Felkl, T., Herrero-Garcia, J., & Schmidt, M. A. (2021). The singly-charged scalar singlet as the origin of neutrino masses. J. High Energy Phys., 05(5), 122–39pp.
Abstract: We consider the generation of neutrino masses via a singly-charged scalar singlet. Under general assumptions we identify two distinct structures for the neutrino mass matrix. This yields a constraint for the antisymmetric Yukawa coupling of the singly-charged scalar singlet to two left-handed lepton doublets, irrespective of how the breaking of lepton-number conservation is achieved. The constraint disfavours large hierarchies among the Yukawa couplings. We study the implications for the phenomenology of lepton-flavour universality, measurements of the W-boson mass, flavour violation in the charged-lepton sector and decays of the singly-charged scalar singlet. We also discuss the parameter space that can address the Cabibbo Angle Anomaly.
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Herrero-Garcia, J., Landini, G., & Vatsyayan, D. (2023). Asymmetries in extended dark sectors: a cogenesis scenario. J. High Energy Phys., 05(5), 049–41pp.
Abstract: The observed dark matter relic abundance may be explained by different mechanisms, such as thermal freeze-out/freeze-in, with one or more symmetric/asymmetric components. In this work we investigate the role played by asymmetries in determining the yield and nature of dark matter in non-minimal scenarios with more than one dark matter particle. In particular, we show that the energy density of a particle may come from an asymmetry, even if the particle is asymptotically symmetric by nature. To illustrate the different effects of asymmetries, we adopt a model with two dark matter components. We embed it in a multi-component cogenesis scenario that is also able to reproduce neutrino masses and the baryon asymmetry. In some cases, the model predicts an interesting monochromatic neutrino line that may be searched for at neutrino telescopes.
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Herrero-Garcia, J., Schwetz, T., & Zupan, J. (2012). On the annual modulation signal in dark matter direct detection. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 03(3), 005–28pp.
Abstract: We derive constraints on the annual modulation signal in Dark Matter (DM) direct detection experiments in terms of the unmodulated event rate. A general bound independent of the details of the DM distribution follows from the assumption that the motion of the earth around the sun is the only source of time variation. The bound is valid for a very general class of particle physics models and also holds in the presence of an unknown unmodulated background. More stringent bounds are obtained, if modest assumptions on symmetry properties of the DM halo are adopted. We illustrate the bounds by applying them to the annual modulation signals reported by the DAMA and CoGeNT experiments in the framework of spin-independent elastic scattering. While the DAMA signal satisfies our bounds, severe restrictions on the DM mass can be set for CoGeNT.
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Herrero-Garcia, J., Schwetz, T., & Zupan, J. (2012). Astrophysics independent bounds on the annual modulation of dark matter signals. Phys. Rev. Lett., 109(14), 141301–5pp.
Abstract: We show how constraints on the time integrated event rate from a given dark matter (DM) direct detection experiment can be used to bound the amplitude of the annual modulation signal in another experiment. The method requires only mild assumptions about the properties of the local DM distribution: that it is temporally stable on the scale of months and spatially homogeneous on the ecliptic. We apply the method to the annual modulation signal in DAMA/LIBRA, which we compare to the bounds derived from XENON10, XENON100, cryogenic DM search, and SIMPLE data. Assuming a DM mass of 10 GeV, we show that under the above assumptions about the DM halo, a DM interpretation of the DAMA/LIBRA signal is excluded for several classes of models: at 6.3 sigma (4.6 sigma) for elastic isospin conserving (violating) spin-independent interactions, and at 4.9 sigma for elastic spin-dependent interactions on protons.
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Herrero-Garcia, J., Rius, N., & Santamaria, A. (2016). Higgs lepton flavour violation: UV completions and connection to neutrino masses. J. High Energy Phys., 11(11), 084–45pp.
Abstract: We study lepton violating Higgs (HLFV) decays, first from the effective field theory (EFT) point of view, and then analysing the different high-energy realizations of the operators of the EFT, highlighting the most promising models. We argue why two Higgs doublet models can have a BR(h -> tau mu) similar to 0:01, and why this rate is suppressed in all other realizations including vector-like leptons. We further discuss HLFV in the context of neutrino mass models: in most cases it is generated at one loop giving always BR (h -> tau mu) < 10(-4) and typically much less, which is beyond experimental reach. However, both the Zee model and extended left-right symmetric models contain extra SU(2) doublets coupled to leptons and could in principle account for the observed excess, with interesting connections between HLFV and neutrino parameters.
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