arXiv subjects

A. Riotto

Publications and source records attributed to A. Riotto.

At least 163 records · Page 9Linked to original sources

arXiv1999

Production of Massive Fermions at Preheating and Leptogenesis

We present a complete computation of the inflaton decay into very massive fermions during preheating. We show that heavy fermions are produced very efficiently up to masses of order 10^{17}-10^{18} GeV; the accessible mass range is thus even broader than the one for heavy bosons. We apply our findings to the leptogenesis scenario, proposing a new version of it, in which the massive right-handed neutrinos, responsible for the generation of the baryon asymmetry, are produced during preheating. We also discuss other production mechanisms of right-handed neutrinos in the early Universe, identifying the neutrino mass parameters for which the observed baryon asymmetry is reproduced.

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arXiv1999

F-term inflation in Superstring Theories

A supersymmetric inflationary stage dominated by an $F$-term has the problem that the flatness of the potential is spoiled by supergravity corrections, that is the slow-roll parameter $η$ gets contributions of order unity. We show that in $F$-term inflationary models based on strings there is natural way of obtaining small values of $η$. This happens in models of hybrid inflation based on orbifold constructions, in which a modulus $T$ field is responsible for the large value of the potential during inflation, and a second field $ϕ$ with appropriate modular weight is responsible for the roll-over. We illustrate the mechanism with a model in which the inflaton potential is provided by gaugino condensation, leading to succesful inflation.

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arXiv1999

The Sphaleron in a Magnetic Field and Electroweak Baryogenesis

The presence of a primordial magnetic field in the early universe affects the dynamic of the electroweak phase transition enhancing its strength. This effect may enlarge the window for electroweak baryogenesis in the minimal supersymmetric extension of the standard model or even resurrect the electroweak baryogenesis scenario in the standard model. We compute the sphaleron energy in the background of the magnetic field and show that, due to the sphaleron dipole moment, the barrier between topologically inequivalent vacua is lowered. Therefore, the preservation of the baryon asymmetry calls for a much stronger phase transition than required in the absence of a magnetic field. We show that this effect overwhelms the gain in the phase transition strength, and conclude that magnetic fields do not help electroweak baryogenesis.

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arXiv1998

Nucleosynthesis Bounds in Gauge-Mediated Supersymmetry Breaking Theories

In gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking theories the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle can decay during or after the nucleosynthesis epoch. The decay products such as photons and hadrons can destroy the light element abundances. Restricting the damage that these decays can do leads to constraints on the abundance and lifetime of the NLSP. We compute the freezeout abundance of the NLSP by including all coannhilation thresholds which are particularly important in the case in which the NLSP is the lightest stau. We find that the upper bound on the messenger scale can be as stringent as 10^12 GeV when the NLSP is the lightest neutralino and 10^13 GeV when the NLSP is the lightest stau. Our findings disfavour models of gauge mediation where the messenger scale is close to the GUT scale or results from balancing renormalisable interactions with non-renormalisable operators at the Planck scale. When combined with the requirement of no gravitino overabundance, our bound implies that the reheating temperature after inflation must be less than 10^7 GeV.

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arXiv1998

Dilaton Stabilisation in $D$-term Inflation

Dilaton stabilisation is usually considered to pose a serious obstacle to successful $D$-term inflation in superstring theories. We argue that the physics of gaugino condensation is likely to be modified during the inflationary phase in such a way as to enhance the gaugino condensation scale. This enables dilaton stabilisation during inflation with the $D$-term still dominating the vacuum energy at the stable minimum.

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arXiv1998

D-term Inflation in Superstring Theories

An inflationary stage dominated by a $D$-term avoids the slow-roll problem of inflation in supergravity and may emerge in theories with a non-anomalous or anomalous U(1) gauge symmetry. The most intriguing and commonly invoked possibility is that the Fayet-Iliopoulos $D$-term triggering inflation is the one emerging in superstring theories. We discuss the complications one has to face when trying to build up a successful $D$-term inflationary scenario in superstring models. In particular, we show that the ``vacuum shifting'' phenomenon of string theories is usually very efficient even in the early Universe, thus preventing inflation from taking place. On the other hand, when $D$-term inflation is free to occur, the presence of a plethora of fields and several non-anomalous additional abelian symmetries in string theories may help in reconciling the value of the Fayet-Iliopoulos $D$-term required by the COBE normalization with the value predicted by string theories. We also show that in superstring $D$-term inflation gravitinos are likely to pose no cosmological problem.

