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Sannino, Francesco

Publications and source records attributed to Sannino, Francesco.

Towards the QED beta function and renormalons at $1/N_f^2$ and $1/N_f^3$

We determine the 1 / N f 2 and 1 / N f 3 contributions to the QED beta function stemming from the closed set of nested diagrams. At the order of 1 / N f 2 , we discover a new logarithmic branch cut closer to the origin when compared to the 1 / N f results. The same singularity location appears at 1 / N f 3 , and these correspond to a UV renormalon singularity in the finite part of the photon two-point function.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Complete asymptotically safe embedding of the standard model

We introduce and discuss the “Tetrad Model”, a large color/flavor embedding of the Standard model which has an interacting ultraviolet fixed point. It is demonstrated that its extended-Pati-Salam symmetry is broken radiatively via the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism, while the remaining electroweak symmetry is broken when mass-squared terms run negative. In the IR the theory yields just the Standard Model, augmented by the fact that the Higgs fields carry the same generation indices as the matter fields. It is also shown that the Higgs mass-squareds develop a hierarchical structure in the IR, from a UV theory that is asymptotically flavor symmetric, opening up an interesting direction for explaining the emergence of the observed flavor structure.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Supersymmetric asymptotic safety is not guaranteed

It was recently shown that certain perturbatively accessible, non-supersymmetric gauge-Yukawa theories have UV asymptotic safety, without asymptotic freedom: the UV theory is an interacting RG fixed point, and the IR theory is free. We here investigate the possibility of asymptotic safety in supersymmetric theories, and use unitarity bounds, and the a-theorem, to rule it out in broad classes of theories. The arguments apply without assuming perturbation theory. Therefore, the UV completion of a non-asymptotically free susy theory must have additional, non-obvious degrees of freedom, such as those of an asymptotically free (perhaps magnetic dual) extension.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗

X-ray lines from dark matter: the good, the bad, and the unlikely

We consider three classes of dark matter (DM) models to account for the recently observed 3.5 keV line: metastable excited state DM, annihilating DM, and decaying DM. We study two examples of metastable excited state DM. The first, millicharged composite DM, has both inelasticity and photon emission built in, but with a very constrained parameter space. In the second example, up-scattering and decay come from separate sectors and is thus less constrained. The decay of the excited state can potentially be detectable at direct detection experiments. However we find that CMB constraints are at the border of excluding this as an interpretation of the DAMA signal. The annihilating DM interpretation of the X-ray line is found to be in mild tension with CMB constraints. Lastly, a generalized version of decaying DM can account for the data with a lifetime exceeding the age of the Universe for masses ∼<10{sup 6} GeV.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Gamma ray constraints on flavor violating asymmetric dark matter

We show how cosmic gamma rays can be used to constrain models of asymmetric Dark Matter decaying into lepton pairs by violating flavor. First of all we require the models to explain the anomalies in the charged cosmic rays measured by PAMELA, Fermi and HESS performing combined fits we determine the allowed values of the Dark Matter mass and lifetime. For these models, we then determine the constraints coming from the measurement of the isotropic γ-ray background by Fermi for a complete set of lepton flavor violating primary modes and over a range of DM masses from 100 GeV to 10 TeV. We find that the Fermi constraints rule out the flavor violating asymmetric Dark Matter interpretation of the charged cosmic ray anomalies.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Light magnetic dark matter in direct detection searches

We study a fermionic Dark Matter particle carrying magnetic dipole moment and analyze its impact on direct detection experiments. In particular we show that it can accommodate the DAMA, CoGeNT and CRESST experimental results. Assuming conservative bounds, this candidate is shown not to be ruled out by the CDMS, XENON and PICASSO experiments. We offer an analytic understanding of how the long-range interaction modifies the experimental allowed regions, in the cross section versus Dark Matter mass parameter space, with respect to the typically assumed contact interaction. Finally, in the context of a symmetric Dark Matter sector, we determine the associated thermal relic density, and further provide relevant constraints imposed by indirect searches and colliders.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

