arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Kristian L. McDonald.
We realize non-universal couplings between Kaluza-Klein (KK) gravitons and bulk Standard Model (SM) vectors in the Randall-Sundrum (RS) model by including both UV and IR brane-localised gauge kinetic terms. We find that such kinetic terms can reduce the couplings of KK gravitons to SM gauge bosons and also ensure the KK vector masses are consistent with electroweak precision constraints.
We construct a list of minimal scale-invariant models at the TeV scale that generate one-loop neutrino mass and give viable dark matter candidates. The models generically contain a singlet scalar and a $Z_2$-odd sector comprised of singlet, doublet and/or triplet SU(2) multiplets. The dark matter may reside in a single multiplet or arise as an admixture of several multiplets. We find fifteen independent models, for which the dark matter is a viable candidate and neutrino mass results from a diagram with just one of the irreducible scale-invariant one-loop topologies. Further "non-pure" cases give hybrid one-/two-loop masses. All models predict new TeV scale physics, including a singlet scalar that generically mixes with the Higgs boson.
We investigate a minimal scale-invariant implementation of the scotogenic model and show that viable electroweak symmetry breaking can occur while simultaneously generating one-loop neutrino masses and the dark matter relic abundance. The model predicts the existence of a singlet scalar (dilaton) that plays the dual roles of triggering electroweak symmetry breaking and sourcing lepton number violation. Important constraints are studied, including those from lepton flavor violating effects and dark matter direct-detection experiments. The latter turn out to be somewhat severe, already excluding large regions of parameter space. None the less, viable regions of parameter space are found, corresponding to dark matter masses below (roughly) 10 GeV and above 200 GeV.
A recent paper investigated minimal R$ν$MDM models with the type T1-iii and T3 one-loop topologies. However, the candidate most-minimal model does not possess an accidental symmetry - the scalar potential contains an explicit symmetry breaking term, rendering the dark matter unstable. We present two models that cure this problem. However, we further show that all of the proposed minimal one-loop R$ν$MDM models suffer from a second problem - an additional source of explicit $Z_2$ symmetry breaking in the Yukawa sector. We perform a more-general analysis to show that neutrino mass models using either the type T3 or type T1-iii one-loop topologies do not give viable minimal dark matter candidates. Consequently, one-loop models of neutrino mass with minimal dark matter do not appear possible. Thus, presently there remains a single known (three-loop) model of neutrino mass that gives stable dark matter without invoking any new symmetries.
In Randall-Sundrum models, one typically expects the radion to be the lightest new "gravity" state, as it is dual to a composite pseudo-Goldstone boson associated with conformal symmetry breaking in the IR. Here, we investigate the effects of localized brane curvature on the properties of the radion in Goldberger-Wise stabilized Randall-Sundrum models. We point out that both the radion mass and coupling to brane matter are sensitive to the brane curvature. Radion/Higgs kinetic mixing, via an IR-localized non-minimal coupling to the Higgs, is also investigated, in relation to the ghost-like radion that can occur for $\mathcal{O}(10)$ values of the IR curvature (as required to significantly suppress the first Kaluza-Klein graviton mass). We also discuss a class of speculative IR localized terms involving the radion. Basic comments regarding the dual 4D theory are offered.
We present a three-loop model of neutrino mass in which both the weak scale and neutrino mass arise as radiative effects. In this approach, the scales for electroweak symmetry breaking, dark matter, and the exotics responsible for neutrino mass, are related due to an underlying scale-invariance. This motivates the otherwise-independent O(TeV) exotic masses usually found in three-loop models of neutrino mass. We demonstrate the existence of viable parameter space and show that the model can be probed at colliders, precision experiments, and dark matter direct-detection experiments.
There exist tree-level generalizations of the Type-I and Type-III seesaw mechanisms that realize neutrino mass via low-energy effective operators with d>5. However, these generalizations also give radiative masses that can dominate the seesaw masses in regions of parameter space --- i.e. they are not purely seesaw models, nor are they purely radiative models, but instead they are something in between. A recent work detailed the remaining minimal models of this type. Here we study the remaining model with d=9 and investigate the collider phenomenology of the exotic quadruplet fermions it predicts. These exotics can be pair produced at the LHC via electroweak interactions and their subsequent decays produce a host of multi-lepton signals. Furthermore, the branching fractions for events with distinct charged-leptons encode information about both the neutrino mass hierarchy and the leptonic mixing phases. In large regions of parameter-space discovery at the LHC with a 5 sigma significance is viable for masses approaching the TeV scale.
We present a model of radiative neutrino mass that automatically contains an accidental $Z_2$ symmetry and thus provides a stable dark matter candidate. This allows a common framework for the origin of neutrino mass and dark matter without invoking any symmetries beyond those of the Standard Model. The model can be probed by direct-detection experiments and $μ\rightarrow e+γ$ searches, and predicts a charged scalar that can appear at the TeV scale, within reach of collider experiments.
