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At least 1,081 records · Page 60
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2024

A heavy QCD axion and the mirror world

We study the mirror world with dark matter arising from the thermal freeze-out of the lightest, stable mirror particle — the mirror electron. The dark matter abundance is achieved for mirror electrons of mass 225 GeV, fixing the mirror electroweak scale near 10 8 GeV. This highly predictive scenario is realized by an axion that acts as a portal between the two sectors through its coupling to the QCD and mirror QCD sectors. The axion is more massive than the standard QCD axion due to additional contributions from mirror strong dynamics. Still, the strong CP problem is solved by this ‘heavy’ axion due to the alignment of the QCD and mirror QCD potentials. Mirror entropy is transferred into the Standard Model sector via the axion portal, which alleviates overproduction of dark radiation from mirror glueball decays. This mirror scenario has a variety of signals: (1) primordial gravitational waves from the first-order mirror QCD phase transition occurring at a temperature near 35 GeV, (2) effects on large-scale structure from dark matter self-interactions from mirror QED, (3) dark radiation affecting the cosmic microwave background, and (4) the rare kaon decay, K + → (π + + axion). The first two signals do not depend on any fundamental free parameters of the theory while the latter two depend on a single free parameter, the axion decay constant.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2021

Neutrino masses from low scale partial compositeness

We consider a class of models in which the neutrinos acquire Majorana masses through mixing with singlet neutrinos that emerge as composite states of a strongly coupled hidden sector. In this framework, the light neutrinos are partially composite particles that obtain their masses through the inverse seesaw mechanism. We focus on the scenario in which the strong dynamics is approximately conformal in the ultraviolet, and the compositeness scale lies at or below the weak scale. The small parameters in the Lagrangian necessary to realize the observed neutrino masses can naturally arise as a consequence of the scaling dimensions of operators in the conformal field theory. We show that this class of models has interesting implications for a wide variety of experiments, including colliders and beam dumps, searches for lepton flavor violation and neutrinoless double beta decay, and cosmological observations. At colliders and beam dumps, this scenario can give rise to striking signals involving multiple displaced vertices. The exchange of hidden sector states can lead to observable rates for flavor violating processes such as μ → eγ and μ → e conversion. If the compositeness scale lies at or below a hundred MeV, the rate for neutrinoless double beta decay is suppressed by form factors and may be reduced by an order of magnitude or more. The late decays of relic singlet neutrinos can give rise to spectral distortions in the cosmic microwave background that are large enough to be observed in future experiments.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Shaping dark photon spectral distortions

The cosmic microwave background (CMB) spectrum is an extraordinary tool for exploring physics beyond the Standard Model. The exquisite precision of its measurement makes it particularly sensitive to small effects caused by hidden sector interactions. In particular, CMB spectral distortions can unveil the existence of dark photons which are kinetically coupled to the standard photon. In this work, we use the COBE-FIRAS dataset to derive accurate and robust limits on photon-to-dark-photon oscillations for a large range of dark photon masses, from 10$^{−10}$ to 10$^{−4}$ eV. We consider in detail the redshift dependence of the bounds, computing CMB distortions due to photon injection/removal using a Green’s function method. Our treatment improves on previous results, which had set limits studying energy injection/removal into baryons rather than photon injection/removal, or ignoring the redshift evolution of distortions. The difference between our treatment and previous ones is particularly noticeable in the predicted spectral shape of the distortions, a smoking gun signature for photon-to-dark-photon oscillations. The characterization of the spectral shape is crucial for future CMB missions, which could improve the present sensitivity by orders of magnitude, exploring regions of the dark photon parameter space that are otherwise difficult to access [inline-graphic not available: see fulltext].

