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Jan Hajer

Publications and source records attributed to Jan Hajer.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

Dirac, Majorana, and Weyl Spinors in Arbitrary Dimension and Signature

Fermionic field types in arbitrary signature are often inferred from complex Spin representations alone, which obscures distinctions associated with real structures, disconnected spacetime reflections, and action-level bilinear constraints. We give a convention-explicit classification that treats the full real Clifford algebra and its even subalgebra separately, thereby distinguishing pinors from spinors and Pin-equivariant Majorana-type structures from structures that are only Spin-equivariant. Adjoint, complex-conjugation, and transposition intertwiners are combined with elementary and collective reflection lifts into a unified sign calculus. The resulting local Clifford classification is organised into thirty-two periodicity sectors determined by the Bott class and the total dimension modulo eight, without including theory-dependent gauge, anomaly, or global constraints. For each sector, we identify the available Dirac, Weyl, Majorana, symplectic Majorana, Majorana-Weyl, and symplectic Majorana-Weyl fields. The existence of an invariant pairing is distinguished from intertwiner compatibility, Grassmann and chiral selection rules, covariant index contraction, and Hermiticity of local bilinear operators.

hep-th

Neutrino oscillation data and a pseudo-Dirac heavy neutral lepton

Symmetry-protected seesaw models can accommodate light-neutrino oscillation data while keeping heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) within collider reach. In these models, the smallness of the light-neutrino masses is protected by an approximate lepton number (LN)-like symmetry that is broken only by small parameters. We study the minimal scenario in which the new states form one pseudo-Dirac HNL pair. The exact LN-conserving Dirac limit is diagonalised without expanding in the active-sterile mixing, and the small LN-violating entries are then included perturbatively. This yields a symmetry-protected flavour reconstruction of the active-heavy interaction matrix. The rank-two light-neutrino mass matrix fixes the normalised active-flavour direction, while the remaining high-energy information is a single complex light-heavy amplitude whose phase defines a CP-odd light-heavy invariant. For the normalised leading active-heavy interaction weights, this amplitude and the heavy-sector rotation cancel, leaving an ellipse in the flavour simplex determined by light-neutrino oscillation data and the Majorana phase. We also identify how the linear LN-violating terms enter coherent heavy-neutrino oscillations and the neutrinoless double beta effective mass.

hep-ph

Lepton number violation at hadron colliders via pseudo-Dirac heavy neutral leptons

Symmetry-protected low-scale seesaw models can account for the observed neutrino flavour oscillations without fine-tuning, while yielding collider-accessible signatures through pseudo-Dirac heavy neutral leptons (HNLs). Seesaw frameworks generically predict lepton number (LN) violation, which provides a powerful discovery channel. In symmetry-protected realisations, however, the amplitudes for LN violation are strongly suppressed by destructive interference between the contributions of the two quasi-degenerate HNLs within the usual QFT plane-wave treatment. We demonstrate that damped heavy neutrino-antineutrino oscillations significantly alleviate this suppression. We compare the sensitivities to pseudo-Dirac HNLs in both LN-blind and LN-violating channels at the LHC and future hadron colliders such as the FCC-$hh$ and the S$pp$C. We find that, although searches for LN violation outperform their LN-blind counterparts, small mass splittings in the pseudo-Dirac HNL pair can drastically reduce the sensitivities in these channels. We further show that combining LN-blind and LN-violating searches can distinguish a pseudo-Dirac HNL pair from the double-Majorana limit in the intermediate regime where LN violation is observable but not yet saturated.

hep-ph

New Physics Search at the CEPC: a General Perspective

The Circular Electron-Positron Collider (CEPC), a proposed next-generation Higgs factory, provides new opportunities to explore physics beyond the Standard Model (SM). With its clean electron-positron collision environment and the ability to collect large samples of Higgs, W, and Z bosons, the CEPC enables precision measurements and searches for new physics. This white paper outlines the CEPC's discovery potential, including studies of exotic decays of the Higgs, Z, and top quarks, dark matter and dark sector phenomena, long-lived particles, supersymmetry, and neutrino-related signatures. Advanced detector technologies and reconstruction techniques, such as one-to-one correspondence reconstruction and jet origin identification, significantly improve sensitivity to rare and weakly interacting processes. The CEPC is particularly well suited to probe the electroweak phase transition and test models of electroweak baryogenesis and dark sector interactions. In addition, global fit analyses highlight the CEPC's complementary role in constraining a wide range of new physics scenarios. These features position the CEPC as a powerful tool for exploring the next frontier in fundamental particle physics in the post-Higgs discovery era.

