Standard Model Quarks Research Articles

2B or not 2B, a study of bottom-quark-philic semi-visible jets

Semi-visible jets arise in strongly interacting dark sectors, resulting in jets overlapping with the missing transverse momentum direction. The implementation of semi-visible jets is done using the Pythia Hidden Valley module to mimic the QCD sector showering in so-called dark shower. In this work, only heavy flavour Standard Model quarks are considered in dark shower, resulting in a much less ambiguous collider signature of semi-visible jets compared to the democratic production of all five quark flavours in dark shower. The constraints from available searches on this signature are presented, and it is shown the signal reconstruction can be improved by using variable-radius jets. Finally a search strategy is suggested.

Hunting for Bileptons at Hadron Colliders.

I review possible signals at hadron colliders of bileptons, namely doubly charged vectors or scalars with lepton number L=±2, as predicted by a 331 model, based on a SU(3)c×SU(3)L×U(1)X symmetry. In particular, I account for a version of the 331 model wherein the embedding of the hypercharge is obtained with the addition of three exotic quarks and vector bileptons. Furthermore, a sextet of SU(3)L, necessary to provide masses to leptons, yields an extra scalar sector, including a doubly charged Higgs, i.e., scalar bileptons. As bileptons are mostly produced in pairs at hadron colliders, their main signal is provided by two same-sign lepton pairs at high invariant mass. Nevertheless, they can also decay according to non-leptonic modes, such as a TeV-scale heavy quark, charged 4/3 or 5/3, plus a Standard Model quark. I explore both leptonic and non-leptonic decays and the sensitivity to the processes of the present and future hadron colliders.

Warm inflation with a heavy QCD axion

We propose the first model of warm inflation in which the particle production emerges directly from coupling the inflaton to Standard Model particles. Warm inflation, an early epoch of sustained accelerated expansion at finite temperature, is a compelling alternative to cold inflation, with distinct predictions for inflationary observables such as the amplitude of fluctuations, the spectral tilt, the tensor-to-scalar ratio, and non-gaussianities. In our model a heavy QCD axion acts as the warm inflaton whose coupling to Standard Model gluons sources the thermal bath during warm inflation. Axion-like couplings to non-Abelian gauge bosons have been considered before as a successful microphysical theory with emerging thermal friction that can maintain finite temperature during inflation via sphaleron heating. However, the presence of light fermions charged under the non-Abelian group suppresses particle production, hindering a realization of warm inflation by coupling to QCD. We point out that the Standard Model quarks can be heavy during warm inflation if the Higgs field resides in a high-energy second minimum which restores efficient sphaleron heating. A subsequent large reheating temperature is required to allow the Higgs field to relax to its electroweak minimum. Exploring a scenario in which hybrid warm inflation provides the large reheating temperature, we show that future collider and beam dump experiments have discovery potential for a heavy QCD axion taking the role of the warm inflaton.

Majorana neutrinos and dark matter from anomaly cancellation

We discuss a simple theory for neutrino masses where the total lepton number is a local gauge symmetry spontaneously broken below the multi-TeV scale. In this context, the neutrino masses are generated through the canonical seesaw mechanism and a Majorana dark matter candidate is predicted from anomaly cancellation. We discuss in great detail the dark matter annihilation channels and find out the upper bound on the symmetry-breaking scale using the cosmological bounds on the relic density. Since in this context the dark matter candidate has suppressed couplings to the Standard Model quarks, one can satisfy the direct detection bounds even if the dark matter mass is close to the electroweak scale. This theory predicts a light pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson (the Majoron) associated to the mechanism of neutrino mass. We discuss briefly the properties of the Majoron and the impact of the big bang nucleosynthesis bounds. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

