arXiv subjects

M. Hirsch

Publications and source records attributed to M. Hirsch.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2025

Invisible neutron decay and light BSM particles

In Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT), invisible neutron decay arises from d = 12 operators. Adding new light particles to the field content of the SM, such as right-handed neutrinos, allows one to construct operators for invisible neutron decay at much lower dimensions. Observing invisible neutron decay, if nucleon decays with charged leptons remain absent, would therefore point towards the existence of new neutral degrees of freedom. Here we discuss four cases: (i) adding right-handed neutrinos to the SM; (ii) a right-handed neutrino and an axion-like particle; (iii) a right-handed neutrino and a nearly massless singlet scalar; and (iv) a right-handed neutrino and a light Z'. We give the general tree-level decomposition for the resulting d = 7-9 operators for invisible neutron decay and briefly discuss LHC searches related to the exotic states found in these UV completions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

A new benchmark of soft X-ray transition energies of Ne, CO$_2$, and SF$_6$: paving a pathway towards ppm accuracy

A key requirement for the correct interpretation of high-resolution X-ray spectra is that transition energies are known with high accuracy and precision. We investigate the K-shell features of Ne, CO$_2$, and SF$_6$ gases, by measuring their photo ion-yield spectra at the BESSY II synchrotron facility simultaneously with the 1s-np fluorescence emission of He-like ions produced in the Polar-X EBIT. Accurate ab initio calculations of transitions in these ions provide the basis of the calibration. While the CO$_2$ result agrees well with previous measurements, the SF$_6$ spectrum appears shifted by ~0.5 eV, about twice the uncertainty of the earlier results. Our result for Ne shows a large departure from earlier results, but may suffer from larger systematic effects than our other measurements. The molecular spectra agree well with our results of time-dependent density functional theory. We find that the statistical uncertainty allows calibrations in the desired range of 1-10 meV, however, systematic contributions still limit the uncertainty to ~40-100 meV, mainly due to the temporal stability of the monochromator energy scale. Combining our absolute calibration technique with a relative energy calibration technique such as photoelectron energy spectroscopy will be necessary to realize its full potential of achieving uncertainties as low as 1-10 meV.

astro-ph.IM↗

arXiv2021

Design considerations of the European DEMO's IR-interferometer/polarimeter based on TRAVIS simulations

Interferometry is the primary density control diagnostic for large-scale fusion devices, including ITER and DEMO. In this paper we present a ray tracing simulation based on TRAVIS accounting for relativistic effects. The study shows that measurements will over-estimate the plasma density by as much as 20 degree. In addition, we present a measurement geometry, which will enable vertical position control during the plasma's ramp-up phase when gap-reflectometers and neutron cameras are still blind.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2020

High-Precision Determination of Oxygen-K$\alpha$ Transition Energy Excludes Incongruent Motion of Interstellar Oxygen

We demonstrate a widely applicable technique to absolutely calibrate the energy scale of x-ray spectra with experimentally well-known and accurately calculable transitions of highly charged ions, allowing us to measure the K-shell Rydberg spectrum of molecular O$_2$ with 8 meV uncertainty. We reveal a systematic $\sim$450 meV shift from previous literature values, and settle an extraordinary discrepancy between astrophysical and laboratory measurements of neutral atomic oxygen, the latter being calibrated against the aforementioned O$_2$ literature values. Because of the widespread use of such, now deprecated, references, our method impacts on many branches of x-ray absorption spectroscopy. Moreover, it potentially reduces absolute uncertainties there to below the meV level.

physics.atom-ph↗

arXiv2019

Compensation of phase drifts caused by ambient humidity, temperature and pressure changes for continuously operating interferometers

Fusion experiments rely heavily on the measurement of the line-integrated electron density by interferometry for density feed-back control. In recent years the discharge length has increased dramatically and is continuing to rise, resulting in environmentally induced phase drifts to become an increasingly worrisome subject, since they falsify the interferometer's measurement of the density. Especially in larger Tokamaks the loss of density control due to uncontrolled changes in the optical path length can have a disastrous outcome. The control of environmental parameters in large diagnostic/experimental halls is costly and sometimes infeasible and in some cases cannot be retro-fitted to an existing machine. In this report we present a very cheap (ca. 100 EUR), easily retro-fitted, real-time capable phase compensation scheme for interferometers measuring dispersive media over long time scales. The method is not limited to fusion, but can be applied to any continuously measuring interferometer measuring a dispersive medium. It has been successfully applied to the Wendelstein 7-X density feed-back interferometer.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2019

Quasi-Dirac neutrino oscillations at DUNE and JUNO

Quasi-Dirac neutrinos are obtained when the Lagrangian density of a neutrino mass model contains both Dirac and Majorana mass terms, and the Majorana terms are sufficiently small. This type of neutrinos introduces new mixing angles and mass splittings into the Hamiltonian, which will modify the standard neutrino oscillation probabilities. In this paper, we focus on the case where the new mass splittings are too small to be measured, but new angles and phases are present. We perform a sensitivity study for this scenario for the upcoming experiments DUNE and JUNO, finding that they will improve current bounds on the relevant parameters. Finally, we also explore the discovery potential of both experiments, assuming that neutrinos are indeed quasi-Dirac particles.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Exotic coloured fermions and lepton number violation at the LHC

