Nonperturbative effects in the Standard Model with gauged 1-form symmetry

We study the Standard Model with gauged $$ {\mathrm{\mathbb{Z}}}_{N=2,3,6}^{(1)} $$ ℤ N = 2 , 3 , 6 1 subgroups of its $$ {\mathrm{\mathbb{Z}}}_6^{(1)} $$ ℤ 6 1 1-form global symmetry, making the gauge group $$ \frac{\mathrm{SU}(3)\times \mathrm{SU}(2)\times \mathrm{U}(1)}{{\mathrm{\mathbb{Z}}}_N} $$ SU 3 × SU 2 × U 1 ℤ N . We show that, on a finite $$ {\mathbbm{T}}^3 $$ T 3 , there are self-dual instantons of fractional topological charge. They mediate baryon- and lepton-number violating processes. We compare their amplitudes to the ones due to the usual BPST-instantons. We find that the small hypercharge coupling suppresses the fractional-instanton contribution, unless the torus size is taken sub-Planckian, or extra matter is added above the weak scale. We also discuss these results in light of the cosmological bounds on the torus size.

Challenges for an axion explanation of the muon g − 2 measurement

The discrepancy between the muon g − 2 measurement and the Standard Model prediction points to new physics around or below the weak scale. It is tantalizing to consider the loop effects of a heavy axion (in the general sense, also known as an axion-like particle) coupling to leptons and photons as an explanation for this discrepancy. We provide an updated analysis of the necessary couplings, including two-loop contributions, and find that the new physics operators point to an axion decay constant on the order of 10s of GeV. This poses major problems for such an explanation, as the axion couplings to leptons and photons must be generated at low scales. We outline some possibilities for how such couplings can arise, and find that these scenarios predict new charged matter at or below the weak scale and new scalars can mix with the Higgs boson, raising numerous phenomenological challenges. These scenarios also all predict additional contributions to the muon g−2 itself, calling the initial application of the axion effective theory into question. We conclude that there is little reason to favor an axion explanation of the muon g – 2 measurement relative to other models postulating new weak-scale matter.

Completeness and complementarity for μ → eγ, μ → $$ e\overline{e}e $$ and μA → eA

Lepton Flavour Violation (LFV) is New Physics that must occur, but is stringently constrained by experiments searching for μ ↔ e flavour change, such as μ → eγ, μ →$$ e\overline{e}e $$ e e ¯ e or μ → e conversion. However, in an Effective Field Theory(EFT) parametrisation, there are many more μ ↔ e operators than restrictive constraints, so determining operator coefficients from data is a remote dream. It is nonetheless interesting to learn about New Physics from data, so this manuscript introduces “observable-vectors” in the space of operator coefficients, which identify at any scale the combination of coefficients probed by the observable. These vectors have an overlap ≳ 10−3 with most of the coefficients, and are used to study whether μ → eγ, μ →$$ e\overline{e}e $$ e e ¯ e and μ → e conversion give complementary information about New Physics. The appendix gives updated sensitivities of these processes, (and a subset of τ → ℓ decays), to operator coefficients at the weak scale in the SMEFT and in the EFT below mW.

Crunching away the cosmological constant problem: dynamical selection of a small Λ

We propose a novel explanation for the smallness of the observed cosmological constant (CC). Regions of space with a large CC are short lived and are dynamically driven to crunch soon after the end of inflation. Conversely, regions with a small CC are metastable and long lived and are the only ones to survive until late times. While the mechanism assumes many domains with different CC values, it does not result in eternal inflation nor does it require a long period of inflation to populate them. We present a concrete dynamical model, based on a super-cooled first order phase transition in a hidden conformal sector, that may successfully implement such a crunching mechanism. We find that the mechanism can only solve the CC problem up to the weak scale, above which new physics, such as supersymmetry, is needed to solve the CC problem all the way to the UV cutoff scale. The absence of experimental evidence for such new physics already implies a mild little hierarchy problem for the CC. Curiously, in this approach the weak scale arises as the geometric mean of the temperature in our universe today and the Planck scale, hinting at a new “CC miracle”, motivating new physics at the weak scale independent of electroweak physics. We further predict the presence of new relativistic degrees of freedom in the CFT that should be visible in the next round of CMB experiments. Our mechanism is therefore predictive and experimentally falsifiable.

Soft displaced leptons at the LHC

Soft displaced leptons are representative collider signatures of compressed dark sectors with feeble couplings to the standard model. Prime targets are dark matter scenarios where co-scattering or co-annihilation sets the relic abundance upon freeze-out. At the LHC, searches for soft displaced leptons are challenged by a large background from hadron or tau lepton decays. In this article, we present an analysis tailored for displaced leptons with a low transverse momentum threshold at 20 GeV. Using a neural network, we perform a comprehensive analysis of the event kinematics, including a study of the expected detection efficiencies and backgrounds at small momenta. Our results show that weak-scale particles decaying into soft leptons with decay lengths between 1 mm and 1 m can be probed with LHC Run 2 data. This motivates the need for dedicated triggers that maximize the sensitivity to displaced soft leptons.

Large star/rose extra dimension with small leaves/petals

In this paper, we propose to compactify a single Large Extra Dimension (LED) on a star/rose graph with a large number of identical leaves/petals. The 5D Planck scale can be chosen to be [Formula: see text] TeV which can provide a path to solve the gauge hierarchy problem. The leaf/petal length scale is of [Formula: see text], where [Formula: see text] GeV is the weak scale, without the large geometrical hierarchy of the traditional LED models to stabilize. The 4D fields of the SM are localized on a 3-brane at the central vertex of the star/rose graph. We predict a tower of feebly coupled weak scale Kaluza–Klein (KK) gravitons below a regime of strongly coupled gravitational phenomena above the TeV scale. Moreover, we reformulate in our setup the LED mechanism to generate light Dirac neutrinos, where the right-handed neutrinos are KK-modes of gauge singlet fermions propagating in the bulk. A large number of KK-gravitons and KK-neutrinos interact only gravitationally and thus constitute a hidden sector.