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Esteban, I., Lopez-Pavon, J., Martinez-Soler, I., & Salvado, J. (2020). Looking at the axionic dark sector with ANITA. Eur. Phys. J. C, 80(3), 259–9pp.
Abstract: The ANITA experiment has recently observed two anomalous events emerging from well below the horizon. Even though they are consistent with tau cascades, a high-energy Standard Model or Beyond the Standard Model explanation is challenging and in tension with other experiments. We study under which conditions the reflection of generic radio pulses can reproduce these signals. Furthermore, we propose that these pulses can be resonantly produced in the ionosphere via axion-photon conversion. This naturally explains the direction and polarization of the events and avoids other experimental bounds.
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McDermott, S. D., & Witte, S. J. (2020). Cosmological evolution of light dark photon dark matter. Phys. Rev. D, 101(6), 063030–14pp.
Abstract: Light dark photons are subject to various plasma effects, such as Debye screening and resonant oscillations, which can lead to a more complex cosmological evolution than is experienced by conventional cold dark matter candidates. Maintaining a consistent history of dark photon dark matter requires ensuring that the superthennal abundance present in the early Universe (i) does not deviate significantly after the formation of the cosmic microwave background (CMB), and (ii) does not excessively leak into the Standard Model plasma after big band nucleosynthesis (BBN). We point out that the role of nonresonant absorption, which has previously been neglected in cosmological studies of this dark matter candidate, produces strong constraints on dark photon dark matter with mass as low as 10(-22) eV. Furthermore, we show that resonant conversion of dark photons after recombination can produce excessive heating of the intergalactic medium (IGM) which is capable of prematurely reionizing hydrogen and helium, leaving a distinct imprint on both the Ly-a forest and the integrated optical depth of the CMB. Our constraints surpass existing cosmological bounds by more than 5 orders of magnitude across a wide range of dark photon masses.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Barranco Navarro, L., Cabrera Urban, S., et al. (2020). Z boson production in Pb plus Pb collisions at root S-NN=5.02 TeV measured by the ATLAS experiment. Phys. Lett. B, 802, 135262–23pp.
Abstract: The production yield of Z bosons is measured in the electron and muon decay channels in Pb+Pb collisions at /S-NN = 5.02 TeV with the ATLAS detector. Data from the 2015 LHC run corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 0.49 nb(-1) are used for the analysis. The Z boson yield, normalised by the total number of minimum-bias events and the mean nuclear thickness function, is measured as a function of dilepton rapidity and event centrality. The measurements in Pb+Pb collisions are compared with similar measurements made in proton-proton collisions at the same centre-of-mass energy. The nuclear modification factor is found to be consistent with unity for all centrality intervals. The results are compared with theoretical predictions obtained at next-to-leading order using nucleon and nuclear parton distribution functions. The normalised Z boson yields in Pb+Pb collisions lie 1-3a above the predictions. The nuclear modification factor measured as a function of rapidity agrees with unity and is consistent with a next-to-leading-order QCD calculation including the isospin effect.
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Bejarano, C., Delhom, A., Jimenez-Cano, A., Olmo, G. J., & Rubiera-Garcia, D. (2020). Geometric inequivalence of metric and Palatini formulations of General Relativity. Phys. Lett. B, 802, 135275–4pp.
Abstract: Projective invariance is a symmetry of the Palatini version of General Relativity which is not present in the metric formulation. The fact that the Riemann tensor changes nontrivially under projective transformations implies that, unlike in the usual metric approach, in the Palatini formulation this tensor is subject to a gauge freedom, which allows some ambiguities even in its scalar contractions. In this sense, we show that for the Schwarzschild solution there exists a projective gauge in which the (affine) Kretschmann scalar, K (R beta μnu R alpha beta μnu)-R-alpha, can be set to vanish everywhere. This puts forward that the divergence of curvature scalars may, in some cases, be avoided by a gauge transformation of the connection.
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Escrihuela, F. J., Flores, L. J., & Miranda, O. G. (2020). Neutrino counting experiments and non-unitarity from LEP and future experiments. Phys. Lett. B, 802, 135241–8pp.
Abstract: Non-unitarity of the neutrino mixing matrix is expected in many scenarios with physics beyond the Standard Model. Motivated by the search for deviations from unitary, we study two neutrino counting observables: the neutrino-antineutrino gamma process and the invisible Z boson decay into neutrinos. We report on new constraints for non-unitarity coming from the first of these observables. We study the potential constraints that future collider experiments will give from the invisible decay of the Z boson, that will be measured with improved precision.
