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Mohamed Belfkir

Publications and source records attributed to Mohamed Belfkir.

11 recordsLinked to original sources

Neutrino mass, scalar dark matter, and collider signatures in a radiative doublet-triplet model

We explore a radiative neutrino mass model based on the topology T4-3-i, which is a one-loop completion of the Weinberg operator. We focus on its T4-3-i-C1 realization, containing an inert scalar doublet, a real scalar triplet, a Majorana fermion triplet, and a Dirac singlet fermion. An exact $Z_2$ symmetry forbids the tree-level type-III term and stabilizes the lightest $Z_2$-odd particle, leaving the one-loop topology as the leading source of neutrino mass. The model accomodate a neutral {\it CP}-even scalar dark matter candidate and predicts a rank two neutrino mass matrix, and thus one neutrino is massless. A combined analysis incorporating theoretical and experimental constraints reveals viable solutions to both neutrino mass orderings, with the inverted ordering predicting larger values of $m_{ββ}$, $m_β$, and $\sum_i m_i$, thereby enhancing its testability through future beta-decay, neutrinoless double beta decay, and cosmological probes. Within the same viable parameter region, the observed dark matter relic abundance is accounted for by annihilation and coannihilation processes, while the electroweak triplet sector gives rise to prompt, displaced, or long-lived particle signatures, offering complementary collider probes to dark matter and low-energy searches.

hep-ph

A Novel One-loop Model for Majorana Neutrino Mass and Dark Matter

We present the first complete field-theoretic realization of the finite one-loop T4-3-i topology for Majorana neutrino mass. Here, T4-3-i denotes a one-loop realization of the Weinberg operator in which a fermion links the two external lepton--Higgs pairs. If this fermion is a Majorana singlet or triplet, the same interactions generate a tree-level type-I or type-III seesaw contribution, respectively, so that the loop is not the leading source of neutrino mass. This lower-order contribution is removed by taking the mediator to be a Dirac fermion $N$, placing lepton-number violation in a separate Majorana fermion $ψ$ inside the loop, and imposing an exact $Z_2$ symmetry that keeps the new scalars inert and stabilizes the lightest odd state. We classify the allowed electroweak charge assignments and study the minimal singlet-doublet realization, denoted T4-3-i-B1, which contains one Dirac fermion, one Majorana fermion, an inert scalar doublet, and an inert scalar singlet. The resulting rank-two neutrino mass matrix predicts one massless neutrino. We confront both normal and inverted neutrino-mass orderings with neutrino-oscillation and cosmological data, charged-lepton flavor violation, including $μ-e$ conversion, electroweak precision observables, $h\toγγ$, theoretical consistency conditions, the relic abundance, and direct-detection limits. Both fermionic and scalar dark matter are viable. The fermionic candidate has only a loop-induced Higgs coupling and consequently a strongly suppressed spin-independent scattering rate, whereas the scalar candidate couples through a tree-level Higgs portal and can lie above the neutrino floor while remaining compatible with current limits. In both cases, coannihilation with inert scalars is essential for reproducing the observed relic abundance.

hep-ph

Probing new physics in the Boosted $HH \to b\bar{b}γγ$ channel at the LHC

This paper presents the first dedicated study of the boosted $HH \to b\bar{b}γγ$ topology as a key probe of physics beyond the Standard Model (SM) in the high-energy double-Higgs boson regime. The analysis presented in this paper, focuses on two classes of new-physics scenarios: non-resonant deviations of the quartic gauge--Higgs interaction, parameterized by the coupling modifier $κ_{2V}$, and resonant enhancement arising from the decay of a heavy scalar state, modeled within a two-Higgs-doublet framework. We demonstrate that the boosted reconstruction category enhances sensitivity to beyond SM effects that populate the high-$m_{HH}$ tail, yielding improved constraints on $κ_{2V}$ and extending the discovery reach for heavy resonances.

hep-ph

From Qubits to Couplings: A Hybrid Quantum Machine Learning Framework for LHC Physics

