arXiv subjects

Martin Wolfgang Winkler

Publications and source records attributed to Martin Wolfgang Winkler.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2019

Deriving the Inflaton in Compactified M-theory with a De Sitter Vacuum

Compactifying M-theory on a manifold of $G_2$ holonomy gives a UV complete 4D theory. It is supersymmetric, with soft supersymmetry breaking via gaugino condensation that simultaneously stabilizes all moduli and generates a hierarchy between the Planck and the Fermi scale. It generically has gauge matter, chiral fermions, and several other important features of our world. Here we show that the theory also contains a successful inflaton, which is a linear combination of moduli closely aligned with the overall volume modulus of the compactified $G_2$ manifold. The scheme does not rely on ad hoc assumptions, but derives from an effective quantum theory of gravity. Inflation arises near an inflection point in the potential which can be deformed into a local minimum. This implies that a de Sitter vacuum can occur in the moduli potential even without uplifting. Generically present charged hidden sector matter generates a de Sitter vacuum as well.

hep-th↗

arXiv2018

Decay and Detection of a Light Scalar Boson Mixing with the Higgs

The simplest extension of the standard model consists in adding one singlet scalar field which mixes with the Higgs boson. O(GeV) masses of the new scalar carry strong motivation from relaxion, dark matter and inflation models. The decay of a GeV scalar is, however, notoriously difficult to address since, at this mass scale, the chiral expansion breaks down and perturbative QCD does not apply. Existing estimates of the GeV scalar decay rate disagree by several orders of magnitude. In this work, we perform a new dispersive analysis in order to strongly reduce these uncertainties and to resolve discrepancies in earlier results. We will update existing limits on light scalars and future experimental sensitivities which are in some cases strongly affected by the new-found decay rates. The meson form factors provided in this work, can be used to generalize our findings to non-universally coupled light scalars.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

A Precision Search for WIMPs with Charged Cosmic Rays

AMS-02 has reached the sensitivity to probe canonical thermal WIMPs by their annihilation into antiprotons. Due to the high precision of the data, uncertainties in the astrophysical background have become the most limiting factor for indirect dark matter detection. In this work we systematically quantify and -- where possible -- reduce uncertainties in the antiproton background. We constrain the propagation of charged cosmic rays through the combination of antiproton, B/C and positron data. Cross section uncertainties are determined from a wide collection of accelerator data and are -- for the first time ever -- fully taken into account. This allows us to robustly constrain even subdominant dark matter signals through their spectral properties. For a standard NFW dark matter profile we are able to exclude thermal WIMPs with masses up to 570 GeV which annihilate into bottom quarks. While we confirm a reported excess compatible with dark matter of mass around 80 GeV, its local (global) significance only reaches 2.2 sigma (1.1 sigma) in our analysis.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2017

Cosmic Ray Antiprotons at High Energies

Cosmic ray antiprotons provide a powerful tool to probe dark matter annihilations in our galaxy. The sensitivity of this important channel is, however, diluted by sizable uncertainties in the secondary antiproton background. In this work, we improve the calculation of secondary antiproton production with a particular focus on the high energy regime. We employ the most recent collider data and identify a substantial increase of antiproton cross sections with energy. This increase is driven by the violation of Feynman scaling as well as by an enhanced strange hyperon production. The updated antiproton production cross sections are made publicly available for independent use in cosmic ray studies. In addition, we provide the correlation matrix of cross section uncertainties for the AMS-02 experiment. At high energies, the new cross sections improve the compatibility of the AMS-02 data with a pure secondary origin of antiprotons in cosmic rays.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

Soft Gamma Rays from Heavy WIMPs

We propose an explanation of the galactic center gamma ray excess by supersymmetric WIMPs as heavy as 500 GeV. The lightest neutralino annihilates into vector-like leptons or quarks which cascade decay through intermediate Higgs bosons. Due to the long decay chains, the gamma ray spectrum is much softer than naively expected and peaks at GeV energies. The model predicts correlated diboson and dijet signatures to be tested at the LHC.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

