Drewes, M., Klaric, J., & Lopez-Pavon, J. (2022). New benchmark models for heavy neutral lepton searches. Eur. Phys. J. C, 82(12), 1176–11pp.
Abstract: The sensitivity of direct searches for heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) in accelerator-based experiments depends strongly on the particles properties. Commonly used benchmark scenarios are important to ensure comparability and consistency between experimental searches, re-interpretations, and sensitivity studies for different facilities. In models where the HNLs are primarily produced and decay through the weak interaction, benchmarks are in particular defined by fixing the relative strengths of their mixing with SM neutrinos of different flavours, and the interpretation of experimental data is known to strongly depend on those ratios. The commonly used benchmarks in which a single HNL flavour exclusively interacts with one Standard Model generation do not reflect what is found in realistic neutrino mass models. We identify two additional benchmarks for accelerator-based direct HNL searches, which we primarily select based on the requirement to provide a better approximation for the phenomenology of realistic neutrino mass models in view of present and future neutrino oscillation data.
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Dalla Brida, M., Hollwieser, R., Knechtli, F., Korzec, T., Nada, A., Ramos, A., et al. (2022). Determination of a(s )(mZ) by the non-perturbative decoupling method. Eur. Phys. J. C, 82(12), 1092–38pp.
Abstract: We present the details and first results of a new strategy for the determination of alpha s(mZ) (ALPHA Collaboration et al. in Phys. Lett. B 807:135571, 2020). By simultaneously decoupling 3 fictitious heavy quarks we establish a relation between the A-parameters of three-flavor QCD and pure gauge theory. Very precise recent results in the pure gauge theory (Dalla Brida and Ramos in Eur. Phys. J. C 79(8):720, 2019; Nada and Ramos in Eur Phys J C 81(1):1, 2021) can thus be leveraged to obtain the three flavour A-parameter in units of a common decoupling scale. Connecting this scale to hadronic physics in 3-flavour QCD leads to our result in physical units, A(3)/MS = 336(12) MeV, which translates to alpha s(m(Z)) = 0.11823(84). This is compatible with both the FLAG average (Aoki et al. in FLAG review 2021. arXiv:2111.09849 [hep-lat]) and the previous ALPHA result (ALPHA Collaboration et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 119(10):102001, 2017), with a comparable, yet still statistics dominated, error. This constitutes a highly non-trivial check, as the decoupling strategy is conceptually very different from the 3-flavour QCD step-scaling method, and so are their systematic errors. These include the uncertainties of the combined decoupling and continuum limits, which we discuss in some detail. We also quantify the correlation between both results, due to some common elements, such as the scale determination in physical units and the definition of the energy scale where we apply decoupling.
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Aguilar, A. C., Ferreira, M. N., Oliveira, B. M., & Papavassiliou, J. (2022). Schwinger-Dyson truncations in the all-soft limit: a case study. Eur. Phys. J. C, 82(11), 1068–15pp.
Abstract: We study a special Schwinger-Dyson equation in the context of a pure SU(3) Yang-Mills theory, formulated in the background field method. Specifically, we consider the corresponding equation for the vertex that governs the interaction of two background gluons with a ghost-antighost pair. By virtue of the background gauge invariance, this vertex satisfies a naive Slavnov-Taylor identity, which is not deformed by the ghost sector of the theory. In the all-soft limit, where all momenta vanish, the form of this vertex may be obtained exactly from the corresponding Ward identity. This special result is subsequently reproduced at the level of the Schwinger-Dyson equation, by making extensive use of Taylor's theorem and exploiting a plethora of key relations, particular to the background field method. This information permits the determination of the error associated with two distinct truncation schemes, where the potential advantage from employing lattice data for the ghost dressing function is quantitatively assessed.
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Hirn, J., Garcia, J. E., Montesinos-Navarro, A., Sanchez-Martin, R., Sanz, V., & Verdu, M. (2022). A deep Generative Artificial Intelligence system to predict species coexistence patterns. Methods Ecol. Evol., 13, 1052–1061.
Abstract: Predicting coexistence patterns is a current challenge to understand diversity maintenance, especially in rich communities where these patterns' complexity is magnified through indirect interactions that prevent their approximation with classical experimental approaches. We explore cutting-edge Machine Learning techniques called Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) to predict species coexistence patterns in vegetation patches, training generative adversarial networks (GAN) and variational AutoEncoders (VAE) that are then used to unravel some of the mechanisms behind community assemblage. The GAN accurately reproduces real patches' species composition and plant species' affinity to different soil types, and the VAE also reaches a high level of accuracy, above 99%. Using the artificially generated patches, we found that high-order interactions tend to suppress the positive effects of low-order interactions. Finally, by reconstructing successional trajectories, we could identify the pioneer species with larger potential to generate a high diversity of distinct patches in terms of species composition. Understanding the complexity of species coexistence patterns in diverse ecological communities requires new approaches beyond heuristic rules. Generative Artificial Intelligence can be a powerful tool to this end as it allows to overcome the inherent dimensionality of this challenge.
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Abada, A., Escribano, P., Marcano, X., & Piazza, G. (2022). Collider searches for heavy neutral leptons: beyond simplified scenarios. Eur. Phys. J. C, 82(11), 1030–17pp.
Abstract: With very few exceptions, the large amount of available experimental bounds on heavy neutral leptons – HNL – have been derived relying on the assumption of the existence of a single (usually Majorana) sterile fermion state that mixes with only one lepton flavour. However, most of the extensions of the Standard Model involving sterile fermions predict the existence of several HNLs, with complex mixing patterns to all flavours. Consequently, most of the experimental bounds for HNLs need to be recast before being applied to a generic scenario. In this work, we focus on LHC searches of heavy neutral leptons and discuss how to reinterpret the available bounds when it comes to consider mixings to all active flavours, not only in the case with a single HNL, but also in the case when more heavy neutral leptons are involved. In the latter case, we also consider the possibility of interference effects and show how the bounds on the parameter space should be recast.
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