Electron positron collisions are a very promising environment to search for new physics, and in particular for dark sector related observables. The most challenging experimental problem in detecting dark sector candidates is the very high associated Standard Model background. For this reason it is important to identify observables that are, at the same time, minimally suppressed in the dark sector and highly suppressed in the Standard Model. One example is the $e^+ e^-\to 3(e^+e^-)$ process that can be mediated either by the production and subsequent decay of dark Higgs ($h'$), $e^+e^-\to A'h'\to 6e$ or produced by the Standards Model process $e^+ e^-\to 3(e^+e^-)$. In the following letter we study the relative contribution to observed $e^+ e^-\to 3(e^+e^-)$ total cross section, coming from the $h'$ mediated and from the Standard Model processes in the contest of fixed target and low energy collider experiments, with particular attention to the PADME experiment at the INFN Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati.
A model of spin-3/2 vector-like leptons is introduced, which serve as an alternative probe of possible lepton compositeness. Possible signatures at the Large Hadron Collider are explored, and current data are used to constrain the masses of the hypothetical new leptons.
A weak singlet charged scalar exists in many new physics models beyond the Standard Model. The discovery potential of the singlet charged scalar is explored at future lepton colliders, e.g. the CEPC, ILC-350 and ILC-500. We demonstrate that one can discover the singlet charged scalar up to 118 GeV at the CEPC with an integrated luminosity of $5~\mathrm{ab}^{-1}$. At the ILC-350 and the ILC-500 with an integrated luminosity of $1~\mathrm{ab}^{-1}$ such a discovery limit can be further improved to 136 GeV and 160 GeV, respectively.
We study the collider phenomenology of a simplified model containing a right-handed $W$ in which the $W_R$ couples predominantly to the third generation in the quark sector. The model also includes a light Majorana neutrino, with $M_1\sim {\cal O}(100)$ GeV, giving rise to lepton-number-violating signatures that are visible at the LHC. Taking into account all the searches from the LHC and Tevatron, we find that this $W_R$ can still be as light as $M_R \sim 300$ GeV. We show that this type of new physics, and others like it, can be detected at the LHC using final states with three same-sign sam…
We explore the prospect of Yukawa production of a light boson which can exist in an extended Higgs sector. A particularly interesting case is the light pseudoscalar in Type-X two Higgs doublet model which can explain the anomalous magnetic moment of muon at large $\tanβ$. Considering ILC $Higgs$ $factory$ with $\sqrt{s}=250$ GeV, we show that the available parameter space can be fully examined by the (tau) Yukawa process at $5σ$. We also demonstrate the mass reconstruction of such a light particle which helps to sizably minimize the background events.
We present here a study of the impact of a heavy neutrino (or heavy neutral lepton) on leptonic and semileptonic kaon decays. We used a simplified model consisting of 3 light neutrinos responsible for neutrino oscillations and a heavy sterile neutrino. We found that it can lead to large deviations from the Standard Model predictions for leptonic decays, in conflict with experimental measurements of $K_{e2}$ and the lepton universality test $R_K$. This allows to derive new constraints on the leptonic mixing for heavy sterile neutrinos. No tension was found when considering the semileptonic deca…
The Higgs-portal lepton flavor violation is studied in a vectorlike lepton model. For evading the constraints from rare $Z\to \ell^\pm_i \ell^\mp_j$ decays, we introduce two triplet vectorlike leptons, $(1,3)_{-1}$ and $(1,3)_{0}$. The resultant branching ratio for $h\to μτ$ can be up to $10^{-4}$ when the constraints from the invisible $Z$ decays are applied. As a result, the signal strength for $ττ$ channel has a $12\%$ deviation from the standard model prediction, while the muon $g-2$ is two-order of magnitude smaller than the data and $BR(τ\to μγ)$ is of order of $10^{-12}$. A predicted do…
This letter presents a study of prospects of searching for excited leptons during RunII of the Fermilab Tevatron. We concentrate on single and pair production of excited electrons in the photonic decay channel in one CDF/DO detector equivalent for 2 fb^{-1}. By the end of RunIIa, the limits should be easily extended beyond those set by LEP and HERA for excited leptons with mass above about 190 GeV.
