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At least 379 records · Page 21

Neutral-current neutrino scattering from the deuteron

Neutral-current neutrino scattering from the deuteron leading to proton-neutron final states is considered using an approach that incorporates relativistic dynamics and consequently provides robust modeling at relatively high energies and momenta. In this work the focus is placed on the fully exclusive reaction where both the proton and neutron in the final state are assumed to be detected. Accordingly, the incident neutrino energy, the neutrino scattering angle and the scattered neutrino's energy can all be reconstructed. It is shown that for specific choices of kinematics the reaction proceeds mainly via scattering from the proton, while for other choices of kinematics it proceeds mainly from the neutron. Specific asymmetries are introduced to focus on these attributes. Measurements in both regions have the potential to yield valuable information on the nucleon's electroweak form factors at momentum transfers up to a (GeV/c)$^2$. In particular, the cross sections are shown to be very sensitive to the isoscalar axial-vector form factor, and sensitive but less so to the magnetic strangeness form factor. Comparisons with other reactions, specifically charge-changing neutrino reactions and both parity-conserving and -violating electron scattering, have the potential to provide new ways to test the Standard Model.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Weak charge and weak radius of 12 C

Here, we present a feasibility study of a simultaneous sub-percent extraction of the weak charge and the weak radius of the 12 C nucleus using parity-violating electron scattering, based on a largely model-independent assessment of the uncertainties. The corresponding measurement is considered to be carried out at the future MESA facility in Mainz with E beam = 155 MeV. We find that a combination of a 0.3% precise measurement of the parity-violating asymmetry at forward angles with a 10% measurement at backward angles will allow to determine the weak charge and the weak radius of 12 C with 0.4% and 0.5% precision, respectively. These values could be improved to 0.3% and 0.2% for a 3% backward measurement. This experimental program will have impact on precision low-energy tests in the electroweak sector and nuclear structure.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Densities and momentum distributions in A ≤ 12 nuclei from chiral effective field theory interactions

Current and future electron and neutrino scattering experiments will be greatly aided by a better understanding of the role played by short-range correlations in nuclei. Two-body physics, including nucleon-nucleon correlations and two-body electroweak currents, is required to explain the body of experimental data for both static and dynamical nuclear properties. In this work, we focus on examining nucleon-nucleon correlations from a chiral effective field theory perspective and provide a comprehensive set of new variational Monte Carlo calculations of one- and two-body densities and momentum distributions based on the Norfolk many-body nuclear Hamiltonians for A ≤ 12 systems. Here, online access to detailed tables and figures is available.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Magnetic moments of A = 3 nuclei obtained from chiral effective field theory operators

Chiral effective field theory (χEFT) provides a framework for obtaining internucleon interactions in a systematically improvable fashion from first principles, while also providing for the derivation of consistent electroweak current operators. In this study, we apply consistently derived interactions and currents towards calculating the magnetic dipole moments of the A = 3 systems 3 H and 3 He. We focus here on LENPIC interactions obtained using semilocal coordinate-space (SCS) regularization. Starting from the momentum-space representation of the LENPIC χEFT vector current, we derive the SCS-regularized magnetic dipole operator up through next-to-next-to-leading order (N 2 LO). We then carry out no-core shell-model calculations for 3 H and 3 He systems using the SCS LENPIC interaction at N 2 LO in χEFT and evaluate the magnetic dipole moments obtained using the consistently derived one-nucleon and two-nucleon electromagnetic currents. As anticipated by prior results with χEFT currents, the current corrections through N 2 LO provide improved, but not yet complete, agreement with experiment for the 3 H and 3 He magnetic dipole moments.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Muon capture on Li 6 , C 12 , and O 16 from ab initio nuclear theory

