Felea, D., Mamuzic, J., Maselek, R., Mavromatos, N. E., Mitsou, V. A., Pinfold, J. L., et al. (2020). Prospects for discovering supersymmetric long-lived particles with MoEDAL. Eur. Phys. J. C, 80(5), 431–12pp.
Abstract: We present a study on the possibility of searching for long-lived supersymmetric partners with the MoEDAL experiment at the LHC. MoEDAL is sensitive to highly ionising objects such as magnetic monopoles or massive (meta)stable electrically charged particles. We focus on prospects of directly detecting long-lived sleptons in a phenomenologically realistic model which involves an intermediate neutral long-lived particle in the decay chain. This scenario is not yet excluded by the current data from ATLAS or CMS, and is compatible with astrophysical constraints. Using Monte Carlo simulation, we compare the sensitivities of MoEDAL versus ATLAS in scenarios where MoEDAL could provide discovery reach complementary to ATLAS and CMS, thanks to looser selection criteria combined with the virtual absence of background. It is also interesting to point out that, in such scenarios, in which charged staus are the main long-lived candidates, the relevant mass range for MoEDAL is compatible with a potential role of Supersymmetry in providing an explanation for the anomalous events observed by the ANITA detector.
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Mavromatos, N. E., & Papavassiliou, J. (2018). Singular lensing from the scattering on special space-time defects. Eur. Phys. J. C, 78(1), 68–15pp.
Abstract: It is well known that certain special classes of self-gravitating point-like defects, such as global (non gauged) monopoles, give rise to non-asymptotically flat space-times characterized by solid angle deficits, whose size depends on the details of the underlying microscopic models. The scattering of electrically neutral particles on such space-times is described by amplitudes that exhibit resonant behaviour when thescattering and deficit angles coincide. This, in turn, leads to ring-like structures where the cross sections are formally divergent (“singular lensing”). In this work, we revisit this particular phenomenon, with the twofold purpose of placing it in a contemporary and more general context, in view of renewed interest in the theory and general phenomenology of such defects, and, more importantly, of addressing certain subtleties that appear in the particular computation that leads to the aforementioned effect. In particular, by adopting a specific regularization procedure for the formally infinite Legendre series encountered, we manage to ensure the recovery of theMinkowski space-time, and thus the disappearance of the lensing phenomenon, in the nodefect limit, and the validity of the optical theorem for the elastic total cross section. In addition, the singular nature of the phenomenon is confirmed by means of an alternative calculation, which, unlike the original approach, makes no use of the generating function of the Legendre polynomials, but rather exploits the asymptotic properties of the Fresnel integrals.
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Bossingham, T., Mavromatos, N. E., & Sarkar, S. (2018). Leptogenesis from heavy right-handed neutrinos in CPT violating backgrounds. Eur. Phys. J. C, 78(2), 113–33pp.
Abstract: We discuss leptogenesis in a model with heavy right-handed Majorana neutrinos propagating in a constant but otherwise generic CPT-violating axial time-like background (motivated by string theory). At temperatures much higher than the temperature of the electroweak phase transition, we solve approximately, but analytically (using Pade approximants), the corresponding Boltzmann equations, which describe the generation of lepton asymmetry from the tree-level decays of heavy neutrinos into Standard Model leptons. At such temperatures these leptons are effectively massless. The current work completes in a rigorous way a preliminary treatment of the same system, by some of the present authors. In this earlier work, lepton asymmetry was crudely estimated considering the decay of a righthanded neutrino at rest. Our present analysis includes thermal momentum modes for the heavy neutrino and this leads to a total lepton asymmetry which is bigger by a factor of two as compared to the previous estimate. Nevertheless, our current and preliminary results for the freezeout are found to be in agreement (within a similar to 12.5% uncertainty). Our analysis depends on a novel use of Pade approximants to solve the Boltzmann equations and may be more widely useful in cosmology.
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Baines, S., Mavromatos, N. E., Mitsou, V. A., Pinfold, J. L., & Santra, A. (2018). Monopole production via photon fusion and Drell-Yan processes: MadGraph implementation and perturbativity via velocity-dependent coupling and magnetic moment as novel features. Eur. Phys. J. C, 78(11), 966–36pp.
Abstract: In this work we consider point-like monopole production via photon-fusion and Drell-Yan processes in the framework of an effective U(1) gauge field theory obtained from conventional models describing the interaction of magnetically-charged fields with ordinary photons, upon electric-magnetic dualisation. We present arguments based on such dualities which support the conjecture of an effective monopole-velocity-dependent magnetic charge. For the cases of 1 monopoles, we also include a magnetic-moment which is treated as a new phenomenological parameter and, together with the velocity-dependent coupling, allows for a perturbative treatment of the cross-section calculation. We discuss unitarity issues within these effective field theories, in particular we point out that in the spin-1 monopole case only the may restore unitarity. However from an effective-field-theory point of view, this lack of unitarity should not be viewed as an impediment for the phenomenological studies and experimental searches of generic spin-1 monopoles, given that the potential appearance of new degrees of freedom in the ultraviolet completion of such models might restore it. The second part of the paper deals with an appropriate implementation of photon-fusion and Drell-Yan processes based on the above theoretical scenarios into MadGraph UFO models, aimed to serve as a useful tool in interpretations of monopole searches at colliders such as LHC, especially for photon fusion, given that it has not been considered by experimental collaborations so far. Moreover, the experimental implications of such perturbatively reliable monopole searches have been laid out.
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Bernabeu, J., Botella, F. J., Mavromatos, N. E., & Nebot, M. (2017). The signal of ill-defined CPT weakening entanglement in the B-d system. Eur. Phys. J. C, 77(12), 865–10pp.
Abstract: In the presence of quantum-gravity fluctuations (space-time foam), the CPT operator may be ill-defined. Its perturbative treatment leads to a modification of the Einstein-Podolsky- Rosen correlation of the neutral meson system by adding an entanglement-weakening term of the wrong exchange symmetry, the omega-effect. In the current paper we identify how to probe the complex omega in the entangled B-d system using the flavour (f)-CP(g) eigenstate decay channels: the connection between the intensities for the two timeordered decays (f, g) and (g, f) is lost. Appropriate observables are constructed allowing independent experimental determinations of Re(omega) and Im(omega), disentangled from CPT violation in the evolution Hamiltonian Re(theta) and Im(theta). 2 sigma tensions for both Re(theta) and Im(omega) are shown to be uncorrelated.
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