arXiv subjects

P. Hernández

Publications and source records attributed to P. Hernández.

16 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2021

A new formulation of compartmental epidemic modelling for arbitrary distributions of incubation and removal times

The paradigm for compartment models in epidemiology assumes exponentially distributed incubation and removal times, which is not realistic in actual populations. Commonly used variations with multiple exponentially distributed variables are more flexible, yet do not allow for arbitrary distributions. We present a new formulation, focussing on the SEIR concept that allows to include general distributions of incubation and removal times. We compare the solution to two types of agent-based model simulations, a spatially homogeneous one where infection occurs by proximity, and a model on a scale-free network with varying clustering properties, where the infection between any two agents occurs via their link if it exists. We find good agreement in both cases. Furthermore a family of asymptotic solutions of the equations is found in terms of a logistic curve, which after a non-universal time shift, fits extremely well all the microdynamical simulations. The formulation allows for a simple numerical approach; software in Julia and Python is provided.

q-bio.PE↗

arXiv2019

Majorana vs Pseudo-Dirac Neutrinos at the ILC

Neutrino masses could originate in seesaw models testable at colliders, with light mediators and an approximate lepton number symmetry. The minimal model of this type contains two quasi-degenerate Majorana fermions forming a pseudo-Dirac pair. An important question is to what extent future colliders will have sensitivity to the splitting between the Majorana components, since this quantity signals the breaking of lepton number and is connected to the light neutrino masses. We consider the production of these neutral heavy leptons at the ILC, where their displaced decays provide a golden signal: a forward-backward charge asymmetry, which depends crucially on the mass splitting between the two Majorana components. We show that this observable can constrain the mass splitting to values much lower than current bounds from neutrinoless double beta decay and natural loop corrections.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Probing Leptogenesis

The focus of this chapter lies on the possible experimental tests of leptogenesis scenarios. We consider both leptogenesis generated from oscillations, as well as leptogenesis from out-of-equilibrium decays. As the Akhmedov-Rubakov-Smirnov (ARS) mechanism allows for heavy neutrinos in the GeV range, this opens up a plethora of possible experimental tests, e.g. at neutrino oscillation experiments, neutrinoless double beta decay, and direct searches for neutral heavy leptons at future facilities. In contrast, testing leptogenesis from out-of-equilibrium decays is a quite difficult task. We comment on the necessary conditions for having successful leptogenesis at the TeV-scale. We further discuss possible realizations and their model specific testability in extended seesaw models, models with extended gauge sectors, and supersymmetric leptogenesis. Not being able to test high-scale leptogenesis directly, we present a way to falsify such scenarios by focusing on their washout processes. This is discussed specifically for the left-right symmetric model and the observation of a heavy $W_R$, as well as model independently when measuring $ΔL = 2$ washout processes at the LHC or neutrinoless double beta decay.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Non-leptonic kaon decays at large $N_c$

We study the scaling with the number of colours, $N_c$, of the weak amplitudes mediating kaon mixing and decay. We evaluate the amplitudes of the two relevant current-current operators on the lattice for $N_c=3-7$. We conclude that the subleading $1/N_c$ corrections in $\hat{B}_K$ are small, but those in the $K \rightarrow ππ$ amplitudes are large and fully anti-correlated in the $I=0, 2$ isospin channels. We briefly comment on the implications for the $ΔI=1/2$ rule.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

Testable Baryogenesis in Seesaw Models (NuFact 2016)

We revisit the production of baryon asymmetries in the minimal type I seesaw model with heavy Majorana singlets in the GeV range. We include "washout" effects from scattering processes with gauge bosons, higgs decays and inverse decays, besides the dominant top scatterings. We show that in the minimal model with two singlets, and for an inverted light neutrino ordering, future measurements from SHiP and neutrinoless double beta decay could in principle provide sufficient information to predict the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

Testable Baryogenesis in Seesaw Models

We revisit the production of baryon asymmetries in the minimal type I seesaw model with heavy Majorana singlets in the GeV range. In particular we include "washout" effects from scattering processes with gauge bosons, Higgs decays and inverse decays, besides the dominant top scatterings. We show that in the minimal model with two singlets, and for an inverted light neutrino ordering, future measurements from SHiP and neutrinoless double beta decay could in principle provide sufficient information to predict the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe. We also show that SHiP measurements could provide very valuable information on the PMNS CP phases.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2016

