arXiv subjects

Roberto Iengo

Publications and source records attributed to Roberto Iengo.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2024

Handbook on string decay

We explain simple semi-classical rules to estimate the lifetime of any given highly-excited quantum state of the string spectrum in flat spacetime. We discuss both the decays by splitting into two massive states and by massless emission. As an application, we study a solution describing a rotating and pulsating ellipse which becomes folded at an instant of time -- the ``squashing ellipse''. This string interpolates between the folded string with maximum angular momentum and the pulsating circular string. We explicitly compute the quantum decay rate for the corresponding quantum state, and verify the basic rules that we propose. Finally, we give a more general (4-parameter) family of closed string solutions representing rotating and pulsating elliptical strings.

hep-th↗

arXiv2014

Indirect Detection Analysis: Wino Dark Matter Case Study

We perform a multichannel analysis of the indirect signals for the Wino Dark Matter, including one-loop electroweak and Sommerfeld enhancement corrections. We derive limits from cosmic ray antiprotons and positrons, from continuum galactic and extragalactic diffuse gamma-ray spectra, from the absence of gamma-ray line features at the galactic center above 500 GeV in energy, from gamma-rays toward nearby dwarf spheroidal galaxies and galaxy clusters, and from CMB power-spectra. Additionally, we show the future prospects for neutrino observations toward the inner Galaxy and from antideuteron searches. For each of these indirect detection probes we include and discuss the relevance of the most important astrophysical uncertainties that can impact the strength of the derived limits. We find that the Wino as a dark matter candidate is excluded in the mass range bellow ~800 GeV from antiprotons and between 1.8 and 3.5 TeV from the absence of a gamma-ray line feature toward the galactic center. Limits from other indirect detection probes confirm the main bulk of the excluded mass ranges.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2013

The one-loop and Sommerfeld electroweak corrections to the Wino dark matter annihilation

We compute the present-day Wino dark matter annihilation cross-section including the one-loop radiative corrections together with the fully treated electroweak Sommerfeld effect. We discuss what is the consistent way of incorporating these two corrections simultaneously and why simply using the running coupling constants values at the Wino mass scale is not correct. The results show that up to a few TeV scale the full one-loop computation makes the cross-section smaller up to about 30% with respect to the Sommerfeld enhanced tree level result and are considerably larger than the tree or one-loop level without the Sommerfeld effect.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2013

Lower bound for the ratio of charged wino tracks to charged lepton tracks at LHC

By using kinematical arguments we derive a theorem for the ratio: [production cross-section of charged-neutral wino pairs plus anything else] over [production cross-section of charged-neutral lepton pairs plus anything else]. We do that by working out the consequences of substituting the lepton pair with a wino pair, leaving untouched everything else of the interaction. We apply this result to the possible production of winos at LHC obtaining a lower bound for the ratio of the number of charged-winos over charged-leptons tracks and also find the average charged-wino track length, within a region in the relevant parameter space (e.g. available energy and mass).

hep-ph↗

arXiv2011

Relic densities including Sommerfeld enhancements in the MSSM

We have developed a general formalism to compute Sommerfeld enhancement (SE) factors for a multi-state system of fermions, in all possible spin configurations and with generic long-range interactions. We show how to include such SE effects in an accurate calculation of the thermal relic density for WIMP dark matter candidates. We apply the method to the MSSM and perform a numerical study of the relic abundance of neutralinos with arbitrary composition and including the SE due to the exchange of the W and Z bosons, photons and Higgses. We find that the relic density can be suppressed by a factor of a few in a seizable region of the parameter space, mostly for Wino-like neutralino with mass of a few TeV, and up to an order of magnitude close to a resonance.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2010

