SM Particles Research Articles

Flavor phenomenology of light dark vectors

Light dark matter with flavor-violating couplings to fermions may be copiously produced in the laboratory as missing energy from decays of SM particles. Here we study the effective Lagrangian of a light dark vector with generic dipole or vector couplings. We calculate the resulting two-body decay rates of mesons, baryons and leptons as a function of the dark vector mass and show that existing experimental limits probe UV scales as large as 1012 GeV. We also derive the general RGEs in order to constrain the flavor-universal UV scenario, where all flavor violation arises radiatively proportional to the CKM matrix.

Di-Higgs signatures in neutral naturalness

The Higgs boson was the last fundamental piece of the Standard Model to be experimentally confirmed. LHC is embarked in a quest to probe the possibility that this particle provides a portal to new physics. One front of this quest consists in measuring the interactions of the Higgs with itself and with other SM particles to a high precision. In a more exotic front, the LHC is searching for the possibility that a pair of Higgses (HH) is the evidence of a new resonance. Such resonances are predicted in models with extended Higgs sectors, extra dimensions, and in models with exotic bound states. In this paper we show how scalar quirks in Folded Supersymmetry can give rise to HH resonances. We point out a viable sector of the parameter space in which HH is the dominant decay channel for these squirkonium bound states. We found that future runs of the LHC could discover HH resonances in the range of 0.5–1.6 TeV under reasonable assumptions. Furthermore, for a given mass and width of the HH signal, the model predicts the branching ratio of the subsequent decay modes of the heavy resonance. Finding the extra decay modes in the predicted pattern can serve as a smoking gun to confirm the model.

Can we explain cosmic birefringence without a new light field beyond Standard Model?

The recent analysis of the Planck 2018 polarization data shows a nonzero isotropic cosmic birefringence (ICB) that is not explained within the ΛCDM paradigm. We then explore the question of whether the nonzero ICB is interpreted by the framework of the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT), or at the energy scales of the cosmic microwave background, the low-energy EFT (LEFT) whose dynamical degrees of freedom are five SM quarks and all neutral and charged leptons. Our systematic study reveals that any operator in the EFT on a cosmological background would not give the reported ICB angle, which is observationally consistent with frequency independence. In particular, we estimate the size of the ICB angle generated by the effect that the cosmic microwave background photons travel through the medium of the cosmic neutrino background with parity-violating neutrino-photon interactions and find that it would be too small to explain the data. If the reported ICB angle should be confirmed, then our result would indicate the existence of a new particle that is lighter than the electroweak scale and feebly interacting with the SM particles.

Forbidden dark matter combusted around supermassive black hole

The forbidden dark matter cannot annihilate into a pair of heavier partners, either SM particles or its partners in the dark sector, at the late stage of cosmological evolution by definition. We point out the possibility of reactivating the forbidden annihilation channel around supermassive black holes. Being attracted towards a black hole, the forbidden dark matter is significantly accelerated to overcome the annihilation threshold. The subsequent decay of the annihilation products to photon leaves a unique signal around the black hole, which can serve as a smoking gun for the forbidden dark matter. For illustration, the Fermi-LAT data around Sgr A⁎ provides a preliminary constraint on the thermally averaged cross section of the reactivated forbidden annihilation that is consistent with the DM relic density requirement.

Higgs inflation at the pole

We propose a novel possibility for Higgs inflation where the perturbative unitarity below the Planck scale is ensured by construction and the successful predictions for inflation are accommodated. The conformal gravity coupling for the Higgs field leads to the proximity of the effective Planck mass to zero in the Jordan frame during inflation, corresponding to a pole in the Higgs kinetic term in the Einstein frame. Requiring the Higgs potential to vanish at the conformal pole in the effective theory in the Jordan frame, we make a robust prediction of the successful Higgs inflation. For a successful Higgs inflation at the pole, we take the running quartic coupling for the Higgs field to be small enough at the inflation scale, being consistent with the low-energy data, but we need a nontrivial extension of the SM with extra scalar or gauge fields in order to keep the running Higgs quartic coupling small during inflation. Performing the perturbative analysis of reheating with the known couplings of the SM particles to the Higgs boson, we show that a concrete realization of the Higgs pole inflation can be pinned down by the reheating processes with a general equation of state for the Higgs inflaton. We illustrate some extensions of the simple Higgs pole inflation to the general pole expansions, the running Higgs quartic coupling in the Standard Model and its extension with a singlet scalar field, a supergravity embedding of the Higgs pole inflation.

