Barenboim, G., Chen, J. Z., Hannestad, S., Oldengott, I. M., Tram, T., & Wong, Y. Y. Y. (2021). Invisible neutrino decay in precision cosmology. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 03(3), 087–53pp.
Abstract: We revisit the topic of invisible neutrino decay in the precision cosmological context, via a first-principles approach to understanding the cosmic microwave background and large-scale structure phenomenology of such a non-standard physics scenario. Assuming an effective Lagrangian in which a heavier standard-model neutrino nu(H) couples to a lighter one nu(l) and a massless scalar particle phi via a Yukawa interaction, we derive from first principles the complete set of Boltzmann equations, at both the spatially homogeneous and the firstorder inhomogeneous levels, for the phase space densities of nu(H), nu(l), and phi in the presence of the relevant decay and inverse decay processes. With this set of equations in hand, we perform a critical survey of recent works on cosmological invisible neutrino decay in both limits of decay while nu(H) is ultra-relativistic and non-relativistic. Our two main findings are: (i) in the non-relativistic limit, the effective equations of motion used to describe perturbations in the neutrino-scalar system in the existing literature formally violate momentum conservation and gauge invariance, and (ii) in the ultra-relativistic limit, exponential damping of the anisotropic stress does not occur at the commonly-used rate Gamma(T) = (1/tau(0))( m(nu H)/E-nu H)(3), but at a rate similar to (1/ tau(0))(m(nu H)/E-nu H)(5). Both results are model-independent. The impact of the former finding on the cosmology of invisible neutrino decay is likely small. The latter, however, implies a significant revision of the cosmological limit on the neutrino lifetime tau(0) from tau(old)(0) greater than or similar to 1.2 x 10(9) s (m(nu H)/50 meV)(3) to tau(0) greater than or similar to (4 x 10(5) -> 4 x 10(6)) s (m(nu H)/50 meV)(5).
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Barenboim, G., Chun, E. J., & Lee, H. M. (2014). Coleman-Weinberg inflation in light of Planck. Phys. Lett. B, 730, 81–88.
Abstract: We revisit a single field inflationary model based on Coleman-Weinberg potentials. We show that in small field Coleman-Weinberg inflation, the observed amplitude of perturbations needs an extremely small quartic coupling of the inflaton, which might be a signature of radiative origin. However, the spectral index obtained in a standard cosmological scenario turns out to be outside the 2 sigma region of the Planck data. When a non-standard cosmological framework is invoked, such as brane-world cosmology in the Randall-Sundrum model, the spectral index can be made consistent with Planck data within la, courtesy of the modification in the evolution of the Hubble parameter in such a scheme. We also show that the required inflaton quartic coupling as well as a phenomenologically viable B – L symmetry breaking together with a natural electroweak symmetry breaking can arise dynamically in a generalized B – L extension of the Standard Model where the full potential is assumed to vanish at a high scale.
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Barenboim, G., Martinez-Mirave, P., Ternes, C. A., & Tortola, M. (2020). Sterile neutrinos with altered dispersion relations revisited. J. High Energy Phys., 03(3), 070–18pp.
Abstract: In this paper we investigate neutrino oscillations with altered dispersion relations in the presence of sterile neutrinos. Modified dispersion relations represent an agnostic way to parameterize new physics. Models of this type have been suggested to explain global neutrino oscillation data, including deviations from the standard three-neutrino paradigm as observed by a few experiments. We show that, unfortunately, in this type of models new tensions arise turning them incompatible with global data.
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DUNE Collaboration(Abi, B. et al), Antonova, M., Barenboim, G., Cervera-Villanueva, A., De Romeri, V., Fernandez Menendez, P., et al. (2021). Searching for solar KDAR with DUNE. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 10(10), 065–28pp.
Abstract: The observation of 236 MeV muon neutrinos from kaon-decay-at-rest (KDAR) originating in the core of the Sun would provide a unique signature of dark matter annihilation. Since excellent angle and energy reconstruction are necessary to detect this monoenergetic, directional neutrino flux, DUNE with its vast volume and reconstruction capabilities, is a promising candidate for a KDAR neutrino search. In this work, we evaluate the proposed KDAR neutrino search strategies by realistically modeling both neutrino-nucleus interactions and the response of DUNE. We find that, although reconstruction of the neutrino energy and direction is difficult with current techniques in the relevant energy range, the superb energy resolution, angular resolution, and particle identification offered by DUNE can still permit great signal/background discrimination. Moreover, there are non-standard scenarios in which searches at DUNE for KDAR in the Sun can probe dark matter interactions.
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Barenboim, G., & Park, W. I. (2016). New- vs. chaotic- inflations. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 02(2), 061–20pp.
Abstract: We show that “spiralized” models of new-inflation can be experimentally identified mostly by their positive spectral running in direct contrast with most chaotic-inflation models which have negative runnings typically in the range of O(10(-4)-10(-3)).
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Barenboim, G., Bernabeu, J., Mitsou, V. A., Romero Adam, E., & Vives, O. (2016). METing SUSY on the Z peak. Eur. Phys. J. C, 76(2), 57–13pp.
