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Fernandez-Martinez, E., Gonzalez-Lopez, M., Hernandez-Garcia, J., Hostert, M., & Lopez-Pavon, J. (2023). Effective portals to heavy neutral leptons. J. High Energy Phys., 09(9), 001–45pp.
Abstract: The existence of right-handed neutrinos, or heavy neutral leptons (HNLs), is strongly motivated by the observation of neutrino masses and mixing. The mass of these new particles could lie below the electroweak scale, making them accessible to lowenergy laboratory experiments. Additional new physics at high energies can mediate new interactions between the Standard Model particles and HNLs, and is most conveniently parametrized by the neutrino Standard Model Effective Field Theory, or nu SMEFT for short. In this work, we consider the dimension six nu SMEFT operators involving one HNL field in the mass range of O(1) MeV < MN < O(100) GeV. By recasting existing experimental limits on the production and decay of new light particles, we constrain the Wilson coefficients and new physics scale of each operator as a function of the HNL mass.
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Blennow, M., Fernandez-Martinez, E., Hernandez-Garcia, J., Lopez-Pavon, J., Marcano, X., & Naredo-Tuero, D. (2023). Bounds on lepton non-unitarity and heavy neutrino mixing. J. High Energy Phys., 08(8), 030–41pp.
Abstract: We present an updated and improved global fit analysis of current flavour and electroweak precision observables to derive bounds on unitarity deviations of the leptonic mixing matrix and on the mixing of heavy neutrinos with the active flavours. This new analysis is motivated by new and updated experimental results on key observables such as V-ud, the invisible decay width of the Z boson and the W boson mass. It also improves upon previous studies by considering the full correlations among the different observables and explicitly calibrating the test statistic, which may present significant deviations from a & chi;(2) distribution. The results are provided for three different Type-I seesaw scenarios: the minimal scenario with only two additional right-handed neutrinos, the next to minimal one with three extra neutrinos, and the most general one with an arbitrary number of heavy neutrinos that we parametrise via a generic deviation from a unitary leptonic mixing matrix. Additionally, we also analyze the case of generic deviations from unitarity of the leptonic mixing matrix, not necessarily induced by the presence of additional neutrinos. This last case relaxes some correlations among the parameters and is able to provide a better fit to the data. Nevertheless, inducing only leptonic unitarity deviations avoiding both the correlations implied by the right-handed neutrino extension as well as more strongly constrained operators is challenging and would imply significantly more complex UV completions.
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Blennow, M., Fernandez-Martinez, E., Mena, O., Redondo, J., & Serra, E. P. (2012). Asymmetric Dark Matter and Dark Radiation. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 07(7), 022–23pp.
Abstract: Asymmetric Dark Matter (ADM) models invoke a particle-antiparticle asymmetry, similar to the one observed in the Baryon sector, to account for the Dark Matter (DM) abundance. Both asymmetries are usually generated by the same mechanism and generally related, thus predicting DM masses around 5 GeV in order to obtain the correct density. The main challenge for successful models is to ensure efficient annihilation of the thermally produced symmetric component of such a light DM candidate without violating constraints from collider or direct searches. A common way to overcome this involves a light mediator, into which DM can efficiently annihilate and which subsequently decays into Standard Model particles. Here we explore the scenario where the light mediator decays instead into lighter degrees of freedom in the dark sector that act as radiation in the early Universe. While this assumption makes indirect DM searches challenging, it leads to signals of extra radiation at BBN and CMB. Under certain conditions, precise measurements of the number of relativistic species, such as those expected from the Planck satellite, can provide information on the structure of the dark sector. We also discuss the constraints of the interactions between DM and Dark Radiation from their imprint in the matter power spectrum.
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Blennow, M., Coloma, P., Donini, A., & Fernandez-Martinez, E. (2013). Gain fractions of future neutrino oscillation facilities over T2K and NOvA. J. High Energy Phys., 07(7), 159–23pp.
Abstract: We evaluate the probability of future neutrino oscillation facilities to discover leptonic CP violation and/or measure the neutrino mass hierarchy. We study how this probability is affected by positive or negative hints for these observables to be found at T2K and NO nu A. We consider the following facilities: LBNE; T2HK; and the 10 GeV Neutrino Factory (NF10), and show how their discovery probabilities change with the running time of T2K and NO nu A conditioned to their results. We find that, if after 15 years T2K and NO nu A have not observed a 90% CL hint of CP violation, then LBNE and T2HK have less than a 10% chance of achieving a 5 sigma discovery, whereas NF10 still has a similar to 40% chance to do so. Conversely, if T2K and NO nu A have an early 90% CL hint in 5 years from now, T2HK has a rather large chance to achieve a 5 sigma CP violation discovery (75% or 55%, depending on whether the mass hierarchy is known or not). This is to be compared with the 90% (30%) probability that NF10 (LBNE) would have to observe the same signal at 5 sigma. A hierarchy measurement at 5 sigma is achievable at both LBNE and NF10 with more than 90% probability, irrespectively of the outcome of T2K and NO nu A. We also find that if LBNE or a similar very long baseline super-beam is the only next generation facility to be built, then it is very useful to continue running T2K and NO nu A (or at least T2K) beyond their original schedule in order to increase the CP violation discovery chances, given their complementarity.
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Coloma, P., Donini, A., Fernandez-Martinez, E., & Hernandez, P. (2012). Precision on leptonic mixing parameters at future neutrino oscillation experiments. J. High Energy Phys., 06(6), 073–27pp.
Abstract: We perform a comparison of the different future neutrino oscillation experiments based on the achievable precision in the determination of the fundamental parameters theta(13) and the CP phase, delta, assuming that theta(13) is in the range indicated by the recent Daya Bay measurement. We study the non-trivial dependence of the error on delta on its true value. When matter effects are small, the largest error is found at the points where CP violation is maximal, and the smallest at the CP conserving points. The situation is different when matter effects are sizable. As a result of this effect, the comparison of the physics reach of different experiments on the basis of the CP discovery potential, as usually done, can be misleading. We have compared various proposed super-beam, beta-beam and neutrino factory setups on the basis of the relative precision of theta(13) and the error on delta. Neutrino factories, both high-energy or low-energy, outperform alternative beam technologies. An ultimate precision on theta(13) below 3% and an error on delta of <= 7 degrees at 1 sigma (1 d.o.f.) can be obtained at a neutrino factory.
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