(sub)GeV dark matter in the U(1)X Higgs portal model

In this research we consider a U(1)X gauge boson acting as a dark matter candidate. The vector dark matter (DM) gets mass when a complex singlet scalar breaks the gauge symmetry spontaneously, adding a second Higgs boson to the spectra. The dark matter candidates communicate with the SM particles via a scalar-Higgs portal. In this work, we concentrate on the masses of the vector dark matter and the scalar mediator below 10 GeV, aka light dark matter. Although we assume thermal freeze-out for the vector DM using the zero-moment of the full Boltzmann equation to calculate the relic abundance, we explore the effects of the second-moment when the vector DM annihilates resonantly. As typically light DM is highly sensitive to CMB bounds, we focus on two thermal mechanisms which alleviate this bound: dark matter annihilation via forbidden channels and near a pole. Other bounds from colliders, thermalization conditions, beam-dump experiments, and astrophysical observations are imposed. Taking into account all the bounds including the direct detection upper limits, the viable space is achieved.

Light Scalars at FASER

FASER, the ForwArd Search ExpeRiment, is a currently operating experiment at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) that can detect light long-lived particles produced in the forward region of the LHC interacting point. In this paper, we study the prospect of detecting light CP-even and CP-odd scalars at FASER and FASER 2. Considering a model-independent framework describing the most general interactions between a CP-even or CP-odd scalar and SM particles using the notation of coupling modifiers in the effective Lagrangian, we develop the general formalism for the scalar production and decay. We then analyze the FASER and FASER 2 reaches of light scalars in the large tan β region of the Type-I two Higgs double model as a case study, in which light scalars with relatively long lifetime could be accommodated. In the two benchmark scenarios we considered, the light (pseudo)scalar decay length varies in (10−8, 105) meters. Both FASER and FASER 2 can probe a large part of the parameter space in the large tan β region up to 107, extending beyond the constraints of the other existing experiments.

Can the Higgs still account for the g−2 anomaly?

In this paper, we use an Effective Field Theory (EFT) approach to evaluate the viability of the Higgs to account for the [Formula: see text] anomaly. Although the SM contribution of the Higgs to the muon’s magnetic dipole moment is negligible, using a bottom-up EFT, we show that given the current level of experimental limits on the Higgs sector, the Higgs can still yield a viable solution to the [Formula: see text] anomaly if its couplings to the rest of the SM particles are allowed to deviate from their SM predictions. Such a solution would only require an [Formula: see text] fine-tuning. Further, applying unitarity arguments, we show that such a solution would indicate a scale of New Physics (NP) of [Formula: see text]5–8[Formula: see text]TeV, which could be lowered to [Formula: see text]3.4–4 TeV if the Higgs couplings to the [Formula: see text] and [Formula: see text] are assumed to conform to their SM predictions. We show that such a scenario could yield significant enhancement to the di-Higgs production in muon colliders, thus providing further motivation for its consideration. A key takeaway of this study is to highlight the importance of measuring the [Formula: see text] coupling in future experiments.

CMB signature of non-thermal Dark Matter produced from self-interacting dark sector

The basic idea of this work is to achieve the observed relic density of a non-thermal dark matter(DM) and its connection with Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) viaadditional relativistic degrees of freedom which are simultaneously generated duringthe period T BBN to TCMB from a long-lived dark sector particle.To realize this phenomena we minimally extend the type-I seesaw scenario with a Diracfermion singlet(χ) and a complex scalar singlet (φ) which transformnon-trivially under an unbroken symmetry Z̶ 3. χ being the lightestparticle in the dark sector acts as a stable dark matter candidate while the next tolightest state φ operates like a long lived dark scalar particle. The initialdensity of φ can be thermally produced through either self-interacting numberchanging processes (3φ ⟶ 2φ) within dark sector or the standardannihilation to SM particles (2φ ⟶ 2 SM).The late time (after neutrino decoupling) non-thermal decay of φ can producedark matter in association with active neutrinos. The presence of extrarelativistic neutrino degrees of freedom at the time of CMB can have asignificant impact on ΔNeff. Thus the precise measurement ofΔNeff by current PLANCK 2018 collaboration and future experimentslike SPT-3G and CMB-S4 can indirectly probe this non-thermal dark matter scenariowhich is otherwise completely secluded due to its tiny coupling with the standardmodel.