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2026

Cosmic Axion Background detection using resonant cavity arrays

The axion is a well-motivated and generic extension of the Standard Model. If produced in the early universe, axions may still be relativistic today, forming a Cosmic Axion Background (CaB) potentially detectable in direct detection experiments. Although CaB is expected to be broadband, which makes it challenging to be detected, a high-quality-factor microwave cavity acts as a narrowband filter with response peaked at its resonant frequency. We propose a new strategy using multi-cavity arrays to distinguish signal from background noise by exploiting spatial correlations of the axion-induced electric field which are set by the cavity quality factor. We compute the two-point correlation function for electric fields in spatially separated cavities sourced by an isotropic CaB. Analyzing various cavity geometries, we find that stacked, wide-base cavity arrays offer coherent enhancement of the axion signal. We apply our formalism to prospective upgrades of the ADMX experiment, including configurations with four and eighteen coupled cavities. Although these arrays do not achieve a coherent enhancement, optimizing the geometry could potentially yield an $\mathcal{O}(1)$ improvement in the sensitivity to the CaB.

Axions and ALPs↗
DOE OSTI2024

ALP-assisted strong first-order electroweak phase transition and baryogenesis

Axion-like particles (ALPs) can be naturally lighter than the electroweak scale. We consider an ALP that couples to the Standard Model Higgs to achieve the strong first-order electroweak phase transition. We discuss the two-field dynamics of the phase transition and the associated computation in detail and identify the viable parameter space. The ALP mass can be from the MeV to GeV scale. Baryon asymmetry can be explained by local baryogenesis without violating the current electron and atom electric dipole moment bound in most of the viable parameter space. The viable parameter space can be probed through Higgs exotic decay, rare kaon decay, the electron and atomic electric dipole moment, and the effective number of neutrinos in the cosmic microwave background in the future. The gravitational-wave signal is too weak to be detected.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Dark Radiation Constraints on Heavy QCD Axions

The naturalness problem of PQ symmetry motivates study of the heavy QCD axion, with masses m a > 1 MeV generated at scales above the QCD scale, and low values of the PQ symmetry breaking scale, ƒ a . We compute the abundance of such axions in a model-independent way, assuming only that they freeze-out after reheating from inflation, and are not subsequently diluted by new physics. If these axions decay between neutrino decoupling and the last scatter era of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), they dilute the neutrinos and their abundance is constrained by CMB measurements of the energy density in dark radiation, N eff . We accurately compute this bound using a numerical code to evolve the axion momentum distribution, including many key processes and effects previously ignored. We assume that the only relevant axion decays are to final states involving Standard Model particles. We determine regions of (m a , ƒ a ) that will give a signal in N eff at CMB Stage 4 experiments. We similarly compute the N eff bound and CMB Stage 4 signal for heavy axions that can decay to light mirror photons. Finally, we compute the bounds on heavy axions with mass below 1 MeV that decay after the era of CMB last scatter, from their contribution to cold or hot dark matter or N eff at this era.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Direct deflection of Millicharged radiation

Millicharged particles are generic in theories of dark sectors. A cosmic or local abundance of them may be produced by the early universe, stellar environments, or the decay or annihilation of dark matter/dark energy. Furthermore, if such particles are light, these production channels result in a background of millicharged radiation. We show that light-shining-through-wall experiments employing superconducting RF cavities can also be used as “direct deflection” experiments to search for this relativistic background. The millicharged plasma is first subjected to an oscillating electromagnetic field of a driven cavity, which causes charge separation in the form of charge and current perturbations. In turn, these perturbations can propagate outwards and resonantly excite electromagnetic fields in a well-shielded cavity placed nearby, enabling detection. We estimate that future versions of the existing Dark SRF experiment can probe orders of magnitude of currently unexplored parameter space, including millicharges produced from the Sun, the cosmic neutrino background, or other mechanisms that generate a thermal abundance with energy density as small as ~ 10$^{−4}$ that of the cosmic microwave background.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2020

