Miranda, O. G., Pasquini, P., Tortola, M., & Valle, J. W. F. (2018). Exploring the potential of short-baseline physics at Fermilab. Phys. Rev. D, 97(9), 095026–9pp.
Abstract: We study the capabilities of the short-baseline neutrino program at Fermilab to probe the unitarity of the lepton mixing matrix. We find the sensitivity to be slightly better than the current one. Motivated by the future DUNE experiment, we have also analyzed the potential of an extra liquid Argon near detector in the LBNF beamline. Adding such a near detector to the DUNE setup will substantially improve the current sensitivity on nonunitarity. This would help to remove CP degeneracies due to the new complex phase present in the neutrino mixing matrix. We also study the sensitivity of our proposed setup to light sterile neutrinos for various configurations.
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Srivastava, R., Ternes, C. A., Tortola, M., & Valle, J. W. F. (2018). Zooming in on neutrino oscillations with DUNE. Phys. Rev. D, 97(9), 095025–11pp.
Abstract: We examine the capabilities of the DUNE experiment as a probe of the neutrino mixing paradigm. Taking the current status of neutrino oscillations and the design specifications of DUNE, we determine the experiment's potential to probe the structure of neutrino mixing and CP violation. We focus on the poorly determined parameters theta(23) and delta(cp) and consider both two and seven years of run. We take various benchmarks as our true values, such as the current preferred values of theta(23) and delta(cp), as well as several theory-motivated choices. We determine quantitatively DUNE's potential to perform a precision measurement of theta(23), as well as to test the CP violation hypothesis in a model-independent way. We find that, after running for seven years, DUNE will make a substantial step in the precise determination of these parameters, bringing to quantitative test the predictions of various theories of neutrino mixing.
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Maluf, R. V., & Olmo, G. J. (2023). Vacuum polarization and induced Maxwell and Kalb-Ramond effective action in very special relativity. Phys. Rev. D, 108(9), 095022–13pp.
Abstract: This work investigates the implications of very special relativity (VSR) on the calculation of vacuum polarization for fermions in the presence of Maxwell and Kalb-Ramond gauge fields in four-dimensional spacetime. We derive the SIM(2)-covariant gauge theory associated with an Abelian antisymmetric twotensor and its corresponding field strength. We demonstrate that the free VSR-Kalb-Ramond electrodynamics is equivalent to a massive scalar field with a single polarization. Furthermore, we determine an explicit expression for the effective action involving Maxwell and Kalb-Ramond fields due to fermionic vacuum polarization at one-loop order. The quantum corrections generate divergences free of nonlocal terms only in the VSR-Maxwell sector. At the same time, we observe UV/IR mixing divergences due to the entanglement of VSR-nonlocal effects with quantum higher-derivative terms for the Kalb-Ramond field. However, in the lower energy limit, the effective action can be renormalized like in the Lorentz invariant case.
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Helo, J. C., Hirsch, M., & Ota, T. (2019). Proton decay at one loop. Phys. Rev. D, 99(9), 095021–14pp.
Abstract: Proton decay is usually discussed in the context of grand unified theories. However, as is well known, in the standard model effective theory proton decay appears in the form of higher-dimensional non-renormalizable operators. Here, we study systematically the one-loop decomposition of the d = 6 B + L violating operators. We exhaustively list the possible one-loop ultraviolet completions of these operators and discuss that, in general, two distinct classes of models appear. Models in the first class need an additional symmetry in order to avoid tree-level proton decay. These models necessarily contain a neutral particle, which could act as a dark matter candidate. For models in the second class the loop contribution dominates automatically over the tree-level proton decay, without the need for additional symmetries. We also discuss possible phenomenology of two example models, one from each class, and their possible connections to neutrino masses, LHC searches and dark matter.
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Mandal, S., Miranda, O. G., Sanchez Garcia, G., Valle, J. W. F., & Xu, X. J. (2022). Toward deconstructing the simplest seesaw mechanism. Phys. Rev. D, 105(9), 095020–32pp.
Abstract: The triplet or type-II seesaw mechanism is the simplest way to endow neutrinos with mass in the Standard Model (SM). Here we review its associated theory and phenomenology, including restrictions from S, T, U parameters, neutrino experiments, charged lepton flavor violation as well as collider searches. We also examine restrictions coming from requiring consistency of electroweak symmetry breaking, i.e., perturbative unitarity and stability of the vacuum. Finally, we discuss novel effects associated to the scalar mediator of neutrino mass generation namely, (i) rare processes, e.g., l(alpha)-> l(beta)gamma decays, at the intensity frontier, and also (ii) four-lepton signatures in colliders at the high-energy frontier. These can be used to probe neutrino properties in an important way, providing a test of the absolute neutrino mass and mass ordering, as well as of the atmospheric octant. They may also provide the first evidence for charged lepton flavor violation in nature. In contrast, neutrino nonstandard interaction strengths are found to lie below current detectability.
