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MoEDAL Collaboration(Acharya, B. et al), Mitsou, V. A., Papavassiliou, J., Ruiz de Austri, R., Santra, A., Vento, V., et al. (2022). Search for magnetic monopoles produced via the Schwinger mechanism. Nature, 602(7895), 63–67.
Abstract: Electrically charged particles can be created by the decay of strong enough electric fields, a phenomenon known as the Schwinger mechanism(1). By electromagnetic duality, a sufficiently strong magnetic field would similarly produce magnetic monopoles, if they exist(2). Magnetic monopoles are hypothetical fundamental particles that are predicted by several theories beyond the standard model(3-7) but have never been experimentally detected. Searching for the existence of magnetic monopoles via the Schwinger mechanism has not yet been attempted, but it is advantageous, owing to the possibility of calculating its rate through semi-classical techniques without perturbation theory, as well as that the production of the magnetic monopoles should be enhanced by their finite size(8,9) and strong coupling to photons(2,10). Here we present a search for magnetic monopole production by the Schwinger mechanism in Pb-Pb heavy ion collisions at the Large Hadron Collider, producing the strongest known magnetic fields in the current Universe(11). It was conducted by the MoEDAL experiment, whose trapping detectors were exposed to 0.235 per nanobarn, or approximately 1.8 x 10(9), of Pb-Pb collisions with 5.02-teraelectronvolt center-of-mass energy per collision in November 2018. A superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) magnetometer scanned the trapping detectors of MoEDAL for the presence of magnetic charge, which would induce a persistent current in the SQUID. Magnetic monopoles with integer Dirac charges of 1, 2 and 3 and masses up to 75 gigaelectronvolts per speed of light squared were excluded by the analysis at the 95% confidence level. This provides a lower mass limit for finite-size magnetic monopoles from a collider search and greatly extends previous mass bounds.
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Giare, W., Renzi, F., Melchiorri, A., Mena, O., & Di Valentino, E. (2022). Cosmological forecasts on thermal axions, relic neutrinos, and light elements. Mon. Not. Roy. Astron. Soc., 511(1), 1373–1382.
Abstract: One of the targets of future cosmic microwave background (CMB) and baryon acoustic oscillation measurements is to improve the current accuracy in the neutrino sector and reach a much better sensitivity on extra dark radiation in the early Universe. In this paper, we study how these improvements can be translated into constraining power for well-motivated extensions of the standard model of elementary particles that involve axions thermalized before the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) phase transition by scatterings with gluons. Assuming a fiducial Lambda cold dark matter cosmological model, we simulate future data for Stage-IV CMB-like and Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI)-like surveys and analyse a mixed scenario of axion and neutrino hot dark matter. We further account also for the effects of these QCD axions on the light element abundances predicted by big bang nucleosynthesis. The most constraining forecasted limits on the hot relic masses are m(a) less than or similar to 0.92 eV and n-ary sumation m(nu) less than or similar to 0.12 eV at 95 per cent Confidence Level, showing that future cosmic observations can substantially improve the current bounds, supporting multimessenger analyses of axion, neutrino, and primordial light element properties.
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Villaescusa-Navarro, F. et al, & Villanueva-Domingo, P. (2022). The CAMELS Multifield Data Set: Learning the Universe's Fundamental Parameters with Artificial Intelligence. Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser., 259(2), 61–14pp.
Abstract: We present the Cosmology and Astrophysics with Machine Learning Simulations (CAMELS) Multifield Data set (CMD), a collection of hundreds of thousands of 2D maps and 3D grids containing many different properties of cosmic gas, dark matter, and stars from more than 2000 distinct simulated universes at several cosmic times. The 2D maps and 3D grids represent cosmic regions that span similar to 100 million light-years and have been generated from thousands of state-of-the-art hydrodynamic and gravity-only N-body simulations from the CAMELS project. Designed to train machine-learning models, CMD is the largest data set of its kind containing more than 70 TB of data. In this paper we describe CMD in detail and outline a few of its applications. We focus our attention on one such task, parameter inference, formulating the problems we face as a challenge to the community. We release all data and provide further technical details at https://camels-multifield-dataset.readthedocs.io.
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Penalva, N., Hernandez, E., & Nieves, J. (2022). Visible energy and angular distributions of the charged particle from the tau-decay in b -> C tau (mu(nu)over-bar(mu)nu(tau), pi nu(tau), rho nu(tau))(nu)over-bar(tau) reactions. J. High Energy Phys., 04(4), 026–25pp.
