arXiv subjects

Christopher D. Carone

Publications and source records attributed to Christopher D. Carone.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

Flavor from the double tetrahedral group without supersymmetry: flavorful axions and neutrinos

We extend the work of Carone, Chaurasia and Vasquez on non-supersymmetric models of flavor based on the double tetrahedral group. Three issues are addressed: (1) the sector of flavor-symmetry-breaking fields is simplified and their potential studied explicitly, (2) a flavorful axion is introduced to solve the strong CP problem and (3) the model is extended to include the neutrino sector. We show how the model can accommodate the strong hierarchies manifest in the charged fermion Yukawa matrices, while predicting a qualitatively different form for the light neutrino mass matrix that is consistent with observed neutrino mass squared differences and mixing angles.

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arXiv2018

Composite gravity from a metric-independent theory of fermions

We present a metric-independent, diffeomorphism-invariant model with interacting fermions that contains a massless composite graviton in its spectrum. The model is motivated by the supersymmetric D-brane action, modulated by a fermion potential. The gravitational coupling is related to new physics at the cutoff scale that regularizes UV divergences. We also speculate on possible extensions of the model.

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arXiv2018

Dark sector portal with vector-like leptons and flavor sequestering

We consider models with fermionic dark matter that transforms under a non-Abelian dark gauge group. Exotic, vector-like leptons that also transform under the dark gauge group can mix with standard model leptons after spontaneous symmetry breaking and serve as a portal between the dark and visible sectors. We show in an explicit, renormalizable model based on a dark SU(2) gauge group how this can lead to adequate dark matter annihilation to a standard model lepton flavor so that the correct relic density is obtained. We identify a discrete symmetry that allows mass mixing between the vector-like fermions and a single standard model lepton flavor, while preventing mixing between these fields and the remaining standard model leptons. This flavor sequestering avoids unwanted lepton-flavor-violating effects, substantially relaxing constraints on the mass scale of the vector-like states. We discuss aspects of the phenomenology of the model, including direct detection of the dark matter.

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arXiv2017

Composite graviton self-interactions in a model of emergent gravity

We consider a theory of scalars minimally coupled to an auxiliary background metric. The theory is generally covariant and subject to the constraint of vanishing energy-momentum tensor. Eliminating the auxiliary metric leads to a reparametrization invariant, non-polynomial, metric-independent action for the scalar fields. Working in the limit of a large number of physical scalars, a composite massless spin-2 state, the graviton, was identified in previous work, in a two-into-two scalar scattering process. Here, we further explore the possibility that dynamical emergent gravity is a natural feature of generally covariant quantum field theories, by studying the self-interactions of the emergent composite graviton. We show that the fine-tuning previously imposed to ensure the vanishing of the cosmological constant, as well as the existence of the massless spin-2 state, also assures that the emergent graviton's cubic self-interactions are consistent with those of Einstein's general relativity, up to higher-derivative corrections. We also demonstrate in a theory with more than one type of scalar that the composite graviton coupling is universal.

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arXiv2017

Universal Landau Pole and Physics below the 100 TeV Scale

We reconsider the possibility that all standard model gauge couplings blow up at a common scale in the ultraviolet. The simplest implementation of this idea assumes supersymmetry and the addition of a single vector-like generation of matter fields around the TeV scale. We provide an up-to-date numerical study of this scenario and show that either the scale of the additional matter or the scale of supersymmetry breaking falls below potentially relevant LHC bounds. We then consider minimal extensions of the extra matter sector that raise its scale above the reach of the LHC, to determine whether there are cases that might be probed at a 100 TeV collider. We also consider the possibility that the heavy matter sector involves new gauge groups constrained by the same ultraviolet boundary condition, which in some cases can provide an explanation for the multiplicity of heavy states. We comment on the relevance of this framework to theories with dark and visible sectors.

