arXiv subjects

Felipe J. Llanes-Estrada

Publications and source records attributed to Felipe J. Llanes-Estrada.

At least 73 records · Page 4Linked to original sources

arXiv2017

Electroweak resonances in HEFT

Due to the gap between the known 100 GeV scale and new physics if any, it is natural to employ an effective one-loop Lagrangian (HEFT) for the particles of the Electroweak Symmetry Breaking Sector (W_L, Z_L and h). To describe any new particles and resonances that may be found at the LHC we employ its unitarized amplitudes, valid even in the presence of new strong interactions. We have assessed the systematics by comparing several such methods, and find that they give qualitatively similar results and succesfully produce unitary amplitudes in the nonperturbative regime. We are thus in a position to describe new physics in the 0.5 TeV-3 TeV (region of validity of our approximations: the effective theory and the equivalence theorem to substitute W_L, Z_L by the Goldstone bosons of electroweak symmetry breaking). We have also computed the coupling of the EWSBS to the top-antitop and two-photon channels to describe resonances that decay through them or to study their photon-photon production, for example. The approach is universal and useful for many BSM theories at low energy.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Spontaneous mass generation suggests small dimension of the SM group U(1)xSU(2)xSU(3)

The reasons behind the gauge symmetry of the Standard Model, U(1)xSU(2)xSU(3), are still unsettled. One obvious feature is the low dimensionality of all its subgroups. Under certain conditions, a negative answer to the question "why not larger groups like SU(15), or for that matter, SP(26) or E7?" is possible. We have recently observed that fermions charged under large groups acquire much bigger dynamical masses, all things being equal at a high e.g. GUT scale, than ordinary quarks. Should such multicharged fermions exist, they are just too heavy to be observed today (and have either decayed early on if coupled to the rest of the Standard Model, or become reliquial dark matter if uncoupled). Their mass scale is dictated by strong antiscreening of the running coupling for those larger groups (with an appropriately small number of flavors) together with scaling properties of the Dyson-Schwinger equation for the fermion mass. The generated fermion mass (assuming only few flavors, to avoid spoiling antiscreening) grows exponentially with the number of colors as M(N_c) ~ exp(N_c) for scales much below the GUT scale. Large groups would be strongly coupled already near the GUT scale and fermions charged thereunder have correspondingly large masses.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Top-antitop production from $W_L^+ W_L^-$ and $Z_L Z_L$ scattering under a strongly-interacting symmetry-breaking sector

By using a Non-linear Electroweak Chiral Lagrangian, including the Higgs, coupled to heavy quarks, and the Equivalence Theorem, we compute (in the regime $M_t^2/v^2\ll\sqrt{s}M_t/v^2\ll s/v^2$) the one-loop amplitudes $W^+W^-\to t\bar t$, $ZZ\to t\bar t$ and $hh\to t\bar t$ (to NLO in the effective theory). We calculate the scalar partial-wave helicity amplitudes which allow us to check unitarity at the perturbative level in both $M_t/v$ and $s/v$. As with growing energy perturbative unitarity deteriorates, we also introduce a new unitarization method with the right analytical behavior on the complex $s$-plane and that can support poles on the second Riemann sheet to describe resonances in terms of the Lagrangian couplings. Thus we have achieved a consistent phenomenological description of any resonant $t\bar t$ production that may be enhanced by a possible strongly interacting Electroweak Symmetry Breaking Sector.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

$p_t$-Angular power spectrum in ALICE events

We study the particles emitted in the fireball following a Relativistic Heavy Ion Collision with the traditional angular analysis employed in cosmology and earth sciences, producing Mollweide plots of the p_t distribution of a few actual, publically released ALICE-collaboration events and calculating their angular power spectrum. With the limited statistics at hand, we do not find evidence for acoustic peaks but a decrease of C_l that is reminiscent of viscous attenuation, but subject to a strong effect from the rapidity acceptance which probably dominates (so we also subtract the m=0 component). As an exercise, we still extract a characteristic Silk damping length (proportional to the square root of the viscosity over entropy density ratio). The absence of acoustic-like peaks is also compatible with a crossover from the QGP to the hadron gas (because a surface tension at domain boundaries would effect a restoring force that could have driven acoustic oscillations). Presently an unexpected depression appears in the l=6 multipole strength, which should be revisited by the ALICE collaboration with full statistics to confirm or discard it.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