The $μ^+ \to e^+ X$ decay, where $X$ is a dark sector boson, provides one of the strongest available bounds on the scale of dark sector interactions. The $X$ boson can be an axion or a dark photon. We show that the concurrent determination of the anti-muon and positron polarizations makes possible to distinguish with a confidence level of 99% between the two dark sector portals with as few as 6 observed events in the case of the massless dark photon. Instead, the massive spin-1, dimension 4 dark portal cannot be distinguished from the axion-like case. We also discuss the possibility that the $…
The results of a multi-lepton search conducted by the CMS collaboration with 5 fb$^{-1}$ of data collected from 7 TeV $pp$ collisions are used to place the first bound on the rare flavor-changing decay of the top quark to a Higgs boson and charm quark. Combining results from a number of exclusive three- and four-lepton search channels yields an estimated upper limit of ${\rm Br}(t \to ch) < 2.7%$ for a Higgs boson mass of 125 GeV. The sensitivity of future dedicated searches for $t \to c h$ could be improved by adding exclusive same sign di-lepton channels, as well as by sub-dividing channels …
We propose two different and complementary observables for singling out possible signals of physics beyond the standard model in the semi-leptonic decays $Λ_b \to Λ_c \ell{\bar ν}_{\ell}$, both with the $τ$ lepton and with a light lepton. The two observables are the partial decay width and a T-odd asymmetry, whose respective sensitivities to scalar and/or pseudo-scalar coupling are calculated as functions of the parameters characterizing new physics. Two different form factors are used. Three particular cases are discussed and analyzed in detail.
We consider the possible discovery potential for single production of charged heavy leptons via anomalous interactions at the envisaged Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) by taking into account initial state radiation (ISR) and beamstrahlung effects. We calculate the production cross sections and decay widths of charged heavy leptons in the context of anomalous interactions at center of mass energies $\sqrt{s}=1$ and 3 TeV. The signal and corresponding backgrounds are studied in detail for the mass range 300-1900 GeV.
We study the impact of a hidden sector beyond the Standard Model, e.g. a Hidden Valley model, on factorial moments and cumulants of multiplicity distributions in multiparticle production with a special emphasis on the prospects for LHC results.
We present allowed regions in the space of observables of certain non-leptonic B-meson decays that characterize these modes within the Standard Model. A future measurement of observables lying significantly outside of these regions would indicate the presence of new physics. Making use of SU(3) arguments, we give the range for $B\toπK$ decays, and for the system of $B_d\toπ^+π^-$, $B_s\to K^+K^-$ modes.
We study the impact of contact interactions involving two leptons (electrons or muons) and two $b$-quarks ($b \bar{b} \ell^+ \ell^-$) on the high-mass di-lepton region at the LHC. We consider different selections of $b$-tagged jet multiplicities in the di-lepton final states: inclusive (no selection), 0, 1 and 2 $b$-tagged jets, and show that the single $b$-jet selection significantly improves the sensitivity to New Physics (NP) in the form of the $b \bar{b} \ell^+ \ell^-$ contact term. We obtain a better sensitivity compared to the currently existing searches of NP in the di-lepton inclusive …
Most signatures of new physics in colliders have been studied so far on the transverse plane with respect to the beam direction. In this work however we study the impact of a hidden sector beyond the Standard Model (SM) on inclusive (pseudo)rapidity correlations and moments of the multiplicity distributions, with special emphasis in the LHC results.