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Leite, J., Popov, O., Srivastava, R., & Valle, J. W. F. (2020). A theory for scotogenic dark matter stabilised by residual gauge symmetry. Phys. Lett. B, 802, 135254–10pp.
Abstract: Dark matter stability can result from a residual matter-parity symmetry, following naturally from the spontaneous breaking of the gauge symmetry. Here we explore this idea in the context of the SU(3)(c) circle times SU(3)L circle times U(1)(x) circle times U(1)(N) electroweak extension of the standard model. The key feature of our new scotogenic dark matter theory is the use of a triplet scalar boson with anti-symmetric Yukawa couplings. This naturally implies that one of the light neutrinos is massless and, as a result, there is a lower bound for the O nu beta beta decay rate.
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LHCb Collaboration(Aaij, R. et al), Garcia Martin, L. M., Henry, L., Jashal, B. K., Martinez-Vidal, F., Oyanguren, A., et al. (2020). Measurement of f(s)/f(u) Variation with Proton-Proton Collision Energy and B-Meson Kinematics. Phys. Rev. Lett., 124(12), 122002–11pp.
Abstract: The ratio of the B-s(0) and B+ fragmentation fractions f(s) and f(u) is studied with B-s(0) -> J/psi phi and B+ -> J/psi K+ decays using data collected by the LHCb experiment in proton-proton collisions at 7, 8, and 13 TeV center-of-mass energies. The analysis is performed in bins of B-meson momentum, longitudinal momentum, transverse momentum, pseudorapidity, and rapidity. The fragmentation-fraction ratio f(s)/f(u) is observed to depend on the B-meson transverse momentum with a significance of 6.0 sigma. This dependency is driven by the 13 TeV sample (8.7 sigma), while the results for the other collision energies are not significant when considered separately. Furthermore, the results show a 4.8 sigma evidence for an increase of f(s)/f(u) as a function of collision energy.
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Liang, W. H., & Oset, E. (2020). Observed Omega(b) spectrum and meson-baryon molecular states. Phys. Rev. D, 101(5), 054033–6pp.
Abstract: We observe that four peaks seen in the high energy part of the Omega(b) spectrum of the recent LHCb experiment are in remarkable agreement with predictions made for molecular Omega(b) states stemming from the meson-baryon interaction, with an approach that applied to the Omega(c) states gives rise to three states in good agreement with experiment in masses and widths. While the statistical significance of the peaks prevents us from claims of states at the present time, the agreement found should be an incentive to look at this experiment with increased statistics to give an answer to this suggestive idea.
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ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo, F. L., et al. (2020). Evidence for electroweak production of two jets in association with a Z gamma pair in pp collisions at root S=13 TeV with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Lett. B, 803, 135341–23pp.
Abstract: Evidence for electroweak production of two jets in association with a Z gamma pair in root s = 13 TeV proton-proton collisions at the Large Hadron Collider is presented. The analysis uses data collected by the ATLAS detector in 2015 and 2016 that corresponds to an integrated luminosity of 36.1 fb(-1). Events that contain a Z boson candidate decaying leptonically into either e(+)e(-) or mu(+)mu(-), a photon, and two jets are selected. The electroweak component is measured with observed and expected significances of 4.1 standard deviations. The fiducial cross-section for electroweak production is measured to be sigma(Z gamma jj-Ew) = 7.8 +/- 2.0 fb, in good agreement with the Standard Model prediction.
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Liang, W. H., Ikeno, N., & Oset, E. (2020). Upsilon(nl) decay into B(*) (B)over-bar(*). Phys. Lett. B, 803, 135340–6pp.
Abstract: We have evaluated the decay modes of the Upsilon(4s), Upsilon(3d), Upsilon(5s), Upsilon(6s) states into B (B) over bar, B (B) over bar* + c.c., B* (B) over bar*, B-s(B) over bar (s), B-s(B) over bar (s)* + c.c., B-s* (B) over bar (s)* using the P-3(0) model to hadronize the bb vector seed, fitting some parameters to the data. We observe that the Upsilon(4s) state has an abnormally large amount of mesonmeson components in the wave function, while the other states are largely b (b) over bar. We predict branching ratios for the different decay channels which can be contrasted with experiment for the case of the Upsilon(5s) state. While globally the agreement is fair, we call the attention to some disagreement that could be a warning for the existence of more elaborate components in the state.
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