Spontaneous mass generation and the small dimensions of the Standard Model gauge groups U(1), SU(2) and SU(3)

The gauge symmetry of the Standard Model is SU(3)_c x SU(2)_L x U(1)_Y for unknown reasons. One aspect that can be addressed is the low dimensionality of all its subgroups. Why not much larger groups like SU(7), or for that matter, SP(38) or E7? We observe that fermions charged under large groups acquire much bigger dynamical masses, all things being equal at a high e.g. GUT scale, than ordinary quarks. Should such multicharged fermions exist, they are too heavy to be observed today and have either decayed early on (if they couple to the rest of the Standard Model) or become reliquial dark matter (if they don't). The result follows from strong antiscreening of the running coupling for those larger groups (with an appropriately small number of flavors) together with scaling properties of the Dyson-Schwinger equation for the fermion mass.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

Constraining gravity with hadron physics: neutron stars, modified gravity and gravitational waves

The finding of Gravitational Waves by the aLIGO scientific and VIRGO collaborations opens opportunities to better test and understand strong interactions, both nuclear-hadronic and gravitational. Assuming General Relativity holds, one can constrain hadron physics at a neutron star. But precise knowledge of the Equation of State and transport properties in hadron matter can also be used to constrain the theory of gravity itself. I review a couple of these opportunities in the context of modified f(R) gravity, the maximum mass of neutron stars, and progress in the Equation of State of neutron matter from the chiral effective field theory of QCD.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2016

Coupling WW, ZZ unitarized amplitudes to $γγ$ in the TeV region

We define and calculate helicity partial-wave amplitudes for processes linking the Electroweak Symmetry Breaking Sector (EWSBS) to $γγ$, employing (to NLO) the Higgs-EFT (HEFT) extension of the Standard Model and the Equivalence Theorem, while neglecting all particle masses. The resulting amplitudes can be useful in the energy regime ($500\,{\rm GeV}-3\,{\rm TeV}$). We also deal with their unitarization so that resonances of the EWSBS can simultaneously be described in the $γγ$ initial or final states. Our resulting amplitudes satisfy unitarity, perturbatively in $α$, but for all $s$ values. In this way we improve on the HEFT that fails as interactions become stronger with growing $s$ and provide a natural framework for the decay of dynamically generated resonances into $WW$, $ZZ$ and $γγ$ pairs.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

On neutron stars in f(R) theories: small radii, large masses and large energy emitted in a merger

In the context of f(R) gravity theories, we show that the apparent mass of a neutron star as seen from an observer at infinity is numerically calculable but requires careful matching, first at the star's edge, between interior and exterior solutions, none of them being totally Schwarzschild-like but presenting instead small oscillations of the curvature scalar R; and second at large radii, where the Newtonian potential is used to identify the mass of the neutron star. We find that for the same equation of state, this mass definition is always larger than its general relativistic counterpart. We exemplify this with quadratic $R^2$ and Hu-Sawicki-like modifications of the standard General Relativity action. Therefore, the finding of two-solar mass neutron stars basically imposes no constraint on stable f(R) theories. However, star radii are in general smaller than in General Relativity, which can give an observational handle on such classes of models at the astrophysical level. Both larger masses and smaller matter radii are due to much of the apparent effective energy residing in the outer metric for scalar-tensor theories. Finally, because the f(R) neutron star masses can be much larger than General Relativity counterparts, the total energy available for radiating gravitational waves could be of order several solar masses, and thus a merger of these stars constitutes an interesting wave source.

