor Violation. Our fits to LHC and b-factory measurements show that combining top and bottom observables is crucial to pin down possible sources of flavor breaking in a UV theory. This analysis includes the full analytic expansion of SMEFT coefficients in Minimal Flavor Violation and a detailed study of SMEFT effects in b → s flavor transitions.

Positivity bounds on Minimal Flavor Violation

From general analyticity and unitarity requirements on the UV theory, positivity bounds on the Wilson coefficients of the dimension-8 operators composed of 4 fermions and two derivatives appearing in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory have been derived recently. We explore the fate of these bounds in the context of models endowed with a Minimal Flavor Violation (MFV) structure, models in which the flavor structure of higher dimensional operators is inherited from the one already contained in the Yukawa sector of the Standard Model Lagrangian. Our goal is to check whether the general positivity bounds translate onto bounds on the Yukawa coefficients and/or on elements of the CKM matrix. MFV fixes the coefficients of dimension-8 operators up to some multiplicative flavor-blind factors and we find that, in the most generic setup, the freedom left by those unspecified coefficients is enough as not to constrain the parameters of the renormalizable Yukawa sector. On the contrary, the latter shape the allowed region for the former. Requiring said overall coefficients to take natural mathcal{O}(1) values could give rise to bounds on the Yukawa couplings. Remarkably, at leading order in an expansion in powers of the Yukawa matrices, no bounds on the CKM entries can be retrieved.

Single-top final states as a probe of top-flavoured dark matter models at the LHC

Models incorporating flavoured dark matter provide an elegant solution to the dark matter problem, evading the tight LHC and direct direction constraints on simple WIMP models. In Dark Minimal Flavour Violation, a simple framework of flavoured dark matter with new sources of flavour violation, the constraints from thermal freeze-out, direct detection experiments, and flavour physics create well-defined benchmark scenarios for these models. We study the LHC phenomenology of four such scenarios, focusing on final states where a single top quark is produced accompanied by no jets, one jet from the fragmentation of light quarks or a b-tagged jet. For each of these signatures we develop a realistic LHC analysis, and we show that the proposed analyses would increase the parameter space coverage for the four benchmarks, compared to existing flavour-conserving LHC analyses. Finally we show the projected discovery potential of the considered signatures for the full LHC statistics at 14 TeV, and for the High Luminosity LHC.

Power-aligned 2HDM: a correlative perspective on (g \u2212 2)e,\u03bc

With the hypothesis of minimal flavor violation, we find that there exists a power-aligned relation between the Yukawa couplings of the two scalar doublets in the two-Higgs-doublet model with Hermitian Yukawa matrices. Within such a power-aligned framework, it is found that a simultaneous explanation of the anomalies observed in the electron and muon anomalous magnetic moments can be reached with TeV-scale quasi-degenerate Higgs masses, and the resulting parameter space is also phenomenologically safer under the B-physics, Z and τ decay data, as well as the current LHC bounds. Furthermore, the flavor-universal power that enhances the charged-lepton Yukawa couplings prompts an interesting correlation between the two anomalies, which makes the model distinguishable from the (generalized) linearly aligned and the lepton-specific two-Higgs-doublet models that address the same anomalies but in a non-correlative manner, and hence testable by future precise measurements.

Dark matter interactions in an S4×Z5 flavor symmetry framework

The interactions of dark matter (DM) with the visible sector are often phenomenologically described in the framework of simplified models where the couplings of quarks to the new particles are generally assumed to be universal or have a simple structure motivated by observational benchmarks. They should, however, a priori be treated as free parameters. In this work we discuss one particular realization of the structure of DM couplings based on an $S_4 \times Z_5$ flavor symmetry, which has been shown to account reasonably well for fermion masses and mixing, and compare their effect on observational signals to universal as well as Yukawa-like couplings, which are motivated by minimal flavor violation. We will also comment on how these structures could be constrained in UV complete theories of DM and how DM observables, such as, e.g., relic density and direct detection, can potentially be used as a smoking gun for the underlying flavor symmetries.

B anomalies under the lens of electroweak precision

The measurements carried out at LEP and SLC projected us into the precision era of electroweak physics. This has also been relevant in the theoretical interpretation of LHCb and Belle measurements of rare B semileptonic decays, paving the road for new physics with the inference of lepton universality violation in {R}_{K^{left(ast right)}} ratios. The simplest explanation of these flavour anomalies — sizeable one-loop contributions respecting Minimal Flavour Violation — is currently disfavoured by electroweak precision data. In this work, we discuss how to completely relieve the present tension between electroweak constraints and one-loop minimal flavour violating solutions to {R}_{K^{left(ast right)}} . We determine the correlations in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory that highlight the existence of such a possibility. Then, we consider minimal extensions of the Standard Model where our effective-field-theory picture can be realized. We discuss how these solutions to b → sℓℓ anomalies, respecting electroweak precision and without any new source of flavour violation, may point to the existence of a Z′ boson at around the TeV scale, within the discovery potential of LHC, or to leptoquark scenarios.

The impact of flavour data on global fits of the MFV SMEFT

We investigate the information that can be gained by including flavour data in fits of the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT) with the assumption of Minimal Flavour Violation (MFV), allowing — as initial conditions at the high scale — leading terms in spurionic Yukawas only. Starting therefore from a theory with no tree level flavour changing neutral currents at the scale of new physics, we calculate effects in flavour changing processes at one loop, and the resulting constraints on linear combinations of SMEFT coefficients, consistently parameterising the electroweak parameters and the CKM within the SMEFT. By doing a global fit including electroweak, Higgs and low energy precision measurements among others, we show that flavour observables put strong constraints on previously unconstrained operator directions. The addition of flavour data produces four independent constraints at order TeV or above on otherwise flat directions; reducing to three when complete U(3)5 flavour symmetry is assumed. Our findings demonstrate that flavour remains a stringent test for models of new physics, even in the most flavourless scenario.