arXiv subjects
Publications and source records attributed to Paul H. Frampton.
In a particle theory model whose most readily discovered new particle is the $\sim 1$TeV bilepton resonance in same-sign leptons, currently being sought at CERN's LHC, there exist three quarks ${\cal D, S, T}$ which will be bound by QCD into baryons and mesons. We consider the decays of these additional baryons and mesons whose detailed experimental study will be beyond the reach of the 14 TeV CERN collider and accessible only at an O(100 TeV) collider.
We investigate the published constraints on MACHOs in the mass region $10^2 - 10^5 M_{\odot}$ and their possible contribution to dark matter. We focus on constraints which rely on the accretion of matter which emits X-rays that can lead, after downgrading to microwaves, to distortion of the CMB spectrum and isotropy. The most questionable step in this chain of arguments is the use of overly simplified accretion models. We compare how the same accretion models apply to X-ray observations from supermassive black holes SMBHs, M87 and Sgr A*. The comparison of these two SMBHs with intermediate mass MACHOs suggests that the latter could, after all, provide the constituents of all the dark matter. We discuss the status of other constraints on IM-MACHOs.
Using the most recent experimental data on parameters of the standard electroweak theory, as well as renormalisation group equations with a boundary matching condition, we derive a refined and more accurate value for the mass of the doubly-charged bilepton ($Y^{\pm\pm}$) occurring in the spontaneous breaking of the gauge group $SU(3)_L \times U(1)_X$ to the standard electroweak gauge group $SU(2)_L \times U(1)_Y$. Our result is $M(Y^{\pm\pm}) = (1.29 \pm 0.06)$ TeV.
Swampland conjectures (SCs) of string theory require that a constant cosmological constant $Λ$ be replaced by a time-dependent scalar-field quintessence with constrained parameters. The constraints limit the duration of the present expansion era because, although the SCs may be fulfilled at the present time, they will be violated at a finite time in the future allowing only an order-one number of e-foldings. In contrast, cyclic cosmology requires $\sim94$ e-foldings of the present universe before turnaround from expansion to contraction. This presents a dilemma to the original SCs. One possibility is that one of the SCs, the range conjecture, be significantly weakened. A second possibility, difficult to believe, is that cyclic cosmology vastly overestimates the number of e-foldings. A third possibility, which is the least disfavoured, is that string theory is not the correct theory of quantum gravity.
The detection of a stochastic background of gravitational waves can reveal details about first-order phase transitions (FOPTs) at a time of $10^{-13}s$ of the early universe. We specifically discuss quiver-type GUTs which avoid both proton decay and a desert hypothesis. A quiver based on $SU(3)^{12}$ which breaks at a $E=4000$ GeV to trinification $SU(3)^3$ has a much larger ($g_*=1,272$) number of effective massless degrees of freedom than the Standard Model. Assuming a FOPT for this model we investigate the strain sensitivity of this model for a wide range of FOPT parameters.
In the family grand unification models (fGUTs), we propose that gauge U(1)'s beyond the minimal GUT gauge group are family gauge symmetries. For the symmetry $L_μ-L_τ$, i.e. $Q_{2}-Q_{3}$ in our case, to be useful for the LHC anomaly, we discuss an SU(9) fGUT and also present an example in Georgi's SU(11) fGUT.
We obtain a relationship between the hierarchies of mixing angles and of masses pertinent to the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) quark mixing matrix and the Pontecorvo-Maki-Nakagawa-Sakata (PMNS) lepton mixing matrix. Using this relationship, we argue that the more severe hierarchy of the charge-$\frac{2}{3}$ quark masses requires that the CKM matrix be close to a unit matrix whereas the milder hierarchy of the neutrino masses allows the PMNS matrix to depart markedly from the CKM matrix and contain large mixing angles of the type that are observed.
Among particle theory candidates for the dark matter constituents. axions and WIMPs are the most popular. In this talk we discuss these then focus on our preferred astrophysical candidate, the Primordial Intermediate Mass Black Holes in the acronym $DM=PIMBHs$. The earliest experimental confirmation may come from microlensing of the Magellanic Clouds at the LSST 8m telescope in the mid-2020s, or possibly a few years earlier in 2021 from work being pursued, using DECam data from the smaller Blanco 4m tescope, at LLNL.
We discuss a minimal and simple extension of the standard electroweak model and discuss its uniqueness properties. Its most readily testable prediction is the existence of $|Q|= |L|= 2$ gauge bosons, bileptons, which decay into like-sign lepton pairs. We discuss how a discovery could be made at the LHC.
As a contribution requested by the editors of a Memorial Volume for Peter G.O. Freund (1936-2018), we recall the lively particle theory group at the Enrico Fermi Institute of the University of Chicago in the late sixties, of which Peter was a memorable member. We also discuss a period some twenty years later when our and Peter's research overlapped on the topic of p-adic strings.
We construct a flavor model in an anti-SU(5) GUT with a tetrahedral symmetry $A_4$. We choose a basis where $Q_{text{em}}=-\frac13$ quarks and charged leptons are already mass eigenstates. This choice is possible from the $A_4$ symmetry. Then, matter representation $\overline{10}_{-1}^{\rm\, matter}$ contains both a quark doublet and a heavy neutrino $N$, which enables us to use the $A_4$ symmetry to both $Q_{text{em}}=+\frac23$ quark masses and neutrino masses (through the see-saw via $N$). This is made possible because the anti-SU(5) breaking is achieved by the Higgs fields transforming as anti-symmetric representations of SU(5), $\overline{10}_{-1}^H\oplus 10_{+1}^H$, reducing the rank-5 anti-SU(5) group down to the rank-4 standard model group \smg. For possible mass matrices, the $A_4$ symmetry predictions on mass matrices at field theory level are derived. Finally, an illustration from string compactification is presented.
