Barducci, D., Bertuzzo, E., Caputo, A., & Hernandez, P. (2020). Minimal flavor violation in the see-saw portal. J. High Energy Phys., 06(6), 185–28pp.
Abstract: We consider an extension of the Standard Model with two singlet leptons, with masses in the electroweak range, that induce neutrino masses via the see-saw mechanism, plus a generic new physics sector at a higher scale, A. We apply the minimal flavor violation (MFV) principle to the corresponding Effective Field Theory (nu SMEFT) valid at energy scales E << A. We identify the irreducible sources of lepton flavor and lepton number violation at the renormalizable level, and apply the MFV ansatz to derive the scaling of the Wilson coefficients of the nu SMEFT operators up to dimension six. We highlight the most important phenomenological consequences of this hypothesis in the rates for exotic Higgs decays, the decay length of the heavy neutrinos, and their production modes at present and future colliders. We also comment on possible astrophysical implications.
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Caputo, A., Zavala, J., & Blas, D. (2018). Binary pulsars as probes of a Galactic dark matter disk. Phys. Dark Universe, 19, 1–11.
Abstract: As a binary pulsar moves through a wind of dark matter particles, the resulting dynamical friction modifies the binary's orbit. We study this effect for the double disk dark matter (DDDM) scenario, where a fraction of the dark matter is dissipative and settles into a thin disk. For binaries within the dark disk, this effect is enhanced due to the higher dark matter density and lower velocity dispersion of the dark disk, and due to its co-rotation with the baryonic disk. We estimate the effect and compare it with observations for two different limits in the Knudsen number (Kn). First, in the case where DDDM is effectively collisionless within the characteristic scale of the binary (Kn >> 1) and ignoring the possible interaction between the pair of dark matter wakes. Second, in the fully collisional case (Kn << 1), where a fluid description can be adopted and the interaction of the pair of wakes is taken into account. We find that the change in the orbital period is of the same order of magnitude in both limits. A comparison with observations reveals good prospects to probe currently allowed DDDM models with timing data from binary pulsars in the near future. We finally comment on the possibility of extending the analysis to the intermediate (rarefied gas) case with Kn similar to 1.
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Blas, D., Caputo, A., Ivanov, M. M., & Sberna, L. (2020). No chiral light bending by clumps of axion-like particles. Phys. Dark Universe, 27, 100428–4pp.
Abstract: We study the propagation of light in the presence of a parity-violating coupling between photons and axion-like particles (ALPs). Naively, this interaction could lead to a split of light rays into two separate beams of different polarization chirality and with different refraction angles. However, by using the eikonal method we explicitly show that this is not the case and that ALP clumps do not produce any spatial birefringence. This happens due to non-trivial variations of the photon's frequency and wavevector, which absorb time-derivatives and gradients of the ALP field. We argue that these variations represent a new way to probe the ALP-photon coupling with precision frequency measurements.
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Caputo, A., Hernandez, P., Kekic, M., Lopez-Pavon, J., & Salvado, J. (2017). The seesaw path to leptonic CP violation. Eur. Phys. J. C, 77(4), 258–7pp.
Abstract: Future experiments such as SHiP and highintensity e(+)e(-) colliders will have a superb sensitivity to heavy Majorana neutrinos with masses below M-Z. We show that the measurement of the mixing to electrons and muons of one such state could establish the existence of CP violating phases in the neutrino mixing matrix, in the context of low-scale seesaw models. We quantify in the minimal model the CP reach of these future experiments, and demonstrate that CP violating phases in the mixing matrix could be established at 5 sigma CL in a very significant fraction of parameter space.
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Caputo, A., Hernandez, P., & Rius, N. (2019). Leptogenesis from oscillations and dark matter. Eur. Phys. J. C, 79(7), 574–17pp.
Abstract: An extension of the Standard Model with Majorana singlet fermions in the 1-100GeV range can explain the light neutrino masses and give rise to a baryon asymmetry at freeze-in of the heavy states, via their CP-violating oscillations. In this paper we consider extending this scenario to also explain dark matter. We find that a very weakly coupled B-L gauge boson, an invisible QCD axion model, and the singlet majoron model can simultaneously account for dark matter and the baryon asymmetry.
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