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Villanueva-Domingo, P., Gariazzo, S., Gnedin, N. Y., & Mena, O. (2018). Was there an early reionization component in our universe? J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 04(4), 024–17pp.
Abstract: A deep understanding of the epoch of reionization is still missing in our knowledge of the universe. While future probes will allow us to test the precise evolution of the free electron fraction from redshifts between z similar or equal to 6 and z similar or equal to 20, at present one could ask what kind of reionization processes are allowed by present cosmic microwave background temperature and polarization measurements. An early contribution to reionization could imply a departure from the standard picture where star formation determines the reionization onset. By considering a broad class of possible reionization parameterizations, we find that current data do not require an early reionization component in our universe and that only one marginal class of models, based on a particular realization of reionization, may point to that. In addition, the frequentist Akaike information criterion (AIC) provides strong evidence against alternative reionization histories, favoring the most simple reionization scenario, which describes reionization by means of only one (constant) reionization optical depth tau.
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Chen, P., Ding, G. J., Rojas, A. D., Vaquera-Araujo, C. A., & Valle, J. W. F. (2016). Warped flavor symmetry predictions for neutrino physics. J. High Energy Phys., 01(1), 007–27pp.
Abstract: A realistic five-dimensional warped scenario with all standard model fields propagating in the bulk is proposed. Mass hierarchies would in principle be accounted for by judicious choices of the bulk mass parameters, while fermion mixing angles are restricted by a Delta(27) flavor symmetry broken on the branes by flavon fields.The latter gives stringent predictions for the neutrino mixing parameters, and the Dirac CP violation phase, all described in terms of only two independent parameters at leading order. The scheme also gives an adequate CKM fit and should be testable within upcoming oscillation experiments.
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Lopez-Honorez, L., Mena, O., Palomares-Ruiz, S., & Villanueva-Domingo, P. (2017). Warm dark matter and the ionization history of the Universe. Phys. Rev. D, 96(10), 103539–14pp.
Abstract: In warm dark matter scenarios structure formation is suppressed on small scales with respect to the cold dark matter case, reducing the number of low-mass halos and the fraction of ionized gas at high redshifts and thus, delaying reionization. This has an impact on the ionization history of the Universe and measurements of the optical depth to reionization, of the evolution of the global fraction of ionized gas and of the thermal history of the intergalactic medium, can be used to set constraints on the mass of the dark matter particle. However, the suppression of the fraction of ionized medium in these scenarios can be partly compensated by varying other parameters, as the ionization efficiency or the minimum mass for which halos can host star-forming galaxies. Here we use different data sets regarding the ionization and thermal histories of the Universe and, taking into account the degeneracies from several astrophysical parameters, we obtain a lower bound on the mass of thermal warm dark matter candidates of m(X) > 1.3 keV, or m(s) > 5.5 keV for the case of sterile neutrinos nonresonantly produced in the early Universe, both at 90% confidence level.
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Villanueva-Domingo, P., Gnedin, N. Y., & Mena, O. (2018). Warm Dark Matter and Cosmic Reionization. Astrophys. J., 852(2), 139–7pp.
Abstract: In models with dark matter made of particles with keV masses, such as a sterile neutrino, small-scale density perturbations are suppressed, delaying the period at which the lowest mass galaxies are formed and therefore shifting the reionization processes to later epochs. In this study, focusing on Warm Dark Matter (WDM) with masses close to its present lower bound, i.e., around the 3. keV region, we derive constraints from galaxy luminosity functions, the ionization history and the Gunn-Peterson effect. We show that even if star formation efficiency in the simulations is adjusted to match the observed UV galaxy luminosity functions in both CDM and WDM models, the full distribution of Gunn-Peterson optical depth retains the strong signature of delayed reionization in the WDM model. However, until the star formation and stellar feedback model used in modern galaxy formation simulations is constrained better, any conclusions on the nature of dark matter derived from reionization observables remain model-dependent.
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Batra, A., Bharadwaj, P., Mandal, S., Srivastava, R., & Valle, J. W. F. (2022). W-mass anomaly in the simplest linear seesaw mechanism. Phys. Lett. B, 834, 137408–12pp.
Abstract: The simplest linear seesaw mechanism can accommodate the new CDF-II W mass measurement. In addition to Standard Model particles, the model includes quasi-Dirac leptons, and a second, leptophilic, scalar doublet seeding small neutrino masses. Our proposal is consistent with electroweak precision tests, neutrino physics, rare decays and collider restrictions, requiring a new charged scalar below a few TeV, split in mass from the new degenerate scalar and pseudoscalar neutral Higgs bosons.
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