We investigate the decoupling of heavy right handed neutrinos in the context of an SO(10) GUT model, where a remnant anomalous symmetry is $U(1)_{X}$. In this model the see-saw mechanism which generates the neutrino masses is intertwined with the Stueckelberg mechanism, which leaves the CP-odd phase of a very heavy Higgs in the low energy spectrum as an axion-like particle. Such pseudoscalar is predicted to be ultralight, in the $10^{-20}$ eV mass range. In this scenario, the remnant anomalous $X$ symmetry of the particles of the Standard Model is interpreted as due to the incomplete decoupling of the right handed neutrino sector. We illustrate this scenario including its realisation in the context of SO(10).
The holographic principle provides a deep insight into quantum gravity and resolves the fine-tuning crisis concerning the cosmological constant. Holographic dark energy introduces new ultra-violet (UV) and infra-red (IR) cutoffs into quantum gravity which are necessarily strongly related. The equation of state for dark energy $ω= p/ρ$ is discussed from the holographic point of view. The phantom option of $ω< -1$ is resurrected, as in an earlier cyclic cosmology. Such a cyclic model can, however, equally use the cosmological constant with $ω= -1$.
We review a class of models which generalize the traditional Peccei-Quinn (PQ) axion solution by a Stückelberg pseudoscalar. Such axion models represent a significant variant with respect to earlier scenarios where axion fields were associated with global anomalies, because of the Stückelberg field, which is essential for the cancellation of gauge anomalies in the presence of extra $U(1)$ symmetries. The extra neutral currents associated to these models have been investigated in the past in orientifold models with intersecting branes, under the assumption that the Stückelberg scale was in the multi-TeV region. Such constructions, at the field theory level, are quite general and can be interpreted as the four-dimensional field theory realization of the Green-Schwarz mechanism of anomaly cancellation of string theory. We present an overview of models of this type in the TeV/multi TeV range in their original formulation and their recent embeddings into an ordinary GUT theory, presenting an $E_6\times U(1)_X$ model as an example. In this case the model contains two axions, the first corresponding to a Peccei-Quinn axion, whose misalignment takes place at the QCD phase transition, with a mass in the meV region and which solves the strong CP problem. The second axion is ultralight, in the $10^{-20}-10^{-22}$ eV region, due to a misalignment and a decoupling taking place at the GUT scale. The two scales introduced by the PQ solution, the PQ breaking scale and the misalignment scale at the QCD hadron transition, become the Planck and the GUT scales respectively, with a global anomaly replaced by a gauge anomaly. The periodic potential and the corresponding oscillations are related to a particle whose De Broglie wavelength can reach 10 kpc. Such a sub-galactic scale has been deemed necessary in order to resolve several dark matter issues at the astrophysical level.
We consider pair production of bileptons $Y^{++}Y^{--}$ at the LHC for the presently accumulated integrated luminosity of $150/fm$. It is shown that the entire mass range 800 GeV $\leq$ M(Y) $\leq$ 2000 GeV can be successfully searched. A bilepton resonance will have an exceptionally large ratio of signal to background because the standard model prediction is so infinitesimal. A $5σ$ discovery is quite feasible.
We study the merger rate of dark matter PIMBHs(=Primordial Intermediate Mass Black Holes). We conclude that the black holes observed by LIGO in GW150914 and later events were probably not dark matter PIMBHs but rather the result of gravitational collapse of very massive stars. To study the PIMBHs by gravitational radiation will require a detector sensitive to frequencies below 10Hz and otherwise more sensitive than LIGO. The LISA detector, expected to come online in 2034, will be useful at frequencies below 1Hz but a second space-based detector beyond LISA, sensitive up to 10Hz, will be necessary fully to study dark matter.
We present an analysis on the production of two same-sign lepton pairs at the LHC, mediated by bileptons in the $SU(3)_c\times SU(3)_L\times U(1)_X$ theory, the so-called 331 model. Compared to other 331 scenarios, in this model the embedding of the hypercharge is obtained with the addition of 3 exotic quarks and doubly-charged vector gauge bosons with lepton numbers $\pm 2$ in the spectrum ($Y^{\pm\pm}$), which can mediate the production of four-lepton final states. Furthermore, a complete description of the model requires the introduction of a Higgs scalar sector, which is a sextet of $SU(3)_L$, necessary in order to correctly account for the lepton masses. As a result of this, new doubly-charged scalar states $H^{\pm\pm}$ are part of the spectrum as well and can in principle compete with the vector bileptons in giving rise to four-lepton final states. We investigate both channels and study several observables at the LHC, for both signal and Standard Model $ZZ$ background. With respect to previous work on vector- and scalar-bilepton production, we use the most updated exclusion limits at the LHC and implement the 331 model in a full Monte Carlo simulation code, capable of being interfaced with any analysis framework. Our result is that the 331 signal can be discriminated from the background with a significance of 6-9 standard deviations, depending on the LHC luminosity, with the vector bileptons dominating over the scalar ones.
Dark matter constituents of many solar masses will accrete normal matter which emits X-rays that can be downgraded to microwaves which may distort the precisely-measured black-body spectrum of the Cosmic Microwave Background. However, it is known from elsewhere that spherical models of accretion vastly overestimate the amount accreted and consequently the emitted X-rays. Therefore, exclusion plots based on spherical accretion for the allowed fraction of the dark matter versus the MACHO mass give upper limits on intermediate-mass MACHOs which are too severe, sometimes by orders of magnitude.