arXiv subjects

Christophe Grojean

Publications and source records attributed to Christophe Grojean.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2023

The shift-invariant orders of an ALP

It is generally believed that global symmetries, in particular axion shift symmetries, can only be approximate. This motivates us to quantify the breaking of the shift invariance that characterizes the couplings of an axion-like particle (ALP), and to identify proper order parameters associated to this breaking. Focusing on the flavorful effective Yukawa couplings to Standard Model fermions, we work out explicit conditions for them to maintain an exact axion shift symmetry. Those conditions are given in terms of Jarlskog-like flavor-invariants and can be directly evaluated from the values of the different Yukawa couplings. Therefore, they represent order parameters for the breaking of the axion shift symmetry. We illustrate this construction by matching the axion EFT to UV models, and by showing that the renormalization group running closes on those shift-breaking flavor-invariants, as it should on any complete set of order parameters. Furthermore, the study of the invariants' CP-parities indicate that all but one are CP-odd, hence the assumption of CP conservation suffices to cancel all but one sources of shift-breaking in the theory. We also investigate similar conditions in the low-energy EFT below the electroweak scale, and comment on relations inherited from a UV completion which realizes the electroweak symmetry linearly. Finally, we discuss the order parameter associated to the non-perturbative shift-breaking induced by the axion-gluons coupling, which is also flavorful.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2023

The International Linear Collider: Report to Snowmass 2021

The International Linear Collider (ILC) is on the table now as a new global energy-frontier accelerator laboratory taking data in the 2030s. The ILC addresses key questions for our current understanding of particle physics. It is based on a proven accelerator technology. Its experiments will challenge the Standard Model of particle physics and will provide a new window to look beyond it. This document brings the story of the ILC up to date, emphasizing its strong physics motivation, its readiness for construction, and the opportunity it presents to the US and the global particle physics community.

physics.acc-ph↗

arXiv2022

Report of the Topical Group on Electroweak Precision Physics and Constraining New Physics for Snowmass 2021

The precise measurement of physics observables and the test of their consistency within the standard model (SM) are an invaluable approach, complemented by direct searches for new particles, to determine the existence of physics beyond the standard model (BSM). Studies of massive electroweak gauge bosons (W and Z bosons) are a promising target for indirect BSM searches, since the interactions of photons and gluons are strongly constrained by the unbroken gauge symmetries. They can be divided into two categories: (a) Fermion scattering processes mediated by s- or t-channel W/Z bosons, also known as electroweak precision measurements; and (b) multi-boson processes, which include production of two or more vector bosons in fermion-antifermion annihilation, as well as vector boson scattering (VBS) processes. The latter categories can test modifications of gauge-boson self-interactions, and the sensitivity is typically improved with increased collision energy. This report evaluates the achievable precision of a range of future experiments, which depend on the statistics of the collected data sample, the experimental and theoretical systematic uncertainties, and their correlations. In addition it presents a combined interpretation of these results, together with similar studies in the Higgs and top sector, in the Standard Model effective field theory (SMEFT) framework. This framework provides a model-independent prescription to put generic constraints on new physics and to study and combine large sets of experimental observables, assuming that the new physics scales are significantly higher than the EW scale.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Truncation, validity, uncertainties

The truncation of the standard-model effective field theory, its validity and the associated uncertainties have been discussed in meetings of the LHC EFT WG. Proposals were made by participants to address these issues. No consensus was reached and no formal recommendation is therefore put forward at this time. None of the proposals has been approved or validated and further work is needed to establish a prescription. This note aims at summarizing the proposals and points of debate.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Machine learning the trilinear and light-quark Yukawa couplings from Higgs pair kinematic shapes

