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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 127 records · Page 7
All sourcesNASA NTRSDOE OSTI
DOE OSTI2015

The Majorana Demonstrator: A Search for Neutrinoless Double-beta Decay of 76 Ge

Neutrinoless double-beta (0νββ) decay is a hypothesized process where in some even-even nuclei it might be possible for two neutrons to simultaneously decay into two protons and two electrons without emitting neutrinos. This is possible only if neutrinos are Majorana particles, i.e. fermions that are their own antiparticles. Neutrinos being Majorana particles would explicitly violate lepton number conservation, and might play a role in the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe. The observation of neutrinoless double-beta decay would also provide complementary information related to neutrino masses. The MAJORANA Collaboration is constructing the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR, a 40-kg modular germanium detector array, to search for the 0νββ decay of 76Ge and to demonstrate a background rate at or below 3 counts/(ROI-t-y) in the 4 keV region of interest (ROI) around the 2039 keV Q-value for 76Ge 0νββ decay. In this paper, we discuss the physics of neutrinoless double beta decay and then focus on the MAJORANA DEMONSTRATOR, including its design and approach to achieve ultra-low backgrounds and the status of the experiment.

Xu, W.↗
DOE OSTI2015

The eejj excess signal at the LHC and constraints on leptogenesis

We review the non-supersymmetric (Extended) Left-Right Symmetric Models (LRSM) and low energy E{sub 6}-based models to investigate if they can explain both the recently detected excess eejj signal at CMS and leptogenesis. The eejj excess can be explained from the decay of the right-handed gauge bosons (W{sub R}) with mass ∼ TeV in certain variants of the LRSM (with g{sub L}≠g{sub R}). However such scenarios can not accommodate high-scale leptogenesis. Other attempts have been made to explain leptogenesis while keeping the W{sub R} mass almost within the reach of the LHC by considering the resonant leptogenesis scenario in the context of the LRSM for relatively large Yukawa couplings. However, certain lepton number violating scattering processes involving the right-handed Higgs triplet and the right-handed neutrinos can stay in equilibrium till the electroweak phase transition and can washout the lepton asymmetry generated in the resonant leptogenesis scenario for mass range of W{sub R} as indicated by the CMS excess signal. Thus in such a scenario one needs to invoke post-sphaleron baryogenesis to explain the observed baryon asymmetry of the universe. Next, we consider three effective low energy subgroups of the superstring inspired E{sub 6} model having a number of additional exotic fermions which provides a rich phenomenology to be explored. We however find that these three effective low energy subgroups of E{sub 6} too cannot explain both the eejj excess signal and leptogenesis simultaneously.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2015

The electroweak axion, dark energy, inflation and baryonic matter

In a previous paper [1], the standard model was generalized to include an electroweak axion which carries baryon plus lepton number, B + L. It was shown that such a model naturally gives the observed value of the dark energy, if the scale of explicit baryon number violation A was chosen to be of the order of the Planck mass. In this paper, we consider the effect of the modulus of the axion field. Such a field must condense in order to generate the standard Goldstone boson associated with the phase of the axion field. This condensation breaks baryon number. We argue that this modulus might be associated with inflation. If an additional B − L violating scalar is introduced with a mass similar to that of the modulus of the axion field, we argue that decays of particles associated with this field might generate an acceptable baryon asymmetry.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2013

The Majorana Demonstrator: A search for neutrinoless double-beta decay of germanium-76

The MAJORANA collaboration is searching for neutrinoless double beta decay using {sup 76}Ge, which has been shown to have a number of advantages in terms of sensitivities and backgrounds. The observation of neutrinoless double-beta decay would show that lepton number is violated and that neutrinos are Majorana particles and would simultaneously provide information on neutrino mass. Attaining sensitivities for neutrino masses in the inverted hierarchy region, 15 - 50 meV, will require large, tonne-scale detectors with extremely low backgrounds, at the level of ∼1 count/t-y or lower in the region of the signal. The MAJORANA collaboration, with funding support from DOE Office of Nuclear Physics and NSF Particle Astrophysics, is constructing the DEMONSTRATOR, an array consisting of 40 kg of p-type point-contact high-purity germanium (HPGe) detectors, of which ∼30 kg will be enriched to 87% in {sup 76}Ge. The DEMONSTRATOR is being constructed in a clean room laboratory facility at the 4850' level (4300 m.w.e.) of the Sanford Underground Research Facility (SURF) in Lead, SD. It utilizes a compact graded shield approach with the inner portion consisting of ultra-clean Cu that is being electroformed and machined underground. The primary aim of the DEMONSTRATOR is to show the feasibility of a future tonne-scale measurement in terms of backgrounds and scalability.

