arXiv subjects

Helena Kolešová

Publications and source records attributed to Helena Kolešová.

18 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

NLO observables for QCD-like theories and application to pion dark matter

QCD-like theories are of interest in various areas of beyond-Standard-Model phenomenology, including composite Higgs models or pionic dark matter. The effective field theories provide a framework for describing the dynamics of such strongly coupled gauge theories at low energies. In this work, we present next-to-leading order (NLO) expressions for masses, condensates, decay constants, and scattering amplitudes in the chiral expansion of QCD-like theories with $N_F=2$ fermions with non-degenerate masses in both real and pseudoreal representations of the gauge group. We further apply the NLO formulas to fit existing lattice spectroscopic and scattering data for $Sp(N_c=4)$ gauge theory with $N_F=2$ fermions in fundamental representation, extracting the NLO low-energy constants of the theory. Using these fits, we refine the NLO formulas describing the $2\to 2$ pion self-interactions and confirm that the NLO contributions play a crucial role in determining the viable parameter space of pion dark matter scenarios like the strongly interacting massive particles (SIMP).

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arXiv2025

Prospects of detecting cosmic ray up-scattered dark matter with DUNE

Detection of sub-GeV dark matter (DM) particles in direct detection experiments is inherently difficult, as their low kinetic energies in the galactic halo are insufficient to produce observable recoils of the heavy nuclei in the detectors. On the other hand, whenever DM particles interact with nucleons, they can be accelerated by scattering with galactic cosmic rays. These cosmic-ray-boosted DM particles can then interact not only through coherent elastic scattering with nuclei, but also through scattering with individual nucleons in the detectors and produce outgoing particles at MeV to GeV kinetic energies. The resulting signal spectrum overlaps with the detection capabilities of modern neutrino experiments. One future experiment is the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) at the Sanford Underground Research Facility. Our study shows that DUNE has a unique ability to search for cosmic-ray boosted DM with sensitivity comparable to dedicated direct detection experiments in the case of spin-independent interactions. Importantly, DUNE's sensitivity reaches similar values of DM-nucleon cross sections also in the case of spin-dependent interactions, offering a key advantage over traditional direct detection experiments.

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arXiv2024

Effect of inelastic scattering on cosmic-ray-boosted dark matter

Sub-GeV dark matter particles evade standard direct detection studies since their typical energies in the galactic halo do not allow for detectable recoil of the heavy nuclei in the detectors. However, it was noted that if the dark matter particles have sizable couplings to nucleons, they can be boosted by interactions with galactic cosmic rays and probed by experiments like Xenon-1T. We revisit the resulting bounds on DM-nucleon interaction and improve on previous works by considering the DM-nucleus inelastic cross sections provided by the GENIE interaction event generator. Including inelastic scattering in the process of dark matter boosting increases the flux of high-energy dark matter coming to Earth. Additionally, allowing for inelastic scattering with nuclei is important for a realistic description of the dark matter interacting in the Earth's crust. We demonstrate these effects on a benchmark model where dark matter interactions are mediated by a dark U(1) vector boson.

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arXiv2024

Chiral soliton lattice at next-to-leading order

We compute the free energy of the chiral soliton lattice state in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) at nonzero baryon chemical potential, temperature and external magnetic field at the next-to-leading order of chiral perturbation theory. This extends previous work where only a special limit of the chiral soliton lattice, the domain wall, was considered. Our results therefore serve as a consistency check of the previously established phase diagram of QCD at moderate magnetic fields and temperature and sub-nuclear baryon chemical potentials. Moreover, we use the result for the free energy to determine the magnetization carried by the domain wall and the chiral soliton lattice, both at the next-to-leading order.

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arXiv2021

Chiral soliton lattice phase in warm QCD

We analyze the phase diagram of quantum chromodynamics at low-to-moderate temperature, baryon chemical potential and external magnetic field within chiral perturbation theory at next-to-leading order of the derivative expansion. Our main result is that the anomaly-induced chiral soliton lattice (CSL) phase is stabilized by thermal fluctuations. As a consequence, the CSL state may survive up to temperatures at which chiral symmetry is restored.

