New dark vector bosons that couple very feebly to regular matter can be created in the early universe and decay after the onset of big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) or the formation of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at recombination. The energy injected by such decays can alter the light element abundances or modify the power and frequency spectra of the CMB. In this work we study the constraints implied by these effects on a range of sub-GeV dark vectors including the kinetically mixed dark photon, and the $B-L$, $L_e-L_μ$, $L_e-L_τ$ , and $L_μ-L_τ$ dark U(1) bosons. We focus on the effects of electromagnetic energy injection, and we update previous investigations of dark photon and other dark vector decays by taking into account non-universality in the photon cascade spectrum relevant for BBN and the energy dependence of the ionization efficiency after recombination in our treatment of modifications to the CMB.
Injection of electromagnetic energy - photons, electrons, or positrons - into the plasma of the early universe can destroy light elements created by primordial Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN). The success of BBN at predicting primordial abundances has thus been used to impose stringent constraints on decay or annihilation processes with primary energies near or above the electroweak scale. In this work we investigate the constraints from BBN on electromagnetic decays that inject lower energies, between 1-100 MeV. We compute the electromagnetic cascade from such injections and we show that it ca…
We consider the effects of the injections of energetic photon and electron (or positron) on the big-bang nucleosynthesis. We study the photodissociation of light elements in the early Universe paying particular attention to the case that the injection energy is sub-GeV and derive upper bounds on the primordial abundances of the massive decaying particle as a function of its lifetime. We also discuss a solution of the $^7$Li problem in this framework.
We compute cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropy constraints on exotic forms of energy injection in electromagnetic (e.m.) channels over a large range of timescales. These constraints are very powerful around or just after recombination, although CMB keeps some sensitivity e.g. to decaying species with lifetimes as long as $10^{25}\,$s. We review here complementary with CMB spectral distortions and primordial nucleosynthesis bounds, which dominate at earlier timescales. For the first time, we describe the effects of the e.m. energy injection on the CMB power spectra as a function of the…
We consider dark matter which have non-zero electromagnetic form factors like electric/magnetic dipole moments and anapole moment for fermionic dark matter and Rayleigh form factor for scalar dark matter. We consider dark matter mass $m_χ> \cal{ O}({\rm MeV})$ and put constraints on their mass and electromagnetic couplings from CMB and LSS observations. Fermionic dark matter with non-zero electromagnetic form factors can annihilate to $e^+ e^-$ and scalar dark matter can annihilate to $2γ$ at the time of recombination and distort the CMB. We analyze dark matter with multipole moments with Plan…
The light-front approach is applied to calculate the electromagnetic current for quark-antiquark bound states for the pion. The pion electromagnetic form factor is obtnaide from the "+" and "-" components of the electromagnetic current in the Drell-Yan frame, with different models of the pi-q\bar{q} vertex and the results for the pion electromagnetic form factor are compared with the experimental data up to 10 [GeV/c]^2 and anothers hadronic models. The rotational symmetry propreties of the pion electromagnetic current related with the zero-modes in the light-front are investigate.
Current constraints on energy injection in the form of energetic particles before the epoch of recombination using CMB spectral distortions assume that all energy goes into $y$ and $μ$-type distortions. We revisit these constraints with exact calculations of the spectral distortions by evolving the electromagnetic cascades. The actual spectral distortion differs in shape and amplitude from the $y$-type distortion and depends on the energy and nature of injected particles. The constraints on the energy injection processes such as dark matter decay can be relaxed by as much as a factor of 5.
