We study the gravitational waves (GWs) spectrum produced during the electroweak phase transition in a scale-invariant extension of the Standard Model (SM), enlarged by a dark $ U(1)_{D} $ gauge symmetry. This symmetry incorporates a vector dark matter (DM) candidate and a scalar field (scalon). Because of scale invariance, the model has only two independent parameters and for the parameter space constrained by DM relic density, strongly first-order electroweak phase transition can take place. In this model, for a narrow part of the parameter space, DM-nucleon cross section is below the neutrino-floor limit, and therefore, it cannot be probed by the future direct detection experiments. However, for a benchmark point form this narrow region, we show the amplitude and frequency of phase transition GW spectrum fall within the observational window of space-based GW detectors such as eLISA.
In the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) the bino-wino coannihilation provides a feasible way to accommodate the observed cosmological dark matter (DM) relic density. However, such a scenario usually predicts a very small DM-nucleon scattering cross section that is below the neutrino floor, and can not be tested by DM direct detection experiments. In this work, we investigate the discovery potential of this bino-wino co-annihilation region by searching for the soft dilepton events from the process $pp \to χ^0_2 (\to \ell^+\ell^- χ^0_1) χ^\pm_1+jets$ at the LHC. We find that the mass…
We show that the mere observation of the first stars (Pop III stars) in the universe can be used to place tight constraints on the strength of the interaction between dark matter and regular, baryonic matter. We apply this technique to a candidate Pop III stellar complex discovered with the Hubble Space Telescope at $z \sim 7$ and find bounds that are competitive with, or even stronger than, current direct detection experiments, such as XENON1T, for dark matter particles with mass ($m_X$) larger than about $100$ GeV. We also show that the discovery of sufficiently massive Pop III stars could b…
The neutrino floor is a barrier in the parameter space of weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) below which discovery is impeded due to an almost irreducible background of neutrinos. Directional gas time projection chambers could discriminate against solar neutrinos, relevant for WIMP masses $\lesssim$10 GeV. At higher masses $\gtrsim$100 GeV the floor is set by the background of atmospheric neutrinos. Probing below this part of the floor would require very large target exposures. Since gas-based detectors would be prohibitively large at this scale, we instead reevaluate the prospects f…
The sensitivity of direct detection of dark matter (DM) approaches the so-called neutrino floor below which it is hard to disentangle the DM candidate from the background neutrino. In this work we consider the scenario that no DM signals are reported in various DM direct detection experiments and explore whether the collider searches could probe the DM under the neutrino floor. We adopt several simplified models in which the DM candidate couples only to electroweak gauge bosons or leptons in the standard model through high dimensional operators. After including the RGE running effect we invest…
Within the context of a generalized linear sigma model that includes two nonets of scalar mesons (a two-quark nonet and a four-quark nonet) and two nonets of pseudoscalar mesons (a two-quark nonet and a four-quark nonet) a collective description of scalar and pseudoscalar mesons below and above 1 GeV is studied. The quark contents of these states are probed; estimates on their quark components are extracted; and prediction for pi pi scattering amplitude is made. An overview of these studies is presented here.
In this paper, we compute the contribution to the coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering cross section from new physics models in the neutrino sector. We use this information to calculate the maximum value of the so-called neutrino floor for direct dark matter detection experiments, which determines when these detectors are sensitive to the neutrino background. After including all relevant experimental constraints in different simplified neutrino models, we have found that the neutrino floor can increase by various orders of magnitude in the region of dark matter masses below 10 GeV in t…
Future multi-tonne Direct Detection experiments will be sensitive to solar neutrino induced nuclear recoils which form an irreducible background to light Dark Matter searches. Indeed for masses around 6 GeV the spectra of neutrinos and Dark Matter are so similar that experiments will run into a neutrino floor, for which sensitivity increases only marginally with exposure past a certain cross section. In this work we show that this floor can be overcome using the different annual modulation expected from solar neutrinos and Dark Matter. Specifically for cross sections below the neutrino floor t…
The direct detection of Dark Matter particles with mass below the GeV-scale is hampered by soft nuclear recoil energies and finite detector thresholds. For a given maximum relative velocity, the kinematics of elastic Dark Matter nucleus scattering sets a principal limit on detectability. Here we propose to bypass the kinematic limitations by considering the inelastic channel of photon emission in the nuclear recoil. Our proposed method allows to set the first limits on Dark Matter below 500 MeV in the plane of Dark Matter mass and cross section with nucleons. In situations where a Dark Matter-…
We conducted three torsion-balance experiments to test the gravitational inverse-square law at separations between 9.53 mm and 55 micrometers, probing distances less than the dark-energy length scale $λ_{\rm d}=\sqrt[4]{\hbar c/ρ_{\rm d}}\approx 85 μ$m. We find with 95% confidence that the inverse-square law holds ($|α| \leq 1$) down to a length scale $λ= 56 μ$m and that an extra dimension must have a size $R \leq 44 μ$m.