Muon capture on nuclei is one of the most promising probes of the nuclear electroweak current driving the yet-hypothetical neutrinoless double-beta (0νββ) decay. Both processes involve vector and axial-vector currents at finite momentum transfer, q ~ 100 MeV, as well as the induced pseu doscalar and weak-magnetism currents. Comparing measured muon-capture rates with reliable ab initio nuclear-theory predictions could help us validate these currents. To this end, we compute partial muon-capture rates for 6 Li, 12 C and 16 O, feeding the ground and excited states in 6 He, 12 B and 16 N, using ab initio no-core shell model with two- and three-nucleon chiral interactions. Here, we remove the spurious center-of-mass motion by introducing translationally invariant operators and approximate the effect of hadronic two-body currents by Fermi-gas model. We solve the bound-muon wave function from the Dirac wave equations in the Coulomb field created by a finite nucleus. We find that the computed rates to the low-lying states in the final nuclei are in good agreement with the measured counterparts. We highlight sensitivity of some of the transitions to the sub-leading three-nucleon interaction terms. We also compare summed rates to several tens of final states with the measured total capture rates and note that we slightly underestimate the total rate with this simple approach due to limited range of excitation energies

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Uncertainty-quantification-enabled inversion of nuclear responses

Nuclear quantum many-body methods rely on integral transform techniques to infer properties of electroweak response functions from ground-state expectation values. Retrieving the energy dependence of these responses is highly nontrivial, especially for quantum Monte Carlo methods, as it requires inverting the Laplace transform, a notoriously ill-posed problem. Here, in this work, we propose an artificial neural network architecture suitable for accurate response function reconstruction with precise estimation of the uncertainty of the inversion. We demonstrate the capabilities of this new architecture benchmarking it against maximum entropy and previously developed neural network methods designed for a similar task, paying particular attention to its robustness noise in the Euclidean

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗

Study of the normalized transverse momentum distribution of W bosons produced in $p\bar{p}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 1.96 TeV

We present a study of the normalized transverse momentum distribution of W bosons produced in $p\bar{p}$ collisions, using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 4.35 fb -1 collected with the D0 detector at the Fermilab Tevatron collider at $\sqrt{s}$ = 1.96 TeV. The measurement focuses on the transverse momentum region below 15 GeV, which is of special interest for electroweak precision measurements; it relies on the same detector calibration methods which were used for the precision measurement of the W boson mass. The measured distribution is compared to different QCD predictions and a procedure is given to allow the comparison of any further theoretical models to the D0 data.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Shifted μ -hybrid inflation, gravitino dark matter, and observable gravity waves

We investigate supersymmetric hybrid inflation in a realistic model based on the gauge symmetry SU(4) c × SU(2) L × SU(2) R . The minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) μ term arises, following Dvali, Lazarides, and Shafi, from the coupling of the MSSM electroweak doublets to a gauge singlet superfield which plays an essential role in inflation. The primordial monopoles are inflated away by arranging that the SU(4) c × SU(2) L × SU(2) R symmetry is broken along the inflationary trajectory. The interplay between the (above) μ coupling, the gravitino mass, and the reheating following inflation is discussed in detail. We explore regions of the parameter space that yield gravitino dark matter and observable gravity waves with the tensor-to-scalar ratio r ~ 10 –4 –10 –3 .

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Quasielastic electromagnetic scattering cross sections and world data comparisons in the GENIE Monte Carlo event generator

