Dilaton chiral perturbation theory and applications

We review dilaton chiral perturbation theory (dChPT), the effective low-energy theory for the light sector of near-conformal, confining theories. dChPT provides a systematic expansion in both the fermion mass and the distance to the conformal window. It accounts for the pions and the light scalar, the approximate Nambu–Goldstone bosons for chiral and scale symmetry, respectively. A unique feature of dChPT is the existence of a large-mass regime in which the theory exhibits approximate hyperscaling, while the expansion nevertheless remains systematic. We discuss applications to lattice data, presenting successes as well as directions for future work.

Electroweak phase transitions with BSM fermions

We study the impact of additional beyond-the-Standard Model (BSM) fermions, charged under the Standard Model (SM) SU(2)L ⊗ U(1)Y gauge group, on the electroweak phase transition (EWPT) in a 2-Higgs-Doublet-Model (2HDM) of type II. We find that the strength of the EWPT can be enhanced by about 40% compared to the default 2HDM. Therefore, additional light fermions are a useful tool to weaken the tension between increasing mass constraints on BSM scalars and the requirement of additional light scalar degrees of freedom to accommodate a strong first order EWPT. The findings are of particular interest for a variety of (non-minimal) split supersymmetry scenarios which necessarily introduce additional light fermion degrees of freedom.

Missing scalars at the cosmological collider

Light scalar fields typically develop spatially varying backgrounds during inflation. Very often they do not directly affect the density perturbations, but interact with other fields that do leave nontrivial signals in primordial perturbations. In this sense they become “missing scalars” at the cosmological collider. We study potentially observable signals of these missing scalars, focusing on a special example where a missing scalar distorts the usual oscillatory features in the squeezed bispectrum. The distortion is also a useful signal distinguishing the de Sitter background induced thermal mass from a constant intrinsic mass.

Circulating pulse cavity enhancement as a method for extreme momentum transfer atom interferometry

Large-scale atom interferometers promise unrivaled strain sensitivity to mid-band gravitational waves, and will probe a new parameter space in the search for ultra-light scalar dark matter. These proposals require gradiometry with kilometer-scale baselines, a momentum separation above 104ℏk between interferometer arms, and optical transitions to long-lived clock states to reach the target sensitivities. Prohibitively high optical power and wavefront flatness requirements have thus far limited the maximum achievable momentum splitting. Here we propose a scheme for optical cavity enhanced atom interferometry, using circulating, spatially resolved pulses, and intracavity frequency modulation to meet these requirements. We present parameters for the realization of 20 kW circulating pulses in a 1 km interferometer enabling 104ℏk splitting on the 698 nm clock transition in 87Sr. This scheme addresses the presently insurmountable laser power requirements and is feasible in the context of a kilometer-scale atom interferometer facility.

Sensitivity to BSM effects in the Higgs pT spectrum within SMEFT

The study of Higgs boson production at large transverse momentum is one of the new frontiers for the LHC Higgs physics programme. This paper considers boosted Higgs production in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT). We focus on the gluon fusion and t$$ \overline{t} $$ t ¯ H production processes and study the effects of three dimension-6 operators: the top Yukawa operator, the gluon-Higgs effective coupling and the chromomagnetic dipole operator of the top quark. We perform a detailed study of the sensitivity of current and future LHC data to the corresponding Wilson coefficients, consistently accounting for their renormalisation group evolution. We compare the sensitivities obtained with only linear and linear + quadratic terms in the SMEFT by using the spectrum shape and the addition of the Higgs signal yields. We also consider fits of pT spectra in models with heavy-top partners and in MSSM scenarios with a light scalar top and study the validity of the SMEFT assumptions as a function of the new-particle masses and the Higgs pT range. Finally, we extract constraints on the Wilson coefficients for gluon fusion from a simultaneous fit to the ATLAS and CMS data and compare our results with those obtained in global SMEFT analyses.

