arXiv subjects

Kohsaku Tobioka

Publications and source records attributed to Kohsaku Tobioka.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2020

KOTO vs. NA62 Dark Scalar Searches

The two kaon factories, KOTO and NA62, are at the cutting edge of the intensity frontier, with an unprecedented numbers of long lived and charged Kaons, ~ 10^{13}, being measured and analyzed. These experiments have currently a unique opportunity to search for dark sectors. In this paper, we demonstrate that searches done at KOTO and NA62 are complementary, both probing uncharted territories. We consider two qualitatively different physics cases. In the first, we analyze models of axion-like-particles (ALP) which couple to gluons or electroweak gauge bosons. In the second, we introduce a model based on an approximate strange flavor symmetry that leads to a strong violation of the Grossman-Nir bound. For the first scenario, we design a new search strategy for the KOTO experiment, K_L -> pi^0 a -> 4 gamma . Its expected sensitivity on the branching ratio is at the level of 10^{-9}. This demonstrates the great potential of KOTO as a discovery machine. In addition, we revisit other bounds on ALPs from Kaon factories, highlighting the main sources of theoretical uncertainty, and collider experiments, and show new projections. For the second scenario, we show that the model may be compatible with the preliminary analysis of the KOTO-data that shows a hint for New Physics.

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arXiv2020

New physics implications of recent search for $K_L \to π^0 ν\barν$ at KOTO

The KOTO experiment recently reported four candidate events in the signal region of $K_L\to π^0 ν\barν$ search, where the standard model only expects $0.10\pm 0.02$ events. If confirmed, this requires physics beyond the standard model to enhance the signal. We examine various new physics interpretations of the result including these: (1) heavy new physics boosting the standard model signal, (2) reinterpretation of "$ν\barν$" as a new light long-lived particle, or (3) reinterpretation of the whole signal as the production of a new light long-lived particle at the fixed target. We study the above explanations in the context of a generalized new physics Grossman-Nir bound coming from the $K^+ \to π^+ν\barν$ decay, bounded by data from the E949 and the NA62 experiments.

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arXiv2019

New Axion Searches at Flavor Factories

We assess the impact of searches at flavor factories for new neutral resonances that couple to both photons and gluons. These are well motivated by "heavy axion" solutions of the strong CP problem and by frameworks addressing both Dark Matter and the Higgs hierarchy problem. We use LHCb public diphoton data around the Bs mass to derive the current best limit on these resonances for masses between 4.9 and 6.3 GeV. We estimate that a future LHCb dedicated search would test an axion decay constant of O(TeV) for axion masses in the few-to-tens of GeV, being fully complementary to the low mass ATLAS and CMS searches. We also derive the impact of BABAR searches based on Upsilon decays and the future Belle-II reach.

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arXiv2018

New LHC bound on low-mass diphoton resonances

We derive a new bound on diphoton resonances using inclusive diphoton cross section measurements at the LHC, in the so-far poorly constrained mass range between the Upsilon and the SM Higgs. This bound sets the current best limit on axion-like particles that couple to gluons and photons, for masses between 10 and 65 GeV. We also estimate indicative sensitivities of a dedicated diphoton LHC search in the same mass region, at 7, 8 and 14 TeV. As a byproduct of our analysis, we comment on the axion-like particle interpretation of the CMS excesses in low-mass dijet and diphoton searches.

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arXiv2018

Dynamics of Relaxed Inflation

The cosmological relaxation of the electroweak scale has been proposed as a mechanism to address the hierarchy problem of the Standard Model. A field, the relaxion, rolls down its potential and, in doing so, scans the squared mass parameter of the Higgs, relaxing it to a parametrically small value. In this work, we promote the relaxion to an inflaton. We couple it to Abelian gauge bosons, thereby introducing the necessary dissipation mechanism which slows down the field in the last stages. We describe a novel reheating mechanism, which relies on the gauge-boson production leading to strong electromagnetic fields, and proceeds via the vacuum production of electron-positron pairs through the Schwinger effect. We refer to this mechanism as Schwinger reheating. We discuss the cosmological dynamics of the model and the phenomenological constraints from CMB and other experiments. We find that a cutoff close to the Planck scale may be achieved. In its minimal form, the model does not generate sufficient curvature perturbations and additional ingredients, such as a curvaton field, are needed.

