arXiv subjects

F. Sannino

Publications and source records attributed to F. Sannino.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2023

Positivity Conditions for Generalised Schwarzschild Space-Times

We analyse the impact of positivity conditions on static spherically symmetric deformations of the Schwarzschild space-time. The metric is taken to satisfy, at least asymptotically, the Einstein equation in the presence of a non-trivial stress-energy tensor, on which we impose various physicality conditions. We systematically study and compare the impact of these conditions on the space-time deformations. The universal nature of our findings applies to both classical and quantum metric deformations with and without event horizons. We further discuss minimal realisations of the asymptotic stress energy tensor in terms of physical fields. Finally, we illustrate our results by discussing concrete models of quantum black holes.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2018

Classification of NLO operators for composite Higgs models

We provide a general classification of template operators, up to next-to-leading order, that appear in chiral perturbation theories based on the two flavour patterns of spontaneous symmetry breaking SU($N_F$)/Sp($N_F$) and SU($N_F$)/SO($N_F$). All possible explicit-breaking sources parametrised by spurions transforming in the fundamental and in the two-index representations of the flavour symmetry are included. While our general framework can be applied to any model of strong dynamics, we specialise to composite-Higgs models, where the main explicit breaking sources are a current mass, the gauging of flavour symmetries, and the Yukawa couplings (for the top). For the top, we consider both bilinear couplings and linear ones a la partial compositeness. Our templates provide a basis for lattice calculations in specific models. As a special example, we consider the SU(4)/Sp(4)$\cong$ SO(6)/SO(5) pattern which corresponds to the minimal fundamental composite-Higgs model. We further revisit issues related to the misalignment of the vacuum. In particular, we shed light on the physical properties of the singlet $η$, showing that it cannot develop a vacuum expectation value without explicit CP violation in the underlying theory.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

LHCSki 2016 - A First Discussion of 13 TeV Results

These are the proceedings of the LHCSki 2016 workshop "A First Discussion of 13 TeV Results" that has been held at the Obergurgl Universitätszentrum, Tirol, Austria, April 10 - 15, 2016. In this workshop the consequences of the most recent results from the LHC have been discussed, with a focus also on the interplay with dark matter physics, flavor physics, and precision measurements. Contributions from the workshop speakers have been compiled into this document.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

Fundamental Composite (Goldstone) Higgs Dynamics

We provide a unified description, both at the effective and fundamental Lagrangian level, of models of composite Higgs dynamics where the Higgs itself can emerge, depending on the way the electroweak symmetry is embedded, either as a pseudo-Goldstone boson or as a massive excitation of the condensate. We show that, in general, these states mix with repercussions on the electroweak physics and phenomenology. Our results will help clarify the main differences, similarities, benefits and shortcomings of the different ways one can naturally realize a composite nature of the electroweak sector of the Standard Model. We will analyze the minimal underlying realization in terms of fundamental strongly coupled gauge theories supporting the flavor symmetry breaking pattern SU(4)/Sp(4) $\sim$ SO(6)/SO(5). The most minimal fundamental description consists of an SU(2) gauge theory with two Dirac fermions transforming according to the fundamental representation of the gauge group. This minimal choice enables us to use recent first principle lattice results to make the first predictions for the massive spectrum for models of composite (Goldstone) Higgs dynamics. These results are of the upmost relevance to guide searches of new physics at the Large Hadron Collider.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

High-precision $α_s$ measurements from LHC to FCC-ee

This document provides a writeup of all contributions to the workshop on "High precision measurements of $α_s$: From LHC to FCC-ee" held at CERN, Oct. 12--13, 2015. The workshop explored in depth the latest developments on the determination of the QCD coupling $α_s$ from 15 methods where high precision measurements are (or will be) available. Those include low-energy observables: (i) lattice QCD, (ii) pion decay factor, (iii) quarkonia and (iv) $τ$ decays, (v) soft parton-to-hadron fragmentation functions, as well as high-energy observables: (vi) global fits of parton distribution functions, (vii) hard parton-to-hadron fragmentation functions, (viii) jets in $e^\pm$p DIS and $γ$-p photoproduction, (ix) photon structure function in $γ$-$γ$, (x) event shapes and (xi) jet cross sections in $e^+e^-$ collisions, (xii) W boson and (xiii) Z boson decays, and (xiv) jets and (xv) top-quark cross sections in proton-(anti)proton collisions. The current status of the theoretical and experimental uncertainties associated to each extraction method, the improvements expected from LHC data in the coming years, and future perspectives achievable in $e^+e^-$ collisions at the Future Circular Collider (FCC-ee) with $\cal{O}$(1--100 ab$^{-1}$) integrated luminosities yielding 10$^{12}$ Z bosons and jets, and 10$^{8}$ W bosons and $τ$ leptons, are thoroughly reviewed. The current uncertainty of the (preliminary) 2015 strong coupling world-average value, $α_s(m_Z)$ = 0.1177 $\pm$ 0.0013, is about 1\%. Some participants believed this may be reduced by a factor of three in the near future by including novel high-precision observables, although this opinion was not universally shared. At the FCC-ee facility, a factor of ten reduction in the $α_s$ uncertainty should be possible, mostly thanks to the huge Z and W data samples available.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