Leptogenesis in GeV scale seesaw models

We revisit the production of leptonic asymmetries in minimal extensions of the Standard Model that can explain neutrino masses, involving extra singlets with Majorana masses in the GeV scale. We study the quantum kinetic equations both analytically, via a perturbative expansion up to third order in the mixing angles, and numerically. The analytical solution allows us to identify the relevant CP invariants, and simplifies the exploration of the parameter space. We find that sizeable lepton asymmetries are compatible with non-degenerate neutrino masses and measurable active-sterile mixings.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2014

Light sterile neutrino sensitivity at the nuSTORM facility

A facility that can deliver beams of electron and muon neutrinos from the decay of a stored muon beam has the potential to unambiguously resolve the issue of the evidence for light sterile neutrinos that arises in short-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments and from estimates of the effective number of neutrino flavors from fits to cosmological data. In this paper, we show that the nuSTORM facility, with stored muons of 3.8 GeV/c $\pm$ 10%, will be able to carry out a conclusive muon neutrino appearance search for sterile neutrinos and test the LSND and MiniBooNE experimental signals with 10$σ$ sensitivity, even assuming conservative estimates for the systematic uncertainties. This experiment would add greatly to our knowledge of the contribution of light sterile neutrinos to the number of effective neutrino flavors from the abundance of primordial helium production and from constraints on neutrino energy density from the cosmic microwave background. The appearance search is complemented by a simultaneous muon neutrino disappearance analysis that will facilitate tests of various sterile neutrino models.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2013

A Toroidal Magnetised Iron Neutrino Detector (MIND) for a Neutrino Factory

A neutrino factory has unparalleled physics reach for the discovery and measurement of CP violation in the neutrino sector. A far detector for a neutrino factory must have good charge identification with excellent background rejection and a large mass. An elegant solution is to construct a magnetized iron neutrino detector (MIND) along the lines of MINOS, where iron plates provide a toroidal magnetic field and scintillator planes provide 3D space points. In this report, the current status of a simulation of a toroidal MIND for a neutrino factory is discussed in light of the recent measurements of large $θ_{13}$. The response and performance using the 10 GeV neutrino factory configuration are presented. It is shown that this setup has equivalent $δ_{CP}$ reach to a MIND with a dipole field and is sensitive to the discovery of CP violation over 85% of the values of $δ_{CP}$.

physics.ins-det↗

arXiv2012

The Golden Channel at a Neutrino Factory revisited: improved sensitivities from a Magnetised Iron Neutrino Detector

This paper describes the performance and sensitivity to neutrino mixing parameters of a Magnetised Iron Neutrino Detector (MIND) at a Neutrino Factory with a neutrino beam created from the decay of 10 GeV muons. Specifically, it is concerned with the ability of such a detector to detect muons of the opposite sign to those stored (wrong-sign muons) while suppressing contamination of the signal from the interactions of other neutrino species in the beam. A new more realistic simulation and analysis, which improves the efficiency of this detector at low energies, has been developed using the GENIE neutrino event generator and the GEANT4 simulation toolkit. Low energy neutrino events down to 1 GeV were selected, while reducing backgrounds to the $10^{-4}$ level. Signal efficiency plateaus of ~60% for $ν_μ$ and ~70% for $\barν_μ$ events were achieved starting at ~5 GeV. Contamination from the $ν_μ\rightarrow ν_τ$ oscillation channel was studied for the first time and was found to be at the level between 1% and 4%. Full response matrices are supplied for all the signal and background channels from 1 GeV to 10 GeV. The sensitivity of an experiment involving a MIND detector of 100 ktonnes at 2000 km from the Neutrino Factory is calculated for the case of $\sin^2 2θ_{13}\sim 10^{-1}$. For this value of $θ_{13}$, the accuracy in the measurement of the CP violating phase is estimated to be $Δδ_{CP}\sim 3^\circ - 5^\circ$, depending on the value of $δ_{CP}$, the CP coverage at $5σ$ is 85% and the mass hierarchy would be determined with better than $5σ$ level for all values of $δ_{CP}$.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2008