In this work, we have assumed special structures for the charged and neutral mass matrices in the lepton sector, inspired by structures for the up and down quark mass matrices that result by assuming a certain number of symmetrical zeros in their entries named texture zeros. A prediction of the lepton mixing matrix results from the rotation matrices that diagonalize the mass matrices in the neutral and charged lepton sectors. The use of texture zeros reduces the number of spurious parameters to the minimal ones needed to explain observations i.e. charged lepton masses and neutrino oscillation …
Charged lepton flavor violation has long been recognized as unambiguous signature of New Physics. Here we describe the physics capabilities and discovery potential of New Physics models with charged lepton flavor violation in the tau sector as its experimental signature. Current experimental status from the B-Factory experiments BaBar, Belle and Belle II, and future prospects at Super Tau Charm Factory, LHC, EIC and FCC-ee experiments to discover New Physics via charged lepton flavor violation in the tau sector are discussed in detail. Submitted to the Proceedings of the US Community Study on …
As the planning stages for a high energy muon collider enter a more concrete era, an important question arises as to what new physics could be uncovered. A TeV-scale muon collider is also a vector boson fusion (VBF) factory with a very clean background, and as such it is a promising environment to look for new physics that couples to the electroweak (EW) sector. In this paper, we explore the ability of a future TeV-scale muon collider to search for Majorana and Dirac Heavy Neutral Leptons (HNLs) produced via EW bosons. Employing a model-independent, conservative approach, we present an estimat…
The tau lepton plays important role in the correlation between the low-energy neutrino oscillation data and the lepton flavor structure in heavy neutrino decay. We investigate the lepton flavor signatures with tau lepton at hadron collider through lepton number violating (LNV) processes. In the Type I Seesaw with U$(1)_{\rm B-L}$ extension, we study the pair production of heavy neutrinos via a $Z'$ resonance. We present a detailed assessment of the search sensitivity to the channels with tau lepton in the subsequent decay of heavy neutrinos. For the benchmark model with $Z'$ only coupled to th…
We discuss the potential of long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments to determine deviations from maximal ν_μ-ν_τmixing. We compare the obtainable sensitivities to predictions from neutrino mass models and to the size of quantum corrections. We find that the theoretical expectations for deviations are typically well within experimental reach.
Heavy Neutral Leptons are naturally present in many well-motivated extensions of the Standard Model. If their mass is of few dozens of GeVs, they can be long-lived and lead to events with displaced vertices, giving rise to promising signatures due to the low background. We revisit the opportunities offered by the LHC to discover these long-lived states via searches with displaced vertices. We study in particular the implication on the parameter space sensitivity when all mixings to active flavors are taken into account.
A recently proposed class of supersymmetric models predicts rather light and nearly mass-degenerate higgsinos, while the other superparticles are significantly heavier. In this paper we study the early LHC phenomenology of a benchmark model of this kind. If the squarks and gluinos, and in particular the lighter stop, are still light enough to be within reach, then evidence for our model can be found in hadronic SUSY searches. Moreover, with dedicated searches it will be possible to distinguish the light higgsino model from generic SUSY models with a bino LSP. Search channels with b-jets and wi…
We study lepton flavour-violating interactions which could result in the $τ$-lepton production in the $ν_μN$ scattering or in $μ\to τ$ conversion on nucleons at high energies. Phenomenological bounds on the strength of $\barτν_μ\bar{q}q^{'}$ interactions are extracted from the combined result of the NOMAD and CHORUS experiments on searching for $ν_μ - ν_τ$ oscillations. Some of these bounds supersede limits from rare decays. We also propose a ``missing energy'' type experiment searching for $μ- τ$ conversion on nucleons. The experiment can be performed at a present accelerator or at a future n…
Despite the large baryon-anti-baryon asymmetry in the observable Universe, the closely related phenomenon -- the violation of the combined charge and parity symmetry ($C\!P$V) -- has not been observed in the baryon sector in laboratories. In this paper, a new strategy for searching for $C\!P$V in heavy hadron multi-body decays is proposed, in which a set of novel observables measuring $C\!P$V in such decays -- the partial wave $C\!P$ asymmetries (PW$C\!P$As) -- are introduced. This strategy is model-independent and applicable to multi-body decays of heavy hadrons with arbitrary spin configurat…
