arXiv subjects

Luca Vecchi

Publications and source records attributed to Luca Vecchi.

47 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2011

Asymmetric WIMP dark matter

In existing dark matter models with global symmetries the relic abundance of dark matter is either equal to that of anti-dark matter (thermal WIMP), or vastly larger, with essentially no remaining anti-dark matter (asymmetric dark matter). By exploring the consequences of a primordial asymmetry on the coupled dark matter and anti-dark matter Boltzmann equations we find large regions of parameter space that interpolate between these two extremes. Interestingly, this new asymmetric WIMP framework can accommodate a wide range of dark matter masses and annihilation cross sections. The present-day dark matter population is typically asymmetric, but only weakly so, such that indirect signals of dark matter annihilation are not completely suppressed. We apply our results to existing models, noting that upcoming direct detection experiments will constrain a large region of the relevant parameter space.

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arXiv2011

A dark force for baryons

We suggest the existence of a fundamental connection between baryonic and dark matter. This is motivated by both the stability of these two types of matter as well as the observed similarity of their present-day densities. A unified genesis of baryonic and dark matter is natural in models in which the baryon number is promoted to a spontaneously broken local gauge symmetry. This is illustrated in a specific class of SUSY models using the Affleck-Dine mechanism. The dark matter candidate in these scenarios is charged under the baryon gauge symmetry and must have a mass around the GeV scale to give the correct present-day abundance. We discuss constraints from B-factories, LEP, mono-jet searches at the Tevatron, and dark matter direct detection experiments. A baryonic dark force is shown to be consistent with all data for mediators as light as the GeV scale.

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arXiv2011

Technicolor at Criticality

We propose an asymptotically non-free, natural model for dynamical electro-weak symmetry breaking characterized by the emergence of a weakly coupled Higgs in the IR regime. Due to the large anomalous dimension of the Higgs operator, the model is capable of solving the hierarchy problem without losing the phenomenologically appealing features typical of a weakly coupled sector. We speculate on the possibility that such a scenario be realized as a strongly coupled phase of non-supersymmetric non-abelian gauge theories.

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arXiv2011

Multitrace deformations, Gamow states, and Stability of AdS/CFT

We analyze the effect of multitrace deformations in conformal field theories at leading order in a large N approximation. These theories admit a description in terms of a weakly coupled gravity dual. We show how the deformations can be mapped into boundary terms of the gravity theory and how to reproduce the RG equations found in field theory. In the case of doubletrace deformations, and for bulk scalars with masses in the range $-d^2/4<m^2<-d^2/4+1$, the deformed theory flows between two fixed points of the renormalization group, manifesting a resonant behavior at the scale characterizing the transition between the two CFT's. On the gravity side the resonance is mapped into an IR non-normalizable mode (Gamow state) whose overlap with the UV region increases as the dual operator approaches the free field limit. We argue that this resonant behavior is a generic property of large N theories in the conformal window, and associate it to a remnant of the Nambu-Goldstone mode of dilatation invariance. We emphasize the role of nonminimal couplings to gravity and establish a stability theorem for scalar/gravity systems with AdS boundary conditions in the presence of arbitrary boundary potentials and nonminimal coupling.

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arXiv2010

A Natural Hierarchy and a low New Physics scale from a Bulk Higgs

We show that a bulk Higgs with a mass saturating the Breitenlohner-Freedman bound can naturally generate and stabilize an exponential hierarchy on a nearly AdS background. The physical Higgs boson in this class of models emerges as the lightest eigenstate of the Higgs/radion system and has a mass strictly lighter than the Kaluza-Klein scale. These theories are dual to strongly coupled CFTs deformed by a marginally relevant Higgs mass operator. On the 5D side, the marginally relevant nature of the Higgs mass operator implies that the Higgs VEV is maximally spread in the bulk. This feature significantly decreases the lower bound on the new physics scale in models that address the SM flavor problem. The collider phenomenology interpolates between Randall-Sundrum scenarios with a heavy Higgs and a light radion, and composite Higgs models.

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arXiv2010

The Conformal Window of deformed CFT's in the planar limit

We discuss in the planar approximation the effect of double-trace deformations on CFT's. We show that this large class of models posses a conformal window describing a non-trivial flow between two fixed points of the renormalization group, and reveal the presence of a resonance which we associate to the remnant of a dilaton pole. As the conformal window shrinks to zero measure the theory undergoes a conformal phase transition separating a symmetric from a nonsymmetric phase. The recently conjectured strongly coupled branch of non-supersymmetric, non-abelian gauge theories with a large number of flavors is analyzed in light of these results, and a model for the strong branch is proposed. Some phenomenological implications in the context of unparticle physics are also emphasized.

