Searcharxiv⌕ Search

arXiv subjects

Ignatios Antoniadis

Publications and source records attributed to Ignatios Antoniadis.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources
arXiv2024

Searching for neutrino-modulino oscillations at the Forward Physics Facility

We make use of swampland conjectures to explore the phenomenology of neutrino-modulino mixing in regions of the parameter space that are within the sensitivity of experiments at the CERN's Forward Physics Facility (FPF). We adopt the working assumption of Dirac mass terms which couple left- and right-handed neutrinos. We further assume that the 3 right-handed neutrinos are 0-modes of bulk 5-dimensional states in the dark dimension, a novel scenario which has a compact space with characteristic length-scale in the micron range that produces a natural suppression of the 4-dimensional Yukawa couplings, yielding naturally light Dirac neutrinos. We formulate a specific realization of models with high-scale supersymmetry breaking that can host a rather heavy gravitino ($m_{3/2} \sim 250$ TeV) and a modulino with mass scale ($m_4 \sim 50$ eV) within the FPF discovery reach.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2024

The Dark Dimension and the Standard Model Landscape

We study the landscape of lower-dimensional vacua of the SM coupled to gravity in the presence of the ``dark dimension'' of size $R_\perp$ in the micron range, focusing on the validity of the swampland conjecture forbidding the presence of non-SUSY AdS vacua in a consistent quantum gravity theory. We first adopt the working assumption that right-handed neutrinos propagate in the bulk, so that neutrino Yukawa couplings become tiny due to a volume suppression, leading to naturally light Dirac neutrinos. We show that the neutrino KK towers compensate for the graviton tower to maintain stable dS vacua found in the past, but neutrino oscillation data set restrictive bounds on $R_\perp$ and therefore the first KK neutrino mode is too heavy to alter the shape of the radon potential or the required maximum mass for the lightest neutrino to carry dS rather than AdS vacua found in the absence of the dark dimension, $m_{1,{\rm max}}\lesssim 7.63~{\rm meV}$. We also show that a very light gravitino (with mass in the meV range) could help relax the neutrino mass constraint $m_{1,{\rm max}} \lesssim 50~{\rm meV}$. The differences for the predicted total neutrino mass $\sum m_ν$ among these two scenarios are within reach of next-generation cosmological probes that may measure the total neutrino mass with an uncertainty $σ(\sum m_ν) = 0.014~{\rm eV}$. We also demonstrate that the KK tower of a very light gravitino can compensate for the graviton tower to sustain stable dS vacua and thus right-handed neutrinos can (in principle) be locked on the brane. For this scenario, Majorana neutrinos could develop dS vacua, which is not possible in the SM coupled to gravity. Finally, we investigate the effects of bulk neutrino masses in suppressing oscillations of the 0-modes into the first KK modes to relax the oscillation bound on $R_\perp$.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2023

Sudden Shock Waves in modified gravity

We construct a generic asymptotic solution for modified gravity near a sudden singularity. This solution contains a fluid source with no equation of state and is function-counting stable, that is it has eleven independent arbitrary functions of the spatial coordinates as dictated by the Cauchy problem of the theory. We further show that near the sudden singularity the solution has a shock wave character with the same number of free functions in the Jordan and Einstein frame.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2023

Extra Dimensions and Physics of Low Scale Strings

This review aims to provide a very short and pedestrian introduction to some of the basics of extra-dimensional physics. The hope is to facilitate access and to be, in some respects, complementary to the many already existing reviews on phenomenological applications of extra dimensions in our Universe.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2023

The Scale of Supersymmetry Breaking and the Dark Dimension

We argue for a relation between the supersymmetry breaking scale and the measured value of the dark energy density $Λ$. We derive it by combining two quantum gravity consistency swampland constraints, which tie the dark energy density $Λ$ and the gravitino mass $M_{3/2}$, respectively, to the mass scale of a light Kaluza-Klein tower and, therefore, to the UV cut-off of the effective theory. Whereas the constraint on $Λ$ has recently led to the Dark Dimension scenario, with a prediction of a single mesoscopic extra dimension of the micron size, we use the constraint on $M_{3/2}$ to infer the implications of such a scenario for the scale of supersymmetry breaking. We find that a natural scale for supersymmetry signatures is $M={\cal O}\left(Λ^{1/8}\right)={\cal O}({\rm TeV})$. This mass scale is within reach of LHC and of the next generation of hadron colliders. Finally, we discuss possible string theory and effective supergravity realizations of the Dark Dimension scenario with broken supersymmetry.