UV Corrections in Sgoldstino-less Inflation

We study the embedding of inflation with nilpotent multiplets in supergravity, in particular the decoupling of the sgoldstino scalar field. Instead of being imposed by hand, the nilpotency constraint on the goldstino multiplet arises in the low energy-effective theory by integrating out heavy degrees of freedom. We present explicit supergravity models in which a large but finite sgoldstino mass arises from Yukawa or gauge interactions. In both cases the inflaton potential receives two types of corrections. One is from the backreaction of the sgoldstino, the other from the heavy fields generating its mass. We show that these scale oppositely with the Volkov-Akulov cut-off scale, which makes a consistent decoupling of the sgoldstino nontrivial. Still, we identify a parameter window in which sgoldstino-less inflation can take place, up to corrections which flatten the inflaton potential.

hep-th↗

arXiv2016

750 GeV Diphotons and Supersymmetric Grand Unification

We investigate the 750 GeV diphoton excess in terms of supersymmetric models which preserve grand unification in the ultraviolet. We show that minimal extensions of the MSSM by a singlet and a vector-like 5-plet or 10-plet of SU(5) can explain the observed signal while remaining perturbative up to the GUT scale. Different from previous analyses we rely on light sfermions in the loops which - compared to the analog non-supersymmetric models - enhance the diphoton cross section by up to a factor of seven. While the resonance decay width is narrow, mass splitting of the scalar and pseudoscalar components may result in a double resonance. We perform a likelihood analysis on the ATLAS and CMS data to show that the significance of the diphoton excess increases from 3.3 sigma (single narrow resonance) to 3.9 sigma for the double resonance. We also provide signal predictions in other diboson channels to be tested at LHC-13.

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arXiv2015

Modulated Natural Inflation

We discuss some model-independent implications of embedding (aligned) axionic inflation in string theory. As a consequence of string theoretic duality symmetries the pure cosine potentials of natural inflation are replaced by modular functions. This leads to "wiggles" in the inflationary potential that modify the predictions with respect to CMB-observations. In particular, the scalar power spectrum deviates from the standard power law form. As a by-product one can show that trans-Planckian excursions of the aligned effective axion are compatible with the weak gravity conjecture.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

AMS-02 Antiprotons Reloaded

The AMS-02 collaboration has released preliminary data on the antiproton fraction in cosmic rays. The surprisingly hard antiproton spectrum at high rigidity has triggered speculations about a possible primary antiproton component originating from dark matter annihilations. In this note, we employ newly available AMS-02 boron to carbon data to update the secondary antiproton flux within the standard two-zone diffusion model. The new background permits a considerably better fit to the measured antiproton fraction compared to previous estimates. This is mainly a consequence of the smaller slope of the diffusion coefficient favored by the new AMS-02 boron to carbon data.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2015

Natural Inflation and Low Energy Supersymmetry

Natural (axionic) inflation provides a well-motivated and predictive scheme for the description of the early universe. It leads to sizeable primordial tensor modes and thus a high mass scale of the inflationary potential. Naively this seems to be at odds with low (TeV) scale supersymmetry, especially when embedded in superstring theory. We show that low scale supersymmetry is compatible with natural (high scale) inflation. The mechanism requires the presence of two axions that are provided through the moduli of string theory.

hep-th↗

arXiv2015

Challenges for Large-Field Inflation and Moduli Stabilization

We analyze the interplay between Kähler moduli stabilization and chaotic inflation in supergravity. While heavy moduli decouple from inflation in the supersymmetric limit, supersymmetry breaking generically introduces non-decoupling effects. These lead to inflation driven by a soft mass term, $m_φ^2 \sim m m_{3/2}$, where $m$ is a supersymmetric mass parameter. This scenario needs no stabilizer field, but the stability of moduli during inflation imposes a large supersymmetry breaking scale, $m_{3/2} \gg H$, and a careful choice of initial conditions. This is illustrated in three prominent examples of moduli stabilization: KKLT stabilization, Kähler Uplifting, and the Large Volume Scenario. Remarkably, all models have a universal effective inflaton potential which is flattened compared to quadratic inflation. Hence, they share universal predictions for the CMB observables, in particular a lower bound on the tensor-to-scalar ratio, $r \gtrsim 0.05$.

