arXiv subjects

D. S. Gorbunov

Publications and source records attributed to D. S. Gorbunov.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2013

Search for GeV-scale sterile neutrinos responsible for active neutrino oscillations and baryon asymmetry of the Universe

Standard model of particle physics fails to explain neutrino oscillations, dark matter and baryon asymmetry of the Universe. All these problems can be solved with three sterile neutrinos added to the model. Quite remarkably, if sterile neutrino masses are well below the electroweak scale, this modification --- Neutrino Minimal Standard Model (nuMSM) --- can be tested experimentally. We discuss a new experiment on search for decays of GeV-scale sterile neutrinos, which in the framework of the nuMSM are responsible for the matter-antimatter asymmetry generation and for the active neutrino masses. If lighter than 2 GeV, these particles can be produced in decays of charm mesons generated by high energy protons in a target of a proton beam-dump experiment, and subsequently decay into light SM particles. In order to fully explore this sector of the nuMSM, the new experiment requires data obtained with at least 10^{20} incident protons on target (achievable at CERN SPS in the future), and a big volume detector constructed from a large amount of identical single modules, with a total sterile neutrino decay length of few kilometers. The preliminary feasibility study for the proposed experiment shows that it has sensitivity which may either lead to the discovery of new particles below the Fermi scale --- right-handed partners of neutrinos --- or rule out see-saw sterile neutrinos with masses below 2 GeV.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Free scalar dark matter candidates in R^2-inflation: the light, the heavy and the superheavy

Gravity takes care of both inflation and subsequent reheating in Starobinsky's R^2-model. The latter is due to inflaton gravitation decays dominated by scalar particle production. It is tempting to suggest that dark matter particles are also produced in this process. Since free scalars being too hot cannot serve as viable dark matter (Phys.Lett.B700:157-162,2011), we further study the issue considering two options: scalars with non-minimal coupling to gravity and superheavy scalars generated at inflationary stage. We found that the first option allows for viable warm or cold dark matter if scalar mass exceeds 0.8 MeV. The second option implies supercold dark matter with particle mass 10^16 GeV, which production is saturated at the end of inflation when inflaton-dependent scalar mass rapidly changes and violates adiabaticity. Similar result holds for superheavy fermion dark matter.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2012

Constraining neutrino superluminality from searches for sterile neutrino decays

Superluminal neutrinos are expected to lose energy due to bremstrauhlung. It is dominated by e+e--pair production if kinematically allowed. The same signature was used in searches for 3-body decays of hypothetical heavy sterile neutrinos. From the absence of these processes in CERN PS191 and CHARM experiments we set upper limits on the neutrino velocity in the energy range from 0.2 GeV to 280 GeV. Our limits are well below the neutrino velocity favored by the recent OPERA results. For energy-independent neutrino velocity the limits obtained in this paper are stronger than those coming from ICARUS experiment and observations of Supernova SN1987a.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Light Sterile Neutrinos: A White Paper

This white paper addresses the hypothesis of light sterile neutrinos based on recent anomalies observed in neutrino experiments and the latest astrophysical data.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Positronium oscillations to Mirror World revisited

We present a calculation of the branching ratio of orthopositronium decay into an invisible mode, which is done in the context of Mirror World models, where ordinary positronium can disappear from our world due to oscillation into its mirror twin. In this revision we clarify some formulas and approximations used previously, correct them at some places, add new effects relevant for a feasible experiment and finally perform a combined analysis. We include into consideration various effects due to external magnetic and electric fields, collisions with cavity walls and scattering off gas atoms in the cavity. Oscillations of the Rydberg positroniums are also considered. To perform a numerical estimates in a realistic case we wrote computer code, which can be adopted in any experimental setup. Its work is illustrated with an example of a planned positronium experiment within the AEgIS project.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Flavor violating processes with sgoldstino pair production

In supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics (SM), goldstino superpartners --- scalar and pseudoscalar sgoldstinos --- can be light enough for emerging in decays of SM particles. Sgoldstino interaction with SM fields is suppressed by the scale of supersymmetry breaking in the whole theory. Hence, searches for sgoldstinos give an opportunity to probe the underlying mechanism of supersymmetry breaking. Sgoldstino couplings to SM fields are proportional to the supersymmetry breaking parameters --- MSSM soft terms --- and therefore can lead to flavor violating processes in quark and lepton sectors. We consider flavor violating processes involving sgoldstino pair production which are driven by sgoldstino couplings proportional to squark and slepton soft mass terms, \tilde{m^2_{LL}} and \tilde{m^2_{RR}}. We find that present limits on off-diagonal entries in squark and slepton squared mass matrices allow t-, b-, c-quark and τ-lepton decays at levels available for study with existing data (BaBar, Belle, CLEOc) and in ongoing experiments (LHCb, CMS, ATLAS). In particular, we obtain the following branching ratios Br(t--> c SP)\lesssim 10^{-7}, Br(τ--> μSP) \lesssim 10^{-7}, Br(B_s--> SP) \lesssim 10^{-4}, Br(B--> K^{(*)} SP) \lesssim 10^{-4}, Br(D--> SP) \lesssim 10^{-7} with sgoldstino subsequent decays into kinematically allowed pairs of SM particles γγ, e^+e^-, μ^+μ^-, etc. Remarkably, the prominent signature of sgoldstino pair production is two muon pairs with pair momenta peaked at sgoldstino masses.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Invisible Higgs in weak bosons associative production with heavy quarks at LHC: probing mass and width