We devise a new user-friendly tool interfaced with the Boltzmann code CLASS to deal with any kind of exotic electromagnetic energy injection in the universe and its impact on anisotropies of the Cosmic Microwave Background. It makes use of the results from standard electromagnetic cascade calculations develop in the context of WIMP annihilation, generalized to incorporate any injection history. We first validate it on a specific WIMP scenario, the Higgs Portal model, confirming that the standard effective on-the-spot treatment is accurate enough. We then analyze the more involved example of ev…
High energy neutrinos and anti-neutrinos ($\gtrsim$ 100 GeV) can inject energetic electromagnetic particles into the baryon-photon plasma in the high redshift universe through electroweak showers from electroweak bremsstrahlung, inelastic scattering with the background electrons and nucleons, and by pair-production of standard model particles on background neutrinos and anti-neutrinos. In this paper, we evolve the particle cascades of high energy non-thermal neutrinos injections, using dark matter decay as a specific example, including relevant collision processes of these neutrinos with the b…
Taking into account effects of late energy injection, we examine big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN) constraints on axino dark matter scenarios with long-lived charged sleptons. We calculate 4-body slepton decays into the axino, a lepton, and a quark-antiquark pair since they govern late hadronic energy injection and associated BBN constraints. For supersymmetric hadronic axion models, we present the obtained hadronic BBN constraints and show that they can be more restrictive than the ones associated with catalyzed BBN via slepton-bound-state formation. From the BBN constraints on hadronic and elec…
Injection of high energy electromagnetic particles around the recombination epoch can modify the standard recombination history and therefore the CMB anisotropy power spectrum. Previous studies have put strong constraints on the amount of electromagnetic energy injection around the recombination era (redshifts $z\lesssim 4500$). However, energy injected in the form of energetic ($>$ keV) visible standard model particles is not deposited instantaneously. The considerable delay between the time of energy injection and the time when all energy is deposited to background baryonic gas and CMB photo…
For the first time, a phenomenological analysis of the experimental electromagnetic form factors of the nucleon, both in the timelike and spacelike regions, is performed by taking into account the effects of nonvalence components in the nucleon state, within a light-front framework. Our model, based on suitable Ansatzes for the nucleon Bethe-Salpeter amplitude and a microscopic version of the well-known Vector Meson Dominance model, has only four free parameters (determined by the spacelike data with $χ^2/datum \sim 1.7$), and yields a nice description of the experimental electromagnetic form …
It has been shown previously [PRD 88 (2013) 093005, arXiv:1310.1770] that a non-perturbative relativistic constituent-quark model for the pi-meson electromagnetic form factor allows for a quantitative description of the soft/hard transition, resulting in the correct Quantum-Chromodynamical asymptotics, including normalization, from the low-energy data without further parameter tuning. This happens universally whenever the constituent-quark mass is switched off. The energy range where the transition happens is therefore determined by the quark-mass running at intermediate energies and is not ti…
It is proposed to identify a strong electric field created during relativistic collisions of asymmetric nuclei via observation of pseudorapidity and transverse momentum distributions of hadrons with the same mass but opposite charges. The detailed calculation results for the directed flow within the Parton-Hadron String Dynamics model are given for Cu-Au interactions at the NICA collision energies of $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=9$ and $5$ GeV. The separation effect is observable at 9 GeV as clearly as at 200 GeV
Lorentz- and CPT-violating effects initiating two-body electromagnetic flavor-changing decays of charged leptons are studied in the framework of Lorentz-violating effective field theory. An analysis of data from experiments at the Paul Scherrer Institute and at the Stanford Linear Accelerator measuring the branching ratios of these decays provides 576 constraints on independent flavor-changing effects in the charged-lepton sector, consistent with no Lorentz and CPT violation at the level of parts in $10^{-13}$ GeV$^{-1}$ to $10^{-9}$ GeV$^{-1}$.
It is generally assumed that for energy injection before recombination, all of the injected energy is dissipated as heat in the baryon-photon plasma, giving rise to the $y$-type, $i$-type, and $μ$-type distortions in the CMB spectrum. We show that this assumption is incorrect when the energy is injected in the form of energetic (i.e. energy much greater than the background CMB temperature) particles. We evolve the electromagnetic cascades, from the injection of high energy particles, in the expanding Universe and follow the non-thermal component of CMB spectral distortions resulting from the i…
Electromagnetically neutral dark sector particles may feebly interact with photons through higher dimensional effective operators, such as mass-dimension 5 magnetic and electric dipole moment, and a mass-dimension 6 anapole moment and charge radius operators. In this work, we use hypercharge gauge field form factors to treat dark states, which will induce not only electromagnetic form factors but also the corresponding $Z$ boson operators. Taking a Dirac fermion $χ$ as an example, we investigate the probes of searching for such dark states at current and future $e^+e^-$ collider experiments in…
We derive general constraints on the relic abundances of a long-lived particle which mainly decays into a neutrino (and something else) at cosmological time scales. Such an exotic particle may show up in various particle-physics models based on physics beyond the standard model. The constraints are obtained from big-bang nucleosynthesis, cosmic microwave background and diffuse neutrino and photon fluxes, depending on the lifetime and the electromagnetic and hadronic branching ratios.
