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De Romeri, V., Karamitros, D., Lebedev, O., & Toma, T. (2020). Neutrino dark matter and the Higgs portal: improved freeze-in analysis. J. High Energy Phys., 10(10), 137–41pp.
Abstract: Sterile neutrinos are one of the leading dark matter candidates. Their masses may originate from a vacuum expectation value of a scalar field. If the sterile neutrino couplings are very small and their direct coupling to the inflaton is forbidden by the lepton number symmetry, the leading dark matter production mechanism is the freeze-in scenario. We study this possibility in the neutrino mass range up to 1 GeV, taking into account relativistic production rates based on the Bose-Einstein statistics, thermal masses and phase transition effects. The specifics of the production mechanism and the dominant mode depend on the relation between the scalar and sterile neutrino masses as well as on whether or not the scalar is thermalized. We find that the observed dark matter abundance can be produced in all of the cases considered. We also revisit the freeze-in production of a Higgs portal scalar, pointing out the importance of a fusion mode, as well as the thermalization constraints.
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De Romeri, V., Hirsch, M., & Malinsky, M. (2011). Soft masses in supersymmetric SO(10) GUTs with low intermediate scales. Phys. Rev. D, 84(5), 053012–15pp.
Abstract: The specific shape of the squark, slepton and gaugino mass spectra, if measured with sufficient accuracy, can provide invaluable information not only about the dynamics underpinning their origin at some very high scale such as the unification scale M(G), but also about the intermediate scale physics encountered throughout their renormalization group equations evolution down to the energy scale accessible for the LHC. In this work, we study general features of the TeV scale soft supersymmetry breaking parameters stemming from a generic mSugra configuration within certain classes of supersymmetry SO(10) GUTs with different intermediate symmetries below M(G). We show that particular combinations of soft masses show characteristic deviations from the mSugra limit in different models and thus, potentially, allow to distinguish between these, even if the new intermediate scales are outside the energy range probed at accelerators. We also compare our results to those obtained for the three minimal seesaw models with mSugra boundary conditions and discuss the main differences between those and our SO(10) based models.
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De Romeri, V., & Hirsch, M. (2012). Sneutrino dark matter in low-scale seesaw scenarios. J. High Energy Phys., 12(12), 106–28pp.
Abstract: We consider supersymmetric models in which sneutrinos are viable dark matter candidates. These are either simple extensions of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model with additional singlet superfields, such as the inverse or linear seesaw, or a model with an additional U(1) group. All of these models can accomodate the observed small neutrino masses and large mixings. We investigate the properties of sneutrinos as dark matter candidates in these scenarios. We check for phenomenological bounds, such as correct relic abundance, consistency with direct detection cross section limits and laboratory constraints, among others lepton flavour violating (LFV) charged lepton decays. While inverse and linear seesaw lead to different results for LFV, both models have very similar dark matter phenomenology, consistent with all experimental bounds. The extended gauge model shows some additional and peculiar features due to the presence of an extra gauge boson Z' and an additional light Higgs. Specifically, we point out that for sneutrino LSPs there is a strong constraint on the mass of the Z' due to the experimental bounds on the direct detection scattering cross section.
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De Romeri, V., Giunti, C., Stuttard, T., & Ternes, C. A. (2023). Neutrino oscillation bounds on quantum decoherence. J. High Energy Phys., 09(9), 097–24pp.
Abstract: We consider quantum-decoherence effects in neutrino oscillation data. Working in the open quantum system framework we adopt a phenomenological approach that allows to parameterize the energy dependence of the decoherence effects. We consider several phenomenological models. We analyze data from the reactor experiments RENO, Daya Bay and KamLAND and from the accelerator experiments NOvA, MINOS/MINOS+ and T2K. We obtain updated constraints on the decoherence parameters quantifying the strength of damping effects, which can be as low as Gamma ij less than or similar to 8 x 10-27 GeV at 90% confidence level in some cases. We also present sensitivities for the future facilities DUNE and JUNO.
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De Romeri, V., Fernandez-Martinez, E., & Sorel, M. (2016). Neutrino oscillations at DUNE with improved energy reconstruction. J. High Energy Phys., 09(9), 030–25pp.
Abstract: We study the physics reach of the long-baseline oscillation analysis of the DUNE experiment when realistic simulations are used to estimate its neutrino energy reconstruction capabilities. Our studies indicate that significant improvements in energy resolution compared to what is customarily assumed are plausible. This improved energy resolution can increase the sensitivity to leptonic CP violation in two ways. On the one hand, the CP-violating term in the oscillation probability has a characteristic energy dependence that can be better reproduced. On the other hand, the second oscillation maximum, especially sensitive to delta(CP), is better reconstructed. These effects lead to a significant improvement in the fraction of values of delta(CP) for which a 5 sigma discovery of leptonic CP-violation would be possible. The precision of the delta(CP) measurement could also be greatly enhanced, with a reduction of the maximum uncertainties from 26 degrees to 18 degrees for a 300 MW.kt.yr exposure. We therefore believe that this potential gain in physics reach merits further investigations of the detector performance achievable in DUNE.