S parameter at nonzero temperature and chemical potential

We compute the finite-temperature and matter density corrections to the S-parameter at the one-loop level. At nonzero temperature T and matter density {mu} Lorentz symmetry breaks and therefore we suggest a suitable generalization of the S-parameter. By computing the plasma correction, we discover a reduction of the S-parameter in the physically relevant region of small external momenta for any nonzero {mu} and T. In particular, the S-parameter vanishes at small m/T, where m is the mass of the fermions, due to the finite extent of the temporal direction. Our results are directly applicable to the determination of the S-parameter via first-principle lattice simulations performed with antiperiodic boundary conditions in the temporal direction.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Charge asymmetric cosmic rays as a probe of flavor violating asymmetric dark matter

The recently introduced cosmic sum rules combine the data from PAMELA and Fermi-LAT cosmic ray experiments in a way that permits to neatly investigate whether the experimentally observed lepton excesses violate charge symmetry. One can in a simple way determine universal properties of the unknown component of the cosmic rays. Here we attribute a potential charge asymmetry to the dark sector. In particular we provide models of asymmetric dark matter able to produce charge asymmetric cosmic rays. We consider spin zero, spin one and spin one-half decaying dark matter candidates. We show that lepton flavor violation and asymmetric dark matter are both required to have a charge asymmetry in the cosmic ray lepton excesses. Therefore, an experimental evidence of charge asymmetry in the cosmic ray lepton excesses implies that dark matter is asymmetric.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Cosmic ray electron and positron excesses from a fourth generation heavy Majorana neutrino

Unexpected features in the energy spectra of cosmic rays electrons and positrons have been recently observed by PAMELA and Fermi-LAT satellite experiments, opening to the exciting possibility of an indirect manifestation of new physics. A TeV-scale fourth lepton family is a natural extension of the Standard Model leptonic sector (also linked to the hierarchy problem in Minimal Walking Technicolor models). The heavy Majorana neutrino of this setup mixes with Standard Model charged leptons through a weak charged current interaction. Here, we first study analytically the energy spectrum of the electrons and positrons originated in the heavy Majorana neutrino decay modes, also including polarization effects. We then compare the prediction of this model with the experimental data, exploiting both the standard direct method and our recently proposed Sum Rules method. We find that the decay modes involving the tau and/or the muon charged leptons as primary decay products fit well the PAMELA and Fermi-LAT lepton excesses while there is tension with respect to the antiproton to proton fraction constrained by PAMELA.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Cosmic-ray sum rules

We introduce new sum rules allowing to determine universal properties of the unknown component of the cosmic rays; we show how they can be used to predict the positron fraction at energies not yet explored by current experiments, and to constrain specific models.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Beta function and anomalous dimensions

We demonstrate that it is possible to determine the coefficients of an all-orders beta-function linear in the anomalous dimensions using as data the 2-loop coefficients together with the first one of the anomalous dimensions which are universal. The beta function allows us to determine the anomalous dimension of the fermion masses at the infrared fixed point, and the resulting values compare well with the lattice determinations.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗

Minimal composite inflation

We investigate models in which the inflaton emerges as a composite field of a four dimensional, strongly interacting and nonsupersymmetric gauge theory featuring only fermionic matter. We show that it is possible to obtain successful inflation via non-minimal coupling to gravity, and that the underlying dynamics is preferred to be near conformal. We discover that the compositeness scale of inflation is of the order of the grand unified energy scale.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗

Dual of QCD with one adjoint fermion

We construct the magnetic dual of QCD with one adjoint Weyl fermion. The dual is a consistent solution of the 't Hooft anomaly matching conditions, allows for flavor decoupling, and remarkably constitutes the first nonsupersymmetric dual valid for any number of colors. The dual allows to bound the anomalous dimension of the Dirac fermion mass operator to be less than one in the conformal window.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