Primordial electromagnetic fields can strongly affect the cosmic evolution of axions, and vice versa. We show that if helical electromagnetic fields are coherently produced in the early universe, their remnants source a field velocity to the coupled axions and enhance the relic abundance of axion dark matter. We discuss the implications for the QCD axion and axion-like particles that are coupled to the SM or hidden gauge groups. For a QCD axion coupled to hidden photons, we find that the conventional window for the axion decay constant $10^{8}\, \mathrm{GeV} \lesssim f \lesssim 10^{12}\, \math…
Recent improvements of the hard scattering picture for the large $p_{\perp}$ behaviour of electromagnetic form factors, namely the inclusion of both Sudakov corrections and intrinsic transverse momentum dependence of the hadronic wave function, are reviewed. On account of these improvements the perturbative contributions to the pion's and the nucleon's form factor can be calculated in a theoretically self-consistent way for momentum transfers as low as about $2$ and $3\,{\rm GeV}$, respectively. This is achieved at the expense of a substantial suppression of the perturbative contribution in th…
An updated determination is presented of the electric and magnetic form factors of the proton, in the framework of a dual-model realization of QCD in the limit of an infinite number of colors. Very good agreement with data is obtained in the space-like region up to $ q^2 \simeq - \,30 \,{GeV}^2$. In particular, the ratio $μ_P \, G_E(q^2) / G_M(q^2)$ is predicted in very good agreement with recoil polarization measurements from Jefferson Lab, up to $q^2 \simeq - 8.5 \,{GeV}^2$. \end{abstract}
The recently evaluated two-pion contribution to the muon g-2 and the phase of the pion electromagnetic form factor in the elastic region, known from ππscattering by Fermi-Watson theorem, are exploited by analytic techniques for finding correlations between the coefficients of the Taylor expansion at t=0 and the values of the form factor at several points in the spacelike region. We do not use specific parametrizations and the results are fully independent of the unknown phase in the inelastic region. Using for instance, from recent determinations, <r^2_π> = (0.435 \pm 0.005) fm^2 and F(-1.6 Ge…
We use the recently measured accurate BaBaR data on the modulus of the pion electromagnetic form factor, $F_π(t)$, up to an energy of 3 GeV, the I=1 $P$-wave phase of the $ππ$ scattering amplitude up to the $ω-π$ threshold, the pion charge radius known from Chiral Perturbation Theory, and the recently measured JLAB value of $F_π$ in the spacelike region at $t=-2.45 {\rm GeV}^2$ as inputs in a formalism that leads to bounds on $F_π$ in the intermediate spacelike region. We compare our constraints with experimental data and with perturbative QCD along with the results of several theoretical mode…
Electron scattering at large Q^2 probes a nucleon's quark core. This core's contribution to electromagnetic form factors may be calculated using Poincare' covariant Faddeev amplitudes combined with a nucleon-photon vertex that automatically fulfills a Ward-Takahashi identity for on-shell nucleons. The calculated behaviour of G_E^p(Q^2)/G_M^p(Q^2) on 2<Q^2(GeV^2)<6 agrees with that inferred from polarisation transfer data, and exhibits a zero at Q^2\approx 6.5 GeV^2. There is some evidence that F_2(Q^2)/F_1(Q^2) \propto [\ln(Q^2/Λ^2)]^2/Q^2 for Q^2>6 GeV^2.
We investigate the electromagnetic cascade initiated by injection of very high energy photons in the early Universe and calculate the cascade spectrum by solving a set of Boltzmann equations numerically. In the calculation we take account of Compton scattering off the background electrons and pair creation off the background nucleons as well as photon-photon processes and inverse Compton scattering. We also apply our cascade spectrum to the big bang nucleosynthesis with photo-dissociation processes due to heavy unstable particles and obtain the constraint on their lifetime and abundance.