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arXiv2017

Unitarity and microscopic acausality in a nonlocal theory

We consider unitarity and causality in a higher-derivative theory of infinite order, where propagators fall off more quickly in the ultraviolet due to the presence of a transcendental entire function of the momentum. Like Lee-Wick theories, these field theories might provide new avenues for addressing the hierarchy problem; unlike Lee-Wick theories, tree-level propagators do not have additional poles corresponding to unobserved particles with unusual properties. We consider microscopic acausality in these nonlocal theories. The acausal ordering of production and decay vertices for ordinary resonant particles may provide a phenomenologically distinct signature for these models.

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arXiv2016

Emergent Gravity from Vanishing Energy-Momentum Tensor

A constraint of vanishing energy-momentum tensor is motivated by a variety of perspectives on quantum gravity. We demonstrate in a concrete example how this constraint leads to a metric-independent theory in which quantum gravity emerges as a nonperturbative artifact of regularization-scale physics. We analyze a scalar theory similar to the Dirac-Born-Infeld (DBI) theory with vanishing gauge fields, with the DBI Lagrangian modulated by a scalar potential. In the limit of a large number of scalars, we explicitly demonstrate the existence of a composite massless spin-2 graviton in the spectrum that couples to matter as in Einstein gravity. We comment on the cosmological constant problem and the generalization to theories with fermions and gauge fields.

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arXiv2016

Flavor from the double tetrahedral group without supersymmetry

We consider a class of flavor models proposed by Aranda, Carone and Lebed, relaxing the assumption of supersymmetry and allowing the flavor scale to float anywhere between the weak and Planck scales. We perform global fits to the charged fermion masses and CKM angles, and consider the dependence of the results on the unknown mass scale of the flavor sector. We find that the typical Yukawa textures in these models provide a good description of the data over a wide range of flavor scales, with a preference for those that approach the lower bounds allowed by flavor-changing-neutral-current constraints. Nevertheless, the possibility that the flavor scale and Planck scale are identified remains viable. We present models that demonstrate how the assumed textures can arise most simply in a non-supersymmetric framework.

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arXiv2015

Flavored axion-monodromy inflation

The hierarchy of fermion masses in the standard model may arise via the breaking of discrete gauge symmetries. The renormalizable interactions of the flavor-symmetry-breaking potential can have accidental global symmetries that are spontaneously broken, leading to pseudo-goldstone bosons that may drive inflation. We consider two-field, axion-monodromy inflation models in which the inflaton is identified with a linear combination of pseudo-goldstone bosons of the flavor sector. We show that the resulting models are nontrivially constrained by current cosmological data as well as the requirements of viable flavor model building.

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arXiv2015

Dark chiral symmetry breaking and the origin of the electroweak scale

We study a classically scale-invariant model in which strong dynamics in a dark sector sets the scale of electroweak symmetry breaking. Our model is distinct from others of this type that have appeared in the recent literature. We show that the Higgs sector of the model is phenomenologically viable and that the spectrum of dark sector states includes a partially composite dark matter candidate.

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arXiv2015

Dante's Waterfall

We describe a hybrid axion-monodromy inflation model motivated by the Dante's Inferno scenario. In Dante's Inferno, a two-field potential features a stable trench along which a linear combination of the two fields slowly rolls, rendering the dynamics essentially identical to that of single-field chaotic inflation. A shift symmetry allows for the Lyth bound to be effectively evaded as in other axion-monodromy models. In our proposal, the potential is concave downward near the origin and the inflaton trajectory is a gradual downward spiral, ending at a point where the trench becomes unstable. There, the fields begin falling rapidly towards the minimum of the potential and inflation terminates as in a hybrid model. We find parameter choices that reproduce observed features of the cosmic microwave background, and discuss our model in light of recent results from the BICEP2 and Planck experiments.

