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Search indexed NASA NTRS and DOE OSTI research on propulsion, heat transfer, battery materials and energy systems. Follow report and document links to the original sources.

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At least 1,495 records · Page 83
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DOE OSTI2016

Modified magnetohydrodynamics around the electroweak transition

We analyse solutions of the MHD equations around the electroweak transition taking into account the effects of the chiral anomaly. It is shown that a transition that is not of the first order has direct consequences on the evolution of the asymmetry between left- and right-handed leptons. Assuming an initial chiral asymmetry in the symmetric phase at temperatures higher than the transition temperature, as well as the existence of magnetic fields, it is demonstrated that the asymmetry typically grows with time, until it undergoes a fast decrease at the transition, and then eventually gets damped at lower temperatures in the broken phase. We argue that it is unlikely to have any significant magnetic field amplification as a consequence of the electroweak transition in the Standard model, even when the chiral anomaly is introduced. The presence of a chiral asymmetry between left- and right-handed charge carriers naturally leads to the creation of helical magnetic fields from non-helical fields and this can have consequences on their subsequent evolution. Similarly, an initially vanishing chiral asymmetry is naturally created in the presence of a helical magnetic field.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2016

The future of primordial features with large-scale structure surveys

Primordial features are one of the most important extensions of the Standard Model of cosmology, providing a wealth of information on the primordial Universe, ranging from discrimination between inflation and alternative scenarios, new particle detection, to fine structures in the inflationary potential. We study the prospects of future large-scale structure (LSS) surveys on the detection and constraints of these features. We classify primordial feature models into several classes, and for each class we present a simple template of power spectrum that encodes the essential physics. We study how well the most ambitious LSS surveys proposed to date, including both spectroscopic and photometric surveys, will be able to improve the constraints with respect to the current Planck data. We find that these LSS surveys will significantly improve the experimental sensitivity on features signals that are oscillatory in scales, due to the 3D information. For a broad range of models, these surveys will be able to reduce the errors of the amplitudes of the features by a factor of 5 or more, including several interesting candidates identified in the recent Planck data. Therefore, LSS surveys offer an impressive opportunity for primordial feature discovery in the next decade or two. We also compare the advantages of both types of surveys.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Monodromy Dark Matter

Light pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone bosons (pNGBs) such as, e.g. axion-like particles, that are non-thermally produced via the misalignment mechanism are promising dark matter candidates. An important feature of pNGBs is their periodic potential, whose scale of periodicity controls their couplings. As a consequence of the periodicity the maximal potential energy is limited and, hence, producing the observed dark matter density poses significant constraints on the allowed masses and couplings. In the presence of a monodromy, the field range as well as the range of the potential can be significantly extended. As we argue in this paper this has important phenomenological consequences. The constraints on the masses and couplings are ameliorated and couplings to Standard Model particles could be significantly stronger, thereby opening up considerable experimental opportunities. Yet, monodromy models can also give rise to new and qualitatively different features. As a remnant of the periodicity the potential can feature pronounced ''wiggles''. When the field is passing through them quantum fluctuations are enhanced and particles with non-vanishing momentum are produced. Here, we perform a first analysis of this effect and delineate under which circumstances this becomes important. We briefly discuss some possible cosmological consequences.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Axion-like particle searches at DarkQuest

Axion-like particles (ALPs) interacting with the Standard Model can be abundantly produced in proton beam fixed-target experiments. Looking for their displaced decays is therefore an effective search strategy for ALPs with a mass in the MeV to GeV range. Focusing on the benchmark models where the ALP interacts dominantly with photons or gluons, we show that the proposed DarkQuest experiment at Fermilab will be able to test parameter space which has been previously inaccessible. We pay particular attention to the self-consistency of gluon-coupled ALP production and decay calculations, which has been recently shown to be a problem in many existing predictions. We also apply these results to explore existing constraints in the ALP parameter space.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Off-shell amplitudes as boundary integrals of analytically continued Wilson line slope