Majorana neutrino mass models with a scale of lepton number violation (LNV) of order TeV potentially lead to signals at the LHC. Here, we consider an extension of the standard model with a coloured octet fermion and a scalar leptoquark. This model generates neutrino masses at 2-loop order. We make a detailed MonteCarlo study of the LNV signal at the LHC in this model, including a simulation of standard model backgrounds. Our forecast predicts that the LHC with 300/fb should be able to probe this model up to colour octet fermion masses in the range of (2.6-2.7) TeV, depending on the lepton flavour of the final state.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2018

High-dimensional neutrino masses

For Majorana neutrino masses the lowest dimensional operator possible is the Weinberg operator at $d=5$. Here we discuss the possibility that neutrino masses originate from higher dimensional operators. Specifically, we consider all tree-level decompositions of the $d=9$, $d=11$ and $d=13$ neutrino mass operators. With renormalizable interactions only, we find 18 topologies and 66 diagrams for $d=9$, and 92 topologies plus 504 diagrams at the $d=11$ level. At $d=13$ there are already 576 topologies and 4199 diagrams. However, among all these there are only very few genuine neutrino mass models: At $d=(9,11,13)$ we find only (2,2,2) genuine diagrams and a total of (2,2,6) models. Here, a model is considered genuine at level $d$ if it automatically forbids lower order neutrino masses {\em without} the use of additional symmetries. We also briefly discuss how neutrino masses and angles can be easily fitted in these high-dimensional models.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Quasi Dirac neutrino oscillations

Dirac neutrino masses require two distinct neutral Weyl spinors per generation, with a special arrangement of masses and interactions with charged leptons. Once this arrangement is perturbed, lepton number is no longer conserved and neutrinos become Majorana particles. If these lepton number violating perturbations are small compared to the Dirac mass terms, neutrinos are quasi-Dirac particles. Alternatively, this scenario can be characterized by the existence of pairs of neutrinos with almost degenerate masses, and a lepton mixing matrix which has 12 angles and 12 phases. In this work we discuss the phenomenology of quasi-Dirac neutrino oscillations and derive limits on the relevant parameter space from various experiments. In one parameter perturbations of the Dirac limit, very stringent bounds can be derived on the mass splittings between the almost degenerate pairs of neutrinos. However, we also demonstrate that with suitable changes to the lepton mixing matrix, limits on such mass splittings are much weaker, or even completely absent. Finally, we consider the possibility that the mass splittings are too small to be measured and discuss bounds on the new, non-standard lepton mixing angles from current experiments for this case.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Lepton number violation phenomenology of d=7 neutrino mass models

We study the phenomenology of d=7 1-loop neutrino mass models. All models in this particular class require the existence of several new $SU(2)_L$ multiplets, both scalar and fermionic, and thus predict a rich phenomenology at the LHC. The observed neutrino masses and mixings can easily be fitted in these models. Interestingly, despite the smallness of the observed neutrino masses, some particular lepton number violating (LNV) final states can arise with observable branching ratios. These LNV final states consists of leptons and gauge bosons with high multiplicities, such as 4l+4W, 6l+2W, etc. We study current constraints on these models from upper bounds on charged lepton flavour violating decays, existing lepton number conserving searches at the LHC and discuss possible future LNV searches.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

The impact of heating power on radial heat transport in W7-X

The understanding of the outward radial transport of heat in magnetic confinement fusion devices is a priority for the development of economically viable fusion reactors. Here, we analyze the radial propagation of spontaneously generated electron temperature (T_e) fluctuations measured using the Electron Cyclotron Emission (ECE) diagnostic in Wendelstein 7-X, which disposes of 32 channels, covering a large part of the plasma minor radius. By applying a relatively new statistical analysis technique (the Transfer Entropy), the present work provides, for the first time, a view of the detailed mechanism of electron heat transport in fusion plasmas. It is shown that rational surfaces have a significant impact on radial heat transport and may in fact be essential in setting the global energy confinement. The reported observations provide support for various explanatory concepts suggested in literature: namely, critical gradients, non-locality, and self-organization.

physics.plasm-ph↗

arXiv2017

Loop neutrino masses from d=7 operator

We discuss the generation of small neutrino masses from d=7 1-loop diagrams. We first systematically analyze all possible d=7 1-loop topologies. There is a total of 48 topologies, but only 8 of these can lead to "genuine" d=7 neutrino masses. Here, we define genuine models to be models in which neither d=5 nor d=7 tree-level masses nor a d=5 1-loop mass appear, such that the d=7 1-loop is the leading order contribution to the neutrino masses. All genuine models can then be organized w.r.t. their particle content. We find there is only one diagram with no representation larger than triplet, while there are 22 diagrams with quadruplets. We briefly discuss three minimal example models of this kind.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