We examine the sensitivity at a future 100 TeV proton-proton collider to compressed dark sectors whose decay products are invisible due to below-threshold energies and/or small couplings to the Standard Model. This scenario could be relevant to models of WIMP dark matter, where the lightest New Physics state is an (isolated) electroweak multiplet whose lowest component is stable on cosmological timescales. We rely on the additional emission of a hard on-shell $Z$-boson decaying to leptons, a channel with low background systematics, and include a careful estimate of the real and fake background…
The detection of coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering by the COHERENT collaboration has set on quantitative grounds the existence of an irreducible neutrino background in direct detection searches of Weakly Interacting Massive Dark Matter candidates. This background leads to an ultimate discovery limit for these experiments: a minimum Dark Matter interaction cross section below which events produced by the coherent neutrino scattering will mimic the Dark Matter signal, the so-called \emph{neutrino floor}. In this work we study the modification of such neutrino floor induced by non-standard neu…
Dark matter particles can be captured by the sun with rates that depend on the dark matter mass and the DM-nucleon cross section. However, for masses below $\sim 3.3$ GeV, the captured dark matter particles evaporate, leading to an equilibrium where the rate of captured particles is equal to the rate of evaporating ones. Unlike dark matter particles from the halo, the evaporating dark matter particles have velocities that are not limited to values below the escape velocity of the galaxy. Despite the fact that high velocities are exponentially suppressed, I demonstrate here that current undergr…
We analyze the cosmic-ray signatures of decaying gravitino dark matter in a model independent way based on an operator analysis. Thermal leptogenesis and universal boundary conditions at the GUT scale restrict the gravitino mass to be below 600 GeV. Electron and positron fluxes from gravitino decays, together with the standard GALPROP background, cannot explain both, the PAMELA positron fraction and the electron + positron flux recently measured by Fermi LAT. For gravitino dark matter, the observed fluxes require astrophysical sources. The measured antiproton flux allows for a sizable contribu…
We study a CP and T violating triple (spin) correlation in the muon to electron conversion in nuclei in the context of the seesaw mechanism. After concluding that the results are negative for all three seesaw types, we turn to the left-right symmetric theories as the original source of seesaw. We find that in general this correlation is of order one which offers a hope of observing CP violation in lepton flavor violating processes for a L-R scale below around 10-30 TeV. We discuss the conditions that could render to (unlikely) conspiracies as to suppress the CP violating effects.
R-mode instabilities in rapidly rotating quark matter stars (strange stars) lead to specific signatures in the evolution of pulsars with periods below 2.5 msec, and may explain the apparent lack of very rapid pulsars. Existing data seem consistent with pulsars being strange stars with a normal quark matter phase surrounded by an insulating nuclear crust. In contrast, quark stars in a color-flavor-locked (CFL) phase are ruled out. Two-flavor color superconductivity (2SC) is marginally inconsistent with pulsar data.
Very light pseudoscalars can arise from the symmetry-breaking sector in many extensions of the Standard Model. If their mass is below 200 MeV, they can be long-lived and have interesting phenomenology. We discuss the experimental constraints on several models with light pseudoscalars, including one in which the pseudoscalar is naturally fermiophobic. Taking into account the stringent bounds from rare K and B decays, we find allowed parameter space in each model that may be accessible in direct production experiments. In particular, we study the photoproduction of light pseudoscalars at Jeffers…
The analysis of signals in directional dark matter (DM) detectors typically assumes that the directions of nuclear recoils can be measured in the Galactic rest frame. However, this is not possible with all directional detection technologies. In nuclear emulsions, for example, the recoil events must be detected and measured after the exposure time of the experiment. Unless the entire detector is mounted and rotated with the sidereal day, the recoils cannot be reoriented in the Galactic rest frame. We examine the effect of this `time integration' on the primary goals of directional detection, na…
The detection potential of the active neutrino magnetic moment ($ν_{a}$MM) and the active sterile transition magnetic moment ($ν_{s}$MM) of the solar neutrino CE$ν$NS process in future Dark Matter direct detection experiments is studied and compared with the respective allowed range to explain the Xenon1T excess. We find that the sensitivity to the $ν_{a}$MM approaches to the level between $10^{-10}μ_B$ and $10^{-11}μ_B$, which is dominantly limited by the detection threshold. On the other hand, the future solar neutrino CE$ν$NS detection would be powerful in probing the $ν_{s}$MM for the ster…