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arXiv2017

Searching for Dark Absorption with Direct Detection Experiments

We consider the absorption by bound electrons of dark matter in the form of dark photons and axion-like particles, as well as of dark photons from the Sun, in current and next-generation direct detection experiments. Experiments sensitive to electron recoils can detect such particles with masses between a few eV to more than 10 keV. For dark photon dark matter, we update a previous bound based on XENON10 data and derive new bounds based on data from XENON100 and CDMSlite. We find these experiments to disfavor previously allowed parameter space. Moreover, we derive sensitivity projections for SuperCDMS at SNOLAB for silicon and germanium targets, as well as for various possible experiments with scintillating targets (cesium iodide, sodium iodide, and gallium arsenide). The projected sensitivity can probe large new regions of parameter space. For axion-like particles, the same current direction detection data improves on previously known direct-detection constraints but does not bound new parameter space beyond known stellar cooling bounds. However, projected sensitivities of the upcoming SuperCDMS SNOLAB using germanium can go beyond these and even probe parameter space consistent with possible hints from the white dwarf luminosity function. We find similar results for dark photons from the sun. For all cases, direct-detection experiments can have unprecedented sensitivity to dark-sector particles.

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arXiv2017

O($N$) Invariance of the Multi-Field Bounce

In his 1977 paper on vacuum decay in field theory: The Fate of the False Vacuum, Coleman considered the problem of a single scalar field and assumed that the minimum action tunnelling field configuration, the bounce, is invariant under O(4) rotations in Euclidean space. A proof of the O(4) invariance of the bounce was provided later by Coleman, Glaser, and Martin (CGM), who extended the proof to $N>2$ Euclidean dimensions but, again, restricted non-trivially to a single scalar field. As far as we know a proof of O($N$) invariance of the bounce for the tunnelling problem with multiple scalar fields has not been reported, even though it was assumed in many works since, being of phenomenological interest. We make progress towards closing this gap. Following CGM we define the reduced problem of finding a field configuration minimizing the kinetic energy at fixed potential energy. Given a solution of the reduced problem, the minimum action bounce can always be obtained from it by means of a scale transformation. We show that if a solution of the reduced problem exists, then it and the minimum action bounce derived from it are indeed O($N$) symmetric.

hep-th↗

arXiv2017

Relaxed Inflation

We present an effective model where the inflaton is a relaxion that scans the Higgs mass and sets it at the weak scale. The dynamics consist of a long epoch in which inflation is due to the shallow slope of the potential, followed by a few number of e-folds where slow-roll is maintained thanks to dissipation via non-perturbative gauge-boson production. The same gauge bosons give rise to a strong electric field that triggers the production of electron-positron pairs via the Schwinger mechanism. The subsequent thermalization of these particles provides a novel mechanism of reheating. The relaxation of the Higgs mass occurs after reheating, when the inflaton/relaxion stops on a local minimum of the potential. We argue that this scenario may evade phenomenological and astrophysical bounds while allowing for the cutoff of the effective model to be close to the Planck scale. This framework provides an intriguing connection between inflation and the hierarchy problem.

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arXiv2016

LHC Future Prospects of the 750 GeV Resonance

A quantitative discussion on the future prospects of the 750 GeV resonance at the LHC experiment is given using a simple effective field theory analysis. The relative size of two effective operators relevant to diphoton decays can be probed by ratios of diboson signals in a robust way. We obtain the future sensitivities of $Zγ$, $ZZ$ and $WW$ resonance searches at the high luminosity LHC, rescaling from the current sensitivities at $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV. Then, we show that a large fraction of parameter space in the effective field theory will be covered with 300 fb$^{-1}$ and almost the whole parameter space will be tested with 3000 fb$^{-1}$. This discussion is independent of production processes, other decay modes and total decay width.