A predictive mirror twin Higgs with small Z2 breaking

The twin Higgs mechanism is a solution to the little hierarchy problem in which the top partner is neutral under the Standard Model (SM) gauge group. The simplest mirror twin Higgs (MTH) model — where a Z 2 symmetry copies each SM particle — has too many relativistic degrees of freedom to be consistent with cosmological observations. We demonstrate that MTH models can have an observationally viable cosmology if the twin mass spectrum leads to twin neutrino decoupling before the SM and twin QCD phase transitions. Our solution requires the twin photon to have a mass of ~20 MeV and kinetically mix with the SM photon to mediate entropy transfer from the twin sector to the SM. This twin photon can be robustly discovered or excluded by future experiments. Additionally, the residual twin degrees of freedom present in the early Universe in this scenario would be detectable by future observations of the cosmic microwave background.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Mirror twin Higgs cosmology: constraints and a possible resolution to the H$_{0}$ and S$_{8}$ tensions

The mirror twin Higgs model (MTH) is a solution to the Higgs hierarchy problem that provides well-predicted cosmological signatures with only three extra parameters: the temperature of the twin sector, the abundance of twin baryons, and the vacuum expectation value (VEV) of twin electroweak symmetry breaking. These parameters specify the behavior of twin radiation and the acoustic oscillations of twin baryons, which lead to testable effects on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) and large-scale structure (LSS). While collider searches can only probe the twin VEV, through a fit to cosmological data we show that the existing CMB (Planck18 TTTEEE+lowE+lowT+lensing) and LSS (KV450) data already provide useful constraints on the remaining MTH parameters. Additionally, we show that the presence of twin radiation in this model can raise the Hubble constant H$_{0}$ while the scattering twin baryons can reduce the matter fluctuations S$_{8}$, which helps to relax the observed H$_{0}$ and S$_{8}$ tensions simultaneously. This scenario is different from the typical ΛCDM + ΔN$_{eff}$ model, in which extra radiation helps with the Hubble tension but worsens the S$_{8}$ tension. For instance, when including the SH0ES and 2013 Planck SZ data in the fit, we find that a universe with ≳ 20% of the dark matter comprised of twin baryons is preferred over ΛCDM by ~ 4σ. If the twin sector is indeed responsible for resolving the H$_{0}$ and S$_{8}$ tensions, future measurements from the Euclid satellite and CMB Stage 4 experiment will further measure the twin parameters to O(1 - 10%)-level precision. Our study demonstrates how models with hidden naturalness can potentially be probed using precision cosmological data.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Sterile neutrino dark matter in left-right theories

SU(2) L × SU(2) R gauge symmetry requires three right-handed neutrinos (N i ), one of which, N 1 , can be sufficiently stable to be dark matter. In the early universe, W R exchange with the Standard Model thermal bath keeps the right-handed neutrinos in thermal equilibrium at high temperatures. N 1 can make up all of dark matter if they freeze-out while relativistic and are mildly diluted by subsequent decays of a long-lived and heavier right-handed neutrino, N 2 . We systematically study this parameter space, constraining the symmetry breaking scale of SU(2) R and the mass of N 1 to a triangle in the (v R , M 1 ) plane, with v R = (10 6 - 3 × 10 12 ) GeV and M 1 = (2 keV–1 MeV). Much of this triangle can be probed by signals of warm dark matter, especially if leptogenesis from N 2 decay yields the observed baryon asymmetry. The minimal value of v R is increased to 10 8 GeV for doublet breaking of SU(2) R , and further to 10 9 GeV if leptogenesis occurs via N 2 decay, while the upper bound on M 1 is reduced to 100 keV. In addition, there is a component of hot N 1 dark matter resulting from the late decay of N 2 → N 1 ℓ+ℓ- that can be probed by future cosmic microwave background observations. Interestingly, the range of v R allows both precision gauge coupling unification and the Higgs Parity understanding of the vanishing of the Standard Model Higgs quartic at scale vR. Finally, we study freeze-in production of N 1 dark matter via the WR interaction, which allows a much wider range of (v R , M 1 ).