The usage of Monte Carlo neutrino event generators (MC$\textit{ν}$EGs) is a norm within the high-energy $\textit{ν}$ scattering community. The relevance of quasielastic (QE) energy regimes to $\textit{ν}$ oscillation experiments implies that accurate calculations of $\textit{ν}$A cross sections in this regime will be a key contributor to reducing the systematic uncertainties affecting the extraction of oscillation parameters. In spite of this, many MC$\textit{ν}$EGs utilize highly phenomenological, parametrized models of QE scattering cross sections. Moreover, a culture of validation of MC$\textit{ν}$EGs against prolific electron ($\textit{e}$) scattering data has been historically lacking. In this work, we implement new eA cross sections obtained from nuclear ab initio approaches in GENIE, the primary MC$\textit{ν}$EG utilized by the FNAL community. In particular, we utilize results from quantum MC methods which solve the many-body nuclear problem in the short-time approximation (STA), allowing consistent retention of two-nucleon dynamics which are crucial to explain available nuclear electromagnetic (electroweak) data over a wide range of energy and momentum transfers. This new implementation in GENIE is fully tested against the world QE electromagnetic data, finding agreement with available data below ~2 GeV of beam energy with the aid of a scaling function formalism. The STA is currently limited to study $\textit{A}$ ≤ 12 nuclei, however, its semi-inclusive multibody identity components are exportable to other many-body computational techniques such as auxiliary field diffusion MC which can reach $\textit{A}$ ≤ 40 systems while continuing to realize the factorization contained within the STA’s multinucleon dynamics. Together, these developments promise to make future experiments such as DUNE more accurate in their assessment of MC$\textit{ν}$EG systematics, $\textit{ν}$ properties, and potentially empower the discovery of physics beyond the Standard Model.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Impact of a midband gravitational wave experiment on detectability of cosmological stochastic gravitational wave backgrounds

In this report we make forecasts for the impact a future “midband” space-based gravitational wave experiment, most sensitive to 10 -2 - 10Hz,could have on potential detections of cosmological stochastic gravitational wave backgrounds (SGWBs). Specific proposed midband experiments considered are TianGo, B-DECIGO, and AEDGE. We propose a combined power-law integrated sensitivity (CPLS) curve combining GW experiments over different frequency bands, which shows the midband improves sensitivity to SGWBs by up to two orders of magnitude at 10 -2 - 10 Hz . We consider GW emission from cosmic strings and phase transitions as benchmark examples of cosmological SGWBs. We explicitly model various astrophysical SGWB sources, most importantly from unresolved black hole mergers. Using Markov Chain Monte Carlo, we demonstrated that midband experiments can, when combined with LIGO A+ and LISA, significantly improve sensitivities to cosmological SGWBs and better separate them from astrophysical SGWBs. In particular, we forecast that a midband experiment improves sensitivity to cosmic string tension G μ by up to a factor of 10, driven by improved component separation from astrophysical sources. For phase transitions, a midband experiment can detect signals peaking at 0.1–1 Hz, which for our fiducial model corresponds to early Universe temperatures of T * ~10 4 – 10 6 GeV , generally beyond the reach of LIGO and LISA. The midband closes an energy gap and better captures characteristic spectral shape information. It thus substantially improves measurement of the properties of phase transitions at lower energies of T * ~ O(10 3 ) GeV , potentially relevant to new physics at the electroweak scale, whereas in this energy range LISA alone will detect an excess but not effectively measure the phase transition parameters. Our modeling code and chains are publicly available.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

Bulk viscosity from Urca processes: npeμ matter in the neutrino-trapped regime

In this work, we extend our previous study of the bulk viscosity of hot and dense npe matter induced by the Urca process in the neutrino trapped regime to npeμ matter by adding the muonic Urca processes as well as the purely leptonic electroweak processes involving electron-muon transition. Here, the nuclear matter is modeled in a relativistic density functional approach with two different parametrizations which predict neutrino dominated matter (DDME2 model) and anti-neutrino dominated matter (NL3 model) at temperatures for which neutrinos/anti-neutrinos are trapped. In the case of neutrino-dominated matter, the main equilibration mechanism is lepton capture, whereas in the case of antineutrino-dominated matter this is due to neutron decay. We find that the equilibration rates of Urca processes are higher than that of the pure leptonic processes, which implies that the Urca bulk viscosity can be computed with the leptonic reactions assumed to be frozen. We find that the bulk viscosity decreases with temperature as ζ~T –2 at moderate temperatures. At high temperatures this scaling breaks down by sharp drops of the bulk viscosity close to the temperature where the proton fraction is density-independent and the matter becomes scale-invariant. This occurs also when the matter undergoes a transition from the antineutrino-dominated regime to the neutrino-dominated regime where the bulk viscosity attains a local maximum. We also estimate the bulk viscous dissipation timescales and find that these are in the range ≳ 1 s for temperatures above the neutrino trapping temperature. These timescales would be relevant only for long-lived objects formed in binary neutron star mergers and hot proto-neutron stars formed in core-collapse supernovas.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Constraints on anomalous Higgs boson couplings to vector bosons and fermions from the production of Higgs bosons using the 𝜏⁢𝜏 final state