Scattering lengths in SU(2) gauge theory with two fundamental fermions

We investigate non perturbatively scattering properties of Goldstone Bosons in an SU(2) gauge theory with two Wilson fermions in the fundamental representation. Such a theory can be used to build extensions of the Standard Model that unifies Technicolor and pseudo Goldstone composite Higgs models. The leading order contribution to the scattering amplitude of Goldstone bosons at low energy is given by the scattering lengths. In the context of technicolor extensions of the Standard Model the scattering lengths are constrained by WW scattering measurements. We first describe our setup and in particular the expected chiral symmetry breaking pattern. We then discuss how to compute them on the lattice and give preliminary results using finite size methods.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2015

Marginally Deformed Starobinsky Gravity

We show that quantum-induced marginal deformations of the Starobinsky gravitational action of the form $R^{2(1 -α)}$, with $R$ the Ricci scalar and $α$ a positive parameter, smaller than one half, can account for the recent experimental observations by BICEP2 of primordial tensor modes. We also suggest natural microscopic (non) gravitational sources of these corrections and demonstrate that they lead generally to a nonzero and positive $α$. Furthermore we argue, that within this framework, the tensor modes probe theories of grand unification with a large scalar field content.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Composite Inflation from Super Yang-Mills, Orientifold and One-Flavor QCD

Recent investigations have shown that inflation can be driven by four-dimensional strongly interacting theories non-minimally coupled to gravity. We explore this paradigm further by considering composite inflation driven by orientifold field theories. The advantage of using these theories resides in the fact that at large number of colors they feature certain super Yang-Mills properties. In particular we can use for inflation the bosonic part of the Veneziano-Yankielowicz effective theory. Furthermore, we include the 1/N as well as fermion mass corrections at the effective Lagrangian level allowing us to explore the effects of these corrections on the inflationary slow-roll parameters. Additionally the orientifold field theory with fermionic matter transforming according to the two-index antisymmetric representation for three colors is QCD. Therefore this model can be interpreted as a new non-minimally coupled QCD theory of inflation. The scale of composite inflation, for all the models presented here, is of the order of $10^{16}$ GeV. Unitarity studies of the inflaton scattering suggest that the cutoff of the model is at the Planck scale.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

A Perturbative Realization of Miransky Scaling

Near conformal dynamics is employed in different extensions of the standard model of particle interactions as well as in cosmology. Many of its interesting properties are either conjectured or determined using model computations. We introduce a relevant four dimensional gauge theory template allowing us to investigate such dynamics perturbatively. The gauge theory we consider is quantum chromodynamics with the addition of a meson-like scalar degree of freedom as well as an adjoint Weyl fermion. At the two-loop level, and in the Veneziano limit, we firmly establish the existence of several fixed points of which one is all directions stable in the infrared. An interesting feature of the model is that this fixed point is lost, within the perturbatively trustable regime, by merging with another fixed point when varying the number of quark flavors. We show the emergence of the Miransky scaling and determine its properties. We are also able to determine the walking region of the theory which turns out to be, at large number of colors, about 12% of the conformal window. Furthermore, we determine highly relevant quantities for near conformal dynamics such as the anomalous dimension of the fermion masses.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Discovering Technicolor

We provide a pedagogical introduction to extensions of the Standard Model in which the Higgs is composite. These extensions are known as models of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking or, in brief, Technicolor. Material covered includes: motivations for Technicolor, the construction of underlying gauge theories leading to minimal models of Technicolor, the comparison with electroweak precision data, the low energy effective theory, the spectrum of the states common to most of the Technicolor models, the decays of the composite particles and the experimental signals at the Large Hadron Collider. The level of the presentation is aimed at readers familiar with the Standard Model but who have little or no prior exposure to Technicolor. Several extensions of the Standard Model featuring a composite Higgs can be reduced to the effective Lagrangian introduced in the text. We establish the relevant experimental benchmarks for Vanilla, Running, Walking, and Custodial Technicolor, and a natural fourth family of leptons, by laying out the framework to discover these models at the Large Hadron Collider.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Boosted objects: a probe of beyond the Standard Model physics