In this paper, we propose a new Hybrid Quantum Machine Learning (HyQML) framework to improve the sensitivity of double Higgs boson searches in the $HH \to b\bar{b}γγ$ final state at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13.6 TeV. The proposed model combines parameterized quantum circuits with a classical neural network meta-model, enabling event-level features to be embedded in a quantum feature space while maintaining the optimization stability of classical learning. The hybrid model outperforms both a state-of-the-art XGBoost model and a purely quantum implementation by a factor of two, achieving an expected 95% CL upper limit on the non-resonant double Higgs boson production cross-section of $1.9\timesσ_{\text{SM}}$ and $2.1\timesσ_{\text{SM}}$ under background normalization uncertainties of 10% and 50%, respectively. In addition, expected constraints on the Higgs boson self-coupling $κ_λ$ and quartic vector-boson-Higgs coupling $κ_{2V}$ are found to be improved compared to the classical and purely quantum models.

hep-ex

Boosting Sensitivity to $HH\to b\bar{b} γγ$ with Graph Neural Networks and XGBoost

In this paper, we explore the use of advanced machine learning (ML) techniques to enhance the sensitivity of double Higgs boson searches in the \( HH \to b\bar{b}γγ\) decay channel at $\sqrt{s} = $ 13.6 TeV. Two ML models are implemented and compared: a tree-based classifier using XGBoost, and a geometrical-based graph neural network classifier (GNN). We show that the geometrical model outperform the traditional XGBoost classifier improving the expected 95\% CL upper limit on the double Higgs boson production cross-section by 28\%. Our results are compared to the latest ATLAS experiment results, showing significant improvement of both upper limit and Higgs boson self-coupling ($κ_λ$) constraints.

hep-ph

Fermion Masses and Mixing in Pati-Salam Unification with $S_3$ Modular Symmetry

Modular invariance has recently paved new promising directions in flavor model building. Motivated by this development, we present in this work the first implementation of the $S_3$ modular symmetry within the Pati-Salam unification framework, addressing the flavor structure of quarks and leptons. Assigning left- and right-handed matter fields as $S_3$ doublets or singlets, we propose three benchmark models that achieve compelling fits to sixteen observables including charged fermion mass ratios and flavor mixing parameters. Light neutrino masses arise via the type-I seesaw mechanism, and neutrino oscillation parameters are explored in light of the latest NuFIT-6.0 results. All models favor a normal neutrino mass ordering, with the atmospheric mixing angle lie in the lower octant. For models I and III, the effective Majorana mass $m_{ββ}$ is within the reach of upcoming neutrinoless double-beta decay experiments, while it is too small to be detected in model II. Predicted leptonic CP-violating phases, the sum of active neutrino masses, and Majorana phases span wide but distinctive ranges, enabling future experiments to test and differentiate the proposed models.

hep-ph

Doubly-charged scalars of the Minimal Left-Right Symmetric Model at Muon Colliders

We investigate the prospects of probing the doubly-charged scalars of the minimal Left-Right Symmetric model (MLRSM) at a muon collider. We assess its capability by studying the production of doubly-charged scalars and their subsequent decay into four charged lepton final states containing the same-charge lepton pairs. We find that the channels with same-charge electron and muon pairs, i.e., ($e^{\pm}e^{\pm}μ^{\mp}μ^{\mp}$ and its charge conjugated pairs), have the largest sensitivity due to the lowest Standard Model background. Besides, we show that the possibility of using fully polarized initial muon beams in the muon collider can enhance the detection sensitivity of doubly-charged scalars of the MLRSM. Furthermore, we show that one can put exclusion limits on the magnitudes of triplet Yukawa couplings that are directly related to the neutrino sector of the MLRSM for the mass range $1.1-5$ TeV of the doubly-charged scalars.

hep-ph

Boosting dark matter searches at muon colliders with Machine Learning: the mono-Higgs channel as a case study