We consider a conformal complex singlet extension of the Standard Model with a Higgs portal interaction. The global U(1) symmetry of the complex singlet can be either broken or unbroken and we study each scenario. In the unbroken case, the global U(1) symmetry protects the complex singlet from decaying, leading to an ideal cold dark matter candidate with approximately 100 GeV mass along with a significant proportion of thermal relic dark matter abundance. In the broken case, we have developed a renormalization-scale optimization technique to significantly narrow the parameter space and in some situations, provide unique predictions for all the model’s couplings and masses. We have found there exists a second Higgs boson with a mass of approximately 550 GeV that mixes with the known 125 GeV Higgs with a large mixing angle sin θ ≈ 0.47 consistent with current experimental limits. The imaginary part of the complex singlet in the broken case could provide axion dark matter for a wide range of models. Upon including interactions of the complex scalar with an additional vector-like fermion, we explore the possibility of a diphoton excess in both the unbroken and the broken cases. In the unbroken case, the model can provide a natural explanation for diphoton excess if extra terms are introduced providing extra contributions to the singlet mass. In the broken case, we find a set of coupling solutions that yield a second Higgs boson of mass 720 GeV and an 830 GeV extra vector-like fermion F , which is able to address the 750 GeV LHC diphoton excess. We also provide criteria to determine the symmetry breaking pattern in both the Higgs and hidden sectors.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2019

Particle quantum states with indefinite mass and neutrino oscillations

In this work we develop a mathematical formalism which allows obtaining oscillation formula for neutrino of any energy. We demonstrate that in the ultra-relativistic limit the results obtained in this new approach agree with the previously used phenomenological theory which is only applicable to ultra-relativistic neutrinos. To this end we do the following. The Hilbert spaces of particle states are constructed in such a way that the neutrinos are combined in a multiplet with its components being considered as different quantum states of a single particle. The same is done for the charged leptons and the down- and up-type quarks. In the theory based on the Lagrangian of the fermion sector of the Standard Model modified in accordance with this construction, the phenomenon of neutrino oscillations arises as a direct consequence of the general principles of quantum field theory. Using the example of the pion decay, when the resulting neutrino has to be ultra-relativistic, it is shown that the neutrino states produced in the decay process can be described by a superposition of states with different masses and identical canonical momenta with very high accuracy.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Lowest-dimensional portals to SU( N ) exotics

New matter fields charged under the strong nuclear force would have dramatic phenomenological implications. In this work, we systematically explore how these new states, which we postulate belong to some representation of SU(3) of quantum chromo-dynamics, could interact with standard model fields: We analyze all lowest-dimensional “portal” operators for any SU(3) representation, and motivated by grand unification, we extend our results to SU( N ) for N > 3. We provide a publicly available python code, “tessellation,” that automatically constructs said lowest-dimensional portal operators for any new exotic matter field charged under SU( N ) for any N .

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2017

2, 84, 30, 993, 560, 15456, 11962, 261485, . . .: higher dimension operators in the SM EFT

In a companion paper, we show that operator bases for general effective field theories are controlled by the conformal algebra. Equations of motion and integration by parts identities can be systematically treated by organizing operators into irreducible representations of the conformal group. In the present work, we use this result to study the standard model effective field theory (SM EFT), determining the content and number of higher dimension operators up to dimension 12, for an arbitrary number of fermion generations. We find additional operators to those that have appeared in the literature at dimension 7 (specifically in the case of more than one fermion generation) and at dimension 8. (The title sequence is the total number of independent operators in the SM EFT with one fermion generation, including hermitian conjugates, ordered in mass dimension, starting at dimension 5.)

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Closeout Report for CTEQ Summer School 2017

The 2017 CTEQ school was held on the campus of the University of Pittsburgh during July 18-28, 2017. The school consisted of eight days of lectures and discussion where students interact closely with distinguished experts with a broad range of expertise. The CTEQ schools have proven to be extremely useful for students involved at both the Intensity Frontier and the Energy Frontier. The audience for these schools is primarily the younger generation of high energy elementary particle physicists—typically advanced graduate students and postdocs, and are roughly evenly divided between experimental and theoretical disciplines. The CTEQ schools provide the participants with a deeper understanding and improved competency of the fundamental ideas, tools, and techniques that serve as the foundation for all our current investigations of the Standard Model (SM) and beyond. The broader impact is conveyed through the students’ strengthened awareness of the context of their research in the overall endeavor of fundamental physics. The interactive nature of the schools encourages the skills necessary for communicating the excitement and results within collaborations, and also to the wider public. Traditionally, the CTEQ Summer Schools take place in the US in alternative years. In the other years, the Schools are organized by an Institute outside the US. Thus the US school funding is requested bi-annually.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Asymmetric dark matter and baryogenesis from pseudoscalar inflation