A Simple UV-Completion of QED in 5D

We construct a Lifshitz-like version of five-dimensional (5D) QED which is UV - completed and reduces at low energies to ordinary 5D QED. The UV quantum behaviour of this theory is very smooth. In particular, the gauge coupling constant is finite at all energy scales and at all orders in perturbation theory. We study the IR properties of this theory, when compactified on a circle, and compare the one-loop energy dependence of the coupling in the Lifshitz theory with that coming from the standard 5D QED effective field theory. The range of validity of the 5D effective field theory is found to agree with the more conservative version of Naive Dimensional Analysis.

hep-th↗

arXiv2009

Renormalization group in Lifshitz-type theories

We study the one-loop renormalization and evolution of the couplings in scalar field theories of the Lifshitz type, i.e. with different scaling in space and time. These theories are unitary and renormalizable, thanks to higher spatial derivative terms that modify the particle propagator at high energies, but at the expense of explicitly breaking Lorentz symmetry. We study if and under what conditions the Lorentz symmetry can be considered as emergent at low energies by studying the RG evolution of the ``speed of light'' coupling $c^2_ϕ$ and, for more than one field, of $δc^2\equiv c^2_{ϕ_1}-c^2_{ϕ_2}$ in simple models. We find that in the UV both $c^2_ϕ$ and $δc^2$ generally flow logarithmically with the energy scale. A logarithmic running of $c^2$ persists also at low-energies, if $δc^2 \neq 0$ in the UV. As a result, Lorentz symmetry is not recovered at low energies with the accuracy needed to withstand basic experimental constraints, unless all the Lorentz breaking terms, including $δc^2$, are unnaturally fine-tuned to extremely small values in the UV. We expect that the considerations of this paper will apply to any generic theory of Lifshitz type, including a recently proposed quantum theory of gravity by Horava.

hep-th↗

arXiv2008

Non-linear theory for multiple M2 branes

We present a manifestly SO(8) invariant non-linear Lagrangian for describing the non-abelian dynamics of the bosonic degrees of freedom of N coinciding M2 branes in flat spacetime. The theory exhibits a gauge symmetry structure of the BF type (semidirect product of SU(N) and translations) and at low energies it reduces exactly to the bosonic part of the Lorentzian Bagger-Lambert Lagrangian for group SU(N). There are eight scalar fields satisfying a free-scalar equation. When one of them takes a large expectation value, the non-linear Lagrangian gets simplified and the theory can be connected to the non-abelian Lagrangian describing the dynamics of N coinciding D2 branes. As an application, we show that the BPS fuzzy funnel solution describing M2 branes ending into a single M5 brane is an exact solution of the non-linear system.

hep-th↗

arXiv2007

New non-abelian effects on D branes

We extend the Myers dielectric effect to configurations with angular momentum. The resulting time-dependent N D0 brane bound states can be interpreted as describing rotating fuzzy ellipsoids. A similar solution exists also in the presence of a RR magnetic field, that we study in detail. We show that, for any finite N, above a certain critical angular momentum is energetically more favorable for the bound state system to dissociate into an abelian configuration of N D0 branes moving independently. We have investigated this problem in the low-energy expansion of the non-abelian D brane action for generic N. In the case N=2 we find explicit solutions of the full non-abelian Born-Infeld D brane dynamics, which remarkably have the same structure and confirm the features of the low-energy approximation. We further study D string configurations representing fuzzy funnels deformed by the magnetic field and by the rotational motion.

hep-th↗

arXiv2007

Strings and D-branes in a supersymmetric magnetic flux background

We investigate how the presence of RR magnetic $F_{p+2}$ fluxes affects the energy of classical Dp branes, for specific string theory supersymmetric backgrounds which are solutions to the leading order in $α'$ including back-reaction effects. The Dp brane dynamics is found to be similar to the well known dynamics of particles and strings moving in magnetic fields. We find a class of BPS solutions which generalize the BPS fundamental strings or BPS branes with momentum and winding to the case of non-zero magnetic fields. Remarkably, the interaction with the magnetic fields does not spoil the supersymmetry of the solution, which turns out to be invