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At least 415 records · Page 23

Hidden sector monopole dark matter with matter domination

The thermal freeze-out mechanism for relic dark matter heavier than O (10 – 100 TeV) requires cross-sections that violate perturbative unitarity. Yet the existence of dark matter heavier than these scales is certainly plausible from a particle physics perspective, pointing to the need for a non-thermal cosmological history for such theories. Topological dark matter is a well-motivated scenario of this kind. Here the hidden-sector dark matter can be produced in abundance through the Kibble-Zurek mechanism describing the non-equilibrium dynamics of defects produced in a second order phase transition. We revisit the original topological dark matter scenario, focusing on hidden-sector magnetic monopoles, and consider more general cosmological histories. We find that a monopole mass of order (1–10 5 ) PeV is generic for the thermal histories considered here, if monopoles are to entirely reproduce the current abundance of dark matter. In particular, in a scenario involving an early era of matter domination, the monopole number density is always less than or equal to that in a pure radiation dominated equivalent provided a certain condition on critical exponents is satisfied. This results in a larger monopole mass needed to account for a fixed relic abundance in such cosmologies.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Radiative Corrections to Neutron Beta Decay and (Anti)Neutrino-Nucleon Scattering from Low-Energy Effective Field Theory

Herein we study radiative corrections to neutron beta decay and low-energy (anti)neutrino-nucleon scattering within a top-down effective field theory approach. As it was recently shown, a few electromagnetic and electroweak low-energy coupling constants in heavy-baryon chiral perturbation theory are yet to be determined. Performing matching to the four-fermion effective field theory, we relate these low-energy constants to correlation functions of vector and axial-vector currents. Such relations allow us to explicitly clarify scheme dependence for radiative corrections to neutron decay and low-energy charged-current (anti)neutrino scattering, provide a robust prediction of leading in the electromagnetic coupling constant contributions, and achieve a clear separation between short-distance and long-distance contributions.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Understanding parton evolution in matter from renormalization group analysis

We perform a renormalization group (RG) analysis of collinear hadron production in deep inelastic scattering on nuclei. We consider the limit where the parent parton energy E is large, while the medium opacity remains small. We identify the fixed order and leading enhanced medium contributions to the semi-inclusive cross sections and derive RG equations that resum multiple emissions near the endpoints of the splitting functions at first order in opacity. These evolution equations treat the same type of radiation enhancement in matter as the modified Dokshitzer-Gribov-Lipatov-Altarelli-Parisi approach, but differ in the way one regulates the collinear divergences. They provide a unique analytic insight into the problem of resummation and a faster and more efficient path to phenomenology. The new RG evolution framework is applied to study fragmentation in eA reactions.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Spin-orbit entanglement in the Color Glass Condensate

We compute the spin-orbit correlations of quarks and gluons at small-x and show that the helicity and the orbital angular momentum of individual partons are strongly anti-aligned even in unpolarized or spinless hadrons and nuclei. Combined with the fact that gluons in the Color Glass Condensate are linearly polarized, our finding indicates that the helicity and the orbital angular momentum of single gluons are maximally entangled in a quantum mechanical sense.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Observation of structure in the J/ψ-pair mass spectrum

Using proton-proton collision data at centre-of-mass energies of $\sqrt{s}$ = 7, 8 and 13 TeV recorded by the LHCb experiment at the Large Hadron Collider, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 9 fb -1 , the invariant mass spectrum of J/ψ pairs is studied. A narrow structure around 6.9 GeV/c 2 matching the lineshape of a resonance and a broad structure just above twice the J/ψ mass are observed. The deviation of the data from nonresonant J/ψ-pair production is above five standard deviations in the mass region between 6.2 and 7.4 GeV/c 2 , covering predicted masses of states composed of four charm quarks. The mass and natural width of the narrow X(6900) structure are measured assuming a Breit-Wigner lineshape.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Measurement of the Generalized Spin Polarizabilities of the Neutron in the Low-Q{sup 2} Region

Understanding the nucleon spin structure in the regime where the strong interaction becomes truly strong poses a challenge to both experiment and theory. At energy scales below the nucleon mass of about 1 GeV, the intense interaction among the quarks and gluons inside the nucleon makes them highly correlated. Their coherent behaviour causes the emergence of effective degrees of freedom, requiring the application of non-perturbative techniques such as chiral effective field theory1. Here we present measurements of the neutron’s generalized spin polarizabilities that quantify the neutron’s spin precession under electromagnetic fields at very low energy-momentum transfer squared down to 0.035 GeV2. In this regime, chiral effective field theory calculations2–4 are expected to be applicable. Our data, however, show a strong discrepancy with these predictions, presenting a challenge to the current description of the neutron’s spin properties.

