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Arguelles, C. A., Kelly, K. J., & Muñoz, V. M. (2021). Millicharged particles from the heavens: single- and multiple-scattering signatures. J. High Energy Phys., 11(11), 099–34pp.
Abstract: For nearly a century, studying cosmic-ray air showers has driven progress in our understanding of elementary particle physics. In this work, we revisit the production of millicharged particles in these atmospheric showers and provide new constraints for XENON1T and Super-Kamiokande and new sensitivity estimates of current and future detectors, such as JUNO. We discuss distinct search strategies, specifically studies of single-energy-deposition events, where one electron in the detector receives a relatively large energy transfer, as well as multiple-scattering events consisting of (at least) two relatively small energy depositions. We demonstrate that these atmospheric search strategies especially the multiple-scattering signature – provide significant room for improvement beyond existing searches, in a way that is complementary to anthropogenic, beam-based searches for MeV-GeV millicharged particles. Finally, we also discuss the implementation of a Monte Carlo simulation for millicharged particle detection in large-volume neutrino detectors, such as IceCube.
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Arguelles, C. A., Muñoz, V., Shoemaker, I. M., & Takhistov, V. (2022). Hadrophilic light dark matter from the atmosphere. Phys. Lett. B, 833, 137363–6pp.
Abstract: Light sub-GeV dark matter (DM) constitutes an underexplored target, beyond the optimized sensitivity of typical direct DM detection experiments. We comprehensively investigate hadrophilic light DM produced from cosmic-ray collisions with the atmosphere. The resulting relativistic DM, originating from meson decays, can be efficiently observed in variety of experiments, such as XENON1T. We include for the first time decays of eta, eta' and K+ mesons, leading to improved limits for DM masses above few hundred MeV. We incorporate an exact treatment of the DM attenuation in Earth and demonstrate that nuclear form factor effects can significantly impact the resulting testable DM parameter space. Further, we establish projections for upcoming experiments, such as DARWIN, over a wide range of DM masses below the GeV scale.
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Arina, C., Di Mauro, M., Fornengo, N., Heisig, J., Jueid, A., & Ruiz de Austri, R. (2024). CosmiXs: cosmic messenger spectra for indirect dark matter searches. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 03(3), 035–41pp.
Abstract: The energy spectra of particles produced from dark matter (DM) annihilation or decay are one of the fundamental ingredients to calculate the predicted fluxes of cosmic rays and radiation searched for in indirect DM detection. We revisit the calculation of the source spectra for annihilating and decaying DM using the VINCIA shower algorithm in PYTHIA to include QED and QCD final state radiation and diagrams for the EW corrections with massive bosons, not present in the default PYTHIA shower model. We take into account the spin information of the particles during the entire EW shower and the off -shell contributions from massive gauge bosons. Furthermore, we perform a dedicated tuning of the VINCIA and PYTHIA parameters to LEP data on the production of pions, photons, and hyperons at the Z resonance and discuss the underlying uncertainties. To enable the use of our results in DM studies, we provide the tabulated source spectra for the most relevant cosmic messenger particles, namely antiprotons, positrons, gamma rays and the three neutrino flavors, for all the fermionic and bosonic channels and DM masses between 5 GeV and 100 TeV, on github.
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Aristizabal Sierra, D., De Romeri, V., Flores, L. J., & Papoulias, D. K. (2020). Light vector mediators facing XENON1T data. Phys. Lett. B, 809, 135681–5pp.
Abstract: Recently the XENON1T collaboration has released new results on searches for new physics in low-energy electronic recoils. The data shows an excess over background in the low-energy tail, particularly pronounced at about 2-3 keV. With an exposure of 0.65 tonne-year, large detection efficiency and energy resolution, the detector is sensitive as well to solar neutrino backgrounds, with the most prominent contribution given by pp neutrinos. We investigate whether such signal can be explained in terms of new neutrino interactions with leptons mediated by a light vector particle. We find that the excess is consistent with this interpretation for vector masses below less than or similar to 0.1 MeV. The region of parameter space probed by the XENON1T data is competitive with constraints from laboratory experiments, in particular GEMMA, Borexino and TEXONO. However we point out a severe tension with astrophysical bounds and cosmological observations.