hep-ex

Invariant relativistic kinematics: Phase space triangulation

The calculation of particle decay widths and scattering cross sections naturally decomposes into a quantum mechanical amplitude and a relativistic phase space (PS). This PS can be formulated in terms of parallelotopes providing frame independent invariants. We demonstrate how these invariants are related to frame dependent observables such as momenta, energies, and angles between particles. Furthermore, we derive expressions for n-dimensional PSs featuring simple integration limits that are particularly well suited for an analytical treatment. To that end we develop a pictorial description using PS diagrams that allow to straightforwardly identify the optimal set of integration variables for arbitrary n.

hep-ph

Discovering heavy neutrino-antineutrino oscillations at the $Z$-pole

Collider-testable type I seesaw extensions of the Standard Model are generally protected by an approximate lepton number (LN) symmetry. Consequently, they predict pseudo-Dirac heavy neutral leptons (HNLs) composed of two nearly degenerate Majorana fields. The interference between the two mass eigenstates can induce heavy neutrino-antineutrino oscillations (NNOs) leading to observable lepton number violation (LNV), even though the LN symmetry is approximately conserved. These NNOs could be resolved in long-lived HNL searches at collider experiments, such as the proposed Future Circular $e^+e^-$ Collider (FCC-$ee$) or Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC). However, during their $Z$-pole runs, the LN carried away by the light (anti)neutrinos produced alongside the HNLs prevents LNV from being observed directly. Nevertheless, NNOs materialise as oscillating signatures in final state distributions. We discuss and compare a selection of such oscillating observables, and perform a Monte Carlo simulation to assess the parameter space in which NNOs could be resolved.

hep-ph

Focus topics for the ECFA study on Higgs / Top / EW factories

In order to stimulate new engagement and trigger some concrete studies in areas where further work would be beneficial towards fully understanding the physics potential of an $e^+e^-$ Higgs / Top / Electroweak factory, we propose to define a set of focus topics. The general reasoning and the proposed topics are described in this document.

hep-ph

Heavy neutrino-antineutrino oscillations at the FCC-ee

We discuss the impact of heavy neutrino-antineutrino oscillations (NNOs) on heavy neutral lepton (HNL) searches at proposed electron-positron colliders such as the future circular $e^+e^-$ collider (FCC-ee). During the $Z$ pole run, HNLs can be produced alongside a light neutrino or antineutrino that escapes detection and can decay into a charged lepton or antilepton together with an off-shell $W$ boson. In this case, signals of lepton number violation only show up in the final state distributions. We discuss how NNOs, a typical feature of collider-testable low-scale seesaw models where the heavy neutrinos form pseudo-Dirac pairs, modify such final state distributions. For example, the forward-backward asymmetry (FBA) of the reconstructed heavy (anti)neutrinos develops an oscillatory dependence on the HNL lifetime. We show that these oscillations can be resolvable for long-lived HNLs. We also discuss that when the NNOs are not resolvable, they can nevertheless significantly modify the theory predictions for FBAs and observables such as the ratio of the total number of HNL decays into $\ell^-$ over ones into $\ell^+$, in an interval of the angle~$\theta$ between the HNL and the beam axis. Our results show that NNOs should be included in collider simulations of HNLs at the FCCee.

hep-ph

Decoherence effects on lepton number violation from heavy neutrino-antineutrino oscillations

We study decoherence effects and phase corrections in heavy neutrino-antineutrino oscillations (NNOs), based on quantum field theory with external wave packets. Decoherence damps the oscillation pattern, making it harder to resolve experimentally. Additionally, it enhances lepton number violation (LNV) for processes in symmetry-protected low-scale seesaw models by reducing the destructive interference between mass eigenstates. We discuss a novel time-independent shift in the phase and derive formulae for calculating decoherence effects and the phase shift in the relevant regimes, which are the no dispersion regime and transverse dispersion regime. We find that the phase shift can be neglected in the parameter region under consideration since it is small apart from parameter regions with large damping. In the oscillation formulae, decoherence can be included by an effective damping parameter. We discuss this parameter and present averaged results, which apply to simulations of NNOs in the dilepton-dijet channel at the HL-LHC. We show that including decoherence effects can dramatically change the theoretical prediction for the ratio of LNV over LNC events.