Sulkosky, Vincent↗

Direct observation of the dead-cone effect in quantum chromodynamics

In particle collider experiments, elementary particle interactions with large momentum transfer produce quarks and gluons (known as partons) whose evolution is governed by the strong force, as described by the theory of quantum chromodynamics (QCD). These partons subsequently emit further partons in a process that can be described as a parton shower, which culminates in the formation of detectable hadrons. Studying the pattern of the parton shower is one of the key experimental tools for testing QCD. This pattern is expected to depend on the mass of the initiating parton, through a phenomenon known as the dead-cone effect, which predicts a suppression of the gluon spectrum emitted by a heavy quark of mass m Q and energy E, within a cone of angular size m Q /E around the emitter. Previously, a direct observation of the dead-cone effect in QCD had not been possible, owing to the challenge of reconstructing the cascading quarks and gluons from the experimentally accessible hadrons. We report the direct observation of the QCD dead cone by using new iterative declustering techniques to reconstruct the parton shower of charm quarks. This result confirms a fundamental feature of QCD. Furthermore, the measurement of a dead-cone angle constitutes a direct experimental observation of the non-zero mass of the charm quark, which is a fundamental constant in the standard model of particle physics.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Problem with gradual absorption in MSD/MSC calculations

Replacing classical exciton model with the better founded Multistep Direct (MSD) and Multistep Compound (MSC) mechanisms has been impeded by incapability of the latter models to describe central part of the neutron emission spectra at incident neutron energies of about 14 MeV and above. We have ascribed this deficiency to the decrease of absorption to the MSC mechanism resulting from the concept of gradual absorption. We were able to obtain very good reproduction of experimentally measured neutron spectra using MSD/MSC calculations when this option was turned off. Such treatment is, however, at odds with the fundamental distinction between MSD and MSC mechanisms that should proceed through the chain of open (P-space) and closed (Q-space) configurations respectively. By blocking gradual absorption we allow the first stage of MSC to be fully populated from the incident channel that at higher incident energies is impossible. We discuss various attempts of addressing the problem that, so far, remains open. In addition, we present an evidence for much tighter spin distribution of particle-hole states than normally assumed.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Searching for the axion-like particle at the EIC*

Abstract The axion-like particle (ALP) is a well motivated new particle candidate for beyond the standard model. In this study, we propose to probe the ALP via photon fusion scattering at the upcoming Electron-Ion Collider (EIC) with electron and proton energies of and , respectively. We can constrain the effective coupling strength between the ALP and photons to be at the confidence level with an integrated luminosity of for the mass range . Such bounds may be significantly improved if we consider the nucleus beam at the EIC. We also demonstrate that the limits from the EIC can be stronger than the off Z -pole measurement at the LEP and light-by-light scattering with pp collisions at the LHC.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Isospin-breaking contributions to ε '/ε

We present an updated analysis of isospin-violating corrections to ε '/ε in the framework of chiral perturbation theory, taking advantage of the currently improved knowledge on quark masses and nonperturbative parameters. The role of the different ingredients entering into the analysis is carefully assessed. Our final result is ${\Omega }_{\text{eff}}={0.110}_{-0.088}^{+0.090}$ [1].

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Energy calibration of germanium detectors for the Majorana Demonstrator

The Majorana Demonstrator was a search for neutrinoless double-beta decay (0νββ) in the 76 Ge isotope. It was staged at the 4850-foot level of the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in Lead, SD. The experiment consisted of 58 germanium detectors housed in a low background shield and was calibrated once per week by deploying a 228 Th line source for 1 to 2 hours. The energy scale calibration determination for the detector array was automated using custom analysis tools. We describe the offline procedure for calibration of the Demonstrator germanium detectors, including the simultaneous fitting of multiple spectral peaks, estimation of energy scale uncertainties, and the automation of the calibration procedure.

47 OTHER INSTRUMENTATION↗

Quantum Monte Carlo studies of a trimer scaling function with microscopic two- and three-body interactions

Here, we present an energy scaling function to predict, in a specific range, the energy of bosonic trimers with large scattering lengths and finite range interactions, which is validated by quantum Monte Carlo calculations using microscopic Hamiltonians with two- and three-body potentials. The proposed scaling function depends on the scattering length, effective range, and a reference energy, which we chose as the trimer energy at unitarity. We obtained the scaling function as a limit cycle from the solution of the renormalized zero-range model with effective range corrections. We proposed a simple parametrization of the energy scaling function. Besides the intrinsic interest in theoretical and experimental investigations, this scaling function allows one to probe Efimov physics with only the trimer ground states, which may open opportunities to identify Efimov trimers whenever access to excited states is limited.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