LUX-ZEPLIN Collaboration(Akerib, D. S. et al), & Bailey, A. J. (2017). Identification of radiopure titanium for the LZ dark matter experiment and future rare event searches. Astropart Phys., 96, 1–10.
Abstract: The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment will search for dark matter particle interactions with a detector containing a total of 10 tonnes of liquid xenon within a double -vessel cryostat. The large mass and proximity of the cryostat to the active detector volume demand the use of material with extremely low intrinsic radioactivity. We report on the radioassay campaign conducted to identify suitable metals, the determination of factors limiting radiopure production, and the selection of titanium for construction of the LZ cryostat and other detector components. This titanium has been measured with activities of U-238(e) < 1.6 mBq/kg, U-238(I) < 0.09 mBq/kg, Th-232(e) = 0.28 +/- 0.03 mBq/kg, Th-232(I) = 0.25 +/- 0.02 mBq/kg, K-40 <0.54 mBq/kg, and (60) Co <0.02 mBq/kg (68% CL). Such low intrinsic activities, which are some of the lowest ever reported for titanium, enable its use for future dark matter and other rare event searches. Monte Carlo simulations have been performed to assess the expected background contribution from the LZ cryostat with this radioactivity. In 1,000 days of WIMP search exposure of a 5.6-tonne fiducial mass, the cryostat will contribute only a mean background of 0.160 +/- 0.001(stat) +/- 0.030(sys) counts.
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Barenboim, G., & Park, W. I. (2017). Impact of CP-violation on neutrino lepton number asymmetries revisited. Phys. Lett. B, 765, 371–376.
Abstract: We revisit the effect of the (Dirac) CP-violating phase on neutrino lepton number asymmetries in both mass- and flavor-basis. We found that, even if there are sizable effects on muon- and tau-neutrino asymmetries, the effect on the asymmetry of electron-neutrinos is at most similar to the upper bound set by BBN for initial neutrino degeneracy parameters smaller than order unity. We also found that, for the asymmetries in mass-basis, the changes caused by CP-violation is of sub-% level which is unlikely to be accessible neither in the current nor in the forthcoming experiments.
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Gerbino, M., Freese, K., Vagnozzi, S., Lattanzi, M., Mena, O., Giusarma, E., et al. (2017). Impact of neutrino properties on the estimation of inflationary parameters from current and future observations. Phys. Rev. D, 95(4), 043512–22pp.
Abstract: We study the impact of assumptions about neutrino properties on the estimation of inflationary parameters from cosmological data, with a specific focus on the allowed contours in the n(s)/r plane, where n(s) is the scalar spectral index and r is the tensor-to-scalar ratio. We study the following neutrino properties: (i) the total neutrino mass M-i = Sigma(i)m(i) (where the index i = 1, 2, 3 runs over the three neutrino mass eigenstates); (ii) the number of relativistic degrees of freedom N-eff at the time of recombination; and (iii) the neutrino hierarchy. Whereas previous literature assumed three degenerate neutrino masses or two massless neutrino species (approximations that clearly do not match neutrino oscillation data), we study the cases of normal and inverted hierarchy. Our basic result is that these three neutrino properties induce < 1 sigma shift of the probability contours in the n(s)/r plane with both current or upcoming data. We find that the choice of neutrino hierarchy (normal, inverted, or degenerate) has a negligible impact. However, the minimal cutoff on the total neutrino mass M-v,M-min = 0 that accompanies previous works using the degenerate hierarchy does introduce biases in the n(s)/r plane and should be replaced by M-v,M-min = 0.059 eV as required by oscillation data. Using current cosmic microwave background (CMB) data from Planck and Bicep/Keck, marginalizing over the total neutrino mass M-v and over r can lead to a shift in the mean value of ns of similar to 0.3 sigma toward lower values. However, once baryon acoustic oscillation measurements are included, the standard contours in the n(s)/r plane are basically reproduced. Larger shifts of the contours in the n(s)/r plane (up to 0.8 sigma) arise for nonstandard values of N-eff. We also provide forecasts for the future CMB experiments Cosmic Origins Explorer (COrE, satellite) and Stage-IV (ground-based) and show that the incomplete knowledge of neutrino properties, taken into account by a marginalization over M-v, could induce a shift of similar to 0.4 sigma toward lower values in the determination of ns (or a similar to 0.8 sigma shift if one marginalizes over N-eff). Comparison to specific inflationary models is shown. Imperfect knowledge of neutrino properties must be taken into account properly, given the desired precision in determining whether or not inflationary models match the future data.
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Achterberg, A., van Beekveld, M., Caron, S., Gomez-Vargas, G. A., Hendriks, L., & Ruiz de Austri, R. (2017). Implications of the Fermi-LAT Pass 8 Galactic Center excess on supersymmetric dark matter. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 12(12), 040–23pp.
Abstract: The Fermi Collaboration has recently updated their analysis of gamma rays from the center of the Galaxy. They reconfirm the presence of an unexplained emission feature which is most prominent in the region of 1-10 GeV, known as the Galactic Center GeV excess (GCE). Although the GCE is now fi rmly detected, an interpretation of this emission as a signal of self-annihilating dark matter (DM) particles is not unambiguously possible due to systematic effects in the gamma-ray modeling estimated in the Galactic Plane. In this paper we build a covariance matrix, collecting different systematic uncertainties investigated in the Fermi Collaboration's paper that affect the GCE spectrum. We show that models where part of the GCE is due to annihilating DM is still consistent with the new data. We also re-evaluate the parameter space regions of the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) that can contribute dominantly to the GCE via neutralino DM annihilation. All recent constraints from DM direct detection experiments such as PICO, LUX, PandaX and Xenon1T, limits on the annihilation cross section from dwarf spheroidal galaxies and the Large Hadron Collider limits are considered in this analysis. Due to a slight shift in the energy spectrum of the GC excess with respect to the previous Fermi analysis, and the recent limits from direct detection experiments, we find a slightly shifted parameter region of the MSSM, compared to our previous analysis, that is consistent with the GCE. Neutralinos with a mass between 85-220 GeV can describe the excess via annihilation into a pair of W-bosons or top quarks. Remarkably, there are models with low fine-tuning among the regions that we have found. The complete set of solutions will be probed by upcoming direct detection experiments and with dedicated searches in the upcoming data of the Large Hadron Collider.
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LHCb Collaboration(Aaij, R. et al), Garcia Martin, L. M., Henry, L., Martinez-Vidal, F., Oyanguren, A., Remon Alepuz, C., et al. (2017). Improved limit on the branching fraction of the rare decay K-S(0) -> mu(+)mu(-). Eur. Phys. J. C, 77(10), 678–12pp.
Abstract: A search for the decay K-S(0) -> mu+ mu- is performed, based on a data sample of proton- proton collisions corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 3 fb(-1), collected by the LHCb experiment at centre-of- mass energies of 7 and 8 TeV. The observed yield is consistent with the background- only hypothesis, yielding a limit on the branching fraction of B( K-S(0) -> mu(+)mu(-)) < 0.8 (1.0) x 10(-9) at 90% ( 95%) confidence level. This result improves the previous upper limit on the branching fraction by an order of magnitude.
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