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Garonna, A., Amaldi, U., Bonomi, R., Campo, D., Degiovanni, A., Garlasche, M., et al. (2010). Cyclinac medical accelerators using pulsed C6+/H-2(+) ion sources. J. Instrum., 5, C09004–19pp.
Abstract: Charged particle therapy, or so-called hadrontherapy, is developing very rapidly. There is large pressure on the scientific community to deliver dedicated accelerators, providing the best possible treatment modalities at the lowest cost. In this context, the Italian research Foundation TERA is developing fast-cycling accelerators, dubbed 'cyclinacs'. These are a combination of a cyclotron (accelerating ions to a fixed initial energy) followed by a high gradient linac boosting the ions energy up to the maximum needed for medical therapy. The linac is powered by many independently controlled klystrons to vary the beam energy from one pulse to the next. This accelerator is best suited to treat moving organs with a 4D multipainting spot scanning technique. A dual proton/carbon ion cyclinac is here presented. It consists of an Electron Beam Ion Source, a superconducting isochronous cyclotron and a high-gradient linac. All these machines are pulsed at high repetition rate (100-400 Hz). The source should deliver both C6+ and H-2(+) ions in short pulses (1.5 μs flat-top) and with sufficient intensity (at least 10(8) fully stripped carbon ions per pulse at 300 Hz). The cyclotron accelerates the ions to 120 MeV/u. It features a compact design (with superconducting coils) and a low power consumption. The linac has a novel C-band high-gradient structure and accelerates the ions to variable energies up to 400 MeV/u. High RF frequencies lead to power consumptions which are much lower than the ones of synchrotrons for the same ion extraction energy. This work is part of a collaboration with the CLIC group, which is working at CERN on high-gradient electron-positron colliders.
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Garcia-Recio, C., Nieves, J., & Tolos, L. (2010). D mesic nuclei. Phys. Lett. B, 690(4), 369–375.
Abstract: The energies and widths of several D-0 meson bound states for different nuclei are obtained using a D-meson selfenergy in the nuclear medium, which is evaluated in a selfconsistent manner using techniques of unitarized coupled-channel theory. The kernel of the meson-baryon interaction is based on a model that treats heavy pseudoscalar and heavy vector mesons on equal footing, as required by heavy quark symmetry. We find D-0 bound states in all studied nuclei, from C-12 up to Pb-208. The inclusion of vector mesons is the keystone for obtaining an attractive D-nucleus interaction that leads to the existence of D-0-nucleus bound states, as compared to previous studies based on SU(4) flavor symmetry. In some cases, the half widths are smaller than the separation of the levels, what makes possible their experimental observation by means of a nuclear reaction. This can be of particular interest for the future PANDA@FAIR physics program. We also find a D+ bound state in C-12, but it is too broad and will have a significant overlap with the energies of the continuum.
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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. (2019). Dalitz plot analysis of the D+ -> K-K+K+ decay. J. High Energy Phys., 04(4), 063–36pp.
Abstract: The resonant structure of the doubly Cabibbo-suppressed decay D+-> K-K+K+ is studied for the first time. The measurement is based on a sample of pp-collision data, collected at a centre-of-mass energy of 8 TeV with the LHCb detector and corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 2 fb(-1). The amplitude analysis of this decay is performed with the isobar model and a phenomenological model based on an effective chiral Lagrangian. In both models the S-wave component in the K-K+ system is dominant, with a small contribution of the phi(1020) meson and a negligible contribution from tensor resonances. The K+K- scattering amplitudes for the considered combinations of spin (0,1) and isospin (0,1) of the two-body system are obtained from the Dalitz plot fit with the phenomenological decay amplitude.
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Martinelli, M., Scarcella, F., Hogg, N. B., Kavanagh, B. J., Gaggero, D., & Fleury, P. (2022). Dancing in the dark: detecting a population of distant primordial black holes. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 08(8), 006–47pp.
Abstract: Primordial black holes (PBHs) are compact objects proposed to have formed in the early Universe from the collapse of small-scale over-densities. Their existence may be detected from the observation of gravitational waves (GWs) emitted by PBH mergers, if the signals can be distinguished from those produced by the merging of astrophysical black holes. In this work, we forecast the capability of the Einstein Telescope, a proposed third-generation GW observatory, to identify and measure the abundance of a subdominant population of distant PBHs, using the difference in the redshift evolution of the merger rate of the two populations as our discriminant. We carefully model the merger rates and generate realistic mock catalogues of the luminosity distances and errors that would be obtained from GW signals observed by the Einstein Telescope. We use two independent statistical methods to analyse the mock data, finding that, with our more powerful, likelihood-based method, PBH abundances as small as fPBH approximate to 7 x 10(-6) ( fPBH approximate to 2 x 10(-6)) would be distinguishable from f(PBH) = 0 at the level of 3 sigma with a one year (ten year) observing run of the Einstein Telescope. Our mock data generation code, darksirens, is fast, easily extendable and publicly available on GitLab.
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Gavela, M. B., Lopez Honorez, L., Mena, O., & Rigolin, S. (2010). Dark coupling and gauge invariance. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 11(11), 044–15pp.
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Simpson, F., Jimenez, R., Pena-Garay, C., & Verde, L. (2018). Dark energy from the motions of neutrinos. Phys. Dark Universe, 20, 72–77.