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arXiv2016

Footprints of New Strong Dynamics via Anomaly and the 750 GeV Diphoton

The chiral anomaly provides a smoking-gun evidence of a new confining gauge theory. Motivated by a reported event excess in a diphoton invariant mass distribution at the LHC, we discuss a scenario that a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone (pNG) boson of a new QCD-like theory is produced by gluon fusion and decays into a pair of the standard model gauge bosons. Despite the strong dynamics, the production cross section and the decay widths are determined by anomaly matching condition. The excess can be explained by the pNG boson with mass of around 750 GeV. The model also predicts exotic hadrons such as a color octet scalar and baryons. Some of them are within the reach of the LHC experiment.

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arXiv2016

Gauge invariant Barr-Zee type contributions to fermionic EDMs in the two-Higgs doublet models

We calculate all gauge invariant Barr-Zee type contributions to fermionic electric dipole moments (EDMs) in the two-Higgs doublet models (2HDM) with softly broken Z2 symmetry. We start by studying the tensor structure of h to VV' part in the Barr-Zee diagrams, and we calculate the effective couplings in a gauge invariant way by using the pinch technique. Then we calculate all Barr-Zee diagrams relevant for electron and neutron EDMs. We make bounds on the parameter space in type-I, type-II, type-X, and type-Y 2HDMs. The electron and neutron EDMs are complementary to each other in discrimination of the 2HDMs. Type-II and type-X 2HDMs are strongly constrained by recent ACME experiment's result, and future experiments of electron and neutron EDMs may search O(10) TeV physics.

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arXiv2016

Enhanced Higgs Mass in Compact Supersymmetry

The current LHC results make weak scale supersymmetry difficult due to relatively heavy mass of the discovered Higgs boson and the null results of new particle searches. Geometrical supersymmetry breaking from extra dimensions, Scherk-Schwarz mechanism, is possible to accommodate such situations. A concrete example, the Compact Supersymmetry model, has a compressed spectrum ameliorating the LHC bounds and large mixing in the top and scalar top quark sector with $|A_t|\sim 2m_{\tilde{t}}$ which radiatively raises the Higgs mass. While the zero mode contribution of the model has been considered, in this paper we calculate the Kaluza-Klein tower effect to the Higgs mass. Although such contributions are naively expected to be as small as a percent level for 10 TeV Kaluza-Klein modes, we find the effect significantly enhances the radiative correction to the Higgs quartic coupling by from 10 to 50 %. This is mainly because the top quark wave function is pushed out from the brane, which makes the top mass depend on higher powers in the Higgs field. As a result the Higgs mass is enhanced up to 15 GeV from the previous calculation. We also show the whole parameter space is testable at the LHC run II.

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arXiv2016

Prospects for measuring the Higgs coupling to light quarks

We discuss the prospects to probe the light-quark Yukawa couplings to the Higgs boson. The Higgs coupling to the charm quark can be probed both via inclusive and exclusive approaches. On the inclusive frontier, we use our recently proposed method together with published experimental studies for the sensitivity of the Higgs coupling to bottom quarks to find that the high-luminosity LHC can be sensitive to modifications of the charm Yukawa of the order of a few times its standard model (SM) value. We also present a preliminary study of this mode for a 100 TeV hadronic machine (with similar luminosity) and find that the bound can be further improved, possibly within the reach of the expected signal in the SM. On the exclusive frontier, we use the recent ATLAS search for charmonia and photon final state. This study yields the first measurement of the background relevant to these modes. Using this background measurement we project that at the high-luminosity LHC, unless the analysis strategy is changed, the sensitivity of the exclusive final state to the charm Yukawa to the charm Yukawa will be rather poor, of the order of 50 times the SM coupling. We then use a Monte-Carlo study to rescale the above backgrounds to the h->phi gamma case and obtain a much weaker sensitivity to the strange Yukawa, of order of 3000 times the SM value. We briefly speculate what would be required to improve the prospects of the exclusive modes.