New physics coupled to the Higgs boson may hide it in the standard decay channels to be investigated at LHC. We consider the models where new invisible dominant decay modes of the Higgs boson are responsible for this hiding. We propose to study at LHC the weak boson production associated with heavy quarks: our analysis revealed that boson pair invariant mass distribution is sensitive to both mass and width of the invisible Higgs boson, if it is not too far from the weak boson pair threshold. We present tree-level results for the most relevant cases of top quarks and of bottom quarks in Standard Model extensions with large $b$-quark Yukawa coupling. We argue that QCD corrections do not spoil these results allowing for unambiguous extraction of the Higgs boson mass and width from the analysis of large enough amount of data.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Scalaron the mighty: producing dark matter and baryon asymmetry at reheating

In R^2-inflation scalaron slow roll is responsible for the inflationary stage, while its oscillations reheat the Universe. We find that the same scalaron decays induced by gravity can also provide the dark matter production and leptogenesis. With R^2-term and three Majorana fermions added to the Standard Model, we arrive at the phenomenologically complete theory capable of simultaneously explaining neutrino oscillations, inflation, reheating, dark matter and baryon asymmetry of the Universe. Besides the seesaw mechanism in neutrino sector, we use only gravity, which solves all the problems by exploiting scalaron.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

Constraints on the flux of primary cosmic-ray photons at energies E > 10^18 eV from Yakutsk muon data

Comparing the signals measured by the surface and underground scintillator detectors of the Yakutsk Extensive Air Shower Array, we place upper limits on the integral flux and the fraction of primary cosmic-ray photons with energies E > 10^18 eV, E > 2*10^18 eV and E > 4*10^18 eV. The large collected statistics of the showers measured by large-area muon detectors provides a sensitivity to photon fractions < 10^-2, thus achieving precision previously unreachable at ultra-high energies.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2009

The MiniBooNE anomaly, the decay Ds -> mu+nu and heavy sterile neutrino

It has been recently suggested that the anomalous excess of low-energy electron-like events observed by the MiniBooNE experiment, could be explained by the radiative decay of a heavy sterile neutrino nu_h of the mass around 500 MeV with a muonic mixing strength in the range |U_{μh}|^2 \simeq (1-4)\times 10^{-3}. If such nu_h exists its admixtures in the decay Ds -> mu+nu would result in the decay Ds -> mu+nu_h with the branching fraction \simeq (1.2-5.5)\times 10^{-4}, which is in the experimentally accessible range. Interestingly, the existence of the Ds -> mu+nu_h decay at this level may also explain why the currently measured decay rate of Ds -> mu+nu is slightly higher than the predicted one. This enhances motivation for a sensitive search for this decay mode and makes it interesting and complementary to neutrino experiments probing sterile-active neutrino mixing. Considering, as an example the CLEO-c experiment, we suggest to perform a search for the decay Ds -> mu+nu_h with the analysis of existing data. The discrepancy between the measurements and theoretical description of the decay Ds -> tau+nu is also discussed in brief.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2008

Self-accelerated brane Universe with warped extra dimension

We propose a cosmological model which exhibits the phenomenon of self-acceleration: the Universe is attracted to the phase of accelerated expansion at late times even in the absence of the cosmological constant. The self-acceleration is inevitable in the sense that it cannot be neutralized by any negative explicit cosmological constant. The model is formulated in the framework of brane-world theories with a warped extra dimension. The key ingredient of the model is the brane-bulk energy transfer which is carried by bulk vector fields with a sigma-model-like boundary condition on the brane. We explicitly find the 5-dimensional metric corresponding to the late-time de Sitter expansion on the brane; this metric describes an AdS_5 black hole with growing mass. The present value of the Hubble parameter implies the scale of new physics of order 1 TeV, where the proposed model has to be replaced by putative UV-completion. The mechanism leading to the self-acceleration has AdS/CFT interpretation as occurring due to specific dynamics of conformal matter interacting with external "electric" fields. The Universe expansion history predicted by the model is distinguishable from the standard LambdaCDM cosmology.

