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Dercks, D., Dreiner, H. K., Hirsch, M., & Wang, Z. S. (2019). Long-lived fermions at AL3X. Phys. Rev. D, 99(5), 055020–10pp.
Abstract: Recently Gligorov et al. [V. V. Gligorov et al., Phys. Rev. D 99, 015023 (2019)] proposed to build a cylindrical detector named AL3X close to the ALICE experiment at interaction point (IP) 2 of the LHC, aiming for discovery of long-lived particles (LLPs) during Run 5 of the HL-LHC. We investigate the potential sensitivity reach of this detector in the parameter space of different new-physics models with long-lived fermions namely heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) and light supersymmetric neutralinos, which have both not previously been studied in this context. Our results show that the AL3X reach can be complementary or superior to that of other proposed detectors such as CODEX-b, FASER, MATHUSLA and SHiP.
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Dib, C., Helo, J. C., Hirsch, M., Kovalenko, S., & Schmidt, I. (2012). Heavy sterile neutrinos in tau decays and the MiniBooNE anomaly. Phys. Rev. D, 85(1), 011301–4pp.
Abstract: Current results of the MiniBooNE experiment show excess events that indicate neutrino oscillations, but only if one goes beyond the standard 3 family scenario. Recently a different explanation of the events has been given, not in terms of oscillations but by the production and decay of a massive sterile neutrino with large transition magnetic moment. We study the effect of such a sterile neutrino in the rare decays tau(-) -> mu(-)mu(+)pi(-)nu and tau(-) -> mu(-)mu(+)e(-)nu nu. We find that searches for these decays, featuring displaced vertices between the mu(-) and the other charged particles, constitute reliable tests for the existence of the sterile neutrino proposed to explain the MiniBooNE anomaly. These searches could be done with already existing experimental data.
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Escribano, P., Hirsch, M., Nava, J., & Vicente, A. (2022). Observable flavor violation from spontaneous lepton number breaking. J. High Energy Phys., 01(1), 098–31pp.
Abstract: We propose a simple model of spontaneous lepton number violation with potentially large flavor violating decays, including the possibility that majoron emitting decays, such as μ-> e J, saturate the experimental bounds. In this model the majoron is a singlet-doublet admixture. It generates a type-I seesaw for neutrino masses and contains also a vector-like lepton. As a by-product, the model can explain the anomalous (g – 2)(mu), in parts of its parameter space, where one expects that the branching ratio of the Higgs to muons is changed with respect to Standard Model expectations. However, the explanation of the muon g – 2 anomaly would lead to tension with recent astrophysical bounds on the majoron coupling to muons.
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Esteves, J. N., Romao, J. C., Hirsch, M., Porod, W., Staub, F., & Vicente, A. (2012). Dark matter and LHC phenomenology in a left-right supersymmetric model. J. High Energy Phys., 01(1), 095–33pp.
Abstract: Left-right symmetric extensions of the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model can explain neutrino data and have potentially interesting phenomenology beyond that found in minimal SUSY seesaw models. Here we study a SUSY model in which the left-right symmetry is broken by triplets at a high scale, but significantly below the GUT scale. Sparticle spectra in this model differ from the usual constrained MSSM expectations and these changes affect the relic abundance of the lightest neutralino. We discuss changes for the standard stau (and stop) co-annihilation, the Higgs funnel and the focus point regions. The model has potentially large lepton flavour violation in both, left and right, scalar leptons and thus allows, in principle, also for flavoured co-annihilation. We also discuss lepton flavour signals due to violating decays of the second lightest neutralino at the LHC, which can be as large as 20 fb(-1) at root s = 14 TeV.
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Esteves, J. N., Romao, J. C., Hirsch, M., Staub, F., & Porod, W. (2011). Supersymmetric type-III seesaw mechanism: Lepton flavor violating decays and dark matter. Phys. Rev. D, 83(1), 013003–21pp.
Abstract: We study a supersymmetric version of the seesaw mechanism type III. The model consists of the minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model particle content plus three copies of 24 superfields. The fermionic part of the SU(2) triplet contained in the 24 is responsible for the type-III seesaw, which is used to explain the observed neutrino masses and mixings. Complete copies of 24 are introduced to maintain gauge coupling unification. These additional states change the beta functions of the gauge couplings above the seesaw scale. Using minimal Supergravity boundary conditions, we calculate the resulting supersymmetric mass spectra at the electroweak scale using full 2-loop renormalization group equations. We show that the resulting spectrum can be quite different compared to the usual minimal Supergravity spectrum. We discuss how this might be used to obtain information on the seesaw scale from mass measurements. Constraints on the model space due to limits on lepton flavour violating decays are discussed. The main constraints come from the bounds on μ-> e gamma but there are also regions where the decay tau -> μgamma gives stronger constraints. We also calculate the regions allowed by the dark matter constraint. For the sake of completeness, we compare our results with those for the supersymmetric seesaw type II and, to some extent, with type I.
