De Romeri, V., Karamitros, D., Lebedev, O., & Toma, T. (2020). Neutrino dark matter and the Higgs portal: improved freeze-in analysis. J. High Energy Phys., 10(10), 137–41pp.
Abstract: Sterile neutrinos are one of the leading dark matter candidates. Their masses may originate from a vacuum expectation value of a scalar field. If the sterile neutrino couplings are very small and their direct coupling to the inflaton is forbidden by the lepton number symmetry, the leading dark matter production mechanism is the freeze-in scenario. We study this possibility in the neutrino mass range up to 1 GeV, taking into account relativistic production rates based on the Bose-Einstein statistics, thermal masses and phase transition effects. The specifics of the production mechanism and the dominant mode depend on the relation between the scalar and sterile neutrino masses as well as on whether or not the scalar is thermalized. We find that the observed dark matter abundance can be produced in all of the cases considered. We also revisit the freeze-in production of a Higgs portal scalar, pointing out the importance of a fusion mode, as well as the thermalization constraints.
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de Anda, F. J., Antoniadis, I., Valle, J. W. F., & Vaquera-Araujo, C. A. (2020). Scotogenic dark matter in an orbifold theory of flavor. J. High Energy Phys., 10(10), 190–13pp.
Abstract: We propose a flavour theory in which the family symmetry results naturally from a six-dimensional orbifold compactification. “Diracness” of neutrinos is a consequence of the spacetime dimensionality, and the fact that right-handed neutrinos live in the bulk. Dark matter is incorporated in a scotogenic way, as a result of an auxiliary Z(3) symmetry, and its stability is associated to the conservation of a “dark parity” symmetry. The model leads naturally to a “golden” quark-lepton mass relation.
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LHCb Collaboration(Aaij, R. et al), Garcia Martin, L. M., Henry, L., Jashal, B. K., Martinez-Vidal, F., Oyanguren, A., et al. (2020). Searches for low-mass dimuon resonances. J. High Energy Phys., 10(10), 156–26pp.
Abstract: Searches are performed for a low-mass dimuon resonance, X, produced in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, using a data sample corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5.1 fb(-1) and collected with the LHCb detector. The X bosons can either decay promptly or displaced from the proton-proton collision, where in both cases the requirements placed on the event and the assumptions made about the production mechanisms are kept as minimal as possible. The searches for promptly decaying X bosons explore the mass range from near the dimuon threshold up to 60 GeV, with nonnegligible X widths considered above 20 GeV. The searches for displaced X -> μ(+)mu (-) decays consider masses up to 3 GeV. None of the searches finds evidence for a signal and 90% confidence-level exclusion limits are placed on the X -> μ(+)mu (-) cross sections, each with minimal model dependence. In addition, these results are used to place world-leading constraints on GeV-scale bosons in the two-Higgs-doublet and hidden-valley scenarios.
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Penalva, N., Hernandez, E., & Nieves, J. (2021). The role of right-handed neutrinos in b -> c tau (pi nu(tau), rho nu(tau), mu(nu)over-bar(mu)nu(tau))(nu)over-bar(tau) from visible final-state kinematics. J. High Energy Phys., 10(10), 122–45pp.
Abstract: In the context of lepton flavor universality violation (LFUV) studies, we fully derive a general tensor formalism to investigate the role that left- and right-handed neutrino new-physics (NP) terms may have in b -> c tau(nu) over bar (tau) transitions. We present, for several extensions of the Standard Model (SM), numerical results for the Lambda(b) -> Lambda(c)tau(nu) over bar (tau) semileptonic decay, which is expected to be measured with precision at the LHCb. This reaction can be a new source of experimental information that can help to confirm, or maybe rule out, LFUV presently seen in (B) over bar meson decays. The present study analyzes observables that can help in distinguishing between different NP scenarios that otherwise provide very similar results for the branching ratios, which are our currently best hints for LFUV. Since the tau lepton is very short-lived, we consider three subsequent tau-decay modes, two hadronic pi nu(tau) and rho nu(tau) and one leptonic mu(nu) over bar (mu)nu(tau), which have been previously studied for (B) over bar -> D(*) decays. Within the tensor formalism that we have developed in previous works, we re-obtain the expressions for the differential decay width written in terms of visible (experimentally accessible) variables of the massive particle created in the tau decay. There are seven different tau angular and spin asymmetries that are defined in this way and that can be extracted from experiment. Those asymmetries provide observables that can help in constraining possible SM extensions.
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Eberhardt, O., Miralles, V., & Pich, A. (2021). Constraints on coloured scalars from global fits. J. High Energy Phys., 10(10), 123–23pp.
Abstract: We consider a simple extension of the electroweak theory, incorporating one SU(2)(L) doublet of colour-octet scalars with Yukawa couplings satisfying the principle of minimal flavour violation. Using the HEPfit package, we perform a global fit to the available data, including all relevant theoretical constraints, and extract the current bounds on the model parameters. Coloured scalars with masses below 1.05 TeV are already excluded, provided they are not fermiophobic. The mass splittings among the different (charged and CP-even and CP-odd neutral) scalars are restricted to be smaller than 20 GeV. Moreover, for scalar masses smaller than 1.5 TeV, the Yukawa coupling of the coloured scalar multiplet to the top quark cannot exceed the one of the SM Higgs doublet by more than 80%. These conclusions are quite generic and apply in more general frameworks (without fine tunings). The theoretical requirements of perturbative unitarity and vacuum stability enforce relevant constraints on the quartic scalar potential parameters that are not yet experimentally tested.
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