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Dercks, D., Dreiner, H. K., Hirsch, M., & Wang, Z. S. (2019). Long-lived fermions at AL3X. Phys. Rev. D, 99(5), 055020–10pp.
Abstract: Recently Gligorov et al. [V. V. Gligorov et al., Phys. Rev. D 99, 015023 (2019)] proposed to build a cylindrical detector named AL3X close to the ALICE experiment at interaction point (IP) 2 of the LHC, aiming for discovery of long-lived particles (LLPs) during Run 5 of the HL-LHC. We investigate the potential sensitivity reach of this detector in the parameter space of different new-physics models with long-lived fermions namely heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) and light supersymmetric neutralinos, which have both not previously been studied in this context. Our results show that the AL3X reach can be complementary or superior to that of other proposed detectors such as CODEX-b, FASER, MATHUSLA and SHiP.
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Arbelaez, C., Helo, J. C., & Hirsch, M. (2019). Long-lived heavy particles in neutrino mass models. Phys. Rev. D, 100(5), 055001–15pp.
Abstract: All extensions of the standard model that generate Majorana neutrino masses at the electroweak scale introduce some heavy mediators, either fermions and/or scalars, weakly coupled to leptons. Here, by “heavy,” we mean implicitly the mass range between a few 100 GeV up to, say, roughly 2 TeV, such that these particles can be searched for at the LHC. We study decay widths of these mediators for several different tree-level neutrino mass models. The models we consider range from the simplest d = 5 seesaw up to d = 11 neutrino mass models. For each of the models, we identify the most interesting parts of the parameter space, where the heavy mediator fields are particularly long lived and can decay with experimentally measurable decay lengths. One has to distinguish two different scenarios, depending on whether fermions or scalars are the lighter of the heavy particles. For fermions, we find that the decay lengths correlate with the inverse of the overall neutrino mass scale. Thus, since no lower limit on the lightest neutrino mass exists, nearly arbitrarily long decay lengths can be obtained for the case in which fermions are the lighter of the heavy particles. For charged scalars, on the other hand, there exists a maximum value for the decay length in these models. This maximum value depends on the model and on the electric charge of the scalar under consideration but can at most be of the order of a few millimeters. Interestingly, independent of the model, this maximum occurs always in a region of parameter space, where leptonic and gauge boson final states have similar branching ratios, i.e., where the observation of lepton number-violating final states from scalar decays is possible.
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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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Deppisch, F. F., Harz, J., Huang, W. C., Hirsch, M., & Pas, H. (2015). Falsifying high-scale baryogenesis with neutrinoless double beta decay and lepton flavor violation. Phys. Rev. D, 92(3), 036005–6pp.
Abstract: Interactions that manifest themselves as lepton number violating processes at low energies in combination with sphaleron transitions typically erase any preexisting baryon asymmetry of the Universe. In this article, we discuss the constraints obtained from an observation of neutrinoless double beta decay in this context. If a new physics mechanism of neutrinoless double beta decay other than the standard light neutrino exchange is observed, typical scenarios of high-scale baryogenesis will be excluded unless the baryon asymmetry is stabilized via some new mechanism. We also sketch how this conclusion can be extended beyond the first lepton generation by incorporating lepton flavor violating processes.
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Fonseca, R. M., & Hirsch, M. (2017). Gauge vectors and double beta decay. Phys. Rev. D, 95(3), 035033–14pp.
Abstract: We discuss contributions to neutrinoless double beta (0 nu beta beta) decay involving vector bosons. The starting point is a list of all possible vector representations that may contribute to 0 nu beta beta decay via d = 9 or d = 11 operators at tree level. We then identify gauge groups which contain these vectors in the adjoint representation. Even though the complete list of vector fields that can contribute to 0 nu beta beta up to d = 11 is large (a total of 46 vectors), only a few of them can be gauge bosons of phenomenologically realistic groups. These latter cases are discussed in some more detail, and lower (upper) limits on gauge boson masses (mixing angles) are derived from the absence of 0 nu beta beta decay.
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Anamiati, G., De Romeri, V., Hirsch, M., Ternes, C. A., & Tortola, M. (2019). Quasi-Dirac neutrino oscillations at DUNE and JUNO. Phys. Rev. D, 100(3), 035032–12pp.