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

Inflation with Fayet-Iliopoulos Terms

Two of the most attractive realizations of inflation in supergravity are based upon the presence of a constant Fayet-Iliopoulos (FI) term. In D-term hybrid inflation it is the FI term itself which sets the energy scale of inflation. Alternatively, the breaking of a U(1) symmetry induced by the FI term can dynamically generate the quadratic potential of chaotic inflation. The purpose of this note is to study the possible UV embedding of these schemes in terms of the `field-dependent FI term' related to a string modulus field which is stabilized by a non-perturbative superpotential. We find that in settings where the FI term drives inflation, gauge invariance prevents a decoupling of the modulus from the inflationary dynamics. The resulting inflation models generically contain additional dynamical degrees of freedom compared to D-term hybrid inflation. However, the dynamical realization of chaotic inflation can be obtained in complete analogy to the case of a constant FI term. We present a simple string-inspired toy model of this type.

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

The Cosmic Ray Antiproton Background for AMS-02

The AMS-02 experiment is measuring the cosmic ray antiproton flux with high precision. The interpretation of the upcoming data requires a thorough understanding of the secondary antiproton background. In this work, we employ newly available data of the NA49 experiment at CERN, in order to recalculate the antiproton source term arising from cosmic ray spallations on the interstellar matter. We systematically account for the production of antiprotons via hyperon decay and discuss the possible impact of isospin effects on antineutron production. A detailed comparison of our calculation with the existing literature as well as with Monte Carlo based evaluations of the antiproton source term is provided. Our most important result is an updated prediction for the secondary antiproton flux which includes a realistic assessment of the particle physics uncertainties at all energies.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2014

Supersymmetric Moduli Stabilization and High-Scale Inflation

We study the back-reaction of moduli fields on the inflaton potential in generic models of F-term inflation. We derive the moduli corrections as a power series in the ratio of Hubble scale and modulus mass. The general result is illustrated with two examples, hybrid inflation and chaotic inflation. We find that in both cases the decoupling of moduli dynamics and inflation requires moduli masses close to the scale of grand unification. For smaller moduli masses the CMB observables are strongly affected.

hep-th↗

arXiv2013

Constraints on light mediators: confronting dark matter searches with B physics

Light scalars appear in many well-motivated extensions of the Standard Model including supersymmetric models with additional gauge singlets. Such scalars could mediate the interactions between dark matter and nuclei, giving rise to the tentative signals observed by several dark matter direct detection experiments including CDMS-Si. In this letter, we derive strong new limits on light scalar mediators by using the LHCb, Belle and BaBar searches for rare $Υ$ and B decays. These limits rule out significant parts of the parameter space favored by CDMS-Si. Nevertheless, as current searches are not optimized for investigating weakly coupled light scalars, a further increase in experimental sensitivity could be achieved by relaxing requirements in the event selection.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

NMSSM with Gravitino Dark Matter to be tested at LHC

We present a solution to the gravitino problem, which arises in the NMSSM, allowing for sparticle spectra from ordinary gravity-mediated supersymmetry breaking with weak-scale gravitino dark matter. The coupling, which links the singlet to the MSSM sector, enhances the tree-level Higgs mass, providing an attractive explanation why the observed Higgs boson is so heavy. The same coupling induces very efficient pair-annihilation processes of the neutralino NLSP. Its relic abundance can be sufficiently suppressed to satisfy the strong constraints on late decaying relics from primordial nucleosynthesis -- even for very long neutralino lifetimes. The striking prediction of this scenario is the detection of a pseudoscalar Higgs boson in the search for top-top resonances at LHC-14, rendering it completely testable.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

Hidden SUSY from precision gauge unification

We revisit the implications of naturalness and gauge unification in the MSSM. We find that precision unification of the couplings in connection with a small mu parameter requires a highly compressed gaugino pattern as it is realized in mirage mediation. Due to the small mass difference between gluino and LSP, collider limits on the gluino mass are drastically relaxed. Without further assumptions, the relic density of the LSP is very close to the observed dark matter density due to coannihilation effects.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

Enhanced diphoton rates at Fermi and the LHC

We show that within MSSM singlet extensions the experimental hints beyond the standard model from the Fermi LAT telescope as well as from the LHC can be explained simultaneously while being consistent with all experimental constraints. In particular we present an example point which features a $\sim$ 130 GeV lightest neutralino with an annihilation cross section into photons consistent with the indication from the Fermi satellite with simultaneously the right relic abundance, a continuum photon spectrum consistent with observation, direct detection cross section below the experimental limits, electroweak observables consistent with experiment and a 125 GeV light Higgs boson with a slightly enhanced $h \rightarrow γγ$ rate.

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