We investigate the possibility of searching the lepton-flavor-violating (LFV) $τ\rightarrow μγ$ rare decay at the Super Charm-Tau Factory (CTF). By comparing the kinematic distributions of the LFV signal and the standard model (SM) background, we develop an optimized event selection criteria which can significantly reduce the background events. It is concluded that new $2 σ$ upper limit of about $1.9 \times 10^{-9}$ on $Br(τ\rightarrow μγ)$ can be obtained at the CTF, which is beyond the capability of Super-B factory in searching $τ$ lepton rare decay. Within the framework of the scalar leptoq…
Prospective searches for lepton flavor violation (LFV) in rare kaon decays at the existing and future intermediate-energy accelerators are considered. The proposed studies are complementary to LFV searches in muon-decay experiments and offer a unique opportunity to probe models with approximately conserved fermion-generation quantum number with sensitivity superior to that in other processes. Consequently, new searches for LFV in kaon decays are an important and independent part of the general program of searches for lepton flavor violation in the final states with charged leptons.
The production at the LHC of exotic excited leptons of charge $Q = +2e$ is considered. Such states are predicted in composite models with extended isospin multiplets ($I_{W}=1$ and $I_{W}=3/2$). The coupling among these doubly charged leptons and Standard Model fermions may occurs either via gauge or contact interactions. In the former case the decay channels are more constrained. We study the production cross section at the LHC of $L^{++}$ ($pp \rightarrow L^{++} \, \ell^{-}$) and focus on the leptonic signature deriving from the subsequent decays $L^{++} \rightarrow W^{+} \ell^{+} \rightarro…
New phenomena involving pseudorapidity and azimuthal correlations among final state particles in $pp$ collisions at the LHC can hint at the existence of hidden sectors beyond the Standard Model. In this paper we rely on a correlated-cluster picture of multiparticle production, which was shown to account for the ridge effect, to assess the effect of a hidden sector on three-particle correlations concluding that there is a potential signature of new physics that can be directly tested by experiments using well-known techniques.
We propose an experiment to search for extra "hidden-sector" U(1) gauge bosons with gauge kinetic mixing with the ordinary photon, predicted by many extensions of the Standard Model. The setup consists of a highly sensitive magnetometer inside a superconducting shielding. This is then placed inside a strong (but sub-critical) magnetic field. In ordinary electrodynamics the magnetic field cannot permeate the superconductor and no field should register on the magnetometer. However, photon -- hidden-sector photon -- photon oscillations would allow to penetrate the superconductor and the magnetic …
Lepton flavor violating interactions are absent in the standard model but are expected in various beyond standard models. In this work, the potential of the future circular electron-positron collider to probe the four fermion lepton flavor couplings via the $e^{+}e^{-}\rightarrow e^{\pm}τ^{\mp}$ process is revisited by means of an effective field theory approach. We provide constraints at $95\%$ CL on the dimension-six Wilson coefficients including major sources of background processes and considering realistic detector effects at four expected operation energies $\sqrt{s}=157.5$, $162.5$, $24…
Direct searches at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have pushed the lower limits on the masses of the gluinos ($\tilde{g}$) and the squarks of the first two generations ($\tilde{q}$) to the TeV range. On the other hand, the limits are rather weak for the third generation squarks and masses around a few hundred GeV are still allowed. A comparatively light third generation of squarks is also consistent with the lightest Higgs boson with mass $\sim$ 125 GeV. In view of this, we consider the direct production of a pair of sbottom quarks ($\tilde{b}_1$) at the LHC and study their collider signatures…
This Fifth International WEIN Symposium is devoted to physics beyond the standard model. This talk is about tau lepton physics, but I begin with the question: do we know how to find new physics in the world of elementary particles? This question is interwoven with the various tau physics topics. These topics are: searching for unexpected tau decay modes; searching for additional tau decay mechanisms; radiative tau decays; tau decay modes of the W, B, and D; decay of the Z^0 to tau pairs; searching for CP violation in tau decay; the tau neutrino, dreams and odd ideas in tau physics; and tau res…
Assuming that the leptonic mixing matrix is given in first approximation by the tribimaximal form we deduce some consequences with regard to the finite symmetries that may be applied in the minimal lepton sector of the electroweak theory.