A study of anomalous couplings of the Higgs boson to vector bosons and fermions is presented. The data were recorded by the CMS experiment at a center-of-mass energy of pp collisions at the LHC of 13 TeV and correspond to an integrated luminosity of 138 fb −1 . The study uses Higgs boson candidates produced mainly in gluon fusion or electroweak vector boson fusion at the LHC that subsequently decay to a pair of 𝜏 leptons. Matrix-element and machine-learning techniques were employed in a search for anomalous interactions. The results are combined with those from the four-lepton and two-photon decay channels to yield the most stringent constraints on anomalous Higgs boson couplings to date. The pure 𝐶⁢𝑃-odd scenario of the Higgs boson coupling to gluons is excluded at 2.4 standard deviations. The results are consistent with the standard model predictions.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Single phonon detection for dark matter via quantum evaporation and sensing of He 3

Dark matter is five times more abundant than ordinary visible matter in our Universe. While laboratory searches hunting for dark matter have traditionally focused on the electroweak scale, theories of low mass hidden sectors motivate new detection techniques. Extending these searches to lower mass ranges, well below 1 GeV / c 2 , poses new challenges as rare interactions with standard model matter transfer progressively less energy to electrons and nuclei in detectors. Here, we propose an approach based on phonon-assisted quantum evaporation combined with quantum sensors for detection of desorption events via tracking of spin coherence. The intent of our proposed dark matter sensors is to extend the parameter space to energy transfers in rare interactions to as low as a few meV for detection of dark matter particles in the keV / c 2 mass range. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Top Yukawa coupling determination at high energy muon collider

The Top Yukawa coupling profoundly influences several core mysteries linked to the electroweak scale and the Higgs boson. We study the feasibility of measuring the Top Yukawa coupling at high energy muon colliders by examining the high energy dynamics of the weak boson fusion to top quark pair processes. A deviation of the Top Yukawa coupling from the Standard Model would lead to a modified VV → t⁢t¯ process, violating unitarity at high energy. Our analysis reveals that utilizing a muon collider with a center-of-mass energy of 10 TeV and an integrated luminosity of 10 ab –1 allows us to investigate the Top Yukawa coupling with a precision surpassing 1.5%, more than one order of magnitude better than the precision from t⁢t¯⁢ℎ channel at muon colliders. This precision represents a notable enhancement compared to the anticipated sensitivities of the High-Luminosity LHC (3.4%) and those at muon colliders derived from the t⁢t¯H process.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Nonperturbative running of the tensor operator for N f = 3 QCD from the chirally rotated Schrödinger functional

We study the renormalization group (RG) running of the nonsinglet tensor operator, for N f = 3 QCD with Wilson fermions in a mixed action setup, with standard Schrödinger functional (SF) boundary conditions for sea quarks and chirally rotated Schrödinger functional ( χ SF ) boundary conditions for valence quarks. Based on a recursive finite-size scaling technique we compute nonperturbatively the tensor step-scaling function for an energy range between a hadronic scale and an electroweak scale, above which perturbation theory may be safely applied. Our result is expressed as the RG-running factor T RGI / [ T ( μ had ) ] R , where the numerator is the scale independent (renormalization group invariant—RGI) tensor operator and the denominator is its renormalized counterpart at a hadronic scale μ had = 233 ( 8 ) MeV in a given scheme. We determine the step-scaling function in four distinct renormalization schemes. We also compute the renormalization parameters of these schemes at μ had which, combined with the RG-running factor, gives the scheme-independent quantity Z T RGI ( g 0 2 ) in four schemes and for a range of bare gauge couplings in which large volume hadronic matrix element simulations are performed by the CLS consortium in N f = 2 + 1 QCD. All four results are compatible and also agree with a recent determination based on a unitary setup for Wilson quarks with Schrödinger functional boundary conditions [arXiv:2309.04314]. This provides a strong universality test. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗

Light new physics in B → K ( * ) ν ν ¯ ?