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arXiv2015

Aspects of Supersymmetry after LHC Run I

Supersymmetry is a prime candidate for physics beyond the Standard Model because low-energy supersymmetry stabilizes the Higgs mass avoiding fine-tuning and leads to natural electroweak symmetry breaking. However, searches at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) for supersymmetric particles have not found any signal and give strong limits on mass of gluino and squark. Also, the observed Higgs mass of 125 GeV is not easily accommodated in the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) where one has to rely on the radiative corrections to boost the Higgs mass accompanied with fine-tuning. I study aspects of supersymmetry in light of these LHC results. In this thesis, I focus on the Compact Supersymmetry model based on arXiv:1206.4993 and the Dirac Next-to-MSSM based on arXiv:1308.0792 and investigate them in more detail.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

Constraining the Charm Yukawa and Higgs-quark Coupling Universality

We introduce four different types of data-driven analyses with different level of robustness that constrain the size of the Higgs-charm Yukawa coupling: (i) recasting the vector-boson associated, Vh, analyses that search for bottom-pair final state. We use this mode to directly and model independently constrain the Higgs to charm coupling, y_c/y_c^{SM} < 234; (ii) the direct measurement of the total width, y_c/y_c^{SM} < 120-140; (iii) the search to h -> J/ψγ, y_c/y_c^{SM} < 220; (iv) a global fit to the Higgs signal strengths, y_c/y_c^{SM} < 6.2. A comparison with t\bar{t}h data allows us to show that current data eliminates the possibility that the Higgs couples to quarks in a universal way, as is consistent with the Standard Model (SM) prediction. Finally, we demonstrate how the experimental collaborations can further improve our direct bound by roughly an order of magnitude by charm-tagging, as already used in new physics searches.

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arXiv2014

A Natural Higgs Mass in Supersymmetry from Non-Decoupling Effects

The Higgs mass implies fine-tuning for minimal theories of weak scale supersymmetry (SUSY). Non-decoupling effects can boost the Higgs mass when new states interact with the Higgs, but new sources of SUSY breaking that accompany such extensions threaten naturalness. We show that two singlets with a Dirac mass can increase the Higgs mass while maintaining naturalness in the presence of large SUSY breaking in the singlet sector. We explore the modified Higgs phenomenology of this scenario, which we call the "Dirac NMSSM."

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arXiv2013

Flavor of Gluino Decay in High-Scale Supersymmetry

The discovery of the Higgs boson with a mass of about 125 GeV intimates us a possibility of a high-scale supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking model, where a sfermion mass scale is much higher than the electroweak scale. Although a general SUSY standard model can contribute to the low-energy flavor and/or CP-violating processes, the high-scale SUSY breaking model provides smaller signatures and therefore are less constrained, even in the presence of large flavor/CP violations of sfermions. However, a manner of gluino decay directly reflects the squark flavor structure and provides us a clue for the sfermion flavor structure. In this paper, we study the gluino decay in detail and discuss the interplay with the gluino decay and low-energy flavor and CP observation.

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arXiv2013

Testing Little Higgs Mechanism at Future Colliders

In the framework of the little higgs scenario, coupling constants of several interactions are related to each other to guarantee the stability of the higgs boson mass at one-loop level. This relation is called the little higgs mechanism. We discuss how accurately the relation can be tested at future e+e- colliders, with especially focusing on the top sector of the scenario using a method of effective lagrangian. In order to test the mechanism at the top sector, it is important to measure the Yukawa coupling of the top partner. We consider higgs associated production and threshold production of the top partner, and find that the mechanism can be tested precisely using the associate production when the center of mass energy is large enough. The threshold production also allows us to test it even if the center mass energy is not so large.

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