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arXiv2021

Collider phenomenology of a unified leptoquark model

We demonstrate that in a recently proposed unified leptoquark model based on the gauge group $SU(4)_C\times SU(2)_L \times U(1)_R$ significant deviations from the Standard Model values of $R_K$ and $R_{K^*}$ can be accommodated without any need of extra heavy fermions. Low energy data, in particular lepton flavour violating $μ$ decays and $K_L\to e μ$, severely constrain the available parameter space. We show that in the allowed part of the parameter space (i) some of the lepton-flavour-violating tau decay branching ratios are predicted to be close to their current experimental limits. (ii) The underlying scalar leptoquarks can be probed at the LHC via their dominant decay modes into tau-leptons and electrons and the third generation quarks. (iii) The constraints from meson oscillations imply that the masses of scalar gluons, another pair of coloured multiplets around, have to be bigger than around 15 TeV and, thus, they can be probed only at a future 100 TeV collider. In both neutral and charged variants, these scalars decay predominantly into third generation quarks, with up to $O$(10\%) branching ratios into family-mixed final states. Besides that, we comment on the phenomenology of the scalar gluons in the current scenarios in the case that the $B$-decay anomalies eventually disappear.

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arXiv2019

Chiral soliton lattice in QCD-like theories

Recently, it has been shown that the ground state of quantum chromodynamics (QCD) in sufficiently strong magnetic fields and at moderate baryon number chemical potential carries a crystalline condensate of neutral pions: the chiral soliton lattice (CSL). While the result was obtained in a model-independent manner using effective field theory techniques, its realization from first principles using lattice Monte Carlo simulation is hampered by the infamous sign problem. Here we show that CSL, or a similar inhomogeneous phase, also appears in the phase diagram of a class of vector-like gauge theories that do not suffer from the sign problem even in the presence of a baryon chemical potential and external magnetic field. We also show that the onset of nonuniform order manifests itself already in the adjacent homogeneous Bose-Einstein-condensation phase through a characteristic roton-like minimum in the dispersion relation of the lowest-lying quasiparticle mode. Last but not least, our work gives a class of explicit counterexamples to the long-standing conjecture that positivity of the determinant of the Dirac operator (that is, absence of the sign problem) in a vector-like gauge theory precludes spontaneous breaking of translational invariance, and thus implies the absence of inhomogeneous phases in the phase diagram of the theory.

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arXiv2019

Anomaly-Induced Inhomogeneous Phase in Quark Matter without the Sign Problem

We demonstrate the existence of an anomaly-induced inhomogeneous phase in a class of vector-like gauge theories without sign problem, thus disproving the long-standing conjecture that the absence of sign problem precludes spontaneous breaking of translational invariance. The presence of the phase in the two-color modification of quantum chromodynamics can be tested by an independent nonperturbative evaluation of the neutral pion decay constant as a function of external magnetic field. Our results provide a benchmark for future lattice studies of inhomogeneous phases in dense quark matter.

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arXiv2019

Dense QCD(-like) Matter in Strong Magnetic Fields

As recently shown, the ground state of dense QCD matter in a strong magnetic field is an inhomogeneous condensate of neutral pions which was named Chiral Soliton Lattice (CSL) phase in analogy with a state present for chiral magnets. We continue this work by showing that similar phase is present for a class of QCD-like theories which are accessible to standard lattice Monte-Carlo simulations unlike the QCD itself which suffers from the notorious sign problem if non-zero baryon chemical potential is considered. On the occasion of the Gravitation session of the Moriond conference we also briefly comment on the possible relevance of the CSL phase for neutron stars and gravitational wave observations.

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arXiv2018

Flavour Structure of GUTs and Uncertainties in Proton Lifetime Estimates

We study the flavour aspects of proton lifetime estimates in simple Grand unified models paying particular attention to their inherent fragility due to the notorious lack of control of some of the key parameters governing the relevant hard-process amplitudes. Among these, the theoretical uncertainties in the flavour structure of the baryon and lepton number violating charged currents due to the potential higher-order effects afflicting the matching of the underlying Yukawa couplings to the low-energy data often play a prominent role. Focusing on the minimal variants of the most popular unified models we study the potential instabilities of the corresponding proton lifetime estimates based on the renormalizable-level Yukawa fits with respect to the Planck-scale induced flavour effects. In particular, we perform a detailed numerical analysis of all minimal $SO(10)$ Yukawa sector fits available in the literature and show that the proton lifetime estimates based on these inputs exhibit a high degree of robustness with respect to moderate-size perturbations, well within the expected "improvement window" of the upcoming proton decay searches.