Revealing the Higgs pair production process is the next big challenge in high energy physics. In this work, we explore the use of interpretable machine learning and cooperative game theory for extraction of the trilinear Higgs self-coupling in Higgs pair production. In particular, we show how a topological decomposition of the gluon-gluon fusion Higgs pair production process can be used to simplify the machine learning analysis flow. Furthermore, we extend the analysis to include $q\bar{q}\to hh$ production, which is strongly suppressed in the Standard Model, to extract the trilinear Higgs coupling and to bound large deviations of the light-quark Yukawa couplings from the Standard Model values. The constraints on the rescaling of the trilinear Higgs self-coupling, $κ_λ$, and the rescaling of light-quark Yukawa couplings, $κ_u$ and $κ_d$, at HL-LHC (FCC-hh) from single parameter fits are: \begin{eqnarray} κ_λ&=&[0.53,1.7] \;\;([0.97, 1.03])\nonumber \newline κ_u&=&[-470,430] \;\;([-58,55])\nonumber \newline κ_d&=&[-360,360] \;\;([-26,28])\nonumber \end{eqnarray} We show that the simultaneous modification of the Yukawa couplings can dilute the constraints on the trilinear coupling significantly. We perform similar analyses for FCC-hh. We discuss some motivated flavourful new physics scenarios where such an analysis prevails.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Beyond Jarlskog: 699 invariants for CP violation in SMEFT

As SMEFT is a framework of growing importance to analyze high-energy data, understanding its parameter space is crucial. The latter is commonly split into CP-even and CP-odd parts, but this classification is obscured by the fact that CP violation is actually a collective effect that is best captured by considering flavor-invariant combinations of Lagrangian parameters. First we show that fermion rephasing invariance imposes that several coefficients associated to dimension-six operators can never interfere with operators of dimension $\leq4$ and thus cannot appear in any physical observable at $\order{1/Λ^2}$. For those that can, instead, we establish a one-to-one correspondence with CP-odd flavor invariants, all linear with respect to SMEFT coefficients. We explicitly present complete lists of such linear CP-odd invariants, and carefully examine their relationship to CP breaking throughout the parameter space of coefficients of dimension $\leq 4$. Requiring that these invariants all vanish, together with the Jarlskog invariant, the strong-CP phase, and the 6 CP-violating dimension-6 bosonic operators, provides $699(+1+1+6)$ conditions for CP conservation to hold in any observable at leading order, $\cO$1/Λ^2$$.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Off-shell Higgs Interpretations Task Force: Models and Effective Field Theories Subgroup Report

This report presents the results of the Models and Effective Field Theories Subgroup of the Off-Shell Interpretations Task Force in the LHC Higgs Working Group. The main goal of the subgroup was to discuss and advance the potential impact of off-shell Higgs measurements on searches for BSM physics carried out in the EFT framework or as benchmark model studies. In the first contribution, the off-shell potential to resolve flat directions in parameter space for on-shell measurements is studied. Furthermore, the sensitivity of off-shell measurements to SMEFT dimension-6 operators for the gg $\to$ ZZ process is discussed, and studies of explicit models that are testable in off-shell production are reviewed. In the second contribution, the SMEFT effects in the off-shell gluon fusion and electroweak processes are discussed. Subsequently, the computation of integrated and differential effects using SMEFT@NLO and MG5_aMC@NLO, or JHUGen and MCFM, is demonstrated. On that basis, a study of the prospects of obtaining additional SMEFT constraints - beyond those from existing global fits - by utilising the off-shell process is presented. For clarification, a revised introduction, definition and discussion of the Higgs basis parametrisation of the SMEFT is given in the third contribution. In short notes on the SMEFT, the Higgs basis with an additional constraint is discussed and relations between the Higgs and Warsaw bases are presented. Lastly, an overview of EFT calculations and tools is given.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Muon Collider Physics Summary

The perspective of designing muon colliders with high energy and luminosity, which is being investigated by the International Muon Collider Collaboration, has triggered a growing interest in their physics reach. We present a concise summary of the muon colliders potential to explore new physics, leveraging on the unique possibility of combining high available energy with very precise measurements.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

The physics case of a 3 TeV muon collider stage

In the path towards a muon collider with center of mass energy of 10 TeV or more, a stage at 3 TeV emerges as an appealing option. Reviewing the physics potential of such muon collider is the main purpose of this document. In order to outline the progression of the physics performances across the stages, a few sensitivity projections for higher energy are also presented. There are many opportunities for probing new physics at a 3 TeV muon collider. Some of them are in common with the extensively documented physics case of the CLIC 3 TeV energy stage, and include measuring the Higgs trilinear coupling and testing the possible composite nature of the Higgs boson and of the top quark at the 20 TeV scale. Other opportunities are unique of a 3 TeV muon collider, and stem from the fact that muons are collided rather than electrons. This is exemplified by studying the potential to explore the microscopic origin of the current $g$-2 and $B$-physics anomalies, which are both related with muons.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