73 NUCLEAR PHYSICS AND RADIATION PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2024

Majorana phases beyond neutrinoless double beta decay

The ν M SM is defined as the SM extended to include dimension-5 operators. In this model neutrino masses violate lepton number, and two parameters of the lepton mixing matrix, the Majorana phases, are yet to be constrained. One combination of these phases and the neutrino masses, often denoted by m ee , is probed by neutrinoless double beta decays (0νββ). We explore what information may be obtained beyond 0νββ, and how it depends on the lightest neutrino mass. We point out that with current central values of the mixing parameters, ΔL e = 2 and ΔL e = ΔL μ = 1 (or ΔL e = 2 and ΔL μ = 2) processes cannot simultaneously vanish, providing a no-lose theorem, in principle, for excluding the ν M SM, even in the case of normal mass ordering.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2016

Common origin of neutrino mass, dark matter and Dirac leptogenesis

We study the possibility of generating tiny Dirac neutrino masses at one loop level through the scotogenic mechanism such that one of the particles going inside the loop can be a stable cold dark matter (DM) candidate. Majorana mass terms of singlet fermions as well as tree level Dirac neutrino masses are prevented by incorporating the presence of additional discrete symmetries in a minimal fashion, which also guarantee the stability of the dark matter candidate. Due to the absence of total lepton number violation, the observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe is generated through the mechanism of Dirac leptogenesis where an equal and opposite amount of leptonic asymmetry is generated in the left and right handed sectors which are prevented from equilibration due to tiny Dirac Yukawa couplings. Dark matter relic abundance is generated through its usual freeze-out at a temperature much below the scale of leptogenesis. We constrain the relevant parameter space from neutrino mass, baryon asymmetry, Planck bound on dark matter relic abundance, and latest LUX bound on spin independent DM-nucleon scattering cross section. We also discuss the charged lepton flavour violation (μ → e γ) and electric dipole moment of electron in this model in the light of the latest experimental data and constrain the parameter space of the model.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Non-relativistic leptogenesis

In many phenomenologically interesting models of thermal leptogenesis the heavy neutrinos are non-relativistic when they decay and produce the baryon asymmetry of the Universe. We propose a non-relativistic approximation for the corresponding rate equations in the non-resonant case, and a systematic way for computing relativistic corrections. We determine the leading order coefficients in these equations, and the first relativistic corrections. The non-relativistic approximation works remarkably well. It appears to be consistent with results obtained using a Boltzmann equation taking into account the momentum distribution of the heavy neutrinos, while being much simpler. We also compute radiative corrections to some of the coefficients in the rate equations. Their effect is of order 1% in the regime favored by neutrino oscillation data. We obtain the correct leading order lepton number washout rate in this regime, which leads to large ( ∼ 20%) effects compared to previous computations.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Topological solitons in 8-spinor mie electrodynamics

We investigate the effective 8-spinor field model suggested earlier as the generalization of nonlinear Mie electrodynamics. We first study in pure spinorial model the existence of topological solitons endowed with the nontrivial Hopf invariant Q{sub H}, which can be interpreted as the lepton number. Electromagnetic field being included as the perturbation, we estimate the energy and the spin of the localized charged configuration.

74 ATOMIC AND MOLECULAR PHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2025

Testing the lepton content of the proton at HERA and EIC

Although protons are baryons with an overall vanishing lepton number, they possess a non-trivial leptonic content arising from quantum fluctuations which can be described by lepton parton distribution functions (PDFs) of the proton. These PDFs have been recently computed and can be used to define lepton-induced processes at high-energy colliders. In this article, we propose a novel way to test the computation of lepton PDFs of the proton by analyzing both non-resonant di-lepton and resonant Z gauge boson production processes induced by leptons within the proton at proton-electron colliders like HERA and EIC. Despite the fact that lepton PDFs of the proton are known to be small, this work demonstrates that both processes imply a measurable yield of events at HERA and EIC, which could be used to test these PDFs.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2023

Affleck-Dine cogenesis of baryon and dark matter

We propose a mechanism for cogenesis of baryon and dark matter (DM) in the universe via the Affleck-Dine (AD) route. An AD field which breaks the lepton number symmetry, leads to the generation of lepton asymmetry by virtue of its cosmic evolution, which then gets transferred into lepton and dark sectors. While the lepton asymmetry gets converted into baryon asymmetry via sphalerons, the dark sector asymmetry leads to the final DM abundance with the symmetric part being annihilated away due to resonantly enhanced annihilation, which we choose to be provided by a gauged B – L portal. Stringent constraints from DM direct detection forces DM and B – L gauge boson masses to be light, in the few GeV ballpark. While a large portion of the model parameter space is already ruled out, the remaining parameter space is within sensitivity of laboratory as well as cosmology based experiments. The AD field also plays the role of inflaton with the required dynamics by virtue of its non-minimal coupling to gravity, consistent with observations.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2017

Phenomenology of the standard model under conditions of spontaneously broken mirror symmetry

Spontaneously broken mirror symmetry is able to reproduce observed qualitative properties of weak mixing for quark and leptons. Under conditions of broken mirror symmetry, the phenomenology of leptons—that is, small neutrino masses and a mixing character other than that in the case of quarks—requires the Dirac character of the neutrinos and the existence of processes violating the total lepton number. Such processes involve heavy mirror neutrinos; that is, they proceed at very high energies. Here, CP violation implies that a P-even mirror-symmetric Lagrangian must simultaneously be T-odd and, according to the CPT theorem, C-odd. All these properties create preconditions for the occurrence of leptogenesis, which is a mechanism of the emergence of the baryon–lepton asymmetry of the universe in models featuring broken mirror symmetry.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Updated constraints on the light-neutrino exchange mechanisms of the 0νββ-decay