The search for dark-matter (DM) candidates at high-energy colliders is one of the most promising avenues to understand the nature of this elusive component of the universe. Several searches at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have strongly constrained a wide range of simplified models. The combination of the bounds from the LHC with direct-detection experiments exclude the most minimal scalar singlet DM model. To address this, Lepton portal DM models are suitable candidates where DM is predominantly produced at lepton colliders since the DM candidate only interacts with the lepton sector through a mediator that carries a lepton number. In this work, we analyse the production of DM pairs in association with a Higgs boson decaying into two bottom quarks at future muon colliders in the framework of the minimal lepton portal DM model. It is found that the usual cut-based analysis methods fail to probe heavy DM masses for both the resolved (where the decay products of the Higgs boson can be resolved as two well-separated small-$R$ jets) and the merged (where the Higgs boson is clustered as one large-$R$ jet). We have then built a search strategy based on Boosted-Decision Trees (BDTs). We have optimised the hyperparameters of the BDT model to both have a high signal-to-background ratio and to avoid overtraining effects. We have found very important enhancements of the signal significance with respect to the cut-based analysis by factors of $8$--$50$ depending on the regime (resolved or merged) and the benchmark points. Using this BDT model on a one-dimensional parameter space scan we found that future muon colliders with $\sqrt{s}=3$ TeV and ${\cal L} = 1~{\rm ab}^{-1}$ can exclude DM masses up to $1$ TeV at the $95\%$ CL.

hep-ph

LHC Run-3, $b-τ$ Yukawa Unification and Dark Matter Implications in SUSY 4-2-2 model

We revisit the bottom and $τ$ Yukawa coupling unification in supersymmetric $4$-$2$-$2$ model and present for the first time the sbottom-neutralino co-annihilation scenario consistent with the bottom and $τ$ Yukawa coupling unification. In addition, we show gluino-neutralino, stop-neutralino, stau-neutralino, chargino-neutralino, and A-resonance scenario and show that all such solutions are consistent with existing experimental collider constraints, Planck2018 dark matter relic density bounds as well as direct and indirect bounds on neutralino-nucleons scattering cross sections. We show that in sbottom-neutralino co-annihilation scenario, the sbottom mass is about 2 TeV whereas in the case of gluino-neutralino, stop-neutralino, the gluino mass can be between 1 TeV to 3 TeV and stop mass in the range of 1 TeV to 3.5 TeV. {Moreover, in the case of co-annihilation scenario, the stau and chargino masses can be as heavy as 3.5 TeV,} while the A-resonance solutions are in the range of 0.5 TeV to 3.5 TeV. We anticipate that some part of the parameter space will be accessible in the supersymmetry searches at LHC Run-3 and beyond.

hep-ph

$ϕ$-Lagrangian, a new scalar mediator for light-by-light scattering process

The $ϕ$ scalar boson is a new mediator proposed to describe the direct light-by-light scattering observed recently in ultra-peripheral collisions (UPCs) with ATLAS detector where two photons interact directly to gives two photons in the final state. The proposed lagrangian present a description to the forbidden process. The description presented in this paper consist the interaction terms, the coupling to the Higgs boson to generate the mass for this new resonance and the simulation using proton proton in order to observe this process in other nominal LHC collisions, since the process is observed in heavy-ions collisions.

hep-ph

The nuclear quadrupole moment mesured with Nuclear Quadrupole Resonance NQR : Principle and definition

The nuclear quadruple moment is a fundamental character associated to the nuclei, this moment is related to the not purely spherical distribution in the nuclei, indeed its measure allows us to survey the geometric deformation of the nuclei of its spherical shape. The measurement methods of the quadruple moment is to study the electrical energy hyperfine interaction between the quadruple moment and the electric field gradient due to atomics electrons, one of the methods is the nuclear quadruple resonance NQR which is observed at the transitions between energy levels splits by the effect of the quadruple interaction and induced by a radio frequency field.

nucl-th