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arXiv2010

Phenomenology of a light scalar: the dilaton

We make use of the language of non-linear realizations to analyze electro-weak symmetry breaking scenarios in which a light dilaton emerges from the breaking of a nearly conformal strong dynamics, and compare the phenomenology of the dilaton to that of the well motivated light composite Higgs scenario. We argue that -- in addition to departures in the decay/production rates into massless gauge bosons mediated by the conformal anomaly -- characterizing features of the light dilaton scenario (as well as other scenarios admitting a light CP-even scalar not directly related to the breaking of the electro-weak symmetry) are off-shell events at high invariant mass involving two longitudinally polarized vector bosons and a dilaton, and tree-level flavor violating processes. Accommodating both electro-weak precision measurements and flavor constraints appears especially challenging in the ambiguous scenario in which the Higgs and the dilaton fields strongly mix. We show that warped higgsless models of electro-weak symmetry breaking are explicit and tractable realizations of this limiting case. The relation between the naive radion profile often adopted in the study of holographic realizations of the light dilaton scenario and the actual dynamical dilaton field is clarified in the Appendix.

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arXiv2008

Massive states as the relevant deformations of gravitating branes

Five-dimensional theories manifesting spontaneous brane generation are discussed in a gravitational context. Without gravity, the IR dynamics of the brane fluctuation below the brane tension scale is described by an effective theory for the Nambu-Goldstone modes. When gravity is properly taken into account the long distance dynamics changes. The spontaneous breaking of local translational invariance triggers the formation of massive representations via the Higgs mechanism and induces the appearance of new mass scales in the IR. These scales can in principle depend on other fundamental parameters besides the brane tension and the Planck scale. In noncompact extra dimensions the massive states are found to be scalar bound states. We obtain explicit expressions for their propagator and show that their masses depend on the brane width and are thus much heavier than expected. We present an exactly solvable model which captures the main features of the gravitational system.

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arXiv2008

Dynamical electro-weak symmetry breaking from deformed AdS: vector mesons and effective couplings

We study a modification of the five-dimensional description of dynamical electro-weak symmetry breaking inspired by the AdS/CFT correspondence. Conformal symmetry is broken in the low-energy region near the IR brane by a power-law departure from the pure AdS background. Such a modification--while not spoiling the identification of the IR brane with the scale of confinement-- has a dramatic effect on both the coupling of the first composite states to the standard model currents and their self-couplings. Chiral symmetry breaking can take place at a scale larger than the IR cut-off. This study shows that observables, such as the precision parameter $\hat{S}$, which depend on the couplings of the lightest composite states to the currents are very sensitive to the details of the dynamics in the low energy region where conformal symmetry is lost and electro-weak symmetry is broken just above the scale of confinement. Therefore results of calculations of these observables in AdS/CFT inspired scenarios should be interpreted conservatively. The most important phenomenological consequence for physics at the LHC is that the bound on the mass scale of the heavy excitations (technirho mesons) in a realistic model is in general lower than in the pure AdS background with a simple hard-wall cut off in the IR.

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arXiv2007

On the stability of thick brane worlds non-minimally coupled to gravity

We analyze a class of 5D models where a 3 brane is generated by a bulk scalar field non minimally coupled to gravity. We show that perturbative stability of such branes is normally guaranteed although non minimal couplings are not innocuous in general. After the physical states are identified the linearized equations for propagating modes are evaluated into a Schroedinger form and supersymmetric quantum mechanics provides the absence of tachyons. The spectrum contains a tower of spin 2 and spin 0 fields with continuous masses starting from zero ones. For regular geometries the scalar spectrum contains a state with zero mass which is always non normalizable. The propagating massive scalar states are repelled off the brane due to a centrifugal potential.

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arXiv2007

Causal vs. Analytic constraints on anomalous quartic gauge couplings

We derive one loop constraints on the anomalous quartic gauge couplings using a general non-forward dispersion relation for the elastic scattering amplitude of two longitudinally polarized vector bosons. We compare this result with another one derived by the assumption that the underlying theory satisfies the causality principle of Special Relativity and show that this latter is more constraining.

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