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Aristizabal Sierra, D., De Romeri, V., & Papoulias, D. K. (2022). Consequences of the Dresden-II reactor data for the weak mixing angle and new physics. J. High Energy Phys., 09(9), 076–22pp.
Abstract: The Dresden-II reactor experiment has recently reported a suggestive evidence for the observation of coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering, using a germanium detector. Given the low recoil energy threshold, these data are particularly interesting for a low-energy determination of the weak mixing angle and for the study of new physics leading to spectral distortions at low momentum transfer. Using two hypotheses for the quenching factor, we study the impact of the data on: (i) The weak mixing angle at a renormalization scale of similar to 10 MeV, (ii) neutrino generalized interactions with light mediators, (iii) the sterile neutrino dipole portal. The results for the weak mixing angle show a strong dependence on the quenching factor choice. Although still with large uncertainties, the Dresden-II data provide for the first time a determination of sin(2)theta(W) at such scale using coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering data. Tight upper limits are placed on the light vector, scalar and tensor mediator scenarios. Kinematic constraints implied by the reactor anti-neutrino flux and the ionization energy threshold allow the sterile neutrino dipole portal to produce up-scattering events with sterile neutrino masses up to similar to 8 MeV. In this context, we find that limits are also sensitive to the quenching factor choice, but in both cases competitive with those derived from XENON1T data and more stringent that those derived with COHERENT data, in the same sterile neutrino mass range.
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Aristizabal Sierra, D., De Romeri, V., & Ternes, C. A. (2024). Reactor neutrino background in next-generation dark matter detectors. Phys. Rev. D, 109(11), 115026–7pp.
Abstract: Third -generation dark matter detectors will be fully sensitive to the 8 B solar neutrino flux. Because of this, the characterization of such a background has been the subject of extensive analyses over the last few years. In contrast, little is known about the impact of reactor neutrinos. In this paper, we report on the implications of such a flux for dark matter direct -detection searches. We consider five potential detector deployment sites envisioned by the recently established XLZD Consortium: SURF, SNOLAB, Kamioka, LNGS, and Boulby. By using public reactor data, we construct five reactor clusters -involving about 100 currently operating commercial nuclear reactors each -and determine the net neutrino flux at each detector site. Assuming a xenon -based detector and a 50 ton -year exposure, we show that in all cases the neutrino event rate may be sizable, depending on energy recoil thresholds. Of all possible detector sites, SURF and LNGS are those with the smallest reactor neutrino background. On the contrary, SNOLAB and Boulby are subject to the strongest reactor neutrino fluxes, with Kamioka being subject to a more moderate background. Our findings demonstrate that reactor neutrino fluxes should be taken into account in the next round of dark matter searches. We argue that this background may be particularly relevant for directional detectors, provided they meet the requirements we have employed in this analysis.
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Arnault, P., Macquet, A., Angles-Castillo, A., Marquez-Martin, I., Pina-Canelles, V., Perez, A., et al. (2020). Quantum simulation of quantum relativistic diffusion via quantum walks. J. Phys. A, 53(20), 205303–39pp.
Abstract: Two models are first presented, of a one-dimensional discrete-time quantum walk (DTQW) with temporal noise on the internal degree of freedom (i.e., the coin): (i) a model with both a coin-flip and a phase-flip channel, and (ii) a model with random coin unitaries. It is then shown that both these models admit a common limit in the spacetime continuum, namely, a Lindblad equation with Dirac-fermion Hamiltonian part and, as Lindblad jumps, a chirality flip and a chirality-dependent phase flip, which are two of the three standard error channels for a two-level quantum system. This, as one may call it, Dirac Lindblad equation, provides a model of quantum relativistic spatial diffusion, which is evidenced both analytically and numerically. This model of spatial diffusion has the intriguing specificity of making sense only with original unitary models which are relativistic in the sense that they have chirality, on which the noise is introduced: the diffusion arises via the by-construction (quantum) coupling of chirality to the position. For a particle with vanishing mass, the model of quantum relativistic diffusion introduced in the present work, reduces to the well-known telegraph equation, which yields propagation at short times, diffusion at long times, and exhibits no quantumness. Finally, the results are extended to temporal noises which depend smoothly on position.