We present the report of the hadronic working group of the BOOST2010 workshop held at the University of Oxford in June 2010. The first part contains a review of the potential of hadronic decays of highly boosted particles as an aid for discovery at the LHC and a discussion of the status of tools developed to meet the challenge of reconstructing and isolating these topologies. In the second part, we present new results comparing the performance of jet grooming techniques and top tagging algorithms on a common set of benchmark channels. We also study the sensitivity of jet substructure observables to the uncertainties in Monte Carlo predictions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Minimal Super Technicolor

We introduce novel extensions of the Standard Model featuring a supersymmetric technicolor sector. First we consider N=4 Super Yang-Mills which breaks to N=1 via the electroweak (EW) interactions and coupling to the MSSM. This is a well defined, economical and calculable extension of the SM involving the smallest number of fields. It constitutes an explicit example of a natural supersymmetric conformal extension of the Standard Model featuring a well defined connection to string theory. It allows to interpolate, depending on how we break the underlying supersymmetry, between unparticle physics and Minimal Walking Technicolor. As a second alternative we consider other N =1 extensions of the Minimal Walking Technicolor model. The new models allow all the standard model matter fields to acquire a mass.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2009

Unnatural Origin of Fermion Masses for Technicolor

We explore the scenario in which the breaking of the electroweak symmetry is due to the simultaneous presence and interplay of a dynamical sector and an unnatural elementary Higgs. We introduce a low energy effective Lagrangian and constrain the various couplings via direct search limits and electroweak and flavor precision tests. We find that the model we study is a viable model of dynamical breaking of the electroweak symmetry.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2009

From the LHC to Future Colliders

Discoveries at the LHC will soon set the physics agenda for future colliders. This report of a CERN Theory Institute includes the summaries of Working Groups that reviewed the physics goals and prospects of LHC running with 10 to 300/fb of integrated luminosity, of the proposed sLHC luminosity upgrade, of the ILC, of CLIC, of the LHeC and of a muon collider. The four Working Groups considered possible scenarios for the first 10/fb of data at the LHC in which (i) a state with properties that are compatible with a Higgs boson is discovered, (ii) no such state is discovered either because the Higgs properties are such that it is difficult to detect or because no Higgs boson exists, (iii) a missing-energy signal beyond the Standard Model is discovered as in some supersymmetric models, and (iv) some other exotic signature of new physics is discovered. In the contexts of these scenarios, the Working Groups reviewed the capabilities of the future colliders to study in more detail whatever new physics may be discovered by the LHC. Their reports provide the particle physics community with some tools for reviewing the scientific priorities for future colliders after the LHC produces its first harvest of new physics from multi-TeV collisions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2008

Technicolor Walks at the LHC

We analyze the potential of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to observe signatures of phenomenologically viable Walking Technicolor models. We study and compare the Drell-Yan (DY) and Vector Boson Fusion (VBF) mechanisms for the production of composite heavy vectors. We find that the heavy vectors are most easily produced and detected via the DY processes. The composite Higgs phenomenology is also studied. If Technicolor walks at the LHC its footprints will be visible and our analysis will help uncovering them.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2007

Minimal Walking Technicolor: Set Up for Collider Physics

Different theoretical and phenomenological aspects of the Minimal and Nonminimal Walking Technicolor theories have recently been studied. The goal here is to make the models ready for collider phenomenology. We do this by constructing the low energy effective theory containing scalars, pseudoscalars, vector mesons and other fields predicted by the minimal walking theory. We construct their self-interactions and interactions with standard model fields. Using the Weinberg sum rules, opportunely modified to take into account the walking behavior of the underlying gauge theory, we find interesting relations for the spin-one spectrum. We derive the electroweak parameters using the newly constructed effective theory and compare the results with the underlying gauge theory. Our analysis is sufficiently general such that the resulting model can be used to represent a generic walking technicolor theory not at odds with precision data.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2006

Dynamical Breaking of the Electroweak Theory

Dynamical breaking of the electroweak theory, i.e. technicolor, is an intriguing extension of the Standard Model. Recently new models have been proposed featuring walking dynamics for a very low number of techniflavors. These technicolor extensions are not ruled out by current precision measurements. Here I first motivate the idea of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking and then summarize some of the properties of the recent models and their possible cosmological implications.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2005

Corrigan-Ramond Extension of QCD at Nonzero Baryon Density

We investigate the Corrigan-Ramond extension of one massless flavor Quantum Chromo Dynamics at nonzero quark chemical potential. Since the extension requires the fermions to transform in the two index antisymmetric representation of the gauge group, one finds that the number of possible channels is richer than in the 't Hooft limit. We first discuss the diquark channels and show that for a number of colors larger than three a new diquark channel appears. We then study the infinite number of color limit and show that the Fermi surface is unstable to the formation of the Deryagin-Grigoriev-Rubakov chiral waves. We discover, differently from the 't Hooft limit, the possibility of a colored chiral wave breaking the color symmetry as well as translation invariance.

hep-ph↗