We perform a phenomenological study of the scalar sector of two models that generate neutrino mass at the three-loop level and contain viable dark matter candidates. Both models contain a charged singlet scalar and a larger scalar multiplet (triplet or quintuplet). We investigate the effect of the extra scalars on the Higgs mass and analyze the modifications to the triple Higgs coupling. The new scalars can give observable changes to the Higgs decay channel $h\rightarrowγγ$ and, furthermore, we find that the electroweak phase transition becomes strongly first-order in large regions of parameter space.
In this work, we report on recent analyses of a class of models that generate neutrino mass at the three-loop level. We argue that these models offer a viable solution to both the neutrino mass and dark matter problems, without being in conflict with experimental constraints from, e.g. lepton flavor violating processes and the muon anomalous magnetic moment. Furthermore, we describe observable experimental signals predicted by the models and show that they have common signatures that can be probed at both the LHC and ILC.
In this work, we report on recent analysis of three-loop models of neutrino mass with dark matter. We discuss in detail the model of Krauss-Nasri-Trodden (KNT) [1], showing that it offers a viable solution to the neutrino mass and dark matter problems, and describe observable experimental signals predicted by the model. Furthermore, we show that the KNT model belongs to a larger class of three-loop models that can differ from the KNT approach in interesting ways.
We propose a model in which the origin of neutrino mass is dependent on the existence of dark matter. Neutrinos acquire mass at the three-loop level and the dark matter is the neutral component of a fermion triplet. We show that experimental constraints are satisfied and that the dark matter can be tested in future direct-detection experiments. Furthermore, the model predicts a charged scalar that can be within reach of collider experiments like the LHC.
We present a three-loop model of neutrino mass whose most-general Lagrangian possesses a softly-broken accidental $Z_2$ symmetry. In the limit that a single parameter vanishes, $λ\rightarrow0$, the $Z_2$ symmetry becomes exact and the model contains a stable dark-matter candidate. However, even for finite $λ\ll1$, long-lived dark matter is possible, giving a unified solution to the neutrino mass and dark matter problems that does not invoke a new symmetry. Taken purely as a neutrino mass model, the new physics can be at the TeV scale. When dark matter is incorporated, however, only a singlet scalar can remain this light, though the dark matter can be tested in direct-detection experiments.
We study a class of three-loop models for neutrino mass in which dark matter plays a key role in enabling the mass diagram. The simplest models in this class have Majorana dark matter and include the proposal of Krauss, Nasri and Trodden; we identify the remaining related models, including the viable colored variants. The next-to-simplest models use either more multiplets and/or a slight modification of the loop-diagram, and predict inert N-tuplet scalar dark matter.
We discuss aspects of the hierarchy problem in effective theories with light scalars and a large, physical ultraviolet (UV) cutoff. We make two main points: (1) The (naive) fine-tuning observed in an effective theory does not automatically imply that the UV completion is fine tuned. Instead, it gives a type of upper bound on the severity of the actual tuning in the UV completion; the actual tuning can be less severe than the naive tuning or even non-existent. (2) Within an effective theory, there appear to be two types of parameter relations that can alleviate the sensitivity of the scalar mass to the cutoff --- relationships among dimensionless couplings or relationships among dimensionful parameters. Supersymmetric models provide symmetry-motivated examples of the former, while scale-invariant models give symmetry-motivated examples of the latter.
We discuss a class of technically-natural UV extensions of the Standard Model in which the electroweak scale is shielded from large radiative corrections from heavy UV physics due to an enhanced Poincare symmetry. Such heavy sectors can be invoked to provide solutions to known shortcomings of the Standard Model, such the strong-CP problem, the absence of dark matter, and the lack of neutrino masses. We discuss the relationship to scale-invariant models.
We present a class of models with radiative neutrino mass and stable dark-matter candidates. Neutrino mass is generated by a one-loop diagram with the same topography as Ma's 2006 proposal (which used an inert scalar-doublet and singlet fermion). We generalize this approach and determine all variants with new fields no larger than the adjoint representation. When the neutrino mass diagram contains a Majorana mass insertion there are two possibilities, both of which are known. If the mass insertion is of the Dirac type there are seven additional models, two of which are excluded by direct-detection experiments. The other five models are also constrained, such that only scalar dark-matter is viable. There are cases with an inert singlet, an inert doublet, and an inert triplet, providing a natural setting for inert N-tuplet models of dark matter, with the additional feature of achieving radiative neutrino mass. We show that some of the models admit a simple explanation for the (requisite) discrete symmetry, and briefly discuss cases with representations larger than the adjoint, which can admit a connection to the astrophysical gamma-ray signal.
There exists a generic minimal tree-level diagram, with two external scalars and a heavy intermediate fermion, that can generate naturally small neutrino masses via a seesaw. This diagram has a mass insertion on the internal fermion line, and the set of such diagrams can be partitioned according to whether the mass insertion is of the Majorana or Dirac type. We show that, once subjected to the demands of naturalness (i.e. precluding small scalar vacuum expectation values that require fine-tuning), this set is finite, and contains a relatively small number of elements. Some of the corresponding models have appeared in the literature. We present the remaining original models, thus generalizing the Type-I and Type-III seesaws, and apparently exhausting the list of their minimal non-tuned variants.