Thermal production of massless dark photons

A dark photon is predicted by several well-motivated Standard Model extensions and UV completions. Here the most general effective field theory up to dimension-six operatorsdescribing the interactions of a massless dark photon with all Standard Model particles is considered. This captures the predictions of a generic model featuring this type of vector boson at sufficiently low energies. In such framework the thermal production rate of dark photonsis computed at leading order, including the contributions of all SM particles. The corresponding cosmological yield of the dark photon and its contribution to the effective number of neutrinos are also calculated. These predictions satisfy the current observational bounds and will be tested by future measurements.

Loop enhancement of direct detection cross section in a fermionic dark matter model

We investigate the effect of one loop quantum corrections on the elastic scattering of dark matter off the nucleon in a fermionic dark matter model. The model introduces two new singlet fermions and a singlet scalar. The fermions communicate with the SM particles through a Higgs portal. It is found that some viable regions in the parameter space respecting the bounds from the observed relic density, the Higgs invisible decay width, and direct detection experiment, will be shrunk significantly when one loop effects are taken into account. The regions already resided below the neutrino floor, partly may come into regions which are testable by the current or future direct detection experiments. In addition, some regions being viable at tree level, may be excluded when quantum corrections are included.

Z′-explorer 2.0: Reconnoitering the dark matter landscape

We introduce version 2.0 of Z′-explorer, a software tool that provides a simple, fast, and user-friendly test of models with an extra U(1) gauge boson (Z′) against experimental LHC results. The main novelty of the second version is the inclusion of missing energy searches, as the first version only included final states into SM particles. Hence Z′-explorer 2.0 is able to test dark matter models where the Z′ acts as an s-channel mediator between the Standard Model and the dark sector, a widespread benchmark employed by the ATLAS and CMS experimental collaborations. To this end, we perform here the first public reinterpretation of the most recent ATLAS mono-jet search with 139 fb−1. In addition, the corresponding searches in the visible final states have also been updated. We illustrate the power of our code by re-obtaining public plots and also showing novel results. In particular, we study the cases where the Z′ couples strongly to top quarks (top-philic), where dark matter couples with a mixture of vector and axial-vector couplings, and also perform a scan in the parameter space of a string inspired Stückelberg model. Z′-explorer 2.0 is publicly available on GitHub. Program summaryProgram Title:Z′-explorer 2.0CPC Library link to program files:https://doi.org/10.17632/k7tdp8kwgf.2Developer's repository link:https://github.com/ro-sanda/Z--explorer-2.0Licensing provisions: GPLv3Programming language: C++ and bashNature of problem: New SM neutral gauge bosons, Z′, are ubiquitously present in models of New Physics. In order to confront these models versus a large and ever-growing library of LHC searches, Z′-explorer 1.0 had already included all final states including Standard Model particles. Notably, the previous version of this tool lacked the so-called invisible final states manifested as a momentum imbalance in the transverse plane (“missing energy”). These searches help to probe mediators into a dark sector, where a dark matter candidate resides.Solution method:Z′-explorer encodes the production cross sections for Z′ bosons at the LHC as a function of their mass, allowing for a fast evaluation of the exclusion limits. This version of Z′-explorer includes a careful validation of the latest search with one energetic jet (mono-jet) performed by the ATLAS collaboration. Hence one can now test if a given point in parameter space is excluded by both visible and invisible searches. The modular structure of the code has been kept, which allows for potential additions (low-energy constraints, flavor, extrapolation to future colliders).