Abstract: Ordinarily, a scalar field may only play the role of dark energy if it possesses a potential that is either extraordinarily flat or extremely fine-tuned. Here we demonstrate that these restrictions are lifted when the scalar field undergoes persistent energy exchange with another fluid. In this scenario, the field is prevented from reversing its direction of motion, and instead may come to rest while displaced from the local minimum of its potential. Therefore almost any scalar potential is capable of initiating a prolonged phase of cosmic acceleration. If the rate of energy transfer is modulated via a derivative coupling, the field undergoes a rapid process of freezing, after which the field's equation of state mimicks that of a cosmological constant. We present a physically motivated realisation in the form of a neutrino-majoron coupling, which avoids the dynamical instabilities associated with mass-varying neutrino models. Finally we discuss possible means by which this model could be experimentally verified.
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Esteves, J. N., Romao, J. C., Hirsch, M., Porod, W., Staub, F., & Vicente, A. (2012). Dark matter and LHC phenomenology in a left-right supersymmetric model. J. High Energy Phys., 01(1), 095–33pp.
Abstract: Left-right symmetric extensions of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model can explain neutrino data and have potentially interesting phenomenology beyond that found in minimal SUSY seesaw models. Here we study a SUSY model in which the left-right symmetry is broken by triplets at a high scale, but significantly below the GUT scale. Sparticle spectra in this model differ from the usual constrained MSSM expectations and these changes affect the relic abundance of the lightest neutralino. We discuss changes for the standard stau (and stop) co-annihilation, the Higgs funnel and the focus point regions. The model has potentially large lepton flavour violation in both, left and right, scalar leptons and thus allows, in principle, also for flavoured co-annihilation. We also discuss lepton flavour signals due to violating decays of the second lightest neutralino at the LHC, which can be as large as 20 fb(-1) at root s = 14 TeV.
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De Romeri, V., Fernandez-Martinez, E., Gehrlein, J., Machado, P. A. N., & Niro, V. (2017). Dark Matter and the elusive Z' in a dynamical Inverse Seesaw scenario. J. High Energy Phys., 10(10), 169–21pp.
Abstract: The Inverse Seesaw naturally explains the smallness of neutrino masses via an approximate B-L symmetry broken only by a correspondingly small parameter. In this work the possible dynamical generation of the Inverse Seesaw neutrino mass mechanism from the spontaneous breaking of a gauged U(1) B-L symmetry is investigated. Interestingly, the Inverse Seesaw pattern requires a chiral content such that anomaly cancellation predicts the existence of extra fermions belonging to a dark sector with large, non-trivial, charges under the U(1) B-L. We investigate the phenomenology associated to these new states and find that one of them is a viable dark matter candidate with mass around the TeV scale, whose interaction with the Standard Model is mediated by the Z' boson associated to the gauged U(1) B-L symmetry. Given the large charges required for anomaly cancellation in the dark sector, the B-L Z' interacts preferentially with this dark sector rather than with the Standard Model. This suppresses the rate at direct detection searches and thus alleviates the constraints on Z'-mediated dark matter relic abundance. The collider phenomenology of this elusive Z' is also discussed.
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Chu, X. Y., Garani, R., Garcia-Cely, C., & Hambye, T. (2024). Dark matter bound-state formation in the Sun. J. High Energy Phys., 05(5), 045–32pp.
Abstract: The Sun may capture asymmetric dark matter (DM), which can subsequently form bound-states through the radiative emission of a sub-GeV scalar. This process enables generation of scalars without requiring DM annihilation. In addition to DM capture on nucleons, the DM-scalar coupling responsible for bound-state formation also induces capture from self-scatterings of ambient DM particles with DM particles already captured, as well as with DM bound-states formed in-situ within the Sun. This scenario is studied in detail by solving Boltzmann equations numerically and analytically. In particular, we take into consideration that the DM self-capture rates require a treatment beyond the conventional Born approximation. We show that, thanks to DM scatterings on bound-states, the number of DM particles captured increases exponentially, leading to enhanced emission of relativistic scalars through bound-state formation, whose final decay products could be observable. We explore phenomenological signatures with the example that the scalar mediator decays to neutrinos. We find that the neutrino flux emitted can be comparable to atmospheric neutrino fluxes within the range of energies below one hundred MeV. Future facilities like Hyper-K, and direct DM detection experiments can further test such scenario.
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Garani, R., & Palomares-Ruiz, S. (2017). Dark matter in the Sun: scattering off electrons vs nucleons. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 05(5), 007–41pp.
Abstract: The annihilation of dark matter (DM) particles accumulated in the Sun could produce a flux of neutrinos, which is potentially detectable with neutrino detectors/telescopes and the DM elastic scattering cross section can be constrained. Although the process of DM capture in astrophysical objects like the Sun is commonly assumed to be due to interactions only with nucleons, there are scenarios in which tree-level DM couplings to quarks are absent, and even if loop-induced interactions with nucleons are allowed, scatterings off electrons could be the dominant capture mechanism. We consider this possibility and study in detail all the ingredients necessary to compute the neutrino production rates from DM annihilationsin the Sun (capture, annihilation and evaporation rates) for velocity-independent and isotropic, velocity-dependent and isotropic and momentum-dependent scattering cross sections for DM interactions with electrons and compare them with the results obtained for the case of interactions with nucleons. Moreover, we improve the usual calculations in a number of ways and provide analytical expressions in three appendices. Interestingly, we find that the evaporation mass in the case of interactions with electrons could be below the GeV range, depending on the high-velocity tail of the DM distribution in the Sun, which would open a new mass window for searching for this type of scenarios.
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