hep-ph

Beyond lepton number violation at the HL-LHC: Resolving heavy neutrino-antineutrino oscillations

Collider testable low-scale seesaw models predict pseudo-Dirac heavy neutrinos, that can produce an oscillating pattern of lepton number conserving and lepton number violating events. We explore if such heavy neutrino-antineutrino oscillations can be resolved at the HL-LHC. To that end, we employ the first ever full Monte Carlo simulation of the oscillations, for several example benchmark points, and show under which conditions the CMS experiment is able to discover them. The workflow builds on a FeynRules model file for the phenomenological symmetry protected seesaw scenario (pSPSS) and a patched version of MadGraph , able to simulate heavy neutrino-antineutrino oscillations. We use the fast detector simulation Delphes and present a statistical analysis capable of inferring the significance of oscillations in the simulated data. Our results demonstrate that, for heavy neutrino mass splittings smaller than about 100 $\mu$eV, the discovery prospects for heavy neutrino-antineutrino oscillations at the HL-LHC are promising.

hep-ph

Exploiting exotic LHC datasets for long-lived new particle searches

Motivated by the expectation that new physics may manifest itself in the form of very heavy new particles, most of the operation time of the LHC is devoted to $pp$ collisions at the highest achievable energies and collision rates. The large collision rates imply tight trigger requirements that include high thresholds on the final-state particles' transverse momenta $p_{T}$ and an intrinsic background in the form of particle pileup produced by different collisions occurring during the same bunch crossing. This strategy is potentially sub-optimal for several well-motivated new physics models where new particles are not particularly heavy and can escape the online selection criteria of the multi-purpose LHC experiments due to their light mass and small coupling. A solution may be offered by complementary datasets that are routinely collected by the LHC experiments. These include heavy ion collisions, low-pileup runs for precision physics, and the so-called 'parking' and 'scouting' datasets. While some of them are motivated by other physics goals, they all have the usage of mild $p_{T}$ thresholds at the trigger-level in common. In this study, we assess the relative merits of these datasets for a representative model whose particular clean signature features long-lived resonances yielding displaced dimuon vertices. We compare the reach across those datasets for a simple analysis, simulating LHC data in Run 2 and Run 3 conditions with the Delphes simulation. We show that the scouting and parking datasets, which afford low-$p_{T}$ trigger thresholds by only using partial detector information and delaying the event reconstruction, respectively, have a reach comparable to the standard $pp$ dataset with conventional thresholds. We also show that heavy ion and low-pileup datasets are far less competitive for this signature.

hep-ph

Simulating lepton number violation induced by heavy neutrino-antineutrino oscillations at colliders

We study pseudo-Dirac pairs of two almost mass-degenerate sterile Majorana neutrinos which generate light neutrino masses via a low-scale seesaw mechanism. These pseudo-Dirac heavy neutral leptons can oscillate between interaction eigenstates that couple to leptons and antileptons and thus generate oscillations between lepton number conserving and lepton number violating processes. With the phenomenological symmetry protected seesaw scenario (pSPSS), we introduce a minimal framework capable of describing the dominant features of low-scale seesaws at colliders and present a FeynRules implementation usable in Monte Carlo generators. Additionally, we extend MadGraph to simulate heavy neutrino-antineutrino oscillations and present results from such simulations.

hep-ph

Opportunities for new physics searches with heavy ions at colliders

Opportunities for searches for phenomena beyond the Standard Model (BSM) using heavy-ions beams at high energies are outlined. Different BSM searches proposed in the last years in collisions of heavy ions, mostly at the Large Hadron Collider, are summarized. A few concrete selected cases are reviewed including searches for axion-like particles, anomalous $\tau$ electromagnetic moments, magnetic monopoles, and dark photons. Expectations for the achievable sensitivities of these searches in the coming years are given. Studies of CP violation in hot and dense QCD matter and connections to ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays physics are also mentioned.

hep-ph

Unleashing the full power of LHCb to probe Stealth New Physics

In this paper, we describe the potential of the LHCb experiment to detect Stealth physics. This refers to dynamics beyond the Standard Model that would elude searches that focus on energetic objects or precision measurements of known processes. Stealth signatures include long-lived particles and light resonances that are produced very rarely or together with overwhelming backgrounds. We will discuss why LHCb is equipped to discover this kind of physics at the Large Hadron Collider and provide examples of well-motivated theoretical models that can be probed with great detail at the experiment.

hep-ph

Portal Effective Theories: A framework for the model independent description of light hidden sector interactions

We present a framework for the construction of portal effective theories (PETs) that couple effective field theories of the Standard Model (SM) to light hidden messenger fields. Using this framework we construct electroweak and strong scale PETs that couple the SM to messengers carrying spin zero, one half, or one. The electroweak scale PETs encompass all portal operators up to dimension five, while the strong scale PETs additionally contain all portal operators of dimension six and seven that contribute at leading order to quark-flavour violating transitions. Using the strong scale PETs, we define a set of portal currents that couple hidden sectors to QCD, and construct portal chiral perturbation theories ($χ$PTs) that relate these currents to the light pseudoscalar mesons. We estimate the coefficients of the portal $χ$PT Lagrangian that are not fixed by SM observations using non-perturbative matching techniques and give a complete list of the resulting one- and two-meson portal interactions. From those, we compute transition amplitudes for three golden channels that are used in hidden sector searches at fixed target experiments: i) charged kaon decay into a charged pion and a spin zero messenger, ii) charged kaon decay into a charged lepton and a spin one half messenger, and iii) neutral pion decay into a photon and a spin one messenger. Finally, we compare these amplitudes to specific expressions for models featuring light scalar particles, axion-like particles, heavy neutral leptons, and dark photons.

hep-ph

Oscillating scalar dissipating in a medium

We study how oscillations of a scalar field condensate are damped due to dissipative effects in a thermal medium. Our starting point is a non-linear and non-local condensate equation of motion descending from a 2PI-resummed effective action derived in the Schwinger-Keldysh formalism appropriate for non-equilibrium quantum field theory. We solve this non-local equation by means of multiple-scale perturbation theory appropriate for time-dependent systems, obtaining approximate analytic solutions valid for very long times. The non-linear effects lead to power-law damping of oscillations, that at late times transition to exponentially damped ones characteristic for linear systems. These solutions describe the evolution very well, as we demonstrate numerically in a number of examples. We then approximate the non-local equation of motion by a Markovianised one, resolving the ambiguities appearing in the process, and solve it utilizing the same methods to find the very same leading approximate solution. This comparison justifies the use of Markovian equations at leading order. The standard time-dependent perturbation theory in comparison is not capable of describing the non-linear condensate evolution beyond the early time regime of negligible damping. The macroscopic evolution of the condensate is interpreted in terms of microphysical particle processes. Our results have implications for the quantitative description of the decay of cosmological scalar fields in the early Universe, and may also be applied to other physical systems.

hep-ph

HECATE: A long lived particle detector concept for the FCC-ee or CEPC

The next generation of circular high energy collider is expected to be a lepton collider, FCC-ee at CERN or CEPC in China. However, the civil engineering concepts foresee to equip these colliders with bigger detector caverns than one would need for a lepton collider, so that they can be used for a hadron collider that may be installed in the same tunnel without further civil engineering. This opens up the possibility to install extra instrumentation at the cavern walls to search for new long-lived particles at the lepton collider. We use the example of heavy neutral leptons to show that such an installation could improve the sensitivity to the squared mixing parameter by almost half an order of magnitude.

hep-ph

New physics searches with heavy-ion collisions at the LHC

This document summarises proposed searches for new physics accessible in the heavy-ion mode at the CERN Large Hadron Collider (LHC), both through hadronic and ultraperipheral $γγ$ interactions, and that have a competitive or, even, unique discovery potential compared to standard proton-proton collision studies. Illustrative examples include searches for new particles -- such as axion-like pseudoscalars, radions, magnetic monopoles, new long-lived particles, dark photons, and sexaquarks as dark matter candidates -- as well as new interactions, such as non-linear or non-commutative QED extensions. We argue that such interesting possibilities constitute a well-justified scientific motivation, complementing standard quark-gluon-plasma physics studies, to continue running with ions at the LHC after the Run-4, i.e. beyond 2030, including light and intermediate-mass ion species, accumulating nucleon-nucleon integrated luminosities in the accessible fb$^{-1}$ range per month.

hep-ph