The Influence of Sm Content on the Surface Morphology and Corrosion Behavior of Zn-Co-Sm Composite Coatings

The influence of samarium, as an additional alloying element, on the morphology and corrosion performance of the Zn-Co-Sm alloy electrodeposited coatings, was investigated by scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy dispersive X-ray spectroscopy (SEM/EDS) and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy (EIS) measurements. The Zn-Co-Sm coatings were electrodeposited from the aqueous solution containing Sm(NO3)3, ZnCl2, and CoCl2 as the metal ion source. The percentage of Sm in the coating may be very finely tuned by setting electrodeposition parameters, including cathodic current density, glycine concentration in the electroplating solution, and the solution temperature. The coatings with Sm content from 0.5 to 18.5 wt.% were produced. Since low deposition current densities (10–50 mA cm−2) were applied, the samples obtained were of good adhesion and compact. The presence of Sm2O3 inclusion was verified by XRD as the Sm2O3 crystalline phase. Samarium is incorporated in the coatings through the mechanism of oxide/hydroxide formation during the electroreduction of Zn and Co. Corrosion tests in NaCl solution show that the presence of Sm significantly increases the polarization resistance for the corrosion process of Zn-Co-Sm coatings (one order of magnitude, i.e., from ~500 Ω cm2 measured without Sm to 2000–3000 Ω cm2 with 12 wt.% Sm), giving evidence of the self-healing action that is provided by Sm particles in the coatings. This effect is more pronounced in the case when the coatings contain a higher Sm percentage.

Search at the J-PARC KOTO Experiment

We present the study of massless dark photons in the decay of in the J-PARC KOTO experiment. The massless dark photon is different from the massive dark photon because it does not mix directly with ordinary photons, but it could interact with SM particles through direct coupling with quarks. In some theoretical predictions, the can be as large as \U0001d4aa(10-3), which is well within the sensitivity of KOTO. Because of the lack of kinematic constraints, searching for could be challenging, but the hermetic veto system of KOTO provides a unique opportunity to probe for this decay. We used three techniques to suppress the neutron background, based on machine learning, Fourier analysis, and both-end readout. We will present the background suppression result based on data collected in 2020.

High energy sphalerons for baryogenesis at low temperatures

We discuss baryogenesis in scenarios where the Universe is reheated to temperatures $\lesssim 100\,$GeV by the decay of long-lived massive particles into energetic SM particles. Before its thermalization, the center-of-mass energy in collisions between such a particle and a particle from the ambient plasma can be higher than the typical sphaleron mass, even if the temperature of the plasma itself is much lower. Optimistic estimates for the high energy enhancement of the sphaleron cross section suggest that successful baryogenesis is possible for reheating temperatures as low as $0.1\text{-}1\,$GeV. With a simple extension of the SM, sufficient baryon production can be achieved even if more pessimistic results for the sphaleron rate are correct. In both cases this scenario can be probed in collider and cosmic-ray experiments. We briefly discuss the possible origin of the required CP violation.

SMEFTs living on the edge: determining the UV theories from positivity and extremality

We study the “inverse problem” in the context of the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT): how and to what extend can one reconstruct the UV theory, given the measured values of the operator coefficients in the IR? The main obstacle of this problem is the degeneracies in the space of coefficients: a given SMEFT truncated at a finite dimension can be mapped to infinitely many UV theories. We discuss these degeneracies at the dimension-8 level, and show that positivity bounds play a crucial role in the inverse problem. In particular, the degeneracies either vanish or become significantly limited for SMEFTs that live on or close to the positivity bounds. The UV particles of these SMEFTs, and their properties such as spin, charge, other quantum numbers, and interactions with the SM particles, can often be uniquely determined, assuming dimension-8 coefficients are measured. The allowed region for SMEFTs, which forms a convex cone, can be systematically constructed by enumerating its generators. We show that a geometric notion, extremality, conveniently connects the positivity problem with the inverse problem. We discuss the implications of a SMEFT living on an extremal ray, on a k-face, and on the vertex of the positive cone. We also show that the information of the dimension-8 coefficients can be used to set exclusion limits on all individual UV states that interact with the SM, independent of specific model assumptions. Our results indicate that the dimension-8 operators encode much more information about the UV than one would naively expect, which can be used to reverse engineer the UV physics from the SMEFT.