The seeds of EFT double copy

We explore the double copy of effective field theories (EFTs), in the recently proposed generalized color-kinematics and Kawai-Lewellen-Tye (KLT) approaches. In the former, we systematically construct scalar numerators satisfying the Jacobi identities from simpler numerator "seeds" with trace-like permutation properties. This construction has the advantage of being easily applicable to any multiplicity, which we exemplify up to 6-point. It employs the linear map between color factors formed by single traces of generators and by products of the structure constants, which also relates the generalized KLT and color-kinematics formalisms, allowing to produce KLT kernels at arbitrary order in the EFT expansion. At 4-point, we show that all EFT kernels are generated and that they only yield double-copy amplitudes which can also be obtained from the traditional KLT kernel. We perform initial checks suggesting that the same conclusions also hold at 5-point. We focus on single-trace massless scalar EFTs which however also control the higher-derivative corrections to gauge and gravity theories.

hep-th↗

arXiv2022

Interpretable machine learning in Physics

Adding interpretability to multivariate methods creates a powerful synergy for exploring complex physical systems with higher order correlations while bringing about a degree of clarity in the underlying dynamics of the system.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

Conceptual Design Report for the LUXE Experiment

This Conceptual Design Report describes LUXE (Laser Und XFEL Experiment), an experimental campaign that aims to combine the high-quality and high-energy electron beam of the European XFEL with a powerful laser to explore the uncharted terrain of quantum electrodynamics characterised by both high energy and high intensity. We will reach this hitherto inaccessible regime of quantum physics by analysing high-energy electron-photon and photon-photon interactions in the extreme environment provided by an intense laser focus. The physics background and its relevance are presented in the science case which in turn leads to, and justifies, the ensuing plan for all aspects of the experiment: Our choice of experimental parameters allows (i) effective field strengths to be probed at and beyond the Schwinger limit and (ii) a precision to be achieved that permits a detailed comparison of the measured data with calculations. In addition, the high photon flux predicted will enable a sensitive search for new physics beyond the Standard Model. The initial phase of the experiment will employ an existing 40 TW laser, whereas the second phase will utilise an upgraded laser power of 350 TW. All expectations regarding the performance of the experimental set-up as well as the expected physics results are based on detailed numerical simulations throughout.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2021

Positivity bounds on Minimal Flavor Violation

From general analyticity and unitarity requirements on the UV theory, positivity bounds on the Wilson coefficients of the dimension-8 operators composed of 4 fermions and two derivatives appearing in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory have been derived recently. We explore the fate of these bounds in the context of models endowed with a Minimal Flavor Violation (MFV) structure, models in which the flavor structure of higher dimensional operators is inherited from the one already contained in the Yukawa sector of the Standard Model Lagrangian. Our goal is to check whether the general positivity bounds translate onto bounds on the Yukawa coefficients and/or on elements of the CKM matrix. MFV fixes the coefficients of dimension-8 operators up to some multiplicative flavor-blind factors and we find that, in the most generic setup, the freedom left by those unspecified coefficients is enough as not to constrain the parameters of the renormalizable Yukawa sector. On the contrary, the latter shape the allowed region for the former. Requiring said overall coefficients to take natural $\mathcal{O}(1)$ values could give rise to bounds on the Yukawa couplings. Remarkably, at leading order in an expansion in powers of the Yukawa matrices, no bounds on the CKM entries can be retrieved.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