H→bs¯ decay and its implication for the vectorlike singlet fermion model

The vectorlike quark model is one of the extensions of the standard model (SM) of particle physics. The simplest version of this model introduces a vectorlike singlet quark which can mix with SM quarks and give rise to new contributions to the flavor-changing decays of the Higgs boson. In this work we first present a systematic analysis of the branching ratios of the decays H→bs¯,bd¯ at leading order in the standard model. Our results show that it is challenging to observe these two modes because of their small branching ratios. Then augmenting the SM with a vectorlike singlet top quark, assuming the top partner only mixes with the top quark, complete one-loop contributions are taken into account in the amplitudes. Further results indicate that the branching ratios of the decays H→bs¯,bd¯ are sensitive to the mass of the top partner MT and the mixing effects characterized by sinθL. By tuning the values of MT and sinθL, the branching ratios may rise to a level accessible to LHC experiments. Combined with the branching ratios obtained from a probabilistic model, the allowed areas in the MT−sinθL plane are displayed. Tagging efficiencies and feasibility for detecting H→bs¯ are specifically discussed and we conclude that with large statistics it is promising to discover the H→bs¯ decay at the LHC. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Higgs quadruplet impact on W mass shift, dark matter, and LHC signatures

The addition of a Higgs quadruplet to the standard model (SM) of quarks and leptons would shift the W-boson mass upward. It could also facilitate the production of dark matter through the conventional thermal freeze-out scenario via Yukawa interaction with the Higgs quadruplet or freeze-in production from the decay of SM Higgs. We investigate the same-sign lepton smoking gun signature of the double-charged scalar component of the quadruplet Higgs at the LHC. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Quantum corrections and the minimal Yukawa sector of SU(5)

It is well known that the SU(5) grand unified theory, with the standard model quarks and leptons unified in 5¯ and 10 and the electroweak Higgs doublet residing in five-dimensional representations, leads to the relation Yd=YeT between the Yukawa couplings of the down-type quarks and the charged leptons. We show that this degeneracy can be lifted in a phenomenologically viable way when quantum corrections to the tree-level matching conditions are taken into account in the presence of one or more copies of gauge singlet fermions. The one-loop threshold corrections arising from heavy leptoquark scalar and vector bosons, already present in the minimal model, and heavy singlet fermions can lead to realistic Yukawa couplings, provided their masses differ by at least 2 orders of magnitude. The latter can also lead to a realistic light neutrino mass spectrum through the type I seesaw mechanism if the color partner of the Higgs stays close to the Planck scale. Most importantly, our findings demonstrate the viability of the simplest Yukawa sector when quantum corrections are considered and sizable threshold effects are present. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Search for non-resonant production of semi-visible jets using Run 2 data in ATLAS

Semi-visible jets, with a significant contribution to the event's missing transverse momentum, can arise in strongly interacting dark sectors. This results in an event topology where one of the jets can be aligned with the direction of the missing transverse momentum. The first search for semi-visible jets produced via a t-channel mediator exchange is presented. The analysis uses proton-proton collisions with an integrated luminosity of 139 fb−1 and a centre-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, collected with the ATLAS detector during the Run 2 of the LHC. No excess over Standard Model predictions is observed. Assuming a coupling strength of unity between the mediator, a Standard Model quark and a dark quark, mediator masses up to 2.7 TeV are excluded at the 95% confidence level. Upper limits on the coupling strength are also derived.

The flavor of QCD axion dark matter

We argue that demanding a consistent cosmological history, including the absence of domain walls and strongly interacting relics at the Peccei-Quinn scale, singles out two concrete realizations of hadronic QCD axions as viable dark matter models. These realizations generally feature flavor-violating axion couplings to Standard Model quarks that are unsuppressed at low energies. As a consequence, experiments looking for flavor-violating hadronic processes involving the axion can be sensitive probes of QCD axion dark matter models. In particular, we show that the NA62 and KOTO experiments could detect the K → π + a decay for axions consistent with the observed dark matter abundance via the post-inflationary misalignment mechanism.