Dark matter in the Alternative Left Right model

The Alternative Left-Right Model is an attractive variation of the usual Left-Right Symmetric Model because it avoids flavour-changing neutral currents, thus allowing the additional Higgs bosons in the model to be light. We show here that the model predicts several dark matter candidates naturally, through introduction of an R-parity similar to the one in supersymmetry, under which some of the new particles are odd, while all the SM particles are even. Dark matter candidates can be fermionic or bosonic. We present a comprehensive investigation of all possibilities. We analyze and restrict the parameter space where relic density, direct and indirect detection bounds are satisfied, and investigate the possibility of observing fermionic and bosonic dark matter signals at the LHC. Both the bosonic and fermionic candidates provide promising signals, the first in LHC at 300 fb−1, the second at higher luminosity, 3000 fb−1. Signals from bosonic candidates are indicative of the presence of exotic d′ quarks, while fermionic candidates imply the existence of charged Higgs bosons, all with masses in the TeV region.

Sensitivity and constraints to the 2HDM soft-breaking Z2 parameter m12

In this letter we study the specific sensitivity and constraints to the soft breaking Z2 parameter m12 of the Two Higgs Doublet Model (2HDM). m12 is considered here as an input parameter of the model together with the masses of the Higgs bosons, mh, mH, mA, mH±, the ratio of the two Higgs vacuum expectation values, tan⁡β, and cos⁡(β−α), with α and β the mixing angles of the CP-even and CP-odd Higgs sector, respectively. We explore in particular the sensitivity to m12 in the decays of the lightest Higgs boson h to two photons, assuming: 1) that h is the state observed at the LHC at ∼125GeV, and 2) the h couplings to the SM particles are SM-like, by going to the alignment limit, cos⁡(β−α)=0. The aim of this work is to demonstrate possible constraints on m12 from the present measurement of the di-photon signal strength, μγγ. These constraints are relevant in the region of the 2HDM parameter space that is allowed by all the other constraints, specifically, theoretical constraints as well as experimental constraints from LHC Higgs rate measurements, Higgs boson searches, flavor physics and precision observables. The exploration is performed in the four different Yukawa types of 2HDM, where the allowed region by all the other constraints depends on the model type. We also analyze the case that the Higgs-boson mass spectrum accommodates a possible new world average of mW including the recent CDF measurement.

Analysis of direct and indirect detection of fermionic dark matter of 6-dimensional effective field theory

We present an analysis of fermionic dark matter (DM) in the context of 6-dimensional Effective Field Theory (EFT). We also compared the result generated via 6-dimensional EFT analysis with the current experimental results for dark matter searches. These experiments are methodically categorized as direct and indirect searches and present some constraints on dark matter model parameters of 6-dimensional EFT. We constructed a new set of tools ensuring DM researches in various platforms. The model parameters are presented to guide DM production in colliders by taking account of the upper limits at direct and indirect searches. In this paper, we apply our approach for fermionic case to test the verification of the method. There are various types of search methods for DM, each depends on type of interaction of dark matter with SM particles. Finally we analyzed fermionic DM candidate of 6-dimensional Effective Field Theory (EFT) at the platforms of DM searches. A new set of numerical tools is specified for 6-dimensional fermionic DM model, and these tools are also tested.

Displaced neutrino jets at the LHeC

Extending the Standard Model with right-handed neutrinos (RHNs) is well motivated by the observation of neutrino oscillations. In the type-I seesaw model, the RHNs interact with the SM particles via tiny mixings with the active neutrinos, which makes their discovery in the laboratory, and in particular at collider experiments in general challenging. In this work we instead consider an extension of the seesaw model with RHNs with the addition of a leptoquark (LQ), and employ a non-minimal production mechanism of the RHN via LQ decay, which is unsuppressed by neutrino mixing. We focus on relatively light RHN with mass mathcal{O} (10) GeV and LQ with mass 1.0 TeV, and explore the discovery prospect of the RHN at the proposed Large Hadron electron Collider. In the considered mass range and with the given interaction strength, the RHN is long lived and, due to it stemming from the LQ decay, it is also heavily boosted, resulting in collimated decay products. The unique signature under investigation is thus a displaced fat jet. We use kinematic variables to separate signal from background, and demonstrate that the ratio variables with respect to energy/number of displaced and prompt tracks are useful handles in the identification of displaced decays of the RHN. We also show that employing a positron beam provides order of magnitude enhancement in the detection prospect of this signature.