Abstract: In view of the IceCube's 6-year high-energy starting events (HESE) sample, we revisit the possibility that the updated data may be better explained by a combination of neutrino fluxes from dark matter decay and an isotropic astrophysical power-law than purely by the latter. We find that the combined two-component flux qualitatively improves the fit to the observed data over a purely astrophysical one, and discuss how these updated fits compare against a similar analysis done with the 4-year HESE data. We also update fits involving dark matter decay via multiple channels, without any contribution from the astrophysical flux. We find that a DM-only explanation is not excluded by neutrino data alone. Finally, we also consider the possibility of a signal from dark matter annihilations and perform analogous analyses to the case of decays, commenting on its implications.

Abstract: We present a lattice QCD calculation of the up, down, strange and charm quark masses performed using the gauge configurations produced by the European Twisted Mass Collaboration with N-f = 2 + 1 + 1 dynamical quarks, which include in the sea, besides two light mass degenerate quarks, also the strange and charm quarks with masses close to their physical values. The simulations are based on a unitary setup for the two light quarks and on a mixed action approach for the strange and charm quarks. The analysis uses data at three values of the lattice spacing and pion masses in the range 210-450 MeV, allowing for accurate continuum limit and controlled chiral extrapolation. The quark mass renormalization is carried out non-perturbatively using the RI'-MOM method. The results for the quark masses converted to the (MS) over bar scheme are: m(ud) (2 GeV) = 3.70(17) MeV, m(s)(2 GeV) = 99.6(4.3) MeV and m(c)(m(c)) = 1.348(46) GeV. We obtain also the quark mass ratios m(s)/m(ud) = 26.66(32) and m(c)/m(s) = 11.62(16). By studying the mass splitting between the neutral and charged kaons and using available lattice results for the electromagnetic contributions, we evaluate m(u)/m(d) = 0.470(56), leading to m(u) = 2.36(24) MeV and m(d) = 5.03(26) MeV.

Abstract: Using some of the latest cosmological data sets publicly available, we derive the strongest bounds in the literature on the sum of the three active neutrino masses, M-nu, within the assumption of a background flat Lambda CDM cosmology. In the most conservative scheme, combining Planck cosmic microwave background temperature anisotropies and baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) data, as well as the up-to-date constraint on the optical depth to reionization (tau), the tightest 95% confidence level upper bound we find is M-nu < 0.151 eV. The addition of Planck high-l polarization data, which, however, might still be contaminated by systematics, further tightens the bound to M-nu < 0.118 eV. A proper model comparison treatment shows that the two aforementioned combinations disfavor the inverted hierarchy at similar to 64% C.L. and similar to 71% C.L., respectively. In addition, we compare the constraining power of measurements of the full- shape galaxy power spectrum versus the BAO signature, from the BOSS survey. Even though the latest BOSS full-shape measurements cover a larger volume and benefit from smaller error bars compared to previous similar measurements, the analysis method commonly adopted results in their constraining power still being less powerful than that of the extracted BAO signal. Our work uses only cosmological data; imposing the constraint M-nu > 0.06 eV from oscillations data would raise the quoted upper bounds by O(0.1 sigma) and would not affect our conclusions.