Auclair, P., Blanco-Pillado, J. J., Figueroa, D. G., Jenkins, A. C., Lewicki, M., Sakellariadou, M., et al. (2020). Probing the gravitational wave background from cosmic strings with LISA. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 04(4), 034–50pp.
Abstract: Cosmic string networks offer one of the best prospects for detection of cosmological gravitational waves (GWs). The combined incoherent GW emission of a large number of string loops leads to a stochastic GW background (SGWB), which encodes the properties of the string network. In this paper we analyze the ability of the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna (LISA) to measure this background, considering leading models of the string networks. We find that LISA will be able to probe cosmic strings with tensions G μgreater than or similar to O(10(-17)), improving by about 6 orders of magnitude current pulsar timing arrays (PTA) constraints, and potentially 3 orders of magnitude with respect to expected constraints from next generation PTA observatories. We include in our analysis possible modifications of the SGWB spectrum due to different hypotheses regarding cosmic history and the underlying physics of the string network. These include possible modifications in the SGWB spectrum due to changes in the number of relativistic degrees of freedom in the early Universe, the presence of a non-standard equation of state before the onset of radiation domination, or changes to the network dynamics due to a string inter-commutation probability less than unity. In the event of a detection, LISA's frequency band is well-positioned to probe such cosmic events. Our results constitute a thorough exploration of the cosmic string science that will be accessible to LISA.
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Campos, F., Eboli, O. J. P., Magro, M. B., Porod, W., Restrepo, D., Das, S. P., et al. (2012). Probing neutralino properties in minimal supergravity with bilinear R-parity violation. Phys. Rev. D, 86(7), 075001–8pp.
Abstract: Supersymmetric models with bilinear R-parity violation can account for the observed neutrino masses and mixing parameters indicated by neutrino oscillation data. We consider minimal supergravity versions of bilinear R-parity violation where the lightest supersymmetric particle is a neutralino. This is unstable, with a large enough decay length to be detected at the CERN Large Hadron Collider. We analyze the Large Hadron Collider potential to determine the lightest supersymmetric particle properties, such as mass, lifetime and branching ratios, and discuss their relation to neutrino properties.
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Das, S., de Putter, R., Linder, E. V., & Nakajima, R. (2012). Weak lensing cosmology beyond Lambda CDM. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 11(11), 23pp.
Abstract: Weak gravitational lensing is one of the key probes of the cosmological model, dark energy, and dark matter, providing insight into both the cosmic expansion history and large scale structure growth history. Taking into account a broad spectrum of physics affecting growth – dynamical dark energy, extended gravity, neutrino masses, and spatial curvature – we analyze the cosmological constraints. Similarly we consider the effects of a range of systematic uncertainties, in shear measurement, photometric redshifts, intrinsic alignments, and the nonlinear power spectrum, on cosmological parameter extraction. We also investigate, and provide fitting formulas tor, the influence of survey parameters such as redshift depth, galaxy number densities, and sky area on the cosmological constraints in the beyond-ACDM parameter space. Finally, we examine the robustness of results for different fiducial cosmologies.
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Das, S. P., Deppisch, F. F., Kittel, O., & Valle, J. W. F. (2012). Heavy neutrinos and lepton flavor violation in left-right symmetric models at the LHC. Phys. Rev. D, 86(5), 055006–20pp.
Abstract: We discuss lepton flavor violating processes induced in the production and decay of heavy right-handed neutrinos at the LHC. Such particles appear in left-right symmetrical extensions of the standard model as the messengers of neutrino mass generation, and can have masses at the TeV scale. We determine the expected sensitivity on the right-handed neutrino mixing matrix, as well as on the right-handed gauge boson and heavy neutrino masses. By comparing the sensitivity of the LHC with that of searches for low energy lepton flavor violating processes, we identify favorable areas of the parameter space to explore the complementarity between lepton flavor violating at low and high energies.
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Das, S. P., & Drees, M. (2011). CP-violating supersymmetric Higgs boson at the Tevatron and LHC. Phys. Rev. D, 83(3), 035003–17pp.
Abstract: We analyze the prospect for observing the intermediate neutral Higgs boson (h(2))in its decay to two lighter Higgs bosons (h(1)) at the presently operating hadron colliders in the framework of the CP-violating minimal supersymmetric standard model using the PYTHIA event generator. We consider the lepton + 4-jets + E-T channel from associate Wh(2) production, with Wh(2) -> Wh(1)h(1) -> l -> l nu lb (b) over barb (b) over bar. We require two, three or four tagged b jets. We explicitly consider all relevant standard model backgrounds, treating c jets separately from light flavor and gluon jets and allowing for mistagging. We find that it is very hard to observe this signature at the Tevatron, even with 20 fb(-1) of data, in the LEP-allowed region of parameter space due to the small signal efficiency, even though the background is manageable. At the LHC, a priori huge standard model backgrounds can be suppressed by applying judiciously chosen kinematical selections. After all cuts, we are left with a signal cross section of around 0.5 fb, and a signal to background ratio between 1.2 and 2.9. According to our analysis this Higgs signal should be viable at the LHC in the vicinity of present LEP exclusion once 20 to 50 fb(-1) of data have been accumulated at root s = 14 TeV.
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