The study of the rare decays B → K ( * ) ν ν ¯ offers a window into the dynamics operating at the electroweak scale, allowing studies of the Standard Model and searches for heavy new physics. However, the analysis of these decays is also potentially sensitive to the on shell production of new light bosons X through the process B → K ( * ) X . In particular, Belle II has recently measured B + → K + ν ν ¯ , finding a 2.8 σ excess under the assumption of heavy new physics. Since this excess is rather localized in the kaon energy, a fit that includes the decay mode B + → K + X to the kinematic distributions prefers m X ≈ 2 GeV with branching fraction Br [ B → K X ] = ( 8.8 ± 2.5 ) × 10 − 6 and a significance of ≈ 3.6 σ . However, no excess was found in the measurements of B → K ( * ) ν ν ¯ , and a global analysis of the Belle II and data leads to Br [ B → K X ] = ( 5.1 ± 2.1 ) × 10 − 6 with a reduced significance of ≈ 2.4 σ . We then study various simplified dark-flavored models and present a possible UV completion based on a gauged B 3 − L 3 symmetry, highlighting the discovery potential of dedicated searches for B → K ( * ) X at Belle II. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗

Supersymmetry with scalar sequestering

Supersymmetric models with a strongly interacting superconformal hidden sector (HS) may drive soft supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking scalar masses, bilinear soft term B μ and Higgs combinations m H u , d 2 + μ 2 to small values at some intermediate scale, leading to unique sparticle mass spectra along with possibly diminished fine-tuning in spite of a large superpotential μ parameter. We set up a computer code to calculate such spectra, which are then susceptible to a variety of constraints: (1) possible charge-or-color breaking (CCB) minima in the scalar potential, (2) unbounded from below (UFB) scalar potential, (3) improper electroweak symmetry breaking, (4) a charged or sneutrino lightest SUSY particle (LSP), (5) generating m h ∼ 125 GeV , (6) consistency with LHC sparticle mass limits, and (7) naturalness. We find this bevy of constraints leaves little or no viable parameter space for the case where hidden sector dynamics dominates minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) running, even for the case of nonuniversal gaugino masses. For the case with moderate HS running with comparable MSSM running, and with universal gaugino masses, then the fine-tuning is ameliorated, but nonetheless remains high. Viable spectra with moderate HS running and with low fine-tuning and large μ can be found for nonuniversal gaugino masses. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗

Machine learning techniques for intermediate mass gap lepton partner searches at the large hadron collider

We consider machine learning techniques associated with the application of a boosted decision tree (BDT) to searches at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for pair-produced lepton partners which decay to leptons and invisible particles. This scenario can arise in the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM), but can be realized in many other extensions of the Standard Model (SM). We focus on the case of intermediate mass splitting ( ∼ 30 GeV ) between the dark matter (DM) and the scalar. For these mass splittings, the LHC has made little improvement over LEP due to large electroweak backgrounds. We find that the use of machine learning techniques can push the LHC well past discovery sensitivity for a benchmark model with a lepton partner mass of ∼ 110 GeV , for an integrated luminosity of 300 fb − 1 , with a signal-to-background ratio of ∼ 0.3 . The LHC could exclude models with a lepton partner mass as large as ∼ 160 GeV with the same luminosity. The use of machine learning techniques in searches for scalar lepton partners at the LHC could thus definitively probe the parameter space of the MSSM in which scalar muon mediated interactions between SM muons and Majorana singlet DM can both deplete the relic density through dark matter annihilation and satisfy the recently measured anomalous magnetic moment of the muon. We identify several machine learning techniques which can be useful in other LHC searches involving large and complex backgrounds. Published by the American Physical Society 2024

Astronomy & Astrophysics↗