According to a recent paper by Robinson and Wilczek, the leading gravitational corrections to the running of gauge couplings tend to reduce the values of the couplings at energies below the gravitational scale, defined to be the energy above which gravity becomes strongly interacting. If the physical gravitational scale is sufficiently low, as conjectured in certain extra-dimension models, this behavior of the gauge couplings can be measured in future high energy experiments, providing a way to determine where the gravitational scale lies. We estimate that measurements of the fine structure co…
Charting Dark Matter down to the neutrino floor/fog in the 2HD+a scenario
Universita degli Studi di Messina（墨西拿大学）；INFN Sezione di Catania（意大利国家核物理研究所卡塔尼亚分部）；Universidad de Granada（格拉纳达大学）；University of California, Santa Cruz（加州大学圣克鲁兹分校）
Monojet events at colliders have been used to probe models of dark matter and extra dimensions. We point out that these events also probe extensions of the Standard Model modifying neutrino-quark interactions. Such nonstandard interactions (NSI) have been discussed in connection with neutrino oscillation experiments. Assuming first that NSI remain contact at LHC energies, we derive stringent bounds that approach the levels suggested by the Boron-8 solar data. We next explore the possibility that the mediators of the NSI can be produced at colliders. The constraints are found to be strongest fo…
We study lepton number violating decays of charged K, D, D_s, B and B_c mesons of the form M^+\to {M'}^-\ell^+\ell^+, induced by the existence of Majorana neutrinos. These processes provide information complementary to neutrinoless double nuclear beta decays, and are sensitive to neutrino masses and lepton mixing. We explore neutrino mass ranges m_N from below 1 eV to several hundred GeV. We find that in many cases the branching ratios are prohibitively small, however in the intermediate range m_π< m_N < m_{B_c}, in specific channels and for specific neutrino masses, the branching ratios can b…
The susceptibilities of the real and imaginary parts, as well as of the modulus of the Polyakov loop, are computed in SU(3) lattice gauge theory. We show that the ratios of these susceptibilities are excellent probes of the deconfinement transition, independent of the renormalization of the Polyakov loop and only weakly dependent on the system size. The ratios are almost temperature independent above and below the transition and exhibit a discontinuity at the transition temperature. This characteristic behavior can be understood in terms of the global Z(3) symmetry of the Yang-Mills Lagrangian…
Probing Axion Dark Matter via the Chiral Magnetic Effect in Zero-Bias Weyl Semimetals
Centre for High Energy Physics, Indian Institute of Science（印度科学学院高能物理中心）；Department of Physics, Indian Institute of Technology Kharagpur（印度理工学院卡拉格普尔分校物理系）
The search for weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) by direct detection faces an encroaching background due to coherent neutrino-nucleus scattering. As the sensitivity of these experiments improves, the question of how to best distinguish a dark matter signal from neutrinos will become increasingly important. A proposed method of overcoming this so-called 'neutrino floor' is to utilize the directional signature that both neutrino and dark matter induced recoils possess. We show that directional experiments can indeed probe WIMP-nucleon cross-sections below the neutrino floor with littl…
We show that gravitational wave emission from neutron star binaries can be used to discover any generic long-ranged muonic force due to the large inevitable abundance of muons inside neutron stars. As a minimal consistent example, we focus on a gauged U(1)$_{L_μ- L_τ}$ symmetry. In pulsar binaries, such U(1)$_{L_μ- L_τ}$ vectors induce an anomalously fast decay of the orbital period through the emission of dipole radiation. We study a range of different pulsar binaries, finding the most powerful constraints for vector masses below ${\cal O}(10^{-18} {\rm eV})$. For merging binaries the presenc…
New limits on the weak mixing angle and on the electron neutrino effective charge radius in the low energy regime, below 100 MeV, are obtained from a combined fit of all electron-(anti)neutrino electron elastic scattering measurements. We have included the recent TEXONO measurement with a CsI (Tl) detector. Only statistical error of this measurement has been taken into account. Weak mixing angle is found to be sin^2 theta_W = 0.255 +0.022 -0.023. The electron neutrino effective charge radius squared is bounded to be r^2 = (0.9 +0.9 -1.0) x 10^{-32} cm^2. The sensitivity of future low energy ne…
The existence of a dilaton as a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson in spontaneous breaking of scale symmetry is predicted in beyond standard model theories in which electroweak symmetry is broken via strongly coupled conformal dynamics. Such a particle is expected to have a mass below the conformal symmetry breaking scale $f$ and couplings to standard model particles similar to those of the SM Higgs boson. In this paper we estimate, for the first time, the dilaton production in exclusive processes considering Pomeron - Pomeron ($\pom \pom$) and photon - photon ($γγ$) interactions, which are characte…
After the first four years of data taking, the IceCube neutrino telescope has observed 54 high-energy starting events (HESE) with deposited energies between 20 TeV and 2 PeV. The background from atmospheric muons and neutrinos is expected to be of about 20 events, all below 100 TeV, thus pointing towards the astrophysical origin of about 8 events per year in that data set. However, their precise origin remains unknown. Here, we perform a detailed analysis of this event sample (considering simultaneously the energy, hemisphere and topology of the events) by assuming two contributions for the si…
