Searching for physics beyond the Standard Model in an off-axis DUNE near detector

Next generation neutrino oscillation experiments like DUNE and T2HK are multi-purpose observatories, with a rich physics program beyond oscillation measurements. A special role is played by their near detector facilities, which are particularly well-suited to search for weakly coupled dark sector particles produced in the primary target. In this paper, we demonstrate this by estimating the sensitivity of the DUNE near detectors to the scattering of sub-GeV DM particles and to the decay of sub-GeV sterile neutrinos (“heavy neutral leptons”). We discuss in particular the importance of the DUNE-PRISM design, which allows some of the near detectors to be moved away from the beam axis. At such off-axis locations, the signal-to-background ratio improves for many new physics searches. We find that this leads to a dramatic boost in the sensitivity to boosted DM particles interacting mainly with hadrons, while for boosted DM interacting with leptons, data taken on-axis leads to marginally stronger exclusion limits. Searches for heavy neutral leptons perform equally well in both configurations.

FCC-ee overview: new opportunities create new challenges

With its high luminosity, its clean experimental conditions, and a range of energies that cover the four heaviest particles known today, FCC-ee offers a wealth of physics possibilities, with high potential for discoveries. The FCC-ee is an essential and complementary step towards a 100 TeV hadron collider, and as such offers a uniquely powerful combined physics program. This vision is the backbone of the 2020 European Strategy for Particle Physics. One of the main challenges is now to design experimental systems that can, demonstrably, fully exploit these extraordinary opportunities.

The CMS electromagnetic calorimeter upgrade: high-rate readout with precise time and energy resolution

The electromagnetic calorimeter (ECAL) of the CMS detector has played an important role in the physics program of the experiment, delivering outstanding performance throughout data taking. The high-luminosity LHC will pose new challenges. The four to five-fold increase of the number of interactions per bunch crossing will require superior time resolution and noise rejection capabilities. For these reasons the electronics readout has been completely redesigned. A dual gain trans-impedance amplifier and an ASIC providing two 160 MHz ADC channels, gain selection, and data compression will be used in the new readout electronics. The trigger decision will be moved off-detector and will be performed by powerful and flexible FPGA processors, allowing for more sophisticated trigger algorithms to be applied. The upgraded ECAL will be capable of high-precision energy measurements throughout HL-LHC and will greatly improve the time resolution for photons and electrons above 10 GeV.

The physics program of the PADME experiment

PADME (Positron Annihilation into Dark Matter Experiment) is a fixed target experiment located at the Beam Test Facility (BTF) at the Laboratori Nazionali di Frascati (LNF) designed to search for a massive dark photon A' in the process e+e- into γA', using a positron beam of energy up to 550 MeV.

Theoretical challenges for flavor physics

We discuss some highlights of the FCC-$$ee$$ ee flavor physics program. It will help to explore various aspects of flavor physics: to test precision calculations, to probe nonperturbative QCD methods, and to increase the sensitivity to physics beyond the standard model. In some areas, FCC-$$ee$$ ee will do much better than current and near-future experiments. We briefly discuss several probes that can be relevant for maximizing the gain from the FCC-$$ee$$ ee flavor program.

The Z lineshape challenge: ppm and keV measurements

The FCC-ee offers powerful opportunities for direct or indirect evidence for physics beyond the standard model, via a combination of high-precision measurements and searches for forbidden and rare processes and feebly coupled particles. A key element of FCC-ee physics program is the measurement of the Z lineshape from a total of $$5\times 10^{12}$$ 5 × 10 12 Z bosons and a beam-energy calibration with relative uncertainty of $$10^{-6}$$ 10 - 6 . With this exceptionally large event sample, five orders of magnitude larger than that accumulated during the whole LEP1 operation at the Z pole, the defining parameters—$$m_\mathrm{Z}$$ m Z , $$\Gamma _\mathrm{Z}$$ Γ Z , $$N_\nu $$ N ν , $$\sin ^2\theta _\mathrm{W}^\mathrm{eff}$$ sin 2 θ W eff , $$\alpha _\mathrm{S}(m_\mathrm{Z}^2)$$ α S ( m Z 2 ) , and $$\alpha _\mathrm{QED}(m^2_\mathrm{Z})$$ α QED ( m Z 2 ) —can be extracted with a leap in accuracy of up to two orders of magnitude with respect to the current state of the art. The ultimate goal that experimental and theory systematic errors match the statistical accuracy (4 keV on the Z mass and width, $$3\times 10^{-6}$$ 3 × 10 - 6 on $$\sin ^2\theta _\mathrm{W}^\mathrm{eff}$$ sin 2 θ W eff , a relative $$3\times 10^{-5}$$ 3 × 10 - 5 on $$\alpha _\mathrm{QED}$$ α QED , and less than 0.0001 on $$\alpha _\mathrm{S}$$ α S ) leads to highly demanding requirements on collider operation, beam instrumentation, detector design, computing facilities, theoretical calculations, and Monte Carlo event generators. Such precise measurements also call for innovative analysis methods, which require a joint effort and understanding between theorists, experimenters, and accelerator teams.

Evaluation of the Implementation of Cross Interest Physics Subject for Non-Mathematics and Natural Sciences Students at Senior High School

Cross-interest is a program that aims to expand and develop students' interests, talents and abilities by selecting subjects outside the specialization program group. The cross-interest program has been implemented for several years in Indonesia, but there is still very little evaluation of the implementation of this program, especially across physics interests. For the implementation of cross-interest physics to be more optimal, research related to cross-interest program evaluation in physics is needed. This study aims to evaluate cross-interest programs in physics and identify obstacles in its implementation hence the solutions can be formulated. This study involved 203 social science students as respondents from schools which implementing cross-interest physics programs. This type of research uses evaluative research with qualitative descriptive methods, where data collection is compiled using questionnaires and interviews which are conducted online. The results of this study indicate that there are still several obstacles in the implementation of cross-interest classes in physics, including the inadequacy of class grouping across interests with student interests, lack of teacher teaching hours, and lack of participation and enthusiasm of cross-interest class students compared to specialization class students. Based on the research results, it can be concluded that the implementation of the cross-interest program in physics is still below expectation. Through the results of this research, it is presented an evaluation material and become a consideration for the relevant parties in charge of implementing the cross-interest physics program subsequently there will be improvements in the implementation of cross-interest physics program purposefully.

Hunting wino and higgsino dark matter at the muon collider with disappearing tracks

We study the capabilities of a muon collider experiment to detect disappearing tracks originating when a heavy and electrically charged long-lived particle decays via X+→ Y+Z0, where X+ and Z0 are two almost mass degenerate new states and Y+ is a charged Standard Model particle. The backgrounds induced by the in-flight decays of the muon beams (BIB) can create detector hit combinations that mimic long-lived particle signatures, making the search a daunting task. We design a simple strategy to tame the BIB, based on a detector-hit-level selection exploiting timing information and hit-to-hit correlations, followed by simple requirements on the quality of reconstructed tracks. Our strategy allows us to reduce the number of tracks from BIB to an average of 0.08 per event, hence being able to design a cut-and-count analysis that shows that it is possible to cover weak doublets and triplets with masses close to $$ \sqrt{s}/2 $$ s / 2 in the 0.1–10 ns range. In particular, this implies that a 10 TeV muon collider is able to probe thermal MSSM higgsinos and thermal MSSM winos, thus rivaling the FCC-hh in that respect, and further enlarging the physics program of the muon collider into the territory of WIMP dark matter and long-lived signatures. We also provide parton-to-reconstructed level efficiency maps, allowing an estimation of the coverage of disappearing tracks at muon colliders for arbitrary models.