Uncovering tau leptons-enriched semi-visible jets at the LHC

This Letter proposes a new signature for confining dark sectors at the Large Hadron Collider. Under the assumption of a QCD-like hidden sector, hadronic jets containing stable dark bound states could manifest in proton-proton collisions. We present a simplified model with a Z' boson yielding the production of jets made up of dark bound states and subsequently leading to the decays of those that are unstable to tau leptons and Standard Model quarks. The resulting signature is characterised by non-isolated tau lepton pairs inside semi-visible jets. We estimate the constraints on our model from existing CMS and ATLAS analyses. We propose a set of variables that leverage the leptonic content of the jet and exploit them in a supervised jet tagger to enhance the signal-to-background separation. Furthermore, we discuss the performance and limitations of current triggers for accessing sub-TeV Z' masses, as well as possible strategies that can be adopted by experiments to access such low mass regions. We estimate that with the currently available triggers, a high mass search can claim a 5 sigma discovery (exclusion) of the Z' boson with a mass up to 4.5 TeV (5.5 TeV) with the full Run 2 data of the LHC when the fraction of unstable dark hadrons decaying to tau lepton pairs is around 50%, and with a coupling of the Z' to right-handed up-type quarks of 0.25. Furthermore, we show that, with new trigger strategies for Run 3, it may be possible to access Z' masses down to 700 GeV, for which the event topology is still composed of two resolved semi-visible jets.

Global fits of Dirac dark matter effective field theories

In this proceeding, we present results from a global fit of Dirac fermion dark matter (DM) effective field theory (EFT) based on arXiv:2106.02056 using the GAMBIT framework. Here we show results only for the dimension-6 operators that describe the interactions between a gauge-singlet Dirac fermion and Standard Model quarks. Our global fit combines the latest constraints from Planck, direct and indirect DM detection, and the LHC. For DM mass below 100 GeV, it is impossible to simultaneously satisfy all constraints while maintaining the EFT validity at high energies. For higher masses, however, large regions of parameter space remain viable where the EFT is valid and saturates the observed DM abundance.

Freeze-in dark matter in EDGES 21-cm signal* *Supported in part by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (11775039), the High-level Talents Research and Startup Foundation Projects for Doctors of Zhoukou Normal University (ZKNUC2021006), and the Natural Science Foundation of Henan Province, China(232300421358)

The first measurement of the temperature of the hydrogen 21-cm signal reported by EDGES strongly favors the Coulomb-like interaction between freeze-in dark matter and baryon fluid. We investigate such dark matter in both the one- and two-component context with the light force carrier(s) essential for the Coulomb-like interaction being other than photons. Using a conversion of cross sections used by relevant experiments and Boltzmann equations to encode the effects of the dark matter-baryon interaction, we show that both cases are robustly excluded by the stringent stellar cooling bounds in the sub-GeV dark matter mass range. The exclusion of the one-component case applies to simplified freeze-in dark matter with the light force carrier as dark photons, gauged , ,, or axion-like particles, whereas the exclusion of the two-component case applies to simplified freeze-in dark matter with the two light force carriers as two axion-like particles coupled to standard model quarks and leptons.

Search for pair-production of vector-like quarks in pp collision events at [formula omitted] TeV with at least one leptonically decaying Z boson and a third-generation quark with the ATLAS detector

A search for the pair-production of vector-like quarks optimized for decays into a Z boson and a third-generation Standard Model quark is presented, using the full Run 2 dataset corresponding to 139fb−1 of pp collisions at s=13TeV, collected in 2015–2018 with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The targeted final state is characterized by the presence of a Z boson with high transverse momentum, reconstructed from a pair of same-flavour leptons with opposite-sign charges, as well as by the presence of b-tagged jets and high-transverse-momentum large-radius jets reconstructed from calibrated smaller-radius jets. Events with exactly two or at least three leptons are used, which are further categorized by the presence of boosted W, Z, and Higgs bosons and top quarks. The categorization is performed using a neural-network-based boosted object tagger to enhance the sensitivity to signal relative to the background. No significant excess above the background expectation is observed and exclusion limits at 95% confidence level are set on the masses of the vector-like partners T and B of the top and bottom quarks, respectively. The limits depend on the branching ratio configurations and, in the case of 100% branching ratio for T→Zt and 100% branching ratio for B→Zb, this search sets the most stringent limits to date, allowing mT>1.60TeV and mB>1.42TeV, respectively.