gr-qc↗

arXiv2016

Mapping chiral symmetry breaking in the excited baryon spectrum

We study the conjectured "Insensitivity to Chiral Symmetry Breaking" in the highly excited light baryon spectrum. While the experimental spectrum is being measured at JLab and CBELSA/TAPS, this insensitivity remains to be computed theoretically in detail. As the only existing option to have both confinement, highly excited states and chiral symmetry, we adopt the truncated Coulomb gauge formulation of QCD, considering a linearly confining Coulomb term. Adopting a systematic and numerically intensive variational treatment up to 12 harmonic oscillator shells we are able to access several angular and radial excitations. We compute both the excited spectra of $I=1/2$ and $I=3/2$ baryons, up to large spin $J=13/2$, and study in detail the proposed chiral multiplets. While the static-light and light-light spectra clearly show chiral symmetry restoration high in the spectrum, the realization of chiral symmetry is more complicated in the baryon spectrum than earlier expected.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

Velocity fluctuations of fission fragments

We propose event by event velocity fluctuations of nuclear fission fragments as an additional interesting observable that gives access to the nuclear temperature in an independent way from spectral measurements and relates the diffusion and friction coefficients for the relative fragment coordinate in Kramer-like models (in which some aspects of fission can be understood as the diffusion of a collective variable through a potential barrier). We point out that neutron emission by the heavy fragments can be treated in effective theory if corrections to the velocity distribution are needed.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2015

Comparing mesons and W_L W_L TeV-resonances

Tantalizing LHC hints suggest that resonances of the Electroweak Symmetry Breaking Sector might exist at the TeV scale. We recall a few key meson-meson resonances in the GeV region that could have high-energy analogues which we compare, as well as the corresponding unitarized effective theories describing them. While detailed dynamics may be different, the constraints of unitarity, causality and global-symmetry breaking, incorporated in the Inverse Amplitude Method, allow to carry some intuition over to the largely unmeasured higher energy domain. If the 2 TeV ATLAS excess advances one such new resonance, this could indicate an anomalous q qbar W coupling.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

Resonances in W_L W_L, Z_L Z_L and hh scattering from dispersive analysis of the non-linear Electroweak+Higgs Effective Theory

If new resonances of the electroweak symmetry breaking sector (longitudinal-gauge and Higgs) bosons are found in the 1-3 TeV region, the right tool to assess their properties and confront experimental data in a largely model-independent yet simple manner is Unitarized Effective Theory. Its ingredients are: 1) custodial symmetry and the Equivalence Theorem, that allow to approximate W_L and Z_L by an isospin-triplet of Goldstone bosons omega^a in the 1-TeV region. 2) The effective coupling of a generic, approximately massless scalar-isoscalar h to those Goldstone bosons, and the chiral Lagrangian describing them, valid up to about 3 TeV. 3) The Inverse Amplitude or other unitarization techniques that allow to extend the reach of perturbation theory to the first resonance in each partial wave. We highlight some of the parameter space that can give rise to 2-TeV resonances, for example a simultaneous scalar-isoscalar and a vector-isovector ones (motivated by the ATLAS excess) and also the potential importance of coupled-channel dynamics between hh and omega omega.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

Describing 2-TeV scale W_L W_L resonances with Unitarized Effective Theory

The LHC is now exploring the 1-3 TeV scale where resonances of the Electroweak Symmetry Breaking Sector might exist. If so, Unitarized Effective Theory can be used to describe the data with all the constraints of unitarity, causality and global-symmetry breaking, and to find the resonance positions in the complex s-plane. From any resonances found, one can infer the parameters of the universal Effective Lagrangian, and those may be used to inform higher-energy theories (UV completions) that can be matched to it. We exemplify with two-body resonances in the coupled channels hh and W_L W_L- Z_L Z_L employing the Equivalence Theorem and comment on the apparent excess in the ATLAS dijet data at 2 TeV.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

Production cross section estimates for strongly-interacting Electroweak Symmetry Breaking Sector resonances at particle colliders