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Esteves, J. N., Romao, J. C., Hirsch, M., Vicente, A., Porod, W., & Staub, F. (2010). LHC and lepton flavour violation phenomenology of a left-right extension of the MSSM. J. High Energy Phys., 12(12), 077–44pp.
Abstract: We study the phenomenology of a supersymmetric left-right model, assuming minimal supergravity boundary conditions. Both left-right and (B-L) symmetries are broken at an energy scale close to, but significantly below the GUT scale. Neutrino data is explained via a seesaw mechanism. We calculate the RGEs for superpotential and soft parameters complete at 2-loop order. At low energies lepton flavour violation (LFV) and small, but potentially measurable mass splittings in the charged scalar lepton sector appear, due to the RGE running. Different from the supersymmetric “pure seesaw” models, both, LFV and slepton mass splittings, occur not only in the left-but also in the right slepton sector. Especially, ratios of LFV slepton decays, such as Br((tau) over bar (R) -> μchi(0)(1))/Br((tau) over bar (L) -> μchi(0)(1)) are sensitive to the ratio of (B-L) and left-right symmetry breaking scales. Also the model predicts a polarization asymmetry of the outgoing positrons in the decay mu(+) -> e(+)gamma, A similar to [0, 1], which differs from the pure seesaw “prediction” A = 1. Observation of any of these signals allows to distinguish this model from any of the three standard, pure (mSugra) seesaw setups.
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Feng, J. L. et al, Garcia Soto, A., & Hirsch, M. (2023). The Forward Physics Facility at the High-Luminosity LHC. J. Phys. G, 50(3), 030501–410pp.
Abstract: High energy collisions at the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider (LHC) produce a large number of particles along the beam collision axis, outside of the acceptance of existing LHC experiments. The proposed Forward Physics Facility (FPF), to be located several hundred meters from the ATLAS interaction point and shielded by concrete and rock, will host a suite of experiments to probe standard model (SM) processes and search for physics beyond the standard model (BSM). In this report, we review the status of the civil engineering plans and the experiments to explore the diverse physics signals that can be uniquely probed in the forward region. FPF experiments will be sensitive to a broad range of BSM physics through searches for new particle scattering or decay signatures and deviations from SM expectations in high statistics analyses with TeV neutrinos in this low-background environment. High statistics neutrino detection will also provide valuable data for fundamental topics in perturbative and non-perturbative QCD and in weak interactions. Experiments at the FPF will enable synergies between forward particle production at the LHC and astroparticle physics to be exploited. We report here on these physics topics, on infrastructure, detector, and simulation studies, and on future directions to realize the FPF's physics potential.
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Fonseca, R. M., & Hirsch, M. (2018). Delta L >= 4 lepton number violating processes. Phys. Rev. D, 98(1), 015035–12pp.
Abstract: We discuss the experimental prospects for observing processes which violate lepton number (Delta L) in four units ( or more). First, we reconsider neutrinoless quadruple beta decay, deriving a model independent and very conservative lower limit on its half- life of the order of 10(41) ys for Nd-150. This renders quadruple beta decay unobservable for any feasible experiment. We then turn to a more general discussion of different possible low-energy processes with values Delta L >= 4. A simple operator analysis leads to rather pessimistic conclusions about the observability at low-energy experiments in all cases we study. However, the situation looks much brighter for accelerator experiments. For two example models with Delta L = 4 and another one with Delta L = 5, we show how the LHC or a hypothetical future pp collider, such as the FCC, could probe multilepton number violating operators at the TeV scale.
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Fonseca, R. M., & Hirsch, M. (2017). Gauge vectors and double beta decay. Phys. Rev. D, 95(3), 035033–14pp.
Abstract: We discuss contributions to neutrinoless double beta (0 nu beta beta) decay involving vector bosons. The starting point is a list of all possible vector representations that may contribute to 0 nu beta beta decay via d = 9 or d = 11 operators at tree level. We then identify gauge groups which contain these vectors in the adjoint representation. Even though the complete list of vector fields that can contribute to 0 nu beta beta up to d = 11 is large (a total of 46 vectors), only a few of them can be gauge bosons of phenomenologically realistic groups. These latter cases are discussed in some more detail, and lower (upper) limits on gauge boson masses (mixing angles) are derived from the absence of 0 nu beta beta decay.
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Fonseca, R. M., & Hirsch, M. (2016). A flipped 331 model. J. High Energy Phys., 08(8), 003–12pp.
Abstract: Models based on the extended SU(3)(C) x SU(3)(L) x U(1)(X) (331) gauge group usually follow a common pattern: two families of left-handed quarks are placed in anti triplet representations of the SU(3)(L) group; the remaining quark family, as well as the left-handed leptons, are assigned to triplets (or vice-versa). In this work we present a flipped 331 model where this scheme is reversed: all three quark families are in the same representation and it is the lepton families which are discriminated by the gauge symmetry. We discuss fermion masses and mixing, as well as Z' interactions, in a minimal model implementing this idea.
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