arXiv subjects

Francesco Sannino

Publications and source records attributed to Francesco Sannino.

At least 199 records · Page 11Linked to original sources

arXiv2012

Orthogonal Technicolor with Isotriplet Dark Matter on the Lattice

We study the gauge dynamics of an SO(4)-gauge theory with two Dirac Wilson fermions transforming according to the vector representation of the gauge group. We determine the lattice phase diagram by locating the strong coupling bulk phase transition line and the zero PCAC mass line. We present results for the spectrum of the theory. In particular we measure the pseudoscalar, vector and axial meson masses. The data are consistent with a chiral symmetry breaking scenario rather than a conformal one. When used to break the electroweak symmetry dynamically the model leads to a natural dark matter candidate.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2012

Gamma Ray Constraints on Flavor Violating Asymmetric Dark Matter

We show how cosmic gamma rays can be used to constrain models of asymmetric Dark Matter decaying into lepton pairs by violating flavor. First of all we require the models to explain the anomalies in the charged cosmic rays measured by PAMELA, FERMI and HESS; performing combined fits we determine the allowed values of the Dark Matter mass and lifetime. For these models, we then determine the constraints coming from the measurement of the isotropic gamma-ray background by FERMI for a complete set of lepton flavor violating primary modes and over a range of DM masses from 100 GeV to 10 TeV. We find that the FERMI constraints rule out the flavor violating asymmetric Dark Matter interpretation of the charged cosmic ray anomalies.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2012

Isotriplet Dark Matter on the Lattice: SO(4)-gauge theory with two Vector Wilson fermions

We present preliminary results for simulations of SO(4)-gauge theory with two Dirac Wilson fermions transforming according to the vector representation. We map out the phase diagram including the strong coupling bulk phase transition line as well as the zero PCAC-mass line. In addition, we measure the pseudo scalar and vector meson masses, and investigate whether the theory features chiral symmetry breaking. If the theory is used for breaking the electroweak symmetry dynamically it is the orthogonal group equivalent of the Minimal Walking Technicolor model but with the following distinctive features: a] It provides a natural complex weak isotriplet of Goldstone bosons of which the neutral component can be identified with a light composite dark matter state; b] It is expected to break the global symmetry spontaneously; c] It is free from fermionic composite states made by a techniglue and a technifermion.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2012

Composite Inflation Setup and Glueball Inflation

We explore the paradigm according to which inflation is driven by a four-dimensional strongly coupled dynamics coupled non-minimally to gravity. We start by introducing the general setup, both in the metric and Palatini formulation, for generic models of composite inflation. We then analyze the relevant example where the inflaton is identified with the glueball field of a pure Yang-Mills theory. We introduce the dilatonic-like glueball action which is obtained by requiring saturation of the underlying Yang-Mills trace anomaly at the effective action level. We couple the resulting action non-minimally to gravity. We demonstrate that it is possible to achieve successful inflation with the confining scale of the underlying Yang-Mills theory naturally of the order of the grand unified energy scale. We also argue that within the metric formulation models of composite inflation lead to a more consistent picture than within the Palatini one. Finally we show that, in the metric formulation, the model nicely respects tree-level unitarity for the scattering of the inflaton field all the way to the Planck scale.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Light Magnetic Dark Matter in Direct Detection Searches

We study a fermionic Dark Matter particle carrying magnetic dipole moment and analyze its impact on direct detection experiments. In particular we show that it can accommodate the DAMA, CoGeNT and CRESST experimental results. Assuming conservative bounds, this candidate is shown not to be ruled out by the CDMS, XENON and PICASSO experiments. We offer an analytic understanding of how the long-range interaction modifies the experimental allowed regions, in the cross section versus Dark Matter mass parameter space, with respect to the typically assumed contact interaction. Finally, in the context of a symmetric Dark Matter sector, we determine the associated thermal relic density, and further provide relevant constraints imposed by indirect searches and colliders.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Dark Matter Interference

