|
Oset, E. (2013). On the ambiguities of sign determination of the S-matrix from energy levels in a finite box. Eur. Phys. J. A, 49(3), 32–4pp.
Abstract: In a recent paper the authors make a study on the determination of the S-matrix elements for scattering of particles in the infinite volume from the energy levels in a finite box for the case of multiple channels. The study is done with a toy model in 1+1 dimension and the authors find that there is some ambiguity in the sign of nondiagonal matrix elements, casting doubts on whether the needed observables in the infinite volume can be obtained from the energy levels of the box. In this paper I present an easy derivation, confirming the ambiguity of the sign and argue that this, however, does not put restrictions in the determination of observables.
|
|
|
NEXT Collaboration(Alvarez, V. et al), Carcel, S., Cervera-Villanueva, A., Diaz, J., Ferrario, P., Gil, A., et al. (2013). Radiopurity control in the NEXT-100 double beta decay experiment: procedures and initial measurements. J. Instrum., 8, T01002–19pp.
Abstract: The “Neutrino Experiment with a Xenon Time-Projection Chamber” (NEXT) is intended to investigate the neutrinoless double beta decay of Xe-136, which requires a severe suppression of potential backgrounds. An extensive screening and material selection process is underway for NEXT since the control of the radiopurity levels of the materials to be used in the experimental set-up is a must for rare event searches. First measurements based on Glow Discharge Mass Spectrometry and gamma-ray spectroscopy using ultra-low background germanium detectors at the Laboratorio Subterraneo de Canfranc (Spain) are described here. Activity results for natural radioactive chains and other common radionuclides are summarized, being the values obtained for some materials like copper and stainless steel very competitive. The implications of these results for the NEXT experiment are also discussed.
|
|
|
Bernal, N., Boehm, C., Palomares-Ruiz, S., Silk, J., & Toma, T. (2013). Observing Higgs boson production through its decay into gamma-rays: A messenger for dark matter candidates. Phys. Lett. B, 723(1-3), 100–106.
Abstract: In this Letter, we study the gamma-ray signatures subsequent to the production of a Higgs boson in space by dark matter annihilations. We investigate the cases where the Higgs boson is produced at rest or slightly boosted and show that such configurations can produce characteristic bumps in the gamma-ray data. These results are relevant in the case of the Standard Model-like Higgs boson provided that the dark matter mass is about 63 GeV, 109 GeV or 126 GeV, but can be generalized to any other Higgs boson masses. Here, we point out that it may be worth looking for a 63 GeV line since it could be the signature of the decay of a Standard Model-like Higgs boson produced in space, as in the case of a di-Higgs final state if m chi similar or equal to 126 GeV. We show that one can set generic constraints on the Higgs boson production rates using its decay properties. In particular, using the Fermi-LAT data from the galactic center, we find that the dark matter annihilation cross section into gamma+ a Standard Model-like Higgs boson produced at rest or near rest cannot exceed (sigma nu) similar to a few 10(-25) cm(3)/s or (sigma-nu) similar to a few 10(-27) cm(3)/s respectively, providing us with information on the Higgs coupling to the dark matter particle. We conclude that Higgs bosons can indeed be used as messengers to explore the dark matter mass range.
|
|
|
Giusarma, E., de Putter, R., & Mena, O. (2013). Testing standard and nonstandard neutrino physics with cosmological data. Phys. Rev. D, 87(4), 043515–9pp.
Abstract: Cosmological constraints on the sum of neutrino masses and on the effective number of neutrino species in standard and nonstandard scenarios are computed using the most recent available cosmological data. Our cosmological data sets include the measurement of the baryonic acoustic oscillation (BAO) feature in the data release 9 CMASS sample of the baryon oscillation spectroscopic survey. We study in detail the different degeneracies among the parameters, as well as the impact of the different data sets used in the analyses. When considering bounds on the sum of the three active neutrino masses, the information in the BAO signal from galaxy clustering measurements is approximately equally powerful as the shape information from the matter power spectrum. The most stringent bound we find is Sigma m(nu) < 0.32 eV at 95% C.L. When nonstandard neutrino scenarios with N-eff massless or massive neutrino species are examined, power spectrum shape measurements provide slightly better bounds than the BAO signal only, due to the breaking of parameter degeneracies. Cosmic microwave background data from high multipoles from the South Pole Telescope turns out to be crucial for extracting the number of effective neutrino species. Recent baryon oscillation spectroscopic survey data combined with cosmic microwave background and Hubble Space Telescope measurements give N-eff = 3.66(-0.21-0.69)(+0.20+0.73) in the massless neutrino scenario, and similar results are obtained in the massive case. The evidence for extra radiation N-eff > 3 often claimed in the literature therefore remains at the 2 sigma level when considering up-to-date cosmological data sets. Measurements from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe combined with a prior on the Hubble parameter from the Hubble Space Telescope are very powerful in constraining either the sum of the three active neutrino masses or the number of massless neutrino species. If the former two parameters are allowed to freely vary, however, the bounds from the combination of these two cosmological probes get worse by an order of magnitude.
|
|
|
ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fassi, F., Ferrer, A., et al. (2013). Search for supersymmetry in events with photons, bottom quarks, and missing transverse momentum in proton-proton collisions at a centre-of-mass energy of 7 TeV with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Lett. B, 719(4-5), 261–279.