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arXiv2014

A Permutation on Hybrid Natural Inflation

We analyze a model of hybrid natural inflation based on the smallest non-Abelian discrete group S_3. Leading invariant terms in the scalar potential have an accidental global symmetry that is spontaneously broken, providing a pseudo-Goldstone boson that is identified as the inflaton. The S_3 symmetry restricts both the form of the inflaton potential and the couplings of the inflaton field to the waterfall fields responsible for the end of inflation. We identify viable points in the model parameter space. Although the power in tensor modes is small in most of the parameter space of the model, we identify parameter choices that yield potentially observable values of r without super-Planckian initial values of the inflaton field.

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arXiv2014

LHC Constraints on the Lee-Wick Higgs Sector

We determine constraints on the Lee-Wick Higgs sector obtained from the full LHC Higgs boson data set. We determine the current lower bound on the heavy neutral Lee-Wick scalar, as well as projected bounds at a 14 TeV LHC with 300 and 3000 inverse femtobarns of integrated luminosity. We point out that the first sign of new physics in this model may be the observation of a deviation from standard model expectations of the lighter neutral Higgs signal strengths corresponding to production via gluon-gluon fusion and decay to either tau or $Z$ pairs. The signal strength of the latter is greater than the standard model expectation, unlike most extensions of the standard model.

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arXiv2014

Acausality from a Dark Sector

Solutions to the hierarchy problem that require partners for each standard model particle often require that these states live at or above the electroweak scale, to satisfy phenomenological bounds. Partners to possible dark sector particles may be significantly lighter, due to the assumed weakness of the couplings between the dark and visible sectors. Here we consider the possibility that a dark sector might include light Lee-Wick particles. We present the formulation of a theory in which a dark photon and its Lee-Wick partner have kinetic mixing with hypercharge. We point out that the Lee-Wick partner of the dark photon will lead to an apparent violation of causality at small distance scales that might be discerned in low-energy experiments.

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arXiv2013

Classical scale-invariance, the electroweak scale and vector dark matter

We consider a classically scale-invariant extension of the standard model in which a dark, non-Abelian gauge symmetry is spontaneously broken via the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism. Higgs portal couplings between the dark and standard model sectors provide an origin for the Higgs mass squared parameter and, hence, the electroweak scale. We find that choices for model parameters exist in which the dark gauge multiplet is viable as dark matter.

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arXiv2013

Flavor-Nonuniversal Dark Gauge Bosons and the Muon g-2

The possibility of explaining the current value of the muon anomalous magnetic moment in models with an additional U(1) gauge symmetry that has kinetic mixing with hypercharge are increasingly constrained by dark photon searches at electron accelerators. Here we present a scenario in which the couplings of new, light gauge bosons to standard model leptons are naturally weak and flavor non-universal. A vector-like state that mixes with standard model leptons serves as a portal between the dark and standard model sectors. The flavor symmetry of the model assures that the induced couplings of the new gauge sector to leptons of the first generation are very small and lepton-flavor-violating processes are adequately suppressed. The model provides a framework for constructing ultraviolet complete theories in which new, light gauge fields couple weakly and dominantly to leptons of the second or third generations.

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arXiv2012

Deconstructing Superconductivity

We present a dimensionally deconstructed model of an s-wave holographic superconductor. The 2+1 dimensional model includes multiple charged Cooper pair fields and neutral exciton fields that have interactions governed by hidden local symmetries. We derive AdS/CFT-like relations for the current and charge density in the model, and we analyze properties of the Cooper pair condensates and the complex conductivity.

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arXiv2012

Technicolor with a 125 GeV Higgs Boson

Bosonic technicolor models accommodate fermion masses via a Higgs doublet that acquires a vacuum expectation value when technifermions condense. We point out that these models are severely constrained by vacuum stability if the Higgs boson mass is near 125 GeV, the value suggested by LHC data. The Higgs quartic coupling in bosonic technicolor is typically smaller at the weak scale than in the Standard Model, while the top quark Yukawa coupling is larger. We find that the running quartic coupling remains positive below a reasonably defined cut off only in a narrow region of the model's parameter space. This region is only slightly enlarged if one allows a metastable vacuum with a lifetime longer than the age of the universe.

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