We show that both the baryon asymmetry of the Universe and the dark matter abundance can be explained within a single framework that makes use of maximally helical hypermagnetic fields produced during pseudoscalar inflation and the chiral anomaly in the Standard Model. We consider a minimal asymmetric dark matter model free from anomalies and constraints. We find that the observed baryon and the dark matter abundances are achieved for a wide range of inflationary parameters, and the dark matter mass ranges between 7–15 GeV . The novelty of our mechanism stems from the fact that the same source of CP violation occurring during inflation explains both baryonic and dark matter in the Universe with two inflationary parameters, hence addressing all the initial condition problems in an economical way.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Circular polarisation: a new probe of dark matter and neutrinos in the sky

The study of anomalous electromagnetic emission in the sky is the basis of indirect searches for dark matter. It is also a powerful tool to constrain the radiative decay of active neutrinos. Until now, quantitative analyses have focused on the flux and energy spectrum of such an emission; polarisation has never been considered. Here we show that we could be missing out on an essential piece of information. The radiative decay of neutrinos, as well as the interactions of dark matter and neutrinos with Standard Model particles can generate a circular polarisation signal in X-rays or γ-rays. If observed, this could reveal important information about their spatial distribution and particle-antiparticle ratio, and could even reveal the nature of the high-energy particle physics processes taking place in astrophysical sites. The question of the observability of these polarised signatures and their separation from background astrophysical sources is left for future work.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2020

The Higgs and leptophobic force at the LHC

The Higgs boson could provide the key to discover new physics at the Large Hadron Collider. We investigate novel decays of the Standard Model (SM) Higgs boson into leptophobic gauge bosons which can be light in agreement with all experimental constraints. We study the associated production of the SM Higgs and the leptophobic gauge boson that could be crucial to test the existence of a leptophobic force. Our results demonstrate that it is possible to have a simple gauge extension of the SM at the low scale, without assuming very small couplings and in agreement with all the experimental bounds that can be probed at the LHC.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Higgs coupling measurements and the scale of new physics

A primary goal of present and future colliders is measuring the Higgs couplings to Standard Model (SM) particles. Any observed deviation from the SM predictions for these couplings is a sign of new physics whose energy scale can be bounded from above by requiring tree-level unitarity. In this paper, we extend previous work on unitarity bounds from the Higgs cubic coupling to Higgs couplings to vector bosons and top quarks. We find that HL-LHC measurements of these couplings compatible with current experimental bounds may point to a scale that can be explored at the HL-LHC or a next-generation collider. Our approach is completely model-independent: we assume only that there are no light degrees of freedom below the scale of new physics, and allow arbitrary values for the infinitely many couplings beyond the SM as long as they are in agreement with current measurements. We also extend and clarify the methodology of this analysis, and show that if the scale of new physics is above the TeV scale, then the deviations can be described by the leading higher-dimension gauge invariant operator, as in the SM effective field theory.

43 PARTICLE ACCELERATORS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Identification of Low Coronal Sources of “Stealth” Coronal Mass Ejections Using New Image Processing Techniques

Coronal mass ejections (CMEs) are generally associated with low coronal signatures (LCSs), such as flares, filament eruptions, extreme ultraviolet (EUV) waves, or jets. A number of recent studies have reported the existence of stealth CMEs as events without LCSs, possibly due to observational limitations. Our study focuses on a set of 40 stealth CMEs identified from a study by D’Huys et al. New image processing techniques are applied to high-cadence, multi-instrument sets of images spanning the onset and propagation time of each of these CMEs to search for possible LCSs. Twenty-three of these events are identified as small, low-mass, unstructured blobs or puffs, often occurring in the aftermath of a large CME, but associated with LCSs such as small flares, jets, or filament eruptions. Of the larger CMEs, seven are associated with jets and eight with filament eruptions. Several of these filament eruptions are different from the standard model of an erupting filament/flux tube in that they are eruptions of large, faint flux tubes that seem to exist at large heights for a long time prior to their slow eruption. For two of these events, we see an eruption in Large Angle Spectrometric Coronagraph C2 images and the consequent changes at the bottom edge of the eruption in EUV images. All 40 events in our study are associated with some form of LCS. We conclude that stealth CMEs arise from observational and processing limitations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Measuring neutrino mass imprinted on the anisotropic galaxy clustering