Portal Effective Theories. A framework for the model independent description of light hidden sector interactions

We present a framework for the construction of portal effective theory (PETs) that couple effective field theories of the Standard Model (SM) to light hidden messenger fields. Using this framework we construct electroweak and strong scale PETs that couple the SM to messengers carrying spin zero, one half, or one. The electroweak scale PETs encompass all portal operators up to dimension five, while the strong scale PETs additionally contain all portal operators of dimension six and seven that contribute at leading order to quark-flavour violating transitions. Using the strong scale PETs, we define a set of portal currents that couple hidden sectors to QCD, and construct portal chiral perturbation theory (χPTs) that relate these currents to the light pseudoscalar mesons. We estimate the coefficients of the portal χPT Lagrangian that are not fixed by SM observations using non-perturbative matching techniques and give a complete list of the resulting one- and two-meson portal interactions. From those, we compute transition amplitudes for three golden channels that are used in hidden sector searches at fixed target experiments: i) charged kaon decay into a charged pion and a spin zero messenger, ii) charged kaon decay into a charged lepton and a spin one half messenger, and iii) neutral pion decay into a photon and a spin one messenger. Finally, we compare these amplitudes to specific expressions for models featuring light scalar particles, axion-like particles, heavy neutral leptons, and dark photons.

New physics searches at the ILC positron and electron beam dumps

We study capability of the ILC beam dump experiment to search for new physics, comparing the performance of the electron and positron beam dumps. The dark photon, axion-like particles, and light scalar bosons are considered as new physics scenarios, where all the important production mechanisms are included: electron-positron pair-annihilation, Primakoff process, and bremsstrahlung productions.We find that the ILC beam dump experiment has higher sensitivity than past beam dump experiments, with the positron beam dump having slightly better performance for new physics particles which are produced by the electron-positron pair-annihilation.

Composite Higgs revealed in Higgs pair photo-production at future colliders

The next generation electron-positron colliders are designed for precision studies of the Standard Model and its extensions, in particular in the Higgs sector. We consider the potential for discovery of composite Higgs models in Higgs pair production through photon collisions. This process is loop-generated, thus it provides access to all Higgs couplings and can show new physics effects in polarized and unpolarized cross-sections starting at relatively low collider energies. It is, therefore, relevant for all electron-positron colliders planned or in preparation. Sizeable deviations from the Standard Model predictions are present in a general class of composite Higgs models, as couplings of one or more Higgs bosons to fermions, or fermionic and scalar resonances, modify the destructive interference present in the Standard Model. In particular, large effects are due to the new quartic coupling of the Higgs to tops and to the presence of a light scalar resonance.

Stochastic Inflation at NNLO

Stochastic Inflation is an important framework for understanding the physics of de Sitter space and the phenomenology of inflation. In the leading approximation, this approach results in a Fokker-Planck equation that calculates the probability distribution for a light scalar field as a function of time. Despite its successes, the quantum field theoretic origins and the range of validity for this equation have remained elusive, and establishing a formalism to systematically incorporate higher order effects has been an area of active study. In this paper, we calculate the next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) corrections to Stochastic Inflation using Soft de Sitter Effective Theory (SdSET). In this effective description, Stochastic Inflation manifests as the renormalization group evolution of composite operators. The leading impact of non-Gaussian quantum fluctuations appears at NNLO, which is presented here for the first time; we derive the coefficient of this term from a two-loop anomalous dimension calculation within SdSET. We solve the resulting equation to determine the NNLO equilibrium distribution and the low-lying relaxation eigenvalues. In the process, we must match the UV theory onto SdSET at one-loop order, which provides a non-trivial confirmation that the separation into Wilson-coefficient corrections and contributions to initial conditions persists beyond tree level. Furthermore, these results illustrate how the naive factorization of time and momentum integrals in SdSET no longer holds in the presence of logarithmic divergences. It is these effects that ultimately give rise to the renormalization group flow that yields Stochastic Inflation.

Non-relativistic and potential non-relativistic effective field theories for scalar mediators

Yukawa-type interactions between heavy Dirac fermions and a scalar field are a common ingredient in various extensions of the Standard Model. Despite of that, the non-relativistic limit of the scalar Yukawa theory has not yet been studied in full generality in a rigorous and model-independent way. In this paper we intend to fill this gap by initiating a series of investigations that make use of modern effective field theory (EFT) techniques. In particular, we aim at constructing suitable non-relativistic and potential non-relativistic EFTs of Yukawa interactions (denoted as NRY and pNRY respectively) in close analogy to the well known and phenomenologically successful non-relativistic QCD (NRQCD) and potential non-relativistic QCD (pNRQCD). The phenomenological motivation for our study lies in the possibility to explain the existing cosmological observations by introducing heavy fermionic dark matter particles that interact with each other by exchanging a light scalar mediator. A systematic study of this compelling scenario in the framework of non-relativistic EFTs (NREFTs) constitutes the main novelty of our approach as compared to the existing studies.