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Ultralight millicharged dark matter via misalignment

We explore the cosmology and phenomenology of millicharged and millicharge-like dark matter with masses from 1 eV to 10 keV and charges of 10 -18 to 10 -14 . Dark matter in this mass range cannot be thermally produced, but can arise from non-thermal mechanisms. We propose a concrete model employing a spontaneously broken approximate global symmetry, in which millicharged dark matter is produced via the misalignment mechanism. We show that this production mechanism is cosmologically consistent and compatible with the observed dark matter abundance. This model can be implemented using either fundamental scalars or hidden-sector quarks, and coupled either to the Standard Model photon or to a hidden photon. We then consider the phenomenology of light millicharged dark matter, regardless of its cosmological origin, and determine the parameter space consistent with existing experiments and observations. A significant part of the new parameter space we consider may be accessible in the near future through direct deflection experiments, measurements of the cosmic microwave background blackbody spectrum, and future constraints on plasma instabilities due to dark matter self-interaction.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Non-Gaussianities in collider energy flux

The microscopic dynamics of particle collisions is imprinted into the statistical properties of asymptotic energy flux, much like the dynamics of inflation is imprinted into the cosmic microwave background. This energy flux is characterized by correlation functions < E(n → 1 )…E(n → k ) > of energy flow operators E(n → ). There has been significant recent progress in studying energy flux, including the calculation of multi-point correlation functions and their direct measurement inside high-energy jets at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). In this paper, we build on these advances by defining a notion of “celestial non-gaussianity” as a ratio of the three-point function to a product of two-point functions. We show that this celestial non-gaussianity is under perturbative control within jets at the LHC, allowing us to cleanly access the non-gaussian interactions of quarks and gluons. We find good agreement between perturbative calculations of the non-gaussianity and a charged-particle-based analysis using CMS Open Data, and we observe a strong non-gaussianity peaked in the “flattened triangle” regime. The ability to robustly study three-point correlations is a significant step in advancing our understanding of jet substructure at the LHC. We anticipate that the celestial non-gaussianity, and its generalizations, will play an important role in the development of higher-order parton showers simulations and in the hunt for ever more subtle signals of potential new physics within jets.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Improved cosmological constraints on the neutrino mass and lifetime

We present cosmological constraints on the sum of neutrino masses as a function of the neutrino lifetime, in a framework in which neutrinos decay into dark radiation after becoming non-relativistic. We find that in this regime the cosmic microwave background (CMB), baryonic acoustic oscillations (BAO) and (uncalibrated) luminosity distance to supernovae from the Pantheon catalog constrain the sum of neutrino masses Σm$_{ν}$ to obey Σm$_{ν}$< 0.42 eV at (95% C.L.). While the bound has improved significantly as compared to the limits on the same scenario from Planck 2015, it still represents a significant relaxation of the constraints as compared to the stable neutrino case. We show that most of the improvement can be traced to the more precise measurements of low-ℓ polarization data in Planck 2018, which leads to tighter constraints on τ$_{reio}$ (and thereby on A$_{s}$), breaking the degeneracy arising from the effect of (large) neutrino masses on the amplitude of the CMB power spectrum.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Gravitational wave and CMB probes of axion kination

Rotations of an axion field in field space provide a natural origin for an era of kination domination, where the energy density is dominated by the kinetic term of the axion field, preceded by an early era of matter domination. Remarkably, no entropy is produced at the end of matter domination and hence these eras of matter and kination domination may occur even after Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. We derive constraints on these eras from both the cosmic microwave background and Big Bang Nucleosynthesis. We investigate how this cosmological scenario affects the spectrum of possible primordial gravitational waves and find that the spectrum features a triangular peak. We discuss how future observations of gravitational waves can probe the viable parameter space, including regions that produce axion dark matter by the kinetic misalignment mechanism or the baryon asymmetry by axiogenesis. For QCD axion dark matter produced by the kinetic misalignment mechanism, a modification to the inflationary gravitational wave spectrum occurs above 0.01 Hz and, for high values of the energy scale of inflation, the prospects for discovery are good. We briefly comment on implications for structure formation of the universe.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2020