Abstract: Recently the ATLAS experiment announced a 3 sigma excess at the Z-peak consisting of 29 pairs of leptons together with two or more jets, E-T(miss) > 225 GeV and H-T > 600 GeV, to be compared with 10.6 +/- 3.2 expected lepton pairs in the Standard Model. No excess outside the Z-peak was observed. By trying to explain this signal with SUSY we find that only relatively light gluinos, m((g) over bar) less than or similar to 1.2 TeV, together with a heavy neutralino NLSP of m((chi) over bar) greater than or similar to 400 GeV decaying predominantly to Z-boson plus a light gravitino, such that nearly every gluino produces at least one Z-boson in its decay chain, could reproduce the excess. We construct an explicit general gauge mediation model able to reproduce the observed signal overcoming all the experimental limits. Needless to say, more sophisticated models could also reproduce the signal, however, any model would have to exhibit the following features: light gluinos, or heavy particles with a strong production cross section, producing at least one Z-boson in its decay chain. The implications of our findings for the Run II at LHC with the scaling on the Z peak, as well as for the direct search of gluinos and other SUSY particles, are pointed out.
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Barenboim, G., Bosch, C., Lopez-Ibañez, M. L., & Vives, O. (2013). Eviction of a 125 GeV “heavy”-Higgs from the MSSM. J. High Energy Phys., 11(11), 051–39pp.
Abstract: We prove that the present experimental constraints are already enough to rule out the possibility of the similar to 125 GeV Higgs found at LHC being the second lightest Higgs in a general MSSM context, even with explicit CP violation in the Higgs potential. Contrary to previous studies, we are able to eliminate this possibility analytically, using simple expressions for a relatively small number of observables. We show that the present LHC constraints on the diphoton signal strength, tau tau production through Higgs and BR(B -> X-s gamma) are enough to preclude the possibility of H-2 being the observed Higgs with m(H) similar or equal to 125 GeV within an MSSM context, without leaving room for finely tuned cancellations. As a by-product, we also comment on the difficulties of an MSSM interpretation of the excess in the gamma gamma production cross section recently found at CMS that could correspond to a second Higgs resonance at m(H) similar or equal to 136 GeV.
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Oldengott, I. M., Barenboim, G., Kahlen, S., Salvado, J., & Schwarz, D. J. (2019). How to relax the cosmological neutrino mass bound. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 04(4), 049–18pp.
Abstract: We study the impact of non-standard momentum distributions of cosmic neutrinos on the anisotropy spectrum of the cosmic microwave background and the matter power spectrum of the large scale structure. We show that the neutrino distribution has almost no unique observable imprint, as it is almost entirely degenerate with the effective number of neutrino flavours, N-eff, and the neutrino mass, m(nu). Performing a Markov chain Monte Carlo analysis with current cosmological data, we demonstrate that the neutrino mass bound heavily depends on the assumed momentum distribution of relic neutrinos. The message of this work is simple and has to our knowledge not been pointed out clearly before: cosmology allows that neutrinos have larger masses if their average momentum is larger than that of a perfectly thermal distribution. Here we provide an example in which the mass limits are relaxed by a factor of two.
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Barenboim, G., & Park, W. I. (2017). A full picture of large lepton number asymmetries of the Universe. J. Cosmol. Astropart. Phys., 04(4), 048–10pp.
Abstract: A large lepton number asymmetry of O(0.1-1) at present Universe might not only be allowed but also necessary for consistency among cosmological data. We show that, if a sizeable lepton number asymmetry were produced before the electroweak phase transition, the requirement for not producing too much baryon number asymmetry through sphalerons processes, forces the high scale lepton number asymmetry to be larger than about 30. Therefore a mild entropy release causing O(10-100) suppression of pre-existing particle density should take place, when the background temperature of the Universe is around T = O(10(-2) -10(2)) GeV for a large but experimentally consistent asymmetry to be present today. We also show that such a mild entropy production can be obtained by the late-time decays of the saxion, constraining the parameters of the Peccei-Quinn sector such as the mass and the vacuum expectation value of the saxion field to be m(phi) greater than or similar to O(10) TeV and phi(0) greater than or similar to O(10(14)) GeV, respectively.
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DUNE Collaboration(Abud, A. A. et al), Amar Es-Sghir, H., Amedo, P., Antonova, M., Barenboim, G., Benitez Montiel, C., et al. (2024). Performance of a modular ton-scale pixel-readout liquid argon time projection chamber. Instruments, 8, 41–45pp.
Abstract: The Module-0 Demonstrator is a single-phase 600 kg liquid argon time projection chamber operated as a prototype for the DUNE liquid argon near detector. Based on the ArgonCube design concept, Module-0 features a novel 80k-channel pixelated charge readout and advanced high-coverage photon detection system. In this paper, we present an analysis of an eight-day data set consisting of 25 million cosmic ray events collected in the spring of 2021. We use this sample to demonstrate the imaging performance of the charge and light readout systems as well as the signal correlations between the two. We also report argon purity and detector uniformity measurements and provide comparisons to detector simulations.
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