We are exploring a generic strongly-interacting Electroweak Symmetry Breaking Sector (EWSBS) with the low-energy effectie field theory for the four experimentally known particles ($W_L^\pm$, $Z_L$, $h$) and its dispersion-relation based unitary extension. In this contribution we provide simple estimates for the production cross section of pairs of the EWSBS bosons and their resonances at proton-proton colliders as well as in a future $e^-e^+$ (or potentially a $μ^-μ^+$) collider with a typical few-TeV energy. We examine the simplest production mechanisms, tree-level production through a $W$ (dominant when quantum numbers allow) and the simple effective boson approximation (in which the electroweak bosons are considered as collinear partons of the colliding fermions). We exemplify with custodial isovector and isotensor resonances at 2 TeV, the energy currently being discussed because of a slight excess in the ATLAS 2-jet data. We find it hard, though not unthinkable, to ascribe this excess to one of these $W_LW_L$ rescattering resonances. An isovector resonance could be produced at a rate smaller than, but close to earlier CMS exclusion bounds, depending on the parameters of the effective theory. The $ZZ$ excess is then problematic and requires additional physics (such as an additional scalar resonance). The isotensor one (that would describe all charge combinations) has a smaller cross section.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

Entropy production in the early-cosmology pionic phase

We point out that in the early universe, for temperatures in the approximate interval 175-80 MeV (after the quark-gluon plasma), pions carried a large share of the entropy and supported the largest inhomogeneities. Thus, we examine the production of entropy in a pion gas, particularizing to inhomogeneities of the temperature, for which we benefit from the known thermal conductivity. We finally put that entropy produced in relaxing such thermal inhomogeneities in the broad context of this relatively unexplored phase of early-universe cosmology.

nucl-th↗

arXiv2015

Possible new resonance from $W_L W_L$-$hh$ interchannel coupling

We propose and theoretically study a possible new resonance caused by strong coupling between the Higgs-Higgs and the W_L W_L (Z_L Z_L) scattering channels, without regard to the intensity of the elastic interaction in either channel at low energy (that could be weak as in the Standard Model). We expose this channel-coupling resonance from unitarity and dispersion relations encoded in the Inverse Amplitude Method, applied to the Electroweak Chiral Lagrangian with a scalar Higgs.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

Unitarity, analyticity, dispersion relations and resonances in strongly interacting $W_L W_L$, $Z_L Z_L$ and $hh$ scattering

If the Electroweak Symmetry Breaking Sector turns out to be strongly interacting, the actively investigated effective theory for longitudinal gauge bosons plus Higgs can be efficiently extended to cover the regime of saturation of unitarity (where the perturbative expansion breaks down). This is achieved by dispersion relations, whose subtraction constants and left cut contribution can be approximately obtained in different ways giving rise to different unitarization procedures. We illustrate the ideas with the Inverse Amplitude Method, one version of the N/D method and another improved version of the K-matrix. In the three cases we get partial waves which are unitary, analytical with the proper left and right cuts and in some cases poles in the second Riemann sheet that can be understood as dynamically generated resonances. In addition they reproduce at Next to Leading Order (NLO) the perturbative expansion for the five partial waves not vanishing (up to J=2) and they are renormalization scale ($μ$) independent. Also the unitarization formalisms are extended to the coupled channel case. Then we apply the results to the elastic scattering amplitude for the longitudinal components of the gauge bosons $V=W, Z$ at high energy. We also compute $h h \rightarrow h h$ and the inelastic process $VV\rightarrow h h$ which are coupled to the elastic $VV$ channel for custodial isospin $I=0$. We numerically compare the three methods for various values of the low-energy couplings and explain the reasons for the differences found in the $I=J=1$ partial wave. Then we study the resonances appearing in the different elastic and coupled channels in terms of the effective Lagrangian parameters.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

Cubic wavefunction deformation of compressed atoms

We hypothesize that in a non-metallic crystalline structure under extreme pressures, atomic wavefunctions deform to adopt a reduced rotational symmetry consistent with minimizing interstitial space in the crystal. We exemplify with a simple numeric variational calculation that yields the energy cost of this deformation for Helium to 25%. Balancing this with the free energy gained by tighter packing we obtain the pressures required to effect such deformation. The consequent modification of the structure suggests a decrease in the resistance to tangential stress, and an associated decrease of the crystal's shear modulus. The atomic form factor is also modified. We also compare with neutron matter in the interior of compact stars.

physics.atom-ph↗