We study different patterns of interference in WIMP-nuclei elastic scattering that can accommodate the DAMA and CoGeNT experiments via an isospin violating ratio $f_n/f_p=-0.71$. We study interference between the following pairs of mediators: Z and Z', Z' and Higgs, and two Higgs fields. We show under what conditions interference works. We also demonstrate that in the case of the two Higgs interference, an explanation of the DAMA/CoGeNT is consistent with Electroweak Baryogenesis scenarios based on two Higgs doublet models proposed in the past.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

S and T Parameters from a Light Nonstandard Higgs versus Near Conformal Dynamics

We determine the contribution to the $S$ and $T$ parameters coming from extensions of the standard model featuring a light nonstandard-like Higgs particle. We neatly separate, using the Landau gauge, the contribution from the purely nonstandard Higgs sector, from the one due to the interplay of this sector with the standard model. If the nonstandard Higgs sector derives from a new type of near conformal dynamics, the formalism allows to precisely link the intrinsic underlying contribution with the experimentally relevant parameters.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Dark Medium Modified Dispersion Relations

We suggest that the dark side of the universe builds a dark medium modifying the Standard Model particle dispersion relations. We introduce the generic form for the modified dispersion relations and provide explicit models of the dark medium. We use the derived neutrino dispersion relations to show that the size of the corrections are smaller than the SN1987a bounds. We argue that before invoking modifications of Einstein's theory of relativity one should investigate the dark medium effects.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Exceptional and Spinorial Conformal Windows

We study the conformal window of gauge theories containing fermionic matter fields, where the gauge group is any of the exceptional groups with the fermions transforming according to the fundamental and adjoint representations and the orthogonal groups where the fermions transform according to a spinorial representation. We investigate the phase diagram using a purely perturbative four loop analysis, the all-orders beta function and the ladder approximation.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Jumping Dynamics

We propose an alternative paradigm to the conjectured Miransky scaling potentially underlying the physics describing the transition from the conformally broken to the conformally restored phase when tuning certain parameters such as the number of flavors in gauge theories. According to the new paradigm the physical scale and henceforth also the massive spectrum of the theory jump at the lower boundary of the conformal window. In particular we propose that a theory can suddenly jump from a Quantum Chromodynamics type spectrum, at the lower boundary of the conformal window, to a conformal one without particle interpretation. The jumping scenario, therefore, does not support a near-conformal dynamics of walking type. We will also discuss the impact of jumping dynamics on the construction of models of dynamical electroweak symmetry breaking.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Light Dilaton at Fixed Points and Ultra Light Scale Super Yang Mills

We investigate the infrared dynamics of a nonsupersymmetric SU(X) gauge theory featuring an adjoint fermion, Nf Dirac flavors and an Higgs-like complex Nf x Nf scalar which is a gauge singlet. We first establish the existence of an infrared stable perturbative fixed point and then investigate the spectrum near this point. We demonstrate that this theory naturally features a light scalar degree of freedom to be identified with the dilaton and elucidate its physical properties. We compute the spectrum and demonstrate that at low energy the nonperturbative part of the spectrum of the theory is the one of pure supersymmetric Yang-Mills. We can therefore determine the exact nonperturbative fermion condensate and deduce relevant properties of the nonperturbative spectrum of the theory. We also show that the intrinsic scale of super Yang-Mills is exponentially smaller than the scale associated to the breaking of conformal and chiral symmetry of the theory.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Dark Matter Effective Theory

We organize the effective (self)interaction terms for complex scalar dark matter candidates which are either an isosinglet, isodoublet or an isotriplet with respect to the weak interactions. The classification has been performed ordering the operators in inverse powers of the dark matter cutoff scale. We assume Lorentz invariance, color and charge neutrality. We also introduce potentially interesting dark matter induced flavor-changing operators. Our general framework allows for model independent investigations of dark matter properties.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Discovering a Light Scalar or Pseudoscalar at The Large Hadron Collider