Precision from the diphoton Zh channel at FCC-hh

The future 100 TeV FCC-hh hadron collider will give access to rare but clean final states which are out of reach of the HL-LHC. One such process is the $Zh$ production channel in the $(ν\barν / \ell^{+}\ell^{-})γγ$ final states. We study the sensitivity of this channel to the $\mathcal{O}_{φq}^{(1)}$, $\mathcal{O}_{φq}^{(3)}$, $\mathcal{O}_{φu}$, and $\mathcal{O}_{φd}$ SMEFT operators, which parametrize deviations of the $W$ and $Z$ couplings to quarks, or, equivalently, anomalous trilinear gauge couplings (aTGC). While our analysis shows that good sensitivity is only achievable for $\mathcal{O}_{φq}^{(3)}$, we demonstrate that binning in the $Zh$ rapidity has the potential to improve the reach on $\mathcal{O}_{φq}^{(1)}$. Our estimated bounds are one order of magnitude better than projections at HL-LHC and is better than global fits at future lepton colliders. The sensitivity to $\mathcal{O}_{φq}^{(3)}$ is competitive with other channels that could probe the same operator at FCC-hh. Therefore, combining the different diboson channels sizeably improves the bound on $\mathcal{O}_{φq}^{(3)}$, reaching a precision of $|δg_{1z}| \lesssim 2 \times 10^{-4}$ on the deviations in the $ZWW$ interactions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

Comments on gauge anomalies at dimension-six in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory

We study whether higher-dimensional operators in effective field theories, in particular in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT), can source gauge anomalies via the modification of the interactions involved in triangle diagrams. We find no evidence of such gauge anomalies at the level of dimension-6 operators that can therefore be chosen independently to each others without spoiling the consistency of SMEFT, at variance with recent claims. The underlying reason is that gauge-invariant combinations of Goldstone bosons and massive gauge fields are allowed to couple to matter currents which are not conserved. We show this in a toy model by computing the relevant triangle diagrams, as well as by working out Wess--Zumino terms in the bosonic EFT below all fermion masses. The same approach applies directly to the Standard Model both at the renormalisable level, providing a convenient and unusual way to check that the SM is anomaly free, as well as at the non-renormalisable level in SMEFT.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

The Anomalous Case of Axion EFTs and Massive Chiral Gauge Fields

We study axion effective field theories (EFTs), with a focus on axion couplings to massive chiral gauge fields. We investigate the EFT interactions that participate in processes with an axion and two gauge bosons, and we show that, when massive chiral gauge fields are present, such interactions do not entirely originate from the usual anomalous EFT terms. We illustrate this both at the EFT level and by matching to UV-complete theories. In order to assess the consistency of the Peccei--Quinn (PQ) anomaly matching, it is useful to introduce an auxiliary, non-dynamical gauge field associated to the PQ symmetry. When applied to the case of the Standard Model (SM) electroweak sector, our results imply that anomaly-based sum rules between EFT interactions are violated when chiral matter is integrated out, which constitutes a smoking gun of the latter. As an illustration, we study a UV-complete chiral extension of the SM, containing an axion arising from an extended Higgs sector and heavy fermionic matter that obtains most of its mass by coupling to the Higgs doublets. We assess the viability of such a SM extension through electroweak precision tests, bounds on Higgs rates and direct searches for heavy charged matter. At energies below the mass of the new chiral fermions, the model matches onto an EFT where the electroweak gauge symmetry is non-linearly realised.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

Resurrecting $b\bar{b}h$ with kinematic shapes

The associated production of a $b\bar{b}$ pair with a Higgs boson could provide an important probe to both the size and the phase of the bottom-quark Yukawa coupling, $y_b$. However, the signal is shrouded by several background processes including the irreducible $Zh, Z\to b\bar{b}$ background. We show that the analysis of kinematic shapes provides us with a concrete prescription for separating the $y_b$-sensitive production modes from both the irreducible and the QCD-QED backgrounds using the $b\bar{b}γγ$ final state. We draw a page from game theory and use Shapley values to make Boosted Decision Trees interpretable in terms of kinematic measurables and provide physics insights into the variances in the kinematic shapes of the different channels that help us complete this feat. Adding interpretability to the machine learning algorithm opens up the black-box and allows us to cherry-pick only those kinematic variables that matter most in the analysis. We resurrect the hope of constraining the size and, possibly, the phase of $y_b$ using kinematic shape studies of $b\bar{b}h$ production with the full HL-LHC data and at FCC-hh.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

ILC Study Questions for Snowmass 2021

To aid contributions to the Snowmass 2021 US Community Study on physics at the International Linear Collider and other proposed $e^+e^-$ colliders, we present a list of study questions that could be the basis of useful Snowmass projects. We accompany this with links to references and resources on $e^+e^-$ physics, and a description of a new software framework that we are preparing for $e^+e^-$ studies at Snowmass.

hep-ph↗