A preliminary determination of the Dirac phase in the PMNS matrix is $\dell\approx -\fracπ{2}$. A rather accurately determined Jarlskog invariant $J$ in the CKM matrix is close to the maximum. Since the phases in the CKM and PMNS matrices will be accurately determined in the future, it is an interesting problem to relate these two phases. This can be achieved in a families-unified grand unification if the weak CP violation is introduced spontaneously {\it à la} Froggatt and Nielsen at a high energy scale, where only one meaningful Dirac CP phase appears.
We extend the notion of Minimal Flavor Violation to the lepton sector. We introduce a symmetry principle which allows us to express lepton flavor violation in the charged lepton sector in terms of neutrino masses and mixing angles. We explore the dependence of the rates for flavor changing radiative charged lepton decays (ell(i) -> ell(j) + gamma) and mu-to-e conversion in nuclei on the scales for total lepton number violation, lepton flavor violation and the neutrino masses and mixing angles. Measurable rates are obtained when the scale for total lepton number violation is much larger than th…
We explore signals of lepton-number-violation in the charm physics sector. We study the four-body $|ΔL|= 2$ decays of the $D^0$ meson, $D^0 \to P^- π^-μ^+ μ^+$ ($P = π, K$) as an alternative evidence of the Majorana nature of neutrinos. We carry out an exploratory study on the potential sensitivity that LHCb experiment could achieve for these $|ΔL|= 2$ processes. We show that for a long term expected integrated luminosity of 300 fb$^{-1}$, a signal significance of branching ratios of the order $\mathcal{O}(10^{-9})$ might be accessible, allowing to improve the experimental bounds obtained by t…
We give a pedagogical review of flavour and CP violation in the lepton sector, with a particular emphasis on new physics - and in particular supersymmetric - contributions to flavour and CP violating observables involving leptons.
In this review we discuss physics of the lepton sector, the anomalous dipole moment of muon, the charged lepton-flavor violation, and the electric dipole moments of charged leptons, from viewpoints of the minimal supersymmetric standard model and the extensions.
We propose leveraging our proficiency for detecting Higgs resonances by using the Higgs as a tagging object for new heavy physics. In particular, we argue that searches for exotic Higgs production from decays of color-singlet fields with electroweak charges could beat current searches at the LHC which look for their decays to vectors. As an example, we study the production and decay of vector-like leptons which admit Yukawa couplings with SM leptons. We find that bounds from Run 2 searches are consistent with anywhere from hundreds to many thousands of Higgses having been produced in their dec…
We analyze the possibility of observing CPT violation in the top sector. We present current bounds on CPT violation in this sector, and analyze the prospects of improving these bounds at the LHC.
