Diamanti, R., Lopez-Honorez, L., Mena, O., Palomares-Ruiz, S., & Vincent, A. C. (2014). Constraining dark matter late-time energy injection: decays and p-wave annihilations. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 02(2), 017–24pp.
Abstract: We use the latest cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations to provide updated constraints on the dark matter lifetime as well as on p-wave suppressed annihilation cross sections in the 1 MeV to 1 TeV mass range. In contrast to scenarios with an s-wave dominated annihilation cross section, which mainly affect the CMB close to the last scattering surface, signatures associated with these scenarios essentially appear at low redshifts (z less than or similar to 50) when structure began to form, and thus manifest at lower multipoles in the CMB power spectrum. We use data from Planck, WMAP9, SPT and ACT, as well as Lyman-alpha measurements of the matter temperature at z similar to 4 to set a 95% confidence level lower bound on the dark matter lifetime of similar to 4 x 10(25) s for m(chi) = 100 MeV. This bound becomes lower by an order of magnitude at m(chi) = 1 TeV due to inefficient energy deposition into the inter-galactic medium. We also show that structure formation can enhance the effect of p-wave suppressed annihilation cross sections by many orders of magnitude with respect to the background cosmological rate, although even with this enhancement, CMB constraints are not yet strong enough to reach the thermal relic value of the cross section.
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Olmo, G. J., & Rubiera-Garcia, D. (2014). Semiclassical geons at particle accelerators. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 02(2), 010–25pp.
Abstract: We point out that in certain four-dimensional extensions of general relativity constructed within the Palatini formalism stable self-gravitating objects with a discrete mass and charge spectrum may exist. The incorporation of nonlinearities in the electromagnetic field may effectively reduce their mass spectrum by many orders of magnitude. As a consequence, these objects could be within (or near) the reach of current particle accelerators. We provide an exactly solvable model to support this idea.
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Racker, J. (2014). Mass bounds for baryogenesis from particle decays and the inert doublet model. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 03(3), 025–23pp.
Abstract: In models for thermal baryogenesis from particle decays, the mass of the decaying particle is typically many orders of magnitude above the TeV scale. We will discuss different ways to lower the energy scale of baryogenesis and present the corresponding lower bounds on the particle's mass. This is done specifically for the inert doublet model with heavy Majorana neutrinos and then we indicate how to extrapolate the results to other scenarios. We also revisit the question of whether or not dark matter, neutrino masses, and the cosmic baryon asymmetry can be explained simultaneously at low energies in the inert doublet model.
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Greynat, D., de Rafael, E., & Vulvert, G. (2014). Asymptotic behaviour of pion-pion total cross-sections. J. High Energy Phys., 03(3), 107–21pp.
Abstract: We derive a sum rule which shows that the Froissart-Martin bound for the asymptotic behaviour of the pi pi total cross sections at high energies, if modulated by the Lukaszuk-Martin coefficient of the leading log(2)s behaviour, cannot be an optimal bound in QCD. We next compute the total cross sections for pi(+)pi(-), pi(+/-)pi(0) and pi(0)pi(0) scattering within the framework of the constituent chiral quark model (C chi QM) in the limit of a large number of colours N-c and discuss their asymptotic behaviours. The same pi pi cross sections are also discussed within the general framework of Large-N-c QCD and we show that it is possible to make an Ansatz for the isospin I = 1 and I = 0 spectrum which satisfy the Froissart-Martin bound with coefficients which, contrary to the Lukaszuk-Martin coefficient, are not singular in the chiral limit and have the correct Large-N-c counting. We finally propose a simple phenomenological model which matches the low energy behaviours of the sigma(total)(pi +/-pi 0)(s) cross section predicted by the CxQM with the high energy behaviour predicted by the Large-N-c Ansatz. The magnitude of these cross sections at very high energies is of the order of those observed for the pp and pp scattering total cross sections.
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Carrasco, N., Ciuchini, M., Dimopoulos, P., Frezzotti, R., Gimenez, V., Herdoiza, G., et al. (2014). B-physics from N-f=2 tmQCD: the Standard Model and beyond. J. High Energy Phys., 03(3), 016–52pp.
Abstract: We present a lattice QCD computation of the b-quark mass, the B and B-s decay constants, the B-mixing bag parameters for the full four-fermion operator basis as well as determinations for xi and f(Bq) root B-i((q)) extrapolated to the continuum limit and to the physical pion mass. We used N-f = 2 twisted mass Wilson fermions at four values of the lattice spacing with pion masses ranging from 280 to 500 MeV. Extrapolation in the heavy quark mass from the charm to the bottom quark region has been carried out on ratios of physical quantities computed at nearby quark masses, exploiting the fact that they have an exactly known infinite mass limit. Our results are m(b)(m(b), (MS) over bar) = 4.29(12) GeV, f(Bs) = 228(8) MeV, f(B) = 189(8) MeV and f(Bs)/f(B) = 1.206(24). Moreover with our results for the bag-parameters we find xi = 1.225(31), B-1((s))/B-1((d)) = 1.01(2), f (Bd) root(B) over cap ((d))(1) = 216(10) MeV and integral Bs root(B) over cap ((s))(1) = 262(10) MeV. We also computed the bag parameters for the complete basis of the four-fermion operators which are required in beyond the SM theories. By using these results for the bag parameters we are able to provide a refined Unitarity Triangle analysis in the presence of New Physics, improving the bounds coming from B-(s) -(B) over bar ((s)) mixing.
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