Quasi-Dirac neutrinos at the LHC

Lepton number violation is searched for at the LHC using same-sign leptons plus jets. The standard lore is that the ratio of same-sign lepton to opposite-sign lepton events, $R_{ll}$, is equal to $R_{ll}=1$ ($R_{ll}=0$) for Majorana (Dirac) neutrinos. We argue that for "quasi-Dirac" neutrinos, $R_{ll}$ can have any value between 0 and 1, the precise value being controlled by the mass splitting versus the width of the quasi-Dirac resonances. A measurement of $R_{ll}\neq 0,1$ would then contain valuable information about the origin of neutrino masses. We consider as an example the inverse seesaw mechanism in a left-right symmetric scenario, which is phenomenologically particularly interesting since all the heavy states in the high energy completion of the model could be within experimental reach. A prediction of this scenario is a correlation between the values of $R_{ll}$ and the ratio between the rates for heavy neutrino decays into standard model gauge bosons, and into three body final states $ljj$ mediated by off-shell $W_R$ exchange.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

Scalar-mediated double beta decay and LHC

The decay rate of neutrinoless double beta decay could be dominated by short-range diagrams involving heavy scalar particles ("topology-II" diagrams). Examples are diagrams with diquarks, leptoquarks or charged scalars. Here, we compare the discovery potential for lepton number violating signals at the LHC with constraints from dijet and leptoquark searches and the sensitivity of double beta decay experiments, using three example models. We note that already with 20/fb the LHC will test interesting parts of the parameter space of these models, not excluded by current limits on double beta decay.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

Long-range contributions to double beta decay revisited

We discuss the systematic decomposition of all dimension-7 (d=7) lepton number violating operators. These d=7 operators produce momentum enhanced contributions to the long-range part of the neutrinoless double beta decay amplitude and thus are severely constrained by existing half-live limits. In our list of possible models one can find contributions to the long-range amplitude discussed previously in the literature, such as the left-right symmetric model or scalar leptoquarks, as well as some new models not considered before. The d=7 operators generate Majorana neutrino mass terms either at tree-level, 1-loop or 2-loop level. We systematically compare constraints derived from the mass mechanism to those derived from the long-range double beta decay amplitude and classify our list of models accordingly. We also study one particular example decomposition, which produces neutrino masses at 2-loop level, can fit oscillation data and yields a large contribution to the long-range double beta decay amplitude, in some detail.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

QCD running in neutrinoless double beta decay: Short-range mechanisms

The decay rate of neutrinoless double beta ($0\nu\beta\beta$) decay contains terms from heavy particle exchange, which lead to dimension-9 (d=9) six fermion operators at low energies. Limits on the coefficients of these operators have been derived previously neglecting the running of the operators between the high-scale, where they are generated, and the energy scale of double beta decay, where they are measured. Here we calculate the leading order QCD corrections to all possible d=9 operators contributing to the $0\nu\beta\beta$ amplitude and use RGE running to calculate 1-loop improved limits. Numerically, QCD running changes limits by factors of the order of or larger than typical uncertainties in nuclear matrix element calculations. For some specific cases, operator mixing in the running changes limits even by up to two orders of magnitude. Our results can be straightforwardly combined with new experimental limits or improved nuclear matrix element calculations to re-derive updated limits on all short-range contributions to $0\nu\beta\beta$ decay.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

LHC dijet constraints on double beta decay

We use LHC dijet data to derive constraints on neutrinoless double beta decay. Upper limits on cross sections for the production of "exotic" resonances, such as a right-handed W boson or a diquark, can be converted into lower limits on the double beta decay half-life for fixed choices of other parameters. Constraints derived from run-I data are already surprisingly strong and complementary to results from searches using same-sign dileptons plus jets. For the case of the left-right symmetric model, in case no new resonance is found in future runs of the LHC and assuming $g_L=g_R$, we estimate a lower limit on the double beta decay half-live larger than $10^{27}$ ys can be derived from future dijet data, except in the window of relatively light right-handed neutrino masses in the range $0.5$ MeV to $50$ GeV. Part of this mass window will be tested in the upcoming SHiP experiment. We also discuss current and future limits on possible scalar diquark contributions to double beta decay that can be derived from dijet data.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2015

The DES Science Verification Weak Lensing Shear Catalogues

We present weak lensing shear catalogues for 139 square degrees of data taken during the Science Verification (SV) time for the new Dark Energy Camera (DECam) being used for the Dark Energy Survey (DES). We describe our object selection, point spread function estimation and shear measurement procedures using two independent shear pipelines, IM3SHAPE and NGMIX, which produce catalogues of 2.12 million and 3.44 million galaxies respectively. We detail a set of null tests for the shear measurements and find that they pass the requirements for systematic errors at the level necessary for weak lensing science applications using the SV data. We also discuss some of the planned algorithmic improvements that will be necessary to produce sufficiently accurate shear catalogues for the full 5-year DES, which is expected to cover 5000 square degrees.

astro-ph.IM↗