Finite Volume Scaling of Pseudo Nambu-Goldstone Bosons in QCD

We consider chiral perturbation theory in a finite volume and in a mixed regime of quark masses. We take N_l light quarks near the chiral limit, in the so-called epsilon-regime, while the remaining N_h quarks are heavier and in the standard p-regime. We compute in this new mixed regime the finite-size scaling of the light meson correlators in the scalar, pseudoscalar, vector and axial vector channels.Using the replica method, we easily extend our results to the partially quenched theory. With the help of our results, lattice QCD simulations with 2+1 flavors can safely investigate pion physics with very light up and down quark masses even in the region where the pion's correlation length overcomes the size of the space-time lattice.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2007

Finite-size scaling for the left-current correlator with non-degenerate quark masses

We study the volume dependence of the left-current correlator with non-degenerate quark masses to next-to-leading order in the chiral expansion. We consider three possible regimes: all quark masses are in the $ε$-regime, all are in the $p$-regime and a mixed-regime where the lighest quark masses satisfy $m_v ΣV \leq 1$ while the heavier $m_s ΣV \gg 1$. These results can be used to match lattice QCD and the Chiral Effective Theory in a large but finite box in which the Compton wavelength of the lightest pions is of the order of the box size. We consider both the full and partially-quenched results.

hep-lat↗

arXiv2000

A note on the practical feasibility of domain-wall fermions

Domain-wall fermions preserve chiral symmetry up to terms that decrease exponentially when the lattice size in the fifth dimension is taken to infinity. The associated rates of convergence are given by the low-lying eigenvalues of a simple local operator in four dimensions. These can be computed using the Ritz functional technique and it turns out that the convergence tends to be extremely slow in the range of lattice spacings relevant to large-volume numerical simulations of lattice QCD. Two methods to improve on this situation are discussed.

hep-lat↗

arXiv1999

Locality properties of Neuberger's lattice Dirac operator

The gauge covariant lattice Dirac operator D which has recently been proposed by Neuberger satisfies the Ginsparg-Wilson relation and thus preserves chiral symmetry. The operator also avoids a doubling of fermion species, but its locality properties are not obvious. We now prove that D is local (with exponentially decaying tails) if the gauge field is sufficiently smooth at the scale of the cutoff. Further analytic and numerical studies moreover suggest that the locality of the operator is in fact guaranteed under far more general conditions.

hep-lat↗

arXiv1994

Standard Model Baryogenesis

Simply on CP arguments, we argue against a Standard Model explanation of baryogenesis via the charge transport mechanism. A CP-asymmetry is found in the reflection coefficients of quarks hitting the electroweak phase boundary created during a first order phase transition. The problem is analyzed both in an academic zero temperature case and in the realistic finite temperature one. At finite temperature, a crucial role is played by the damping rate of quasi-quarks in a hot plasma, which induces loss of spatial coherence and suppresses reflection on the boundary even at tree-level. The resulting baryon asymmetry is many orders of magnitude below what observation requires. We comment as well on related works.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1993

Standard Model CP-violation and Baryon asymmetry

Simply based on CP arguments, we argue against a Standard Model explanation of the baryon asymmetry of the universe in the presence of a first order phase transition. A CP-asymmetry is found in the reflection coefficients of quarks hitting the phase boundary created during the electroweak transition. The problem is analyzed both in an academic zero temperature case and in the realistic finite temperature one. The building blocks are similar in both cases: Kobayashi-Maskawa CP-violation, CP-even phases in the reflection coefficients of quarks, and physical transitions due to fermion self-energies. In both cases an effect is present at order $α_W^2$ in rate. A standard GIM behaviour is found as intuitively expected. In the finite temperature case, a crucial role is played by the damping rate of quasi-particles in a hot plasma, which is a relevant scale together with $M_W$ and the temperature. The effect is many orders of magnitude below what observation requires, and indicates that non standard physics is indeed needed in the cosmological scenario.

hep-ph↗