The neutrinoless double-beta (0νββ) decay associated with light neutrino exchange mechanisms, which are due to both left-handed V-A and right-handed V+A leptonic and hadronic currents, is discussed by using the recent progress achieved by the GERDA, EXO and KamlandZen experiments. The upper limits for effective neutrino mass m{sub ββ} and the parameters 〈λ〉 and 〈η〉 characterizing the right handed current mechanisms are deduced from the data on the 0νββ-decay of {sup 76}Ge and {sup 136}Xe using nuclear matrix elements calculated within the nuclear shell model and quasiparticle random phase approximation and phase-space factors calculated with exact Dirac wave functions with finite nuclear size and electron screening. The careful analysis of upper constraints on effective lepton number violating parameters assumes a competition of the above mechanisms and arbitrary values of involved CP violating phases.

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS, GENERAL PHYSIC↗
DOE OSTI2017

Neutrinoless double beta-decay and neutrino nonstandard interactions

The possible amplification of leptons and quarks in exotic scalar interactions in the nuclear medium violates lepton number conservation. This effect results in various neutrino masses that are measured experimentally, on the one hand, in 0νββ-decay and, on the other, in β-decay of tritium and in cosmology.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Recent BABAR Results

We present herein the most recent BABAR results on direct CP asymmetry measurements in B → X s γ, on partial branching fraction and CP asymmetry measurements in B → X s ℓ + ℓ - , on a search for B → π/ηℓ + ℓ - decays, on a search for lepton number violation in B + → X - ℓ + ℓ' + modes and a study of B 0 →ωω and B 0 → ωφ decays.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗
DOE OSTI2013

Right-handed sneutrinos as asymmetric DM and neutrino masses from neutrinophilic Higgs bosons

We consider an extension of the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model by three right-handed neutrinos and a pair of neutrinophilic Higgs superfields. The small neutrino masses arise naturally from a small vacuum expectation value of the additional Higgs fields (hence without lepton number violation), while the lightest right-handed sneutrinos can constitute asymmetric Dark Matter. The right-handed sneutrino and baryon asymmetries are connected through equilibrium processes in the early universe, explaining the coincidence of the DM and baryon abundances. We show that particle physics and astrophysical constraints are satisfied.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2015

Subdominant Dark Matter sterile neutrino resonant production in the light of PLANCK

Few independent detections of a weak X-ray line at an energy of ∼ 3.5 keV seen toward a number of astrophysical sites have been reported. If this signal will be confirmed to be the signature of decaying DM sterile neutrino with a mass of ∼ 7.1 keV, then the cosmological observables should be consistent with its properties. In this paper we make a coupled treatment of the weak decoupling, primordial nucleosynthesis and photon decoupling epochs in the sterile neutrino resonant production scenario, including the extra radiation energy density via N{sub eff}. We compute the radiation and matter perturbations including the full resonance sweep solution for ν{sub α}/ν-bar {sub α} → ν{sub s} flavor conversion in the expanding Universe.We show that the cosmological measurements are in agreement with subdominant Dark Matter sterile neutrino resonant production with following parameters (errors at 95% CL): mass m{sub ν{sub s}}=6.08 ± 3.22 keV, mixing angle sin{sup 2} 2θ < 5.61 × 10{sup −10}, lepton number per flavor L{sub 4} = 1.23 ± 0.04 (L{sub 4} ≡ 10{sup 4} L{sub ν{sub a}}) and sterile neutrino mass fraction f{sub ν{sub s}}< 0.078.Our results are in good agreement with the sterile neutrino resonant production parameters inferred in ref. [1] from the linear large scale structure constraints to produce full Dark Matter density.

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS↗
DOE OSTI2014

Seesaw theories at LHC and warm dark matter

Explaining the origin of neutrino masses clearly requires new physics beyond the Standard Model. I focus on the Seesaw paradigm and discuss a few simplest extensions of the SM that give Majorana masses to the active neutrinos. If realized at TeV scale, seesaw theories could manifest themselves in lepton number violating signatures at both low-energy processes and high-energy collider experiments. I summarize the constraints on the seesaw scales using the current LHC data. The left-right symmetric model connects the seesaw mechanism with the origin of parity symmetry breaking, and provides a unified framework for the simplest seesaw types. With new right-handed charged-current interactions, a TeV such model offers a plethora of new particles and exotic signatures at the LHC, and also accommodates a dark matter candidate, the lightest right-handed neutrino. A challenging question is the dark matter relic density which is typically over-produced in the early universe. The late decays of two heavier right-handed neutrinos can produce entropy and dilute the dark matter number. The key observation for this picture to work is the interplay between the freeze temperature of TeV right-handed gauge interaction and the QCD phase transition. The resulting dark matter mass is predicted to be around keV which makes the left-right model also a theory of warm dark matter. I will also comment on the fate of cosmic baryon asymmetry in this scenario.

72 PHYSICS OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES AND FIELDS↗