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Alvarez-Ruso, L., & Saul-Sala, E. (2021). Neutrino interactions with matter and the MiniBooNE anomaly. Eur. Phys. J.-Spec. Top., 230, 4373–4389.
Abstract: The excess of electron-like events measured by MiniBooNE challenges our understanding of neutrinos and their interactions. We review the status of this open problem and ongoing efforts to resolve it. After introducing the experiment and its results, we consider the main experimental backgrounds and the related physics of neutrino interactions with matter, such as quasielastic-like scattering and weak pion production on nucleons and nuclei. Special attention is paid to single photon emission in neutral current interactions and, in particular, its coherent channel. The difficulties to reconcile the MiniBooNE anomaly with global oscillation analysis is then highlighted. We finally outline some of the proposed solutions of the puzzle involving unconventional neutrino-interaction mechanisms.
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Kirpichnikov, D. V., Sieber, H., Molina Bueno, L., Crivelli, P., & Kirsanov, M. M. (2021). Probing hidden sectors with a muon beam: Total and differential cross sections for vector boson production in muon bremsstrahlung. Phys. Rev. D, 104(7), 076012–13pp.
Abstract: Vector bosons, such as dark photon A' or Z', can couple to muons and be produced in the bremsstrahlung reaction mu(-) + N -> mu(-) + N + A'(Z'). Their possible subsequent invisible decay can be detected in fixed target experiments through missing energy/momentum signature. In such experiments, not only is the energy transfer to A'(Z') important but also the recoil muon angle psi μ0. In this paper, we derive the total and the double differential cross sections involved in this process using the phase space Weizsacker-Williams and improved Weizsacker-Williams approximations, as well as using exact-tree-level calculations. As an example, we compare the derived cross sections and resulting signal yields in the NA64 μexperiment that uses a 160 GeV muon beam at the CERN Super Proton Synchrotron accelerator. We also discuss its impact on the NA64 μexpected sensitivity to explore the (g – 2)(mu) anomaly favored region with a Z' boson considering 10(12) muons accumulated on target.
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Escribano, P., & Vicente, A. (2021). An ultraviolet completion for the Scotogenic model. Phys. Lett. B, 823, 136717–7pp.
Abstract: The Scotogenic model is an economical scenario that generates neutrino masses at the 1-loop level and includes a dark matter candidate. This is achieved by means of an ad hoc Z(2) symmetry, which forbids the tree-level generation of neutrino masses and stabilizes the lightest Z(2)-odd state. Neutrino masses are also suppressed by a quartic coupling, usually denoted by lambda(5). While the smallness of this parameter is natural, it is not explained in the context of the Scotogenic model. We construct an ultraviolet completion of the Scotogenic model that provides a natural explanation for the smallness of the lambda(5) parameter and induces the Z(2) parity as the low-energy remnant of a global U(1) symmetry at high energies. The low-energy spectrum contains, besides the usual Scotogenic states, a massive scalar and a massless Goldstone boson, hence leading to novel phenomenological predictions in flavor observables, dark matter physics and colliders.
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Bribian, E. I., Dasilva Golan, J., Garcia Perez, M., & Ramos, A. (2021). Memory efficient finite volume schemes with twisted boundary conditions. Eur. Phys. J. C, 81(10), 951–25pp.
Abstract: In this paper we explore a finite volume renormalization scheme that combines three main ingredients: a coupling based on the gradient flow, the use of twisted boundary conditions and a particular asymmetric geometry, that for SU (N) gauge theories consists on a hypercubic box of size l(2) x (Nl)(2), a choice motivated by the study of volume independence in large N gauge theories. We argue that this scheme has several advantages that make it particularly suited for precision determinations of the strong coupling, among them translational invariance, an analytic expansion in the coupling and a reduced memory footprint with respect to standard simulations on symmetric lattices, allowing for a more efficient use of current GPU clusters. We test this scheme numerically with a determination of the A parameter in the SU (3) pure gauge theory. We show that the use of an asymmetric geometry has no significant impact in the size of scaling violations, obtaining a value Lambda((MS) over bar)root 8t(0) = 0.603(17) in good agreement with the existing literature. The role of topology freezing, that is relevant for the determination of the coupling in this particular scheme and for large N applications, is discussed in detail.
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NA64 Collaboration(Cazzaniga, C. et al), & Molina Bueno, L. (2021). Probing the explanation of the muon (g-2) anomaly and thermal light dark matter with the semi-visible dark photon channel. Eur. Phys. J. C, 81(10), 959–6pp.
Abstract: We report the results of a search for a new vector boson (A') decaying into two dark matter particles chi 1 chi 2 of different mass. The heavier chi(2) particle subsequently decays to chi 1 and an off-shell Dark Photon A'* -> e(+)e(-). For a sufficiently largemass splitting, this model can explain in terms of new physics the recently confirmed discrepancy observed in themuon anomalous magnetic moment at Fermilab. Remark- ably, it also predicts the observed yield of thermal dark matter relic abundance. A detailed Monte-Carlo simulation was used to determine the signal yield and detection efficiency for this channel in the NA64 setup. The results were obtained reanalyzing the previous NA64 searches for an invisible decay A' -> chi(chi) over bar and axion-like or pseudo-scalar particles -> gamma gamma. With this method, we exclude a significant portion of the parameter space justifying the muon g-2 anomaly and being compatible with the observed dark matter relic density for A' masses from 2m(e) up to 390 MeV and mixing parameter e between 3 x 10(-5) and 2 x 10(-2).
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