Abstract: A search for a neutrino signal from WIMP pair annihilations in the centre of the Earth has been performed with the data collected with the ANTARES neutrino telescope from 2007 to 2012. The event selection criteria have been developed and tuned to maximise the sensitivity of the experiment to such a neutrino signal. No significant excess of neutrinos over the expected background has been observed. Upper limits at 90% C.L. on the WIMP annihilation rate in the Earth and the spin independent scattering cross-section of WIMPs to nucleons sigma(SI)(p) were calculated for WIMP pair annihilations into either iota(+) iota(-), W+W-, b (b) over bar or the non-SUSY v mu(v) over bar as a function of the WIMP mass (between 25 GeV/c(2) and 1000 GeV/c(2)) and as a function of the thermally averaged annihilation cross section times velocity <sigma A(v)>(Earth) of the WIMPs in the centre of the Earth. For masses of the WIMP close to the mass of iron nuclei (50 GeV/c(2)), the obtained limits on sigma(SI)(p) are more stringent than those obtained by other indirect searches.

Abstract: Using data recorded with the ANTARES telescope from 2007 to 2015, a new search for dark matter annihilation in the Milky Way has been performed. Three halo models and five annihilation channels, WIMP + WIMP -> b (b) over bar, W+W-, tau(+)tau(-), mu(+)mu(-) and v (v) over bar, with WIMP masses ranging from 50 2 GeV/C-2 to 100 Tev/C-2, were considered. No excess over the expected background was found, and limits on the thermally averaged annihilation cross-section were set.

Abstract: Context. Ground-based gamma-ray astronomy is still a rather young field of research, with strong historical connections to particle physics. This is why most observations are conducted by experiments with proprietary data and analysis software, as is usual in the particle physics field. However, in recent years, this paradigm has been slowly shifting toward the development and use of open-source data formats and tools, driven by upcoming observatories such as the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). In this context, a community-driven, shared data format (the gamma-astro-data-format, or GADF) and analysis tools such as Gammapy and ctools have been developed. So far, these efforts have been led by the Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope community, leaving out other types of ground-based gamma-ray instruments. Aims. We aim to show that the data from ground particle arrays, such as the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) observatory, are also compatible with the GADF and can thus be fully analyzed using the related tools, in this case, Gammapy. Methods. We reproduced several published HAWC results using Gammapy and data products compliant with GADF standard. We also illustrate the capabilities of the shared format and tools by producing a joint fit of the Crab spectrum including data from six different gamma-ray experiments. Results. We find excellent agreement with the reference results, a powerful confirmation of both the published results and the tools involved. Conclusions. The data from particle detector arrays such as the HAWC observatory can be adapted to the GADF and thus analyzed with Gammapy. A common data format and shared analysis tools allow multi-instrument joint analysis and effective data sharing. To emphasize this, a sample of Crab nebula event lists is made public with this paper. Because of the complementary nature of pointing and wide-field instruments, this synergy will be distinctly beneficial for the joint scientific exploitation of future observatories such as the Southern Wide-field Gamma-ray Observatory and CTA.

Abstract: We give a straightforward procedure to scan the seesaw parameter-space, using the common “R-parametrization”, in a complete way. This includes a very simple rule to incorporate the perturbativity requirement as a condition for the entries of the R-matrix. As a relevant application, we show that the somewhat propagated belief that BR(mu -> e, gamma) in supersymmetric seesaw models depends strongly on the value of theta(13) is an “optical effect” produced by incomplete scans, and does not hold after a careful analytical and numerical study. When the complete scan is done, BR(mu -> e, gamma) gets very insensitive to theta(13). This holds even if the right-handed neutrino masses are kept constant or under control (as is required for succesful leptogenesis). In most cases the values of BR(mu -> e, gamma) are larger than the experimental upper bound. Including (unflavoured) leptogenesis does not introduce any further dependence on theta(13), although decreases the typical value of BR(mu -> e, gamma).

Abstract: We evaluate exclusive semileptonic decays of ground-state spin-1/2 doubly heavy charmed baryons driven by a c -> s, d transition at the quark level. Our results for the form factors are consistent with heavy quark spin symmetry constraints which are valid in the limit of an infinitely massive charm quark and near zero recoil. Only a few exclusive semileptonic decay channels have been theoretically analyzed before. For those cases we find that our results are in a reasonable agreement with previous calculations.