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Shelton, Jessie (ORCID:0000000209596360)

Publications and source records attributed to Shelton, Jessie (ORCID:0000000209596360).

Axion baryogenesis puts a new spin on the Hubble tension

We show that a rotating axion field that makes a transition from a matterlike equation of state to a kinationlike equation of state around the epoch of recombination can significantly ameliorate the Hubble tension, i.e., the discrepancy between the determinations of the present-day expansion rate H 0 from observations of the cosmic microwave background on one hand and type Ia supernovae on the other. We consider a specific, UV-complete model of such a rotating axion and find that it can relax the Hubble tension without exacerbating tensions in determinations of other cosmological parameters, in particular the amplitude of matter fluctuations S 8 . We subsequently demonstrate how this rotating axion model can also generate the baryon asymmetry of our Universe, by introducing a coupling of the axion field to right-handed neutrinos. This baryogenesis model predicts heavy neutral leptons that are most naturally within reach of future lepton colliders, but in finely tuned regions of parameter space may also be accessible at the high-luminosity LHC and the beam dump experiment SHiP. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Co, Raymond T. (ORCID:0000000283957056)↗

Searching for long-lived particles beyond the Standard Model at the Large Hadron Collider

Particles beyond the Standard Model (SM) can generically have lifetimes that are long compared to SM particles at the weak scale. When produced at experiments such as the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, these long-lived particles (LLPs) can decay far from the interaction vertex of the primary proton–proton collision. Such LLP signatures are distinct from those of promptly decaying particles that are targeted by the majority of searches for new physics at the LHC, often requiring customized techniques to identify, for example, significantly displaced decay vertices, tracks with atypical properties, and short track segments. Given their non-standard nature, a comprehensive overview of LLP signatures at the LHC is beneficial to ensure that possible avenues of the discovery of new physics are not overlooked. Here we report on the joint work of a community of theorists and experimentalists with the ATLAS, CMS, and LHCb experiments—as well as those working on dedicated experiments such as MoEDAL, milliQan, MATHUSLA, CODEX-b, and FASER—to survey the current state of LLP searches at the LHC, and to chart a path for the development of LLP searches into the future, both in the upcoming Run 3 and at the high-luminosity LHC. The work is organized around the current and future potential capabilities of LHC experiments to generally discover new LLPs, and takes a signature-based approach to surveying classes of models that give rise to LLPs rather than emphasizing any particular theory motivation. We develop a set of simplified models; assess the coverage of current searches; document known, often unexpected backgrounds; explore the capabilities of proposed detector upgrades; provide recommendations for the presentation of search results; and look towards the newest frontiers, namely high-multiplicity 'dark showers', highlighting opportunities for expanding the LHC reach for these signals.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