1,721,039 research outputs found

    Viability of SUSY-GUT paradigm after LHC

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    The SUSY-GUT paradigm is the most promising scenario for the physics beyond the Standard Model. After the LHC run I, it is of interest to reanalyze the room still remaining for SUSY-GUT inspired models and to study the limits on the SUSY mass spectrum. Assuming one step unification of gauge couplings, under some natural requirements we have obtained the energy upper bound for the observation of SUSY phenomenology. We found that in the SUSY-GUT framework the mass of lightest gluino or Higgsino cannot be larger than about 20TeV

    IceCube PeV neutrinos and leptophilic dark matter

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    We analyze the scenario where the IceCube high energy neutrino events are explained in terms of an extraterrestrial flux due to two different components: a contribution coming from know astrophysical sources for energies up to few hundreds TeV and a top-down contribution originated by the decay of heavy dark matter particles with a mass of few PeV. Contrary to previous approaches, we consider a leptophilic three-body decay that dominates at PeV energies due to the absence of quarks in the final state. We find that the theoretical predictions of such a scenario are in a slightly better agreement with the IceCube data if the astrophysical component has a cut-off at about 100 TeV. This interpretation of IceCube data can be easily tested in the near future since the decaying dark matter scenario predicts a sharp cut-off at PeV energy scale and the observation of an anisotropy towards Galactic Center of our Galaxy in contrast with the isotropic astrophysical flux

    The IceCube low-energy excess: A Dark Matter interpretation

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    The recent study on the 6 year up-going muon neutrinos by the IceCube Collaboration support the hypothesis of a two-component scenario explaining the diffuse TeV-PeV neutrino flux. Once a hard astrophysical power-law is considered, an excess in the IceCube data is shown in the energy range 10–100 TeV (low-energy excess). By means of a statistical analysis on the neutrino energy spectrum and on the angular distribution of neutrino arrival directions, we characterize a two-component neutrino flux where decaying/annihilating Dark Matter particles provide a contribution to the IceCube observations

    Session V - Particle physics in the cosmos

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    The investigation of fundamental physics via observations of particles of astrophysical and cosmological origin is an active research area that is independent from and complementary to terrestrial searches. Here we summarize the “Particle physics in the cosmos” session of the NOW 2022 edition. The focus of this session has been on recent advances, from both theoretical and experimental perspectives, in our understanding of neutrino and dark matter properties

    A consistent theory of decaying Dark Matter connecting IceCube to the Sesame Street

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    The high energy events observed at the IceCube Neutrino Observatory have triggered many investigations interpreting the highly energetic neutrinos detected as decay products of heavy unstable Dark Matter particles. However, while very detailed treatments of the IceCube phenomenology exist, only a few references focus on the (non-trivial) Dark Matter production part - and all of those rely on relatively complicated new models which are not always testable directly. We instead investigate two of the most minimal scenarios possible, where the operator responsible for the IceCube events is directly involved in Dark Matter production. We show that the simplest (four-dimensional) operator is not powerful enough to accommodate all constraints. A more non-minimal setting (at mass dimension six), however, can do both fitting all the data and also allowing for a comparatively small parameter space only, parts of which can be in reach of future observations. We conclude that minimalistic approaches can be enough to explain all data required, while complicated new physics seems not to be required by IceCube

    The dark side of the Littlest Seesaw: Freeze-in, the two right-handed neutrino portal and leptogenesis-friendly fimpzillas

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    We propose a minimal model to simultaneously account for a realistic neutrino spectrum through a type-I seesaw mechanism and a viable dark matter relic density. The model is an extension of the Littlest Seesaw model in which the two right-handed neutrinos of the model are coupled to a Z2-odd dark sector via right-handed neutrino portal couplings. In this model, a highly constrained and direct link between dark matter and neutrino physics is achieved by considering the freeze-in production mechanism of dark matter. We show that the neutrino Yukawa couplings which describe neutrino mass and mixing may also play a dominant role in the dark matter production. We investigate the allowed regions in the parameter space of the model that provide the correct neutrino masses and mixing and simultaneously give the correct dark matter relic abundance. In certain cases the right-handed neutrino mass may be arbitrarily large, for example in the range 1010-1011 GeV required for vanilla leptogenesis, with a successful relic density arising from frozen-in dark matter particles with masses around this scale, which we refer to as "fimpzillas"

    Dark matter in the type Ib seesaw model

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    We consider a minimal type Ib seesaw model where the effective neutrino mass operator involves two different Higgs doublets, and the two right-handed neutrinos form a heavy Dirac mass. We propose a minimal dark matter extension of this model, in which the Dirac heavy neutrino is coupled to a dark Dirac fermion and a dark complex scalar field, both charged under a discrete Z2 symmetry, where the lighter of the two is a dark matter candidate. Focussing on the fermionic dark matter case, we explore the parameter space of the seesaw Yukawa couplings, the neutrino portal couplings and dark scalar to dark fermion mass ratio, where correct dark matter relic abundance can be produced by the freeze-in mechanism. By considering the mixing between the standard model neutrinos and the heavy neutrino, we build a connection between the dark matter production and current laboratory experiments ranging from collider to lepton flavour violating experiments. For a GeV mass heavy neutrino, the parameters related to dark matter production are constrained by the experimental results directly and can be further tested by future experiments such as SHiP

    Interplay between neutrino and gravity portals for FIMP dark matter

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    In the classic type I seesaw mechanism with very heavy right-handed (RH) neutrinos, it is possible to account for dark matter via RH neutrino portal couplings to a feebly interacting massive particle (FIMP) dark sector. However, for large RH neutrino masses, gravity can play an important role. We study the interplay between the neutrino portal through the right-handed neutrinos and the gravity portal through the massless spin-2 graviton in producing dark matter particles in the early universe. As a concrete example, we consider the minimal and realistic Littlest Seesaw model with two RH neutrinos, augmented with a dark scalar and a dark fermion charged under a global U(1)D dark symmetry. In the model, the usual seesaw neutrino Yukawa couplings and the right-handed neutrino masses (the lightest being about 5×1010 GeV) are fixed by neutrino oscillations data and leptogenesis. Hence, we explore the parameter space of the two RH neutrino portal couplings, the two dark particle masses and the reheating temperature of the universe, where the correct dark matter relic abundance is achieved through the freeze-in mechanism. In particular, we highlight which class of processes dominate the dark matter production. We find that, despite the presence of the gravity portal, the dark matter production relies on the usual seesaw neutrino Yukawa coupling in some regions of the parameter space, so realising a direct link between dark matter and neutrino phenomenology. Finally, we report the threshold values for the neutrino portal couplings below which the neutrino portal is irrelevant and the Planckian Interacting Dark Matter paradigm is preserved
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