Structure formation paradigm and axion quark nugget dark matter model

We advocate an idea that ``non-baryonic" dark matter in form of nuggets made of standard model quarks and gluons (similar to the old idea of the Witten's strangelets) could play a crucial role in structure formation. The corresponding macroscopically large objects, which are called the axion quark nuggets (AQN) behave as {\it chameleons}: they do not interact with the surrounding material in dilute environment, but they become strongly interacting objects in sufficiently dense environment. The AQN model was invented long ago with a single motivation to explain the observed similarity $\Omega_{\rm DM}\sim \Omega_{\rm visible}$ between visible and DM components. This relation represents a very generic feature of this framework, not sensitive to any parameters of the construction. We argue that the strong visible-DM interaction may dramatically modify the conventional structure formation pattern at small scales to contribute to a resolution of a variety of interconnected problems (such as Core-Cusp problem, etc) which have been a matter of active research and debates in recent years. We also argue that the same visible-DM interaction at small scales is always accompanied by a broad band diffuse radiation. We speculate that the recently observed excesses of the UV emission by JWST at high redshifts and by GALEX in our own galaxy might be a direct manifestation of this AQN-induced radiation. We also speculate that the very same source of energy injection could contribute to the resolution of another long standing problem related to the Extragalactic Background Light (EBL) with known discrepancies in many frequency bands (from UV to optical, IR light and radio emissions).

Dark matter perspective of left-right symmetric gauge model

We consider an incarnation of left-right symmetric model with a local gauge symmetry of SU(3)C⊗SU(2)L⊗U(1)L⊗SU(2)R⊗U(1)R. Heavy scalars and fermions present in the 27 of E6 are included in the matter sector along with the Standard Model (SM) fermions. Two such colour singlet fermions, N and LS, transforming as bi-doublet and singlet under SU(2) s respectively, can be potential candidates for Dark Matter (DM). Assignment of U(1) charges for the matter fields restricts some of the exotic fermions to interact with the SM fermions. We study in some details the prospect of such fermionic dark matters by calculating relic densities and direct detection cross-sections by treating both these particles as relics. In such a two component Dark Matter scenario, LS having smaller interaction with the SM, will dominantly contribute to relic density. However, it cannot be detected at earth bound experiments with their present sensitivity. On the contrary, N having higher rate of interaction with the SM particle has too large annihilation cross-section thus contributes very little to relic density. In fact, its interaction with the SM is too high such that N-nucleon cross-section for a wide range of N mass is higher than the experimental limits from XENON, LUX or PICO. However, such a high N-nucleon cross-section can be tamed by assuming additional dimension-6 operators involving N and SM quarks. We derive limits on the strengths of such interactions from experimental data.

Variant Nelson-Barr mechanism with minimal flavor violation

Within the general framework of using spontaneous CP violation to solve the strong CP problem, we construct a variant Nelson-Barr model in which the Standard Model (SM) quark contribution to the strong CP phase is cancelled by new heavy QCD-charged fermions. This cancellation is ensured by choosing conjugate representations for the new colored states under the same global flavor symmetry of SM quarks. Choosing the global flavor symmetry to be that of minimal flavor violation, we suppress higher-order corrections to the strong CP phase to well below current experimental constraints. More than two dozen massless Goldstone bosons emerge from spontaneous flavor symmetry breaking, which yield strong astrophysical constraints on the symmetry breaking scale. In the early universe, the Goldstone bosons can be thermally produced from their interactions with the heavy colored fermions and contribute to ∆Neff at a measurable level. As a function of reheating temperature, the predicted ∆Neff shows an interesting plateau behavior we dub the “flavor stairway”, which encodes information about the SM quark flavor structure.

Dark Contributions to h → μ + μ – in the Presence of a μ-Flavored Vector-Like Lepton

A simple extension of the standard model (SM) with a μ-flavored vector-like lepton (VLL) doublet and a real singlet scalar can have an interesting implication to the h → μ + μ – decay while offering the simplest possible explanation for the dark matter (DM) phenomenology. Assuming the real singlet scalar to be a viable DM candidate, it has been shown that the muon Yukawa coupling can have a negative contribution at the one-loop order if the 2nd generation SM leptons are allowed to couple with the VLL doublet. The stringent direct detection bounds corresponding to a real singlet scalar DM can easily be relaxed if the SM quark sector was augmented with a dimension-6 operator at some new physics (NP) scale Λ NP. Thus, this model presents a significant phenomenological study where the muon Yukawa coupling can be corrected within a real singlet scalar DM framework. The considered parameter space can be tested/constrained through the high luminosity run of the LHC (HL-LHC) and future direct detection experiments.

