|
ATLAS Collaboration(Aaboud, M. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Barranco Navarro, L., Cabrera Urban, S., et al. (2019). Search for excited electrons singly produced in proton-proton collisions at root s=13 TeV with the ATLAS experiment at the LHC. Eur. Phys. J. C, 79(9), 803–30pp.
Abstract: A search for excited electrons produced in pp collisions at root s = 13 TeV via a contact interaction q (q) over bar -> ee* is presented. The search uses 36.1 fb(-1) of data collected in 2015 and 2016 by the ATLAS experiment at the Large Hadron Collider. Decays of the excited electron into an electron and a pair of quarks (eq (q) over bar) are targeted in final states with two electrons and two hadronic jets, and decays via a gauge interaction into a neutrino and a W boson (nu W) are probed in final states with an electron, missing transverse momentum, and a large-radius jet consistent with a hadronically decaying W boson. No significant excess is observed over the expected backgrounds. Upper limits are calculated for the pp -> ee* -> eeq (q) over bar and pp -> ee* -> e nu W production cross sections as a function of the excited electron mass m(e)* at 95% confidence level. The limits are translated into lower bounds on the compositeness scale parameter Lambda of the model as a function of m(e)*. For m(e)* < 0.5 TeV, the lower bound for Lambda is 11 TeV. In the special case of m(e)* = Lambda, the values of m(e)* < 4.8 TeV are excluded. The presented limits on Lambda are more stringent than those obtained in previous searches.
|
|
|
ATLAS Collaboration(Aaboud, M. et al), Alvarez Piqueras, D., Aparisi Pozo, J. A., Bailey, A. J., Barranco Navarro, L., Cabrera Urban, S., et al. (2019). Observation of Electroweak Production of a Same-Sign W Boson Pair in Association with Two Jets in pp Collisions root s=13 TeV with the ATLAS Detector. Phys. Rev. Lett., 123(16), 161801–21pp.
Abstract: This Letter presents the observation and measurement of electroweak production of a same-sign W boson pair in association with two jets using 36.1 fb(-1) of proton-proton collision data recorded at a centerof-mass energy root s = 13 TeV by the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider. The analysis is performed in the detector fiducial phase-space region, defined by the presence of two same-sign leptons, electron or muon, and at least two jets with a large invariant mass and rapidity difference. A total of 122 candidate events are observed for a background expectation of 69 +/- 7 events, corresponding to an observed signal significance of 6.5 standard deviations. The measured fiducial signal cross section is sigma(f)(id) = 2.89(-0.48)(+0.51)(stat)(-0.28)(+0.29)(syst) fb.
|
|
|
Arbelaez, C., Helo, J. C., & Hirsch, M. (2019). Long-lived heavy particles in neutrino mass models. Phys. Rev. D, 100(5), 055001–15pp.
Abstract: All extensions of the standard model that generate Majorana neutrino masses at the electroweak scale introduce some heavy mediators, either fermions and/or scalars, weakly coupled to leptons. Here, by “heavy,” we mean implicitly the mass range between a few 100 GeV up to, say, roughly 2 TeV, such that these particles can be searched for at the LHC. We study decay widths of these mediators for several different tree-level neutrino mass models. The models we consider range from the simplest d = 5 seesaw up to d = 11 neutrino mass models. For each of the models, we identify the most interesting parts of the parameter space, where the heavy mediator fields are particularly long lived and can decay with experimentally measurable decay lengths. One has to distinguish two different scenarios, depending on whether fermions or scalars are the lighter of the heavy particles. For fermions, we find that the decay lengths correlate with the inverse of the overall neutrino mass scale. Thus, since no lower limit on the lightest neutrino mass exists, nearly arbitrarily long decay lengths can be obtained for the case in which fermions are the lighter of the heavy particles. For charged scalars, on the other hand, there exists a maximum value for the decay length in these models. This maximum value depends on the model and on the electric charge of the scalar under consideration but can at most be of the order of a few millimeters. Interestingly, independent of the model, this maximum occurs always in a region of parameter space, where leptonic and gauge boson final states have similar branching ratios, i.e., where the observation of lepton number-violating final states from scalar decays is possible.
|
|
|
Coloma, P. (2019). Icecube/DeepCore tests for novel explanations of the MiniBooNE anomaly. Eur. Phys. J. C, 79(9), 748–7pp.
Abstract: While the low-energy excess observed at MiniBooNE remains unchallenged, it has become increasingly difficult to reconcile it with the results from other sterile neutrino searches and cosmology. Recently, it has been shown that non-minimal models with new particles in a hidden sector could provide a better fit to the data. As their main ingredients they require a GeV-scale kinetically mixed with the photon, and an unstable heavy neutrino with a mass in the 150 MeV range that mixes with the light neutrinos. In this letter we point out that atmospheric neutrino experiments (and, in particular, IceCube/DeepCore) could probe a significant fraction of the parameter space of such models by looking for an excess of “double-bang” events at low energies, as proposed in our previous work (Coloma et al., Phys Rev Lett 119(20):201804, 10.1103/PhysRevLett.119.20180, 2017). Such a search would probe exactly the same production and decay mechanisms required to explain the anomaly.
|
|
|
Anderson, P. R., Clark, R. D., Fabbri, A., & Good, M. R. R. (2019). Late time approach to Hawking radiation: Terms beyond leading order. Phys. Rev. D, 100(6), 061703–5pp.
Abstract: Black hole evaporation is studied using wave packets for the modes. These allow for approximate frequency and time resolution. The leading order late time behavior gives the well-known Hawking radiation that is independent of how the black hole formed. The focus here is on the higher order terms and the rate at which they damp at late times. Some of these terms carry information about how the black hole formed. A general argument is given which shows that the damping is significantly slower (power law) than what might be naively expected from a stationary phase approximation (exponential). This result is verified by numerical calculations in the cases of 2D and 4D black holes that form from the collapse of a null shell.
|
|