Abstract: We study the d(2)Gamma(d)/(d omega d cos theta(d) ), d Gamma(d)/d cos theta(d) and d Gamma(d)/dE(d) distributions, which are defined in terms of the visible energy and polar angle of the charged particle from the tau-decay in b -> C tau (mu(nu) over bar (mu)nu(tau), pi nu(tau), rho nu(tau))(nu) over bar (tau), reactions. These differential decay widths could be measured in the near future with certain precision. The first two contain information on the transverse tau-spin, tau-angular and tau-angular-spin asymmetries of the H-b -> H-c tau(nu) over bar (tau) parent decay and, from a dynamical point of view, they are richer than the commonly used one, d(2)Gamma(d)/(d omega dE(d)), since the latter only depends on the tau longitudinal polarization. We pay attention to the deviations with respect to the predictions of the standard model (SM) for these new observables, considering new physics (NP) operators constructed using both right- and left-handed neutrino fields, within an effective field-theory approach. We present results for Lambda(b) -> Lambda(c)tau (mu(nu) over bar (mu)nu(tau), pi nu(tau), rho nu(tau))(nu) over bar (tau) and (B) over bar -> D-(*()) tau (mu(nu) over bar (mu)nu(tau), pi nu(tau), rho nu(tau))(nu) over bar (tau) sequential decays and discuss their use to disentangle between different NP models. In this respect, we show that d Gamma(d)/d cos theta(d) , which should be measured with sufficiently good statistics, becomes quite useful, especially in the tau -> pi nu(tau) mode. The study carried out in this work could be of special relevance due to the recent LHCb measurement of the lepton flavor universality ratio R Lambda(c) in agreement with the SM. The experiment identified the tau using its hadron decay into pi(-)pi(+)pi(-)nu(tau), and this result for R Lambda(c )which is in conflict with the phenomenology from the b-meson sector, needs confirmation from other tau reconstruction channels.
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LHCb Collaboration(Aaij, R. et al), Jashal, B. K., Martinez-Vidal, F., Oyanguren, A., Remon Alepuz, C., & Ruiz Vidal, J. (2022). Study of charmonium and charmonium-like contributions in B+ -> J/psi eta K+ decays. J. High Energy Phys., 04(4), 046–29pp.
Abstract: A study of B+ -> J/psi eta K+ decays, followed by J/psi -> mu(+)mu(-) and eta -> gamma gamma, is performed using a dataset collected with the LHCb detector in proton-proton collisions at centre-of-mass energies of 7, 8 and 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9 fb(-1). The J/psi eta mass spectrum is investigated for contributions from charmonia and charmonium-like states. Evidence is found for the B+ -> (psi(2)(3823) -> J/psi eta)K+ and B+ -> (psi(4040) -> J/psi eta)K+ decays with significance of 3.4 and 4.7 standard deviations, respectively. This constitutes the first evidence for the psi(2)(3823) -> J/psi eta decay.
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KM3NeT Collaboration(Aiello, S. et al), Alves Garre, S., Calvo, D., Carretero, V., Colomer, M., Garcia Soto, A., et al. (2022). Implementation and first results of the KM3NeT real-time core-collapse supernova neutrino search. Eur. Phys. J. C, 82(4), 317–16pp.
Abstract: The KM3NeT research infrastructure is unconstruction in the Mediterranean Sea. KM3NeT will study atmospheric and astrophysical neutrinos with two multi-purpose neutrino detectors, ARCA and ORCA, primarily aimed at GeV-PeV neutrinos. Thanks to the multi-photomultiplier tube design of the digital optical modules, KM3NeT is capable of detecting the neutrino burst from a Galactic or near-Galactic core-collapse supernova. This potential is already exploitable with the first detection units deployed in the sea. This paper describes the real-time implementation of the supernova neutrino search, operating on the two KM3NeT detectors since the first months of 2019. A quasi-online astronomy analysis is introduced to study the time profile of the detected neutrinos for especially significant events. The mechanism of generation and distribution of alerts, as well as the integration into the SNEWS and SNEWS 2.0 global alert systems, are described. The approach for the follow-up of external alerts with a search for a neutrino excess in the archival data is defined. Finally, an overview of the current detector capabilities and a report after the first two years of operation are given.