hep-th↗
arXiv2023

Aspects of the Dark Dimension in Cosmology

It was recently understood that if the swampland conjectures are confronted to experiment they naturally point to a solution of the cosmological hierarchy problem in which the smallness of the dark energy is ascribed to an internal (dark) dimension with characteristic length-scale in the micron range. It was later inferred that the universal coupling of the Standard Model fields to the massive spin-2 Kaluza-Klein (KK) excitations of the graviton in the dark dimension leads to a dark matter candidate. Since the partial decay widths of KK gravitons into the visible sector must be relatively small to accommodate experiment, the model is particularly challenging to probe. We show that the model can accommodate neutrino masses associated to right-handed neutrinos propagating in the bulk of the dark dimension with an additional constraint imposed by neutrino oscillation data. After that, we study the impact of the KK tower in cosmology. We show that the modulation of redshifted 21-cm lines driven by ${\rm KK} \to γγ$ could be within the reach of next generation experiments (e.g. SKA and FARSIDE). We also show that indirect dark matter searches could uncover the ${\rm KK} \to γγ$ signal. These two observations combined have the potential for model identification. Finally, we explore the global structure of the inflationary phase and demonstrate that the model parameters required for a successful uniform inflation driven by a 5-dimensional cosmological constant (corresponding to a flat region of the 5-dimensional potential) are natural.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2023

Aspects of cubic nilpotent superfields

We study in more detail the cubic constraints for N=1 chiral superfields proposed in the earlier work Eur. Phys. J. C 81, 523 (2021), which describe low-energy goldstino-axion dynamics in global non-linearly realized supersymmetry. We generalize the constraint (i) by gauging the abelian symmetry that shifts the axion, and (ii) to supergravity. In the former case we show that after adding the abelian gauge multiplet, the construction can be formulated as a cubic nilpotent massive vector superfield. In the latter case we find explicit solution to the constraint including contributions from the supergravity multiplet. We also propose microscopic supergravity models (with linear supersymmetry), including a toy model for the string dilaton, which give rise to the cubic constraints at low energies.

hep-th↗
arXiv2023

The Dark Universe: Primordial Black Hole $\leftrightharpoons$ Dark Graviton Gas Connection

We study the possible correspondence between 5-dimensional primordial black holes and massive 5-dimensional KK gravitons as dark matter candidate within the recently proposed dark dimension scenario that addresses the cosmological hierarchy problem. First, we show that in the local universe a population of 5-dimensional black holes with $M_{\rm BH}\sim 7\times 10^{13}~{\rm g}$ would be practically indistinguishable from a KK tower of dark gravitons with $m_{\rm DM} \sim 50~{\rm keV}$. Second, we connect the mass increase of 5-dimensional black holes and the related temperature decrease with the cooling of the tower of massive spin-2 KK excitations of the graviton. The dark gravitons are produced at a mass $\sim 1 - 50~{\rm GeV}$ and the bulk of their mass shifts down to roughly $1 - 100~{\rm keV}$ today. The cooling of the system proceeds via decay to lighter gravitons without losing much total mass density, resembling the intra-tower decays that characterize the cosmological evolution of the dynamical dark matter framework. We associate the intra-tower decays of the graviton gas with the black hole growth through accretion. We also discuss that the primordial black hole $\leftrightharpoons$ dark graviton gas connection can be nicely explained by the bound state picture of black holes in terms of gravitons.

hep-th↗
arXiv2023

More on massive gravitino scattering amplitudes and the unitarity cutoff of the new Fayet-Iliopoulos terms

We extend the $2\rightarrow2$ gravitino scattering amplitude computed in [1] to an arbitrary $\mathcal{N}=1$ supergravity model of one chiral and one vector multiplet, in a Minkowski background with supersymmetry breaking driven by both $F$- and $D$-terms. We find that the cancellation of the leading term in $\mathcal{O}(κ^2 E^4/|m_{3/2}|^2)$, that would lead to a breakdown of perturbative unitarity at a scale $Λ\sim M_\mathrm{SUSY}$, is a consequence of the vanishing of the scalar potential at its minimum, which is implied by the flat background. We then analyse the inclusion of the new Fayet-Iliopoulos (FI) terms. We find that, since they modify the scalar potential without contributing to the amplitudes, they generically lead to uncanceled leading terms in the latter and a perturbative cutoff at the supersymmetry breaking scale, except for particular cases where the new FI term does not modify the potential at its minimum and the cutoff is pushed up to the Planck scale.