Cornering (quasi) degenerate neutrinos with cosmology

In light of the improved sensitivities of cosmological observations, we examine the status of quasi-degenerate neutrino mass scenarios. Within the simplest extension of the standard cosmological model with massive neutrinos, we find that quasi-degenerate neutrinos are severely constrained by present cosmological data and neutrino oscillation experiments. We find that Planck 2018 observations of cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies disfavour quasi-degenerate neutrino masses at 2.4 Gaussian >σ’s, while adding baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) data brings the rejection to 5.9 σ’s. The highest statistical significance with which one would be able to rule out quasi-degeneracy would arise if the sum of neutrino masses is Σm v = 60 meV (the minimum allowed by neutrino oscillation experiments); indeed a sensitivity of 15 meV, as expected from a combination of future cosmological probes, would further improve the rejection level up to 17σ. We discuss the robustness of these projections with respect to assumptions on the underlying cosmological model, and also compare them with bounds from β decay endpoint and neutrinoless double beta decay studies.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2022

Axiogenesis with a heavy QCD axion

We demonstrate that the observed cosmological excess of matter over anti-matter may originate from a heavy QCD axion that solves the strong CP problem but has a mass much larger than that given by the Standard Model QCD strong dynamics. We investigate a rotation of the heavy QCD axion in field space, which is transferred into a baryon asymmetry through weak and strong sphaleron processes. This provides a strong cosmological motivation for heavy QCD axions, which are of high experimental interest. The viable parameter space has an axion mass m a between 1 MeV and 10 GeV and a decay constant f a < 1 05 GeV, which can be probed by accelerator-based direct axion searches and observations of the cosmic microwave background.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Growth of cosmic structure

We review one of the most fruitful areas in cosmology today that bridge theory and data - the temporal growth of large-scale structure. We go over the growth's physical foundations, and derive its behavior in simple cosmological models. While doing so, we explain how measurements of growth can be used to understand theory. We then review how some of the most mature cosmological probes-galaxy clustering, gravitational lensing, the abundance of clusters of galaxies, cosmic velocities, and cosmic microwave background-can be used to probe the growth of structure. We report the current constraints on growth, which are summarized as measurements of the parameter combination fσ 8 as a function of redshift, or else as the mass fluctuation amplitude parameter S 8 . Here, we finally illustrate several statistical approaches, ranging from the "growth index" parameterization to more general comparisons of growth and geometry, that can sharply test the standard cosmological model and indicate the presence of modifications to general relativity.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Reinforcement learning for real-time process control in high-temperature superconductor manufacturing

With high efficiency and low energy loss, high-temperature superconductors (HTS) have demonstrated their profound applications in various fields, such as medical imaging, transportation, accelerators, microwave devices, and power systems. The high-field applications of HTS tapes have raised the demand for producing cost-effective tapes with long lengths in superconductor manufacturing. However, achieving the uniform and enhanced performance of a long HTS tape is challenging due to the unstable growth conditions in the manufacturing process. Although it is confirmed that the process parameters during the advanced metal organic chemical vapor deposition (A-MOCVD) process influence the uniformity of the produced HTS tapes, the high-dimensional process parameter signals and their complicated interactions make it difficult to develop an effective control policy. In this paper, we propose a local measure for the uniformity of HTS tapes to provide instant feedback for our control policy. Then, we model the manufacturing of HTS tapes as a Markov decision process (MDP) with continuous state and action spaces to assess the instant reward in real time in our feedback control model. As our MDP involves continuous and high-dimensional state and action spaces, a neural fitted Q-iteration (NFQ) algorithm is adopted to solve the MDP with artificial neural network (ANN) function approximation. The collinearity of process parameters can restrict our capability of adjusting the process parameters, which is addressed by the principal component analysis (PCA) in our method. The control policy adjusts the PCA of process parameters using the NFQ algorithm. In conclusion, based on our case studies on real A-MOCVD dataset, the obtained control policy increases the average uniformity of tapes by 5.6% and performs especially well on sample HTS tapes with a low uniformity.

75 CONDENSED MATTER PHYSICS, SUPERCONDUCTIVITY AND↗