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Gisbert, H., Miralles, V., & Ruiz Vidal, J. (2022). Electric dipole moments from colour-octet scalars. J. High Energy Phys., 04(4), 077–25pp.
Abstract: We present the contributions to electric dipole moments (EDMs) induced by the Yukawa couplings of an additional electroweak doublet of colour-octet scalars. The full set of one-loop diagrams and the enhanced higher-order effects from Barr-Zee diagrams are computed for the quark (chromo-)EDM, along with the two-loop contributions to the Weinberg operator. Using the stringent experimental upper limits on the neutron EDM, constraints on the parameter space of the Manohar-Wise model are derived.
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Das, B. et al, & Algora, A. (2022). Nature of seniority symmetry breaking in the semimagic nucleus Ru-94. Phys. Rev. C, 105(3), L031304–6pp.
Abstract: Direct lifetime measurements via gamma -gamma coincidences using a fast timing detector array consisting of LaBr3(Ce) scintillators has been applied to determine the lifetime of low-lying states in the semimagic (N = 50) nucleus Ru-94. The experiment was carried out as the first in a series of “FAIR-0” experiments with the DESPEC experimental setup at the Facility for Antiproton and Ion Research (FAIR). Excited states in Ru-94 were populated primarily via the beta-delayed proton emission of Pd-95 nuclei, produced in the projectile fragmentation of an 850 MeV/nucleon Xe-124 beam impinging on a 4 g/cm(2) Be-9 target. While the deduced E2 strength for the 2(+) -> 0(+) transition in the yrast cascade follows the expected behavior for conserved seniority symmetry, the intermediate 4(+) -> 2(+) transition exhibits a drastic enhancement of transition strength in comparison with pure-seniority model predictions as well as standard shell model predictions in the f pg proton hole space with respect to doubly magic Sn-100. The anomalous behavior is ascribed to a subtle interference between the wave function of the lowest seniority v = 2, I-pi = 4(+) state and that of a close-lying v = 4 state that exhibits partial dynamic symmetry. In addition, the observed strongly prohibitive 6(+) -> 4(+) transition can be attributed to the same mechanism but with a destructive interference. It is noted that such effects may provide stringent tests of the nucleon-nucleon interactions employed in state-of-the-art theoretical model calculations.
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Aparisi, J., Fuster, J., Irles, A., Rodrigo, G., Vos, M., Yamamoto, H., et al. (2022). m(b) at m(H): The Running Bottom Quark Mass and the Higgs Boson. Phys. Rev. Lett., 128(12), 122001–7pp.
Abstract: We present a new measurement of the bottom quark mass in the MS scheme at the renormalization scale of the Higgs boson mass from measurements of Higgs boson decay rates at the LHC: -0.31 GeV. The measurement has a negligible theory uncertainty and excellent prospects to improve at the HL-LHC and a future Higgs factory. Confronting this result and mb(mb) from low-energy measurements and mb(mZ) from Z-pole data, with the prediction of the scale evolution of the renormalization group equations, we find strong evidence for the “running” of the bottom quark mass.
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Doring, C., Centelles Chulia, S., Lindner, M., Schaefer, B. M., & Bartelmann, M. (2022). Gravitational wave induced baryon acoustic oscillations. SciPost Phys., 12(3), 114–47pp.
Abstract: We study the impact of gravitational waves originating from a first order phase transition on structure formation. To do so, we perform a second order perturbation analysis in the 1 + 3 covariant framework and derive a wave equation in which second order, adiabatic density perturbations of the photon-baryon fluid are sourced by the gravitational wave energy density during radiation domination and on sub-horizon scales. The scale on which such waves affect the energy density perturbation spectrum is found to be proportional to the horizon size at the time of the phase transition times its inverse duration. Consequently, structure of the size of galaxies and bigger can only be affected in this way by relatively late phase transitions at >= 10(6) s. Using cosmic variance as a bound we derive limits on the strength a and the relative duration (beta/H-*)(-1) of phase transitions as functions of the time of their occurrence which results in a new exclusion region for the energy density in gravitational waves today. We find that the cosmic variance bound forbids only relative long lasting phase transitions, e.g. beta/H-* less than or similar to 6.8 for t(*) approximate to 5 x 10(11 )s, which exhibit a substantial amount of supercooling alpha > 20 to affect the matter power spectrum.
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