We suggest a minimal model for GeV-scale Majorana Dark Matter (DM) coupled to the standard model lepton sector via a charged scalar singlet. We show that there is an anti-correlation between the spin-independent DM-Nucleus scattering cross-section ($σ_{\mathrm{SI}}$) and the DM relic density for parameters values allowed by various theoretical and experimental constraints. Moreover, we find that even when DM couplings are of order unity, $σ_{\mathrm{SI}}$ is below the current experimental bound but above the neutrino floor. Furthermore, we show that the considered model can be probed at high-e…
The residual $\mathbb Z^{23}_2$ ($\mathbb Z^{μτ}_2$) and $\mathbb Z^{12}_2$ ($\mathbb Z^s_2$ or $\overline{\mathbb Z}^s_2$) symmetries can not only apply to the lepton sector, but also explain the mainly $1$--$2$ mixing in the quark sector. With both up and down quarks subject to the same $\mathbb Z^{23}_2$ symmetry, which interchanges the second and third generations, the $1$--$3$ and $2$--$3$ mixing angles in CKM vanish while the Cabibbo angle is dictated by two residual $\mathbb Z^{12}_2$ symmetries. It turns out that the quark-lepton complementarity conditions are natural consequences of u…
We consider theories where lepton flavor is violated, in particular concentrating on the four fermion operator consisting of three electrons and a tau. Strong constraints are available from existing searches for tau -> eee, requiring the scale of the contact interaction to be less than ~(9 TeV)^-2. We reexamine this type of physics, assuming that the particles responsible are heavy (with masses greater than ~TeV) such that a contact interaction description continues to be applicable at the energies for a future e+e- collider. We find that the process e+e- -> e tau can be a very sensitive probe…
We study the lepton portal dark matter (DM) model in which the relic abundance is determined by the portal coupling among the Majorana fermion DM candidate $χ$, the singlet charged scalar mediator $S^\pm$ and the Standard Model (SM) right-handed lepton. The direct and indirect searches are not sensitive to this model. This article studies the lepton portal coupling as well as the scalar portal coupling (between $S^\pm$ and SM Higgs boson), as the latter is generally allowed in the Lagrangian. The inclusion of scalar portal coupling not only significantly enhances the LHC reach via the $gg\to h…
These TASI lectures consider low mass hidden sectors from Hidden Valleys, Quirks and Unparticles. We show how each corresponds to a different limit of the same class of models: hidden sectors with non-abelian gauge groups with mass gaps well below a TeV that communicate to the Standard Model through weak scale suppressed higher dimension operators. We provide concrete examples of such models and discuss LHC signatures. Lastly we turn to discussing the application of Hidden Valleys to dark matter sectors.
The existence of the tiny neutrino mass and the flavor mixing can be naturally explained by type-I Seesaw model which is probably the simplest extension of the Standard Model (SM) using Majorana type SM gauge singlet heavy Right Handed Neutrinos (RHNs). If the RHNs are around the Electroweak(EW)-scale having sizable mixings with the SM light neutrinos, they can be produced at the high energy colliders such as Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and future $100$ TeV proton-proton (pp) collider through the characteristic signatures with same sign di-lepton introducing lepton number violations(LNV). On t…
We analyze the lepton flavor violating decays $τ\rightarrow Pl$ ($P=π,η,η';\;l=e,μ$) in the scenario of the minimal R-symmetric supersymmetric standard model. The prediction on the branching ratios BR$(τ\rightarrow P e)$ and BR$(τ\rightarrow P μ)$ is affected by the mass insertion parameters $δ^{13}$ and $δ^{23}$, respectively. These parameters are constrained by the experimental bounds on the branching ratios BR($τ\rightarrow e (μ) γ$) and BR($τ\rightarrow 3e(μ)$). The result shows $Z$ penguin dominates the prediction on BR($τ\rightarrow Pl$) in a large region of the parameter space. The bran…
We investigate the potential of LHC resonance searches in leptonic final states to probe the $Z'$ in the minimal $U(1)_{B-L}$ model. Considering the current constraints on the $Z'$ in terms of its mass $m_{Z'}$ and the associated gauge coupling $g_{B-L}$ as well as constraints in the Higgs sector, we analyse the potential of dilepton and four lepton final states for $Z'$ production. This includes Drell-Yan production, Higgs mediated decays and final state radiation processes concentrating only on the ATLAS and CMS detectors at the LHC. We show that the four-lepton final state is sensitive to $…