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arXiv2015

Neutrino-axion-dilaton interconnection

We show that a recently proposed framework that provides a simple connection between Majorana neutrinos and an invisible axion in minimal scalar extensions of the standard electroweak model can be naturally embedded in a classically scale-invariant setup. The explicit breaking of the scale invariance à la Coleman-Weinberg generates the Peccei-Quinn and electroweak scales. The spontaneous breaking of the chiral $U(1)_{PQ}$ triggers the generation of neutrino masses via Type-II seesaw and, at the same time, provides a dynamical solution to the strong CP problem as well as the axion as a dark matter candidate. The electroweak and neutrino mass scales are obtained via a technically natural ultraweak limit of the singlet scalar interactions. Accordingly, a realistic and perturbatively stable scalar spectrum, possibly in the reach of the LHC, is naturally obtained. A very light pseudodilaton characterizes such a setting. The vacuum stability of the extended setup is discussed.

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arXiv2015

Theoretical Uncertainties in Proton Lifetime Estimates

We recapitulate the primary sources of theoretical uncertainties in proton lifetime estimates in renormalizable, four-dimensional and non-supersymmetric grand unifications that represent the most conservative framework in which this question may be addressed at the perturbative level. We point out that many of these uncertainties are so severe that there are only very few scenarios in which an NLO approach, as crucial as it is for a real testability of any specific model, is actually sensible. Among these, the most promising seems to be the minimal renormalizable SO(10) GUT whose high-energy gauge symmetry is spontaneously broken by the adjoint and the five-index antisymmetric irreducible representations.

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arXiv2015

Higher order proton lifetime estimates in grand unified theories

Since the main experimentally testable prediction of grand unified theories is the instability of the proton, precise determination of the proton lifetime for each particular model is desirable. Unfortunately, the corresponding computation usually involves theoretical uncertainties coming e.g. from ignorance of the mass spectrum or from the Planck-suppressed higher-dimensional operators, which may result in errors in the proton lifetime estimates stretching up to several orders of magnitude. On the other hand, we present a model based on SO(10) gauge group which is subsequently broken by a scalar adjoint representation, where the leading Planck-suppressed operator is absent, hence the two-loop precision may be achieved.

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arXiv2015

Massive neutrinos and invisible axion minimally connected

We survey a few minimal scalar extensions of the standard electroweak model that provide a simple setup for massive neutrinos in connection with an invisible axion. The presence of a chiral $U(1)$ à la Peccei-Quinn drives the pattern of Majorana neutrino masses while providing a dynamical solution to the strong CP problem and an axion as a dark matter candidate. We paradigmatically apply such a renormalizable framework to type-II seesaw and to two viable models for neutrino oscillations where the neutrino masses arise at one and two loops, respectively. We comment on the naturalness of the effective setups as well as on their implications for vacuum stability and electroweak baryogenesis.

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arXiv2014

Minimal SO(10) grand unification at next-to-leading order

We comment on the status and prospects of the minimal non-supersymmetric renormalizable SO(10) grand unified model. We emphasize its unique predictive power owing to the particular robustness of the gauge unification pattern to the leading-order Planck-scale effects which, in turn, makes it essentially the only unified framework in which the proton lifetime may be estimated with better than the leading order precision. This, together with the frequent presence of light-scale exotics accessible, in principle, at future colliders, is the key to its potential testability at the upcoming megaton-scale facilities such as Hyper-Kamiokande or LENA.

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arXiv2014

Proton lifetime in the minimal SO(10) GUT and its implications for the LHC

We review the current status of the minimal non-supersymmetric SO(10) grand unified theory and perform a detailed next-to-leading-order analysis of the gauge unification and proton lifetime constraints on the part of its parameter space supporting a ZeV-scale color sextet scalar. This, together with a TeV-scale color octet studied in detail in a preceding work, represents one of the two minimally fine-tuned settings compatible with all the relevant consistency and phenomenology limits. Both these scenarios can be extensively tested at the future megaton-scale proton-decay facilities. On top of that, the light octet solution can be accessible in the TeV-scale collider searches.

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arXiv2014

Witten's mechanism in the flipped SU(5) unification

We argue that the Witten's loop mechanism for the right-handed Majorana neutrino mass generation identified originally in the SO(10) grand unification context can be successfully adopted to the class of the simplest flipped SU(5) models. In such a framework, the main drawback of the SO(10) prototype, in particular, the generic tension among the gauge unification constraints and the absolute neutrino mass scale is alleviated and a simple yet potentially realistic and testable scenario emerges.

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arXiv2013

Witten's loop in the flipped SU(5) unification

We study a very simple, yet potentially realistic renormalizable flipped SU(5) scenario in which the right-handed neutrino masses are generated at very high energies by means of a two-loop diagram similar to that identified by E. Witten in the early 1980's in the SO(10) GUT framework. This mechanism leaves its traces in the baryon number violating signals such as the proton decay, especially in the "clean" channels with a charged lepton and a neutral meson in the final state.

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