Charged lepton flavor violating radiative decays li→ ljγ in G2HDM

We compute the electromagnetic form factors of the liljγ vertex at one-loop level in the minimal G2HDM which has a sub-GeV vector dark matter candidate. The results are applied to the radiative decay rates for the charged lepton flavor violating processes li → ljγ, and the anomalous magnetic dipole moment and the electric dipole moment of the charged lepton. To numerically compute the branching ratio for μ → eγ and compare with the latest experimental limit from MEG, we adapt our previous parameter space scan that is consistent with the relic density and constraints from direct searches of dark matter, W and Z mass measurements, as well as the LHC Higgs signal strengths and invisible width. While the extra contributions are at least an order of magnitude smaller than required to explain the ~4.2σ discrepancy in the muon anomaly, the existing MEG limit imposes stringent constraint on the parameter space. The remaining viable parameter space can be further probed by the MEG II sensitivity for μ → eγ as well as from the direct searches of sub-GeV dark matter in foreseeable future. Higher loop contributions may be significant to resolve the discrepancy in the muon anomaly and generate a non-vanishing electric dipole moments for the standard model quarks and leptons in G2HDM.

Search for pair production of the heavy vectorlike top partner in same-sign dilepton signature at the HL-LHC

New vectorlike quarks are predicted in many new physics scenarios beyond the Standard Model (SM) and could potentially be discovered at the LHC. Based on a simplified model including a singlet vectorlike top partner with charge $2/3$, we investigate the process $pp\ensuremath{\rightarrow}TT$ via a $t$ channel induced by the couplings between the top partner with the first-generation SM quarks. We calculate the production cross section and further study the observability of the heavy top partner in the channel $T\ensuremath{\rightarrow}Wq$ at the high-luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) using final states with same-sign dileptons (electrons or muons), two jets, and missing transverse momentum. At the 14 TeV LHC with an integrated luminosity of $3000\text{ }\text{ }{\mathrm{fb}}^{\ensuremath{-}1}$, the $2\ensuremath{\sigma}$ exclusion limits, as well as the $5\ensuremath{\sigma}$ discovery reach in the parameter plane of the two variables ${g}^{*}\ensuremath{-}{R}_{L}$, are respectively obtained at the HL-LHC. We also obtain the $2\ensuremath{\sigma}$ exclusion limit on the coupling strength parameter ${g}^{*}$ in the case in which the vectorlike top partner is coupled only to the first-generation quarks.

Grand Color axion

We present a model that solves the strong CP problem via an axion parametrically heavier than the standard one. Within this picture the Standard Model quarks are embedded into a larger non-abelian Grand Color group that at high scales splits into ordinary QCD and an additional confining dynamics under which exotic chiral fermions are charged. Crucially, the vacuum expectation value of the axion is automatically relaxed to zero because the only renormalizable source of explicit CP violation, beyond those encoded in the topological angles, is contained in the Standard Model Yukawa couplings, and is therefore very suppressed. The Grand Color axion potential is controlled by the scale of the new confining group and is much larger than the QCD contribution, such that its dynamics is less exposed to the so-called “axion quality problem”. Potentially observable corrections to the effective topological angle can also arise, in our model as well as in a large class of heavy axion scenarios, from non-renormalizable Peccei-Quinn-conserving interactions, which introduce a new “heavy axion quality problem”. Our model has a very minimal field content, it relies entirely on gauge invariance and does not require the introduction of additional symmetries beyond the usual one postulated by Peccei and Quinn. The phenomenology is very rich and can be tested at colliders as well as via cosmological observations. A particularly interesting portion of parameter space predicts a visible Grand Color axion of mass above the GeV and decay constant larger than a few TeV.