Abstract: The IRIS group of IFIC-Valencia has developed a Compton camera prototype. The system detectors are made of Lanthanum (III) bromide scintillator crystals coupled to silicon photomultipliers. Two models of silicon photomultipliers arrays with different micro pixel pitch (25 and 50 μm) have been chosen as possible candidates to improve the response of the new system. Characterization studies with a 22Na point-like source have indicated that the 25 μm photodetector provided better performance in terms of energy resolution (5.2% FWHM at 511 keV) and angular resolution (6.9 degrees FWHM at 1275 keV), and more stability with temperature variations. In addition, MACACO III imaging capabilities have been assessed using a structure composed of thirty-seven 22Na point-like sources. Furthermore, in order to evaluate possible ways of improving the system performance, several studies have been carried out by means of simulations both in realistic and performance improved conditions. In this work, the system performance is evaluated for its future application in different areas.

Abstract: We propose a minimal model based on lepton number symmetry (and violation), to address a common origin of baryon asymmetry, dark matter and neutrino mass generation. The model consists of a vectorlike fermion to constitute the dark sector, three right-handed neutrinos (RHNs) to dictate leptogenesis and neutrino mass, while an additional complex scalar is assumed to be present in the early Universe the decay of which produces both dark matter and RHNs via lepton number violating and lepton number conserving interactions respectively. Interestingly, the presence of the same scalar helps in making the electroweak vacuum stable until the Planck scale. The unnatural largeness and smallness of the parameters required to describe correct experimental limits are attributed to lepton number violation. The allowed parameter space of the model is illustrated via a numerical scan.

Abstract: Symmetries in the Physical Laws of Nature lead to observable effects. Beyond the regularities and conserved magnitudes, the last few decades in particle physics have seen the identification of symmetries, and their well-defined breaking, as the guiding principle for the elementary constituents of matter and their interactions. Flavour SU(3) symmetry of hadrons led to the Quark Model and the antisymmetric requirement under exchange of identical fermions led to the colour degree of freedom. Colour became the generating charge for flavour-independent strong interactions of quarks and gluons in the exact colour SU(3) local gauge symmetry. Parity Violation in weak interactions led us to consider the chiral fields of fermions as the objects with definite transformation properties under the weak isospin SU(2) gauge group of the Unifying Electro-Weak SU(2) x U(1) symmetry, which predicted novel weak neutral current interactions. CP-Violation led to three families of quarks opening the field of Flavour Physics. Time-reversal violation has recently been observed with entangled neutral mesons, compatible with CPT-invariance. The cancellation of gauge anomalies, which would invalidate the gauge symmetry of the quantum field theory, led to Quark-Lepton Symmetry. Neutrinos were postulated in order to save the conservation laws of energy and angular momentum in nuclear beta decay. After the ups and downs of their mass, neutrino oscillations were discovered in 1998, opening a new era about their origin of mass, mixing, discrete symmetries and the possibility of global lepton-number violation through Majorana mass terms and Leptogenesis as the source of the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe. The experimental discovery of quarks and leptons and the mediators of their interactions, with physical observables in spectacular agreement with this Standard Theory, is the triumph of Symmetries. The gauge symmetry is exact only when the particles are massless. One needs a subtle breaking of the symmetry, providing the origin of mass without affecting the excellent description of the interactions. This is the Brout-Englert-Higgs Mechanism, which produces the Higgs Boson as a remnant, discovered at CERN in 2012. Open present problems are addressed with by searching the New Physics Beyond-the-Standard-Model.