The anisotropic galaxy clustering of large scale structure observed by the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey Data Release 11 is analyzed to probe the sum of neutrino masses in the small m {sub ν} ∼< 1 eV limit in which the early broadband shape determined before the last scattering surface is immune from the variation of m {sub ν}. The signature of m {sub ν} is imprinted on the altered shape of the power spectrum at later epoch, which provides an opportunity to access the non-trivial m {sub ν} through the measured anisotropic correlation function in redshift space (hereafter RSD instead of Redshift Space Distortion). The non-linear RSD corrections with massive neutrinos in the quasi linear regime are approximately estimated using one-loop order terms. We suggest an approach to probe m {sub ν} simultaneously with all other distance measures and coherent growth functions, exploiting this deformation of the early broadband shape of the spectrum at later epoch. If the origin of cosmic acceleration is unknown, m {sub ν} is poorly determined after marginalizing over all other observables. However, we find that the measured distances and coherent growth functions are minimally affected by the presence of mild neutrino mass. Although the standard model of cosmic acceleration is assumed to be the cosmological constant, the constraint on m {sub ν} is little improved. Interestingly, the measured Cosmic Microwave Background (hereafter CMB) distance to the last scattering surface sharply slices the degeneracy between the matter content and m {sub ν}, and the m {sub ν} is observed to be m {sub ν} = 0.19{sup +0.28}{sub −0.17} eV which is different from massless neutrino at 68% confidence.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Calculation of the Geometric Factor in a New Experiment Aimed at Studying Radiative Neutron Decay

A new experiment aimed at studying radiative neutron decay is proposed. The respective experimental procedure reduces to measuring the time spectra of triple coincidences of the emitted photon, beta electron, and recoil proton along with the spectrum of double coincidences of ordinary decay products. By means of this procedure, we were able to measure for the first time the branching ratio for radiative neutron decay, BR = (3.2 ± 1.6) × 10{sup −3} (at a confidence level of C.L. = 99.7%, the photon energy being in excess of 35 keV) in 2005 at our old setup. The average value of this branching ratio was greater by a factor of 1.5 than its theoretical counterpart calculated on the basis of the Standard Model. However, we cannot state that we have seen a deviation fromthe StandardModel prediction since the experimental error was quite large in that experiment. The present study is devoted to implementing, by means of the popular Geant4 code package, a computer analog of the respective experiment at a new facility. Our calculations reveal that the resulting geometri©factor values make it possible to a accumulate, in a live experiment, a data sample sufficient for measuring the above branching ratio to a precision of a few percent.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Axion-Like Particles at the ILC Giga-Z

Axion-Like Particles (ALPs) are a generic, calculable, and well motivated extension of the Standard Model with far reaching phenomenology. ALPs that couple only to hypercharge represent one subset of such models, coupling the ALP to both photons and the Z boson. We examine the current constraints on this class of models with an ALP mass in the 100 MeV to 100 GeV range, paying particular attention to the region between 100 MeV to 10 GeV, a portion of parameter space which is ill constrained by current experiments. We show that the more than 109 Z bosons produced in the Giga-Z mode of the future ILC experiment, combined with the highly granular nature of its detectors, will allow for ALPs coupled to hypercharge to be discovered with couplings down to nearly 10 –5 GeV –1 over a range of masses from 0.4 to 50 GeV.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2016

Vacuum energy sequestering and conformal symmetry

In a series of recent papers Kaloper and Padilla proposed a mechanism to sequester standard model vacuum contributions to the cosmological constant. We study the consequences of embedding their proposal into a fully local quantum theory. In the original work, the bare cosmological constant Λ and a scaling parameter λ are introduced as global fields. We find that in the local case the resulting Lagrangian is that of a spontaneously broken conformal field theory where λ plays the role of the dilaton. A vanishing or a small cosmological constant is thus a consequence of the underlying conformal field theory structure.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