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arXiv1998

Recent Developments in Electroweak baryogenesis

We discuss some recent developments made in the computation of the baryon asymmetry generated at the electroweak scale. We emphasize that the local number density asymmetries of the particles involved in supersymmetric electroweak baryogenesis must be described by a set of Quantum Boltzmann Equations. These diffusion equations automatically and self-consistently incorporate the CP-violating sources which fuel baryogenesis and manifest ``memory'' effects which are typical of the quantum transport theory and are not present in the classical approach.

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arXiv1998

A Mechanism for Baryogenesis in Low Energy Supersymmetry Breaking Models

A generic prediction of models where supersymmetry is broken at scales within a few orders of magnitude of the weak scale and is fed down to the observable sector by gauge interactions is the existence of superconducting cosmic strings which carry baryon number. In this paper we propose a novel mechanism for the generation of the baryon asymmetry which takes place at temperatures much lower than the weak scale. Superconducting strings act like ``bags'' containing the baryon charge and protect it from sphaleron wash-out throughout the evolution of the Universe, until baryon number violating processes become harmless. This mechanism is efficient even if the electroweak phase transition in the MSSM is of the second order and therefore does not impose any upper bound on the mass of the Higgs boson. (13kb)

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arXiv1998

GUT baryogenesis after preheating: numerical study of the production and decay of X-bosons

We perform a fully non-linear calculation of the production of supermassive Grand Unified Theory (GUT) $X$ bosons during preheating, taking into account the fact that they are unstable with a decay width $Γ_X$. We show that parametric resonance does not develop if $Γ_X$ is larger than about $10^{-2} m_X$. We compute the nonthermal number density of superheavy bosons produced in the preheating phase and demonstrate that the observed baryon asymmetry may be explained by GUT baryogenesis after preheating if $Γ_X$ is smaller than about $10^{-3} m_X$.

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arXiv1997

Comments on D-term inflation

An inflationary stage dominated by a D-term avoids the slow-roll problem of inflation in supergravity and can naturally emerge in theories with a non-anomalous or anomalous U(1) gauge symmetry. In the latter case, however, the scale of inflation as imposed by the COBE normalization is in contrast with the value fixed by the Green-Schwarz mechanism of anomaly cancellation. In this paper we discuss possible solutions to this problem and comment about the fact that the string-loop generated Fayet-Iliopoulos D-term may trigger the presence of global and local cosmic strings at the end of inflation.

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arXiv1997

The Superhot, Superdense, Supersymmetric Universe

In this talk the following question is addressed: are internal symmetries necessarily restored at high temperature in supersymmetric theories? Contrary to the general belief, we argue that the answer is no when systems possess a net background charge. Our findings are exemplified on abelian models, for both cases of global and local symmetries and possible cosmological implications are also discussed.

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arXiv1997

Electroweak baryogenesis and low energy supersymmetry

Electroweak baryogenesis is an interesting theoretical scenario, which demands physics beyond the Standard Model at energy scales of the order of the weak boson masses. It has been recently emphasized that, in the presence of light stops, the electroweak phase transition can be strongly first order, opening the window for electroweak baryogenesis in the MSSM. For the realization of this scenario, the Higgs boson must be light, at the reach of the LEP2 collider. In this article, we compute the baryon asymmetry assuming the presence of non-trivial CP violating phases in the parameters associated with the left-right stop mixing term and the Higgsino mass $μ$. We conclude that a phase $|\sin ϕ_μ| > 0.01$ and Higgsino and gaugino mass parameters $|μ| \simeq M_2$, and of the order of the electroweak scale, are necessary in order to generate the observed baryon asymmetry.