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De Romeri, V., Fernandez-Martinez, E., Gehrlein, J., Machado, P. A. N., & Niro, V. (2017). Dark Matter and the elusive Z' in a dynamical Inverse Seesaw scenario. J. High Energy Phys., 10(10), 169–21pp.
Abstract: The Inverse Seesaw naturally explains the smallness of neutrino masses via an approximate B-L symmetry broken only by a correspondingly small parameter. In this work the possible dynamical generation of the Inverse Seesaw neutrino mass mechanism from the spontaneous breaking of a gauged U(1) B-L symmetry is investigated. Interestingly, the Inverse Seesaw pattern requires a chiral content such that anomaly cancellation predicts the existence of extra fermions belonging to a dark sector with large, non-trivial, charges under the U(1) B-L. We investigate the phenomenology associated to these new states and find that one of them is a viable dark matter candidate with mass around the TeV scale, whose interaction with the Standard Model is mediated by the Z' boson associated to the gauged U(1) B-L symmetry. Given the large charges required for anomaly cancellation in the dark sector, the B-L Z' interacts preferentially with this dark sector rather than with the Standard Model. This suppresses the rate at direct detection searches and thus alleviates the constraints on Z'-mediated dark matter relic abundance. The collider phenomenology of this elusive Z' is also discussed.
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de Gouvea, A., De Romeri, V., & Ternes, C. A. (2020). Probing neutrino quantum decoherence at reactor experiments. J. High Energy Phys., 08(8), 049–17pp.
Abstract: We explore how well reactor antineutrino experiments can constrain or measure the loss of quantum coherence in neutrino oscillations. We assume that decoherence effects are encoded in the size of the neutrino wave-packet, sigma. We find that the current experiments Daya Bay and the Reactor Experiment for Neutrino Oscillation (RENO) already constrain sigma >1.0x10(-4) nm and estimate that future data from the Jiangmen Underground Neutrino Observatory (JUNO) would be sensitive to sigma <2.1x10(-3) nm. If the effects of loss of coherence are within the sensitivity of JUNO, we expect sigma to be measured with good precision. The discovery of nontrivial decoherence effects in JUNO would indicate that our understanding of the coherence of neutrino sources is, at least, incomplete.
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de Gouvea, A., De Romeri, V., & Ternes, C. A. (2021). Combined analysis of neutrino decoherence at reactor experiments. J. High Energy Phys., 06(6), 042–12pp.
Abstract: Reactor experiments are well suited to probe the possible loss of coherence of neutrino oscillations due to wave-packets separation. We combine data from the short-baseline experiments Daya Bay and the Reactor Experiment for Neutrino Oscillation (RENO) and from the long baseline reactor experiment KamLAND to obtain the best current limit on the reactor antineutrino wave-packet width, sigma > 2.1 x 10(-4) nm at 90% CL. We also find that the determination of standard oscillation parameters is robust, i.e., it is mostly insensitive to the presence of hypothetical decoherence effects once one combines the results of the different reactor neutrino experiments.
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Cerdeño, D. G., De Romeri, V., Martin Lozano, V., Olive, K. A., & Seto, O. (2018). The Constrained NMSSM with right-handed neutrinos. Eur. Phys. J. C, 78(4), 290–12pp.
Abstract: In this article, we demonstrate that the inclusion of right-handed neutrino superfields in the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM) makes it possible to impose universality conditions on the soft supersymmetry-breaking parameters at the Grand Unification scale, alleviating many of the problems of the so-called Constrained NMSSM. We have studied the renormalization group equations of this model, showing that right-handed neutrinos greatly contribute to driving the singlet Higgs mass-squared parameter negative, which makes it considerably easier to satisfy the conditions for radiative electroweak symmetry breaking. The new fields also lead to larger values of the Standard Model Higgs mass, thus making it easier to reproduce the measured value. As a consequence, all bounds from colliders and low-energy observables can be fulfilled in wide areas of the parameter space. However, the relic density in these regions is generally too high requiring some form of late entropy production to dilute the density of the lightest supersymmetric particle.
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Candela, P. M., De Romeri, V., & Papoulias, D. K. (2023). COHERENT production of a dark fermion. Phys. Rev. D, 108(5), 055001–19pp.
Abstract: We consider the possible production of a new MeV-scale fermion at the COHERENT experiment. The new fermion, belonging to a dark sector, can be produced through the up-scattering process of neutrinos off the nuclei and the electrons of the detector material, via the exchange of a light vector or scalar mediator. We perform a detailed statistical analysis of the combined COHERENT CsI and LAr datasets and obtain up-to-date constraints on the couplings and masses of the dark fermion and mediators. We finally briefly comment about the stability of the dark fermion.
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