Abstract: Quasi-Dirac neutrinos are obtained when the Lagrangian density of a neutrino mass model contains both Dirac and Majorana mass terms, and the Majorana terms are sufficiently small. This type of neutrino introduces new mixing angles and mass splittings into the Hamiltonian, which will modify the standard neutrino oscillation probabilities. In this paper, we focus on the case where the new mass splittings are too small to be measured, but new angles and phases are present. We perform a sensitivity study for this scenario for the upcoming experiments DUNE and JUNO, finding that they will improve current bounds on the relevant parameters. Finally, we also explore the discovery potential of both experiments, assuming that neutrinos are indeed quasi-Dirac particles.
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Alvarez, A., Cepedello, R., Hirsch, M., & Porod, W. (2022). Temperature effects on the Z(2) symmetry breaking in the scotogenic model. Phys. Rev. D, 105(3), 035013–8pp.
Abstract: It is well known that the scotogenic model for neutrino mass generation can explain correctly the relic abundance of cold dark matter. There have been claims in the literature that an important part of the parameter space of the simplest scotogentic model can be constrained by the requirement that no Z(2)-breaking must occur in the early universe. Here we show that this requirement does not give any constraints on the underlying parameter space at least in those parts, where we can trust perturbation theory. To demonstrate this, we have taken into account the proper decoupling of heavy degrees of freedom in both the thermal potential and in the RGE evolution.
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Cottin, G., Helo, J. C., & Hirsch, M. (2018). Displaced vertices as probes of sterile neutrino mixing at the LHC. Phys. Rev. D, 98(3), 035012–6pp.
Abstract: We investigate the reach at the LHC to probe light sterile neutrinos with displaced vertices. We focus on sterile neutrinos N with masses m(N) similar to (5-30) GeV that are produced in rare decays of the standard model gauge bosons and decay inside the inner trackers of the LHC detectors. With a strategy that triggers on the prompt lepton accompanying the N displaced vertex and considers charged tracks associated with it, we show that the 13 TeV LHC with 3000/fb is able to probe active-sterile neutrino mixings down to vertical bar V-lN vertical bar(2) approximate to 10(-9), with l = e, mu, which is an improvement of up to 4 orders of magnitude when comparing with current experimental limits from trileptons and proposed lepton-jets searches. In the case when tau mixing is present, mixing angles as low as vertical bar V-tau N vertical bar(2) approximate to 10(-8) can be accessed.
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Arbelaez, C., Romao, J. C., Hirsch, M., & Malinsky, M. (2014). LHC-scale left-right symmetry and unification. Phys. Rev. D, 89(3), 035002–19pp.
Abstract: We construct a comprehensive list of nonsupersymmetric standard model extensions with a low-scale left-right (LR)-symmetric intermediate stage that may be obtained as simple low-energy effective theories within a class of renormalizable SO(10) grand unified theories. Unlike the traditional “minimal” LR models many of our example settings support a perfect gauge coupling unification even if the LR scale is in the LHC domain at a price of only (a few copies of) one or two types of extra fields pulled down to the TeV-scale ballpark. We discuss the main aspects of a potentially realistic model building conforming the basic constraints from the quark and lepton sector flavor structure, proton decay limits, etc. We pay special attention to the theoretical uncertainties related to the limited information about the underlying unified framework in the bottom-up approach, in particular, to their role in the possible extraction of the LR-breaking scale. We observe a general tendency for the models without new colored states in the TeV domain to be on the verge of incompatibility with the proton stability constraints.
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Feng, J. L. et al, Garcia Soto, A., & Hirsch, M. (2023). The Forward Physics Facility at the High-Luminosity LHC. J. Phys. G, 50(3), 030501–410pp.
Abstract: High energy collisions at the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (LHC) produce a large number of particles along the beam collision axis, outside of the acceptance of existing LHC experiments. The proposed Forward Physics Facility (FPF), to be located several hundred meters from the ATLAS interaction point and shielded by concrete and rock, will host a suite of experiments to probe standard model (SM) processes and search for physics beyond the standard model (BSM). In this report, we review the status of the civil engineering plans and the experiments to explore the diverse physics signals that can be uniquely probed in the forward region. FPF experiments will be sensitive to a broad range of BSM physics through searches for new particle scattering or decay signatures and deviations from SM expectations in high statistics analyses with TeV neutrinos in this low-background environment. High statistics neutrino detection will also provide valuable data for fundamental topics in perturbative and non-perturbative QCD and in weak interactions. Experiments at the FPF will enable synergies between forward particle production at the LHC and astroparticle physics to be exploited. We report here on these physics topics, on infrastructure, detector, and simulation studies, and on future directions to realize the FPF's physics potential.
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