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Arnault, P., Pepper, B., & Perez, A. (2020). Quantum walks in weak electric fields and Bloch oscillations. Phys. Rev. A, 101(6), 062324–12pp.
Abstract: Bloch oscillations appear when an electric field is superimposed on a quantum particle that evolves on a lattice with a tight-binding Hamiltonian (TBH), i.e., evolves via what we call an electric TBH; this phenomenon will be referred to as TBH Bloch oscillations. A similar phenomenon is known to show up in so-called electric discrete-time quantum walks (DQWs) [C. Cedzich et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 111, 160601 (2013);] this phenomenon will be referred to as DQW Bloch oscillations. This similarity is particularly salient when the electric field of the DQW is weak. For a wide, i.e., spatially extended, initial condition, one numerically observes semiclassical oscillations, i.e., oscillations of a localized particle, for both the electric TBH and the electric DQW. More precisely, the numerical simulations strongly suggest that the semiclassical DQW Bloch oscillations correspond to two counterpropagating semiclassical TBH Bloch oscillations. In this work it is shown that, under certain assumptions, the solution of the electric DQW for a weak electric field and a wide initial condition is well approximated by the superposition of two continuous-time expressions, which are counterpropagating solutions of an electric TBH whose hopping amplitude is the cosine of the arbitrary coin-operator mixing angle. In contrast, if one wishes the continuous-time approximation to hold for spatially localized initial conditions, one needs at least the DQW to be lazy, as suggested by numerical simulations and by the fact that this has been proven in the case of a vanishing electric field [F. W. Strauch, Phys. Rev. A 74, 030301(R) (2006)].
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Arnault, P., Perez, A., Arrighi, P., & Farrelly, T. (2019). Discrete-time quantum walks as fermions of lattice gauge theory. Phys. Rev. A, 99(3), 032110–16pp.
Abstract: It is shown that discrete-time quantum walks can be used to digitize, i.e., to time discretize fermionic models of continuous-time lattice gauge theory. The resulting discrete-time dynamics is thus not only manifestly unitary, but also ultralocal, i.e., the particle's speed is upper bounded, as in standard relativistic quantum field theories. The lattice chiral symmetry of staggered fermions, which corresponds to a translational invariance, is lost after the requirement of ultralocality of the evolution; this fact is an instance of Meyer's 1996 no-go results stating that no nontrivial scalar quantum cellular automaton can be translationally invariant [D. A. Meyer, J. Stat. Phys. 85, 551 (1996); Phys. Lett. A 223, 337 (1996)]. All results are presented in a single-particle framework and for a (1+1)-dimensional space-time.
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Arrechea, J., Delhom, A., & Jimenez-Cano, A. (2021). Inconsistencies in four-dimensional Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity. Chin. Phys. C, 45(1), 013107–8pp.
Abstract: We attempt to clarify several aspects concerning the recently presented four-dimensional Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity. We argue that the limiting procedure outlined in [Phys. Rev. Lett. 124, 081301 (2020)] generally involves ill-defined terms in the four dimensional field equations. Potential ways to circumvent this issue are discussed, alongside remarks regarding specific solutions of the theory. We prove that, although linear perturbations are well behaved around maximally symmetric backgrounds, the equations for second-order perturbations are ill-defined even around a Minkowskian background. Additionally, we perform a detailed analysis of the spherically symmetric solutions and find that the central curvature singularity can be reached within a finite proper time.
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