hep-th↗
arXiv2022

Late time acceleration in Palatini gravity

We investigate the effect of the quadratic correction $αR^2$ and non-minimal coupling $ξϕ^2 R$ on a quintessence model with an exponential potential $V(ϕ) = M^4\exp(-λϕ)$ in the Palatini formulation of gravity. We use dynamical system techniques to analyze the attractor structure of the model and uncover the possible trajectories of the system. We find that the quadratic correction cannot play a role in the late time dynamics, except for unacceptably large values of the parameter $α$; although it can play a role at early times. We find viable evolutions, from a matter-dominated phase to an accelerated expansion phase, with the dynamics driven by the non-minimal coupling. These evolutions correspond to trajectories where the field ends up frozen, thus acting as a cosmological constant.

gr-qc↗
arXiv2022

Particle physics and cosmology of the string derived no-scale flipped $SU(5)$

In a recent paper, we identified a cosmological sector of a flipped $SU(5)$ model derived in the free fermionic formulation of the heterotic superstring, containing the inflaton and the goldstino superfields with a superpotential leading to Starobinsky type inflation, while $SU(5){\times}U(1)$ is still unbroken. Here, we study the properties and phenomenology of the vacuum after the end of inflation, where the gauge group is broken to the Standard Model. We identify a set of vacuum expectation values, triggered by the breaking of an anomalous $U(1)_A$ gauge symmetry at roughly an order of magnitude below the string scale, that solve the F and D-flatness supersymmetric conditions up to 6th order in the superpotential which is explicitly computed, leading to a successful particle phenomenology. In particular, all extra colour triplets become superheavy guaranteeing observable proton stability, while the Higgs doublet mass matrix has a massless pair eigenstate with realistic hierarchical Yukawa couplings to quarks and leptons. The supersymmetry breaking scale is constrained to be high, consistent with the non observation of supersymmetric signals at the LHC.

hep-th↗
arXiv2022

Localizing branes with bifurcating bulks

We study the problem of evolution of bulk 5-fluids having an embedded braneworld with a flat, de Sitter, or anti-de Sitter geometry. We introduce new variables to express the Einstein equations as a dynamical system that depends on the equation of state parameter $γ$ and exponent $λ$. For linear fluids (i.e., $λ=1$), our formulation leads to a partial decoupling of the equations and thus to an exact solution. We find that such a fluid develops a transcritical bifurcation around the value $γ=-1/2$, and study how this behaviour affects to stability of the solutions. For nonlinear fluids, the situation is more diverse. We find an overall attractor at $λ=1/2$ and draw enough phase portraits to exhibit in detail the overall dynamics. We show that the value $λ=3/2$ is structurally unstable and typical for other forms of $λ$. Consequently, we observe a noticeable dependence of the qualitative behaviour of the solutions on different `polytropic' forms of the fluid bulk. In addition, we prove the existence of a Dulac function for nonlinear fluids, signifying the impossibility of closed orbits in certain subsets of the phase space. We also provide ample numerical evidence of gravity localizing solutions on the brane which satisfy all energy conditions.

hep-th↗
arXiv2022

Massive gravitino scattering amplitudes and the unitarity cutoff of the new Fayet-Iliopoulos terms

We compute the $2\rightarrow 2$ gravitino scattering amplitudes at tree level in supergravity theories where supersymmetry is spontaneously broken. In the unitary gauge, the gravitino becomes massive (of mass $m_{3/2}$) by absorbing the Goldstino, and the scattering amplitudes of its longitudinal polarisations grow with energy as $κ^2 E^4/m_{3/2}^2$, signaling a potential breakdown of unitarity at a scale $Λ^2\sim m_{3/2}/κ\sim M_{\mathrm{SUSY}}^2$. As we show explicitly in the Polonyi model, this leading term is cancelled by the contributions coming from the scalar partner of the Goldstino (sgoldstino), restoring perturbative unitarity up to the Planck scale. This is expected since supersymmetry is spontaneously broken, in analogy with the situation occuring in the Standard Model, where massive gauge bosons scattering preserves unitarity at high energy once we consider the contributions from the Higgs boson. However, when supersymmetry is broken by the new Fayet-Iliopoulos $D$-term, with ungauged R-symmetry, the above cancellation does not occur. In this case, the unbroken phase is singular and there is no contribution able to cancel the quartic divergences of the amplitudes, leading to a cutoff $Λ\sim M_\mathrm{SUSY}$ where the effective theory breaks down. The same behaviour is obtained when supersymmetry is non-linearly realised.