Abstract: A search has been performed for the experimental signature of an isolated photon with high transverse momentum, at least one jet identified as originating from a bottom quark, and high missing transverse momentum. Such a final state may originate from supersymmetric models with gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking in events in which one of a pair of higgsino-like neutralinos decays into a photon and a gravitino while the other decays into a Higgs boson and a gravitino. The search is performed using the full dataset of 7 TeV proton-proton collisions recorded with the ATLAS detector at the LHC in 2011, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.7 fb(-1). A total of 7 candidate events are observed while 7.5 +/- 2.2 events are expected from the Standard Model background. The results of the search are interpreted in the context of general gauge mediation to exclude certain regions of a benchmark plane for higgsino-like neutralino production.
|
|
|
Hirsch, M., Porod, W., Weiss, C., & Staub, F. (2013). Supersymmetric type-III seesaw mechanism: Lepton flavor violation and LHC phenomenology. Phys. Rev. D, 87(1), 013010–12pp.
Abstract: We study a supersymmetric version of the type-III seesaw mechanism considering two variants of the model: a minimal version for explaining neutrino data with only two copies of 24 superfields and a model with three generations of 24-plets. The latter predicts, in general, rates for μ-> e gamma inconsistent with experimental data. However, this bound can be evaded if certain special conditions within the neutrino sector are fulfilled. In the case of two 24-plets, lepton flavor violation constraints can be satisfied much more easily. After specifying the corresponding regions in the minimal supergravity parameter space, we show that under favorable conditions one can test the corresponding flavor structures in the leptonic sector at the LHC. For this we perform Monte Carlo studies for the signals, also taking into account the supersymmetry background. We find that it is only of minor importance for the scenarios studied here.
|
|
|
Botella, F. J., Branco, G. C., & Rebelo, M. N. (2013). Invariants and flavour in the general Two Higgs Doublet Model. Phys. Lett. B, 722(1-3), 76–82.
Abstract: The flavour structure of the general Two Higgs Doublet Model (2HDM) is analysed and a detailed study of the parameter space is presented, showing that flavour mixing in the 2HDM can be parametrized by various unitary matrices which arise from the misalignment in flavour space between pairs of various Hermitian flavour matrices which can be constructed within the model. This is entirely analogous to the generation of the CKM matrix in the Standard Model (SM). We construct weak basis invariants which can give insight into the physical implications of any flavour model, written in an arbitrary weak basis (WB) in the context of 2HDM. We apply this technique to two special cases, models with MFV and models with NNI structures. In both cases non-trivial CP-odd WB invariants arise in a mass power order much smaller than what one encounters in the SM, which can have important implications for baryogenesis in the framework of the general 2HDM.
|
|
|
Beneke, M., Hellmann, C., & Ruiz-Femenia, P. (2013). Non-relativistic pair annihilation of nearly mass degenerate neutralinos and charginos I. General framework and S-wave annihilation. J. High Energy Phys., 03(3), 148–48pp.
Abstract: We compute analytically the tree-level annihilation rates of a collection of non-relativistic neutralino and chargino two-particle states in the general MSSM, including the previously unknown off-diagonal rates. The results are prerequisites to the calculation of the Sommerfeld enhancement in the MSSM, which will be presented in subsequent work. They can also be used to obtain concise analytic expressions for MSSM dark matter pair annihilation in the present Universe for a large number of exclusive two-particle final states.
|
|
|
ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fassi, F., Ferrer, A., et al. (2013). Search for long-lived, heavy particles in final states with a muon and multi-track displaced vertex in proton-proton collisions at root s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Lett. B, 719(4-5), 280–298.
Abstract: Many extensions of the Standard Model posit the existence of heavy particles with long lifetimes. In this Letter, results are presented of a search for events containing one or more such particles, which decay at a significant distance from their production point, using a final state containing charged hadrons and an associated muon. This analysis uses a data sample of proton-proton collisions at root s = 7 TeV corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.4 fb(-1) collected in 2011 by the ATLAS detector operating at the Large Hadron Collider. Results are interpreted in the context of R-parity violating supersymmetric scenarios. No events in the signal region are observed and limits are set on the production cross section for pair production of supersymmetric particles, multiplied by the square of the branching fraction for a neutralino to decay to charged hadrons and a muon, based on the scenario where both of the produced supersymmetric particles give rise to neutralinos that decay in this way. However, since the search strategy is based on triggering on and reconstructing the decay products of individual long-lived particles, irrespective of the rest of the event, these limits can easily be reinterpreted in scenarios with different numbers of long-lived particles per event. The limits are presented as a function of neutralino lifetime, and for a range of squark and neutralino masses.
|
|
|
ATLAS Collaboration(Aad, G. et al), Cabrera Urban, S., Castillo Gimenez, V., Costa, M. J., Fassi, F., Ferrer, A., et al. (2013). A search for high-mass resonances decaying to tau(+)tau(-) in pp collisions at root s=7 TeV with the ATLAS detector. Phys. Lett. B, 719(4-5), 242–260.
Abstract: This Letter presents a search for high-mass resonances decaying into tau(+)tau(-) final states using proton-proton collisions at root s = 7 TeV produced by the Large Hadron Collider. The data were recorded with the ATLAS detector and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 4.6 fb(-1). No statistically significant excess above the Standard Model expectation is observed; 95% credibility upper limits are set on the cross section times branching fraction of Z' resonances decaying into tau(+)tau(-) pairs as a function of the resonance mass. As a result, Z' bosons of the Sequential Standard Model with masses less than 1.40 TeV are excluded at 95% credibility.
|
|