hep-th↗

arXiv2008

On the interpretation of the cosmic-ray anisotropy at ultra-high energies

A natural interpretation of the correlation between nearby Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) and the highest-energy cosmic rays observed recently by the Pierre Auger Collaboration is that the sources of the cosmic rays are either AGN or other objects with a similar spatial distribution (the ``AGN hypothesis''). We question this interpretation. We calculate the expected distribution of the arrival directions of cosmic rays under the AGN hypothesis and argue that it is not supported by the data, one of manifestations of the discrepancy being the deficit of events from the direction of the Virgo supercluster. We briefly discuss possible alternative explanations including the origin of a significant part of the observed events from Cen A.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2008

Muon content of ultra-high-energy air showers: Yakutsk data versus simulations

We analyse a sample of 33 extensive air showers (EAS) with estimated primary energies above 2\cdot 10^{19} eV and high-quality muon data recorded by the Yakutsk EAS array. We compare, event-by-event, the observed muon density to that expected from CORSIKA simulations for primary protons and iron, using SIBYLL and EPOS hadronic interaction models. The study suggests the presence of two distinct hadronic components, ``light'' and ``heavy''. Simulations with EPOS are in a good agreement with the expected composition in which the light component corresponds to protons and the heavy component to iron-like nuclei. With SYBILL, simulated muon densities for iron primaries are a factor of \sim 1.5 less than those observed for the heavy component, for the same electromagnetic signal. Assuming two-component proton-iron composition and the EPOS model, the fraction of protons with energies E>10^{19} eV is 0.52^{+0.19}_{-0.20} at 95% confidence level.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2007

Air-shower simulations with and without thinning: artificial fluctuations and their suppression

The most common way to simplify extensive Monte-Carlo simulations of air showers is to use the thinning approximation. We study its effect on the physical parameters reconstructed from simulated showers. To this end, we have created a library of showers simulated without thinning with energies from 10^17 eV to 10^18 eV, various zenith angles and primaries. This library is publicly available. Physically interesting applications of the showers simulated without thinning are discussed. Observables reconstructed from these showers are compared to those obtained with the thinning approximation. The amount of artificial fluctuations introduced by thinning is estimated. A simple method, multisampling, is suggested which results in a controllable suppression of artificial fluctuations and at the same time requires less demanding computational resources as compared to the usual thinning.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2007

Towards event-by-event studies of the ultrahigh-energy cosmic-ray composition

We suggest a method which improves the precision of studies of the primary composition of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays. Two principal ingredients of the method are (1) comparison of the observed and simulated parameters for individual showers, without averaging over arrival directions and (2) event-by-event selection of simulated showers by the physical observables and not by the reconstructed primary parameters. A detailed description of the algorithm is presented and illustrated by several examples.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2007

Non-minimal Split Supersymmetry

We present an extension of the minimal split supersymmetry model, which is capable of explaining the baryon asymmetry of the Universe. Instead of MSSM we start from NMSSM and split its spectrum in such a way that the low energy theory contains neutral particles, in addition to the content of minimal split supersymmetry. They trigger the strongly first order electroweak phase transition (EWPT) and provide an additional source of CP-violation. In this model, we estimate the amount of the baryon asymmetry produced during EWPT, using WKB approximation for CP-violating sources in diffusion equations. We also examine the contribution of CP-violating interactions to the electron and neutron electric dipole moments and estimate the production of the neutralino dark matter. We find that both phenomenological and cosmological requirements can be fulfilled in this model.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2007

Constraining the fraction of primary gamma rays at ultra-high energies from the muon data of the Yakutsk extensive-air-shower array

By making use of the data on the total signal and on the muon component of the air showers detected by the Yakutsk array, we analyze, in the frameworks of the recently suggested event-by-event approach, how large the fraction of primary gamma-rays at ultra-high energies can be. We derive upper limits on the photon fraction in the integral flux of primary cosmic rays. At the 95% confidence level (CL), these limits are 22% for primary energies E_0>4\cdot 10^{19}eV and 12% for E_0>2\cdot 10^{19}eV. Despite the presence of muonless events, the data are consistent with complete absence of photons at least at 95% CL. The sensitivity of the results to systematic uncertainties, in particular to those of the energy determination for non-photon primaries, is discussed.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2006

More about sgoldstino interpretation of HyperCP events

We further discuss possible sgoldstino interpretation of the observation, reported by the HyperCP collaboration, of three Σ^+\to pμ^+μ^- decay events with dimuon invariant mass 214.3 MeV within detector resolution. With sgoldstino mass equal to 214.3 MeV, this interpretation can be verified at existing and future B- and ϕ-factories. We find that the most natural values of the branching ratios of two-body B- and D-meson decays to sgoldstino P and vector meson V are about 10^{-6}\div10^{-7}. The branching ratios of ϕ-meson decay ϕ\to Pγis estimated to be in the range 1.8\cdot 10^{-13} ÷1.6\cdot 10^{-7}, depending on the hierarchy of supersymmetry breaking soft terms. Similar branchings for ρ- and ω-mesons are in the range 10^{-14}÷3.4\cdot 10^{-7}.

hep-ph↗