hep-th↗
arXiv2022

The Dark Dimension, the Swampland, and the Dark Matter Fraction Composed of Primordial Black Holes

Very recently, it was suggested that combining the Swampland program with the smallness of the dark energy and confronting these ideas to experiment lead to the prediction of the existence of a single extra-dimension (dubbed the dark dimension) with characteristic length-scale in the micron range. We show that the rate of Hawking radiation slows down for black holes perceiving the dark dimension and discuss the impact of our findings in assessing the dark matter fraction that could be composed of primordial black holes. We demonstrate that for a species scale of ${\cal O}(10^{10}~{\rm GeV})$, an all-dark-matter interpretation in terms of primordial black holes should be feasible for masses in the range $10^{14} \leq M_{BH}/{\rm g}\leq 10^{21}$. This range is extended compared to that in the 4D theory by 3 orders of magnitude in the low mass region. We also show that PBHs with $M_{\rm BH} \sim 10^{12}~{\rm g}$ could potentially explain the well-known Galactic 511 keV gamma-ray line if they make up a tiny fraction of the total dark matter density.

hep-th↗
arXiv2022

Salvage of Too Slow Gravitinos

Gravitinos can inherit a non-relativistic dispersion relation while propagating in a background breaking both supersymmetry and Lorentz symmetry spontaneously. This is because the longitudinal mode velocity is controlled by the sound speed in the background. It was pointed out recently by Kolb, Long and McDonough that the production of gravitinos might diverge when this sound speed vanishes. We argue that in the framework of cosmological models with linearly spontaneously broken realised supersymmetry, where the physical fermions are combinations of the vacuum goldstino and the inflatino, the gravitino longitudinal mode has a relativistic dispersion relation and therefore avoids the catastrophic production. We illustrate this in some explicit examples.

hep-th↗
arXiv2022

Minimal embedding of the Standard Model into intersecting D-brane configurations with a bulk leptonic $U(1)$

It has been recently shown that the discrepancy between the theoretical and experimental values of the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon can be fully accommodated by considering the contribution of few Kaluza-Klein (KK) states of the gauged lepton number with masses lighter than the LEP energy, consistently with present experimental limits. In this article, we construct the minimal embedding of the Standard Model (SM) into D-brane configurations with a gauged lepton number. In order to give rise to such KK modes, the lepton number gauge boson must live on an abelian $U(1)_L$ brane extended along at least one "large" extra dimension in the bulk, with a compactification scale $M_L\sim\mathcal{O}(10-10^2~{\rm GeV})$ for a string scale $M_s\sim 10~{\rm TeV}$. As a consequence, $U(1)_L$ cannot participate to the hypercharge linear combination. We show that the minimal realisation of this framework contains five stacks of branes: the SM color $U(3)_c$, weak $U(2)_w$ and abelian $U(1)$ stacks extended effectively only in four dimensions, the bulk $U(1)_L$, as well as a fifth $U(1)^{'}$ brane. With these five abelian factors, one finds besides the hypercharge a second anomaly-free linear combination which does not couple to the SM spectrum, both in the non-supersymmetric case as well as in the minimal supersymmetric extension of the model. It is also shown how the right-handed neutrino can be implemented in the spectrum, and how fermions arising from the two non-SM branes and coupled to the SM through the $U(1)_L$ KK modes can provide Dark Matter candidates. Finally, the possibility of breaking Lepton Flavour Universality is studied by replacing $U(1)_L$ with a brane gauging only the muonic lepton number, avoiding most experimental constraints and enlarging the parameter space for explaining the discrepancy on the muon magnetic moment.

hep-th↗
arXiv2022

Anomalous U(1) Gauge Bosons and String Physics at the Forward Physics Facility

We show that experiments at the Forward Physics Facility, planned to operate near the ATLAS interaction point during the LHC high-luminosity era, will be able to probe predictions of Little String Theory by searching for anomalous U(1) gauge bosons living in the bulk. The interaction of the abelian broken gauge symmetry with the Standard Model is generated at the one-loop level through kinetic mixing with the photon. Gauge invariant generation of mass for the U(1) gauge boson proceeds via the Higgs mechanism in spontaneous symmetry breaking, or else through anomaly-cancellation appealing to Stueckelberg-mass terms. We demonstrate that FASER2 will be able to probe string scales over roughly two orders of magnitude: 10^5 < M_s/TeV < 10^7.

hep-ph↗