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De Romeri, V., Nava, J., Puerta, M., & Vicente, A. (2023). Dark matter in the scotogenic model with spontaneous lepton number violation. Phys. Rev. D, 107(9), 095019–11pp.
Abstract: Scotogenic models constitute an appealing solution to the generation of neutrino masses and to the dark matter mystery. In this work we consider a version of the scotogenic model that breaks the lepton number spontaneously. At this scope, we extend the particle content of the scotogenic model with an additional singlet scalar which acquires a nonzero vacuum expectation value and breaks a global lepton number symmetry. As a consequence, a massless Goldstone boson, the majoron, appears in the particle spectrum. We discuss how the presence of the majoron modifies the phenomenology, both in flavor and dark matter observables. We focus on the fermionic dark matter candidate and analyze its relic abundance and prospects for both direct and indirect detection.
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Bhattacharyya, G., Das, D., Jay Perez, M., Saha, I., Santamaria, A., & Vives, O. (2018). Can measurements of 2HDM parameters provide hints for high scale supersymmetry? Phys. Rev. D, 97(9), 095018–9pp.
Abstract: Two-Higgs-doublet models (2HDMs) arc minimal extensions of the Standard Model (SM) that may still be discovered at the LHC. The quartic couplings of their potentials can be determined from the measurement of the masses and branching ratios of their extended scalar sectors. We show that the evolution of these couplings through renormalization group equations can determine whether the observed 2HDM is a low energy manifestation of a more fundamental theory, as for instance, supersymmetry, which fixes the quartic couplings in terms of the gauge couplings. At leading order, the minimal supersymmetric extension of the SM (MSSM) dictates all the quartic couplings, which can be translated into a predictive structure for the scalar masses and mixings at the weak scale. Running these couplings to higher scales, one can check if they converge to their MSSM values, and more interestingly, whether one can infer the supersymmetry breaking scale. Although we study this question in the context of supersymmetry, this strategy could be applied to any theory whose ultraviolet completion unambiguously predicts all scalar quartic couplings.
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Barenboim, G., Bosch, C., Lee, J. S., Lopez-Ibañez, M. L., & Vives, O. (2015). Flavor-changing Higgs boson decays into bottom and strange quarks in supersymmetric models. Phys. Rev. D, 92(9), 095017–15pp.
Abstract: In this work, we explore the flavor-changing decays H-i -> bs in a general supersymmetric scenario. In these models the flavor-changing decays arise at loop level, but-because they originate from a dimension-four operator-they do not decouple and may provide a first sign of new physics for heavy masses beyond the reach of colliders. In the framework of the minimal supersymmetric extension of the Standard Model, we find that the largest branching ratio of the lightest Higgs (H-1) is O(10(-6)) after imposing present experimental constraints, while heavy Higgs states may still present branching ratios O(10(-3)). In a more general supersymmetric scenario, where additional Higgs states may modify the Higgs mixings, the branching ratio BR(H-1 -> bs) can reach values O(10(-4)), while heavy Higgses still remain at O(10(-3)). Although these values are clearly out of reach for the LHC, a full study in a linear collider environment could be worth pursuing.
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Bertolini, S., Di Luzio, L., & Malinsky, M. (2012). Seesaw scale in the minimal renormalizable SO(10) grand unification. Phys. Rev. D, 85(9), 095014–22pp.
Abstract: Simple SO(10) Higgs models with the adjoint representation triggering the grand unified symmetry breaking, discarded long ago due to inherent tree-level tachyonic instabilities in the physically interesting scenarios, have been recently brought back to life by quantum effects. In this work we focus on the variant with 45(H) circle plus 126(H) in the Higgs sector and show that there are several regions in the parameter space of this model that can support stable unifying configurations with the B – L-breaking scale as high as 10(14) GeV, well above the previous generic estimates based on the minimal survival hypothesis. This admits for a renormalizable implementation of the canonical seesaw and makes the simplest potentially realistic scenario of this kind a good candidate for a minimal SO(10) grand unification. Last, but not least, this setting is likely to be extensively testable at future large-volume facilities such as Hyper-Kamiokande.
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Celis, A., Cirigliano, V., & Passemar, E. (2014). Model-discriminating power of lepton flavor violating tau decays. Phys. Rev. D, 89(9), 095014–14pp.
Abstract: Within an effective field theory framework, we discuss the possibility to discriminate among different operators that contribute to lepton flavor violating (LFV) tau decays. Correlations among decay rates in different channels are shown to provide a basic handle to unravel the origin of LFV in these processes. More information about the underlying dynamics responsible for LFV can be gathered from differential distributions in three-body decays like tau -> μpi pi or tau -> 3 mu: these are considered in some detail. We incorporate in our analysis recent developments in the determination of the hadronic form factors for tau -> μpi pi. Future prospects for the observation of LFV tau decays and its interpretation are also discussed.
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