Experimental observables of the elastic eD-scattering in the region of intermediate energies are discussed. We offer the analysis of the available experimental data, which reproduces the results of the calculations with popular $NN$-potentials at low energies ($Q^2\ll 1(GeV/c)^2$), but, at the same time, provides the right asymptotic behavior of the deuteron e.m. form factors, following from the quark counting rules, at high energies ($Q^2\gg 1(GeV/c)^2$). The numerical analysis developed allows to make certain estimations of the characteristic energy scale, at what the consideration of quark-…
The pion electromagnetic form factor is calculated in the space- and time-like regions from -10 $(GeV/c)^2$ up to 10 $(GeV/c)^2$, within a front-form model. The dressed photon vertex where a photon decays in a quark-antiquark pair is depicted generalizing the vector meson dominance ansatz, by means of the vector meson vertex functions. An important feature of our model is the description of the on-mass-shell vertex functions in the valence sector, for the pion and the vector mesons, through the front-form wave functions obtained within a realistic quark model. The theoretical results show an e…
We review the potential of precise measurements of electromagnetic probes in relativistic heavy-ion collisions for the theoretical understanding of strongly interacting matter. The penetrating nature of photons and dileptons implies that they can carry undistorted information about the hot and dense regions of the fireballs formed in these reactions and thus provide a unique opportunity to measure the electromagnetic spectral function of QCD matter as a function of both invariant mass and momentum. In particular we report on recent progress on how the medium modifications of the (dominant) iso…
We discuss possible deviations from QED produced by a virtual excited spin-3/2 lepton in the reaction $e^+e^- \longrightarrow 2γ$. Data recorded by the OPAL Collaboration at a c.m. energy $\sqrt{s} = 183 GeV$ are used to establish bounds on the nonstandard-lepton mass and coupling strengths.
We extend recently developed methods used for determining the electromagnetic charge radius and $a_μ^{ππ}$ to obtain a determination of the electromagnetic form factor of the pion, $F_π^V(t)$, in several significant kinematical regions, using a parametrization-free formalism based on analyticity and unitarity, and with the inclusion of precise inputs from both timelike and spacelike regions. On the unitarity cut, below the first inelastic threshold we use the precisely known phase of the form factor, known from $ππ$ elastic scattering via the Fermi-Watson theorem, and above the inelastic thres…
At large momentum transfers the photon interacts with the charges and spins of the constituent partons in a hadron. It is expected that the neutral kaon can acquire finite electromagnetic form factors because its wave function is affected by the order of magnitude difference between the mass of the strange quark and that of the down quark, or flavor $SU(3)$ breaking. We report on the first measurement of the form factor of neutral kaons at the large timelike momentum transfer of $|Q^2|=17.4$ GeV$^2$ by measuring the cross section for $e^+e^-\to K_SK_L$ at $\sqrt{s}=4.17$ GeV using CLEO-c data …
The simultaneous investigation of the pion electromagnetic form factor in the space- and time-like regions within a light-front model allows one to address the issue of non-valence components of the pion and photon wave functions. Our relativistic approach is based on a microscopic vector meson dominance (VMD) model for the dressed vertex where a photon decays in a quark-antiquark pair, and on a simple parametrization for the emission or absorption of a pion by a quark. The results show an excellent agreement in the space like region up to -10 $(GeV/c)^2$, while in time-like region the model p…
Ultra-high energy cosmic ray protons accelerated in astrophysical objects produce secondary electromagnetic cascades during propagation in the cosmic microwave and infrared backgrounds. We show that such cascades can contribute between ~1% and ~50% of the GeV-TeV diffuse photon flux measured by the EGRET experiment. The GLAST satellite should have a good chance to discover this flux.
As present and future experiments, on both the energy and precision frontiers, look to identify new physics beyond the Standard Model, we require more precise determinations of fundamental quantities, like the QED and electroweak couplings at various momenta. These can be obtained either entirely from experimental measurements, or from one such measurement at a particular virtuality combined with the couplings' virtuality dependence computed within the SM. Thus, a precise, entirely theoretical determination of the running couplings is highly desirable, even more since the preliminary results o…
We give an accurate determination of the vector (electromagnetic) form factor, $F(Q^2)$, for a light pseudoscalar meson up to squared momentum transfer $Q^2$ values of 6 $\mathrm{GeV}^2$ for the first time from full lattice QCD, including $u$, $d$, $s$ and $c$ quarks in the sea at multiple values of the lattice spacing. Our results show good control of lattice discretisation and sea quark mass effects. We study a pseudoscalar meson made of valence $s$ quarks but the qualitative picture obtained applies also to the $π$ meson, relevant to upcoming experiments at Jefferson Lab. We find that $Q^2F…