The allowed standard model Higgs mass range has been reduced to a region between 114 and 130 GeV or above 500 GeV, at the 99% confidence level, since the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) program started. Furthermore some of the experiments at Tevatron and LHC observe excesses that could arise from a spin-0 particle with a mass of about 125 GeV. It is therefore timely to compare the standard model Higgs predictions against those of a more general new spin-0 state, either scalar or pseudo-scalar. Using an effective Lagrangian approach we investigate the ability to discriminate between a scalar or pseudoscalar, stemming from several extensions of the standard model, at the LHC. We also discuss how to use experimental results to disentangle whether the new state is elementary or composite.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Pseudo Goldstone Bosons Phenomenology in Minimal Walking Technicolor

We construct the non-linear realized Lagrangian for the Goldstone Bosons associated to the breaking pattern of SU(4) to SO(4). This pattern is expected to occur in any Technicolor extension of the standard model featuring two Dirac fermions transforming according to real representations of the underlying gauge group. We concentrate on the Minimal Walking Technicolor quantum number assignments with respect to the standard model symmetries. We demonstrate that for, any choice of the quantum numbers, consistent with gauge and Witten anomalies the spectrum of the pseudo Goldstone Bosons contains electrically doubly charged states which can be discovered at the Large Hadron Collider.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Beyond QCD: A Composite Universe

Strong dynamics constitutes one of the pillars of the standard model of particle interactions, and it accounts for the bulk of the visible matter in the universe. It is therefore a well posed question to ask if the rest of the universe can be described in terms of new highly natural four-dimensional strongly coupled theories. The goal of this brief summary is to provide, for the first time, a coherent overview of how new strong dynamics can be employed to address the relevant challenges in particle physics and cosmology from composite Higgs dynamics to dark matter and inflation.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2012

Light Asymmetric Dark Matter on the Lattice: SU(2) Technicolor with Two Fundamental Flavors

The SU(2) gauge theory with two massless Dirac flavors constitutes the building block of several models of Technicolor. Furthermore it has also been used as a template for the construction of a natural light asymmetric, or mixed type, dark matter candidate. We use explicit lattice simulations to confirm the pattern of chiral symmetry breaking by determining the Goldstone spectrum and therefore show that the dark matter candidate can, de facto, be constituted by a complex Goldstone boson. We also determine the phenomenologically relevant spin-one and spin-zero isovector spectrum and demonstrate that it is well separated from the Goldstone spectrum.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

N=4 Extended MSSM

We investigate a perturbative N=4 sector coupled to the MSSM and show that it allows for a stable vacuum correctly breaking the electroweak symmetry. The particle spectrum of the MSSM is enrichened by several new particles stemming out from the new N=4 sector of the theory, and a new lepton doublet required to cancel global and gauge anomalies of the theory. Even if the conformal invariance of the N=4 sector is explicitly broken, a nontrivial UV behavior of the coupling constants is possible: by studying the renormalization group equations at two loops we find that the Yukawa couplings of the heavy fermionic states flow to a common fixed point at a scale of a few TeVs. The parameter space of the new theory is reduced imposing naturalness of the couplings and soft supersymmetry breaking masses, perturbativity of the model at the EW scale as well as phenomenological constraints. Our preliminary results on the spectrum of the theory suggest that the LHC can rule out a significant portion of the parameter space of this model.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

W' and Z' limits for Minimal Walking Technicolor

We interpret the recent data on non-observation of Z'- and W'-bosons, reported by CMS, within Minimal Walking Technicolor models and use them to constrain the couplings and spectrum of the theory. We provide the reach for both exclusion and possible observation for the LHC with 5 fb^-1 at 7 TeV in the centre of mass energy, and 100 fb^-1 at 13 TeV.

hep-ph↗