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arXiv1997

What is found upon defrosting the Universe after inflation

At the end of inflation the Universe is frozen in a near zero-entropy state with energy density in a coherent scalar field and must be "defrosted" to produce the observed entropy and baryon number. Baryon asymmetry may be generated by the decay of supermassive Grand Unified Theory (GUT) bosons produced non-thermally in a preheating phase after inflation, thus solving many drawbacks facing GUT baryogenesis in the old reheating scenario.

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arXiv1996

New Astrophysical Constraints on the Mass of the Superlight Gravitino

In some supergravity models, the superlight gravitino is accompanied by a light weakly coupled scalar (S) and pseudo-scalar (P) particle. The coupling of these particles to matter is inversely proportional to the product of the gravitino mass and the Planck mass. As a result, their emission from the stars and supernovae via the photon electron scattering reaction for certain ranges of the gravitino mass can become the dominant energy loss mechanism in contradiction with observations thereby ruling out those mass values for the gravitino. For scalar and/or pseudo-scalar masses between 10 MeV and a keV, the SN1987A observations exclude the gravitino mass range from 0.03 eV to 30 eV whereas if the S/P masses are less than a keV, constraints of stellar energy loss can exclude the gravitino masses ranging from $3\times 10^{-6}$ eV to 50 eV for the photino mass of 100 GeV. We also find that for S/P mass less than an MeV, Big Bang Nucleosynthesis constraints imply a gravitino mass larger than one eV. These are the most stringent bounds to date on the gravitino mass in this class of models.

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arXiv1996

Supersymmetric models with anomalous U(1) mediated supersymmetry breaking

We construct realistic supergravity models where supersymmetry breaking arises from the D-terms of an anomalous U(1) gauge symmetry broken at the Planck scale. Effective action for these theories at sub-Planck energies (including higher dimensional terms in the superpotential) are severely restricted by the U(1) symmetry and by the assumption that they arise from an underlying renormalizable theory at a higher scale. Phenomenological consequences of these models are studied. They are found to have the attractive feature that the gaugino masses, the A and B terms and the mass splittings between the like-charged squarks of the first two generations compared to their average masses can all be naturally suppressed. As a result, the electric dipole moment of the neutron as well as the flavor changing neutral current effects are predicted to be naturally small. These models also predict the value of the $μ$-term to be naturally small and have the potential to qualitatively explain the observed mass hierarchy among quarks and leptons. We then discuss examples of high scale renormalizable theories that can justify the choice of the the effective action from naturalness point of view.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1996

Astrophysical bounds on superlight gravitinos

We derive the allowed mass range for the superlight gravitino present in a large class of supersymmetric models from the observed luminosity from Supernova 1987A. We find that for photino masses of order 100 GeV, the mass range $2.6\times 10^{-6} eV \leq m_{\tilde{g}} \leq 2.2\times 10^{-8} eV$ for the gravitino $\tilde{g}$ is excluded by SN1987A observations. Unlike the bounds on $m_{\tilde{g}}$ from nucleosynthesis, the bounds in the present paper do not depend critically on the uncertainties of the observational input.

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arXiv1996

Higgs Boson Mass in Models with Gauge-Mediated Supersymmetry Breaking

We present the predictions for the mass $M_h$ of the lightest Higgs boson in models with gauge-mediated supersymmetry breaking as a function of the SUSY-breaking scale. We include all radiative corrections up to two loops and point out that if the CDF e+ e- two-photon event is interpreted in terms of these models, then the lightest Higgs boson should be lighter than 110 GeV.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1996

Preheating and vacuum metastability in Supersymmetry

The constraints imposed by the requirement that the scalar potential of supersymmetric theories does not have unbounded directions and charge or color breaking minima deeper than the usual electroweak breaking minimum (EWM) are significantly relaxed if one just allows for a metastable EWM but with a sufficiently long lifetime. For this to be acceptable one needs however to explain how the vacuum state reaches this metastable configuration in the first place. We discuss the implications for this issue of the inflaton induced scalar masses, of the supersymmetry breaking effects generated during the preheating stage as well as of the thermal corrections to the scalar potential which appear after reheating. We show that their combined effects may efficiently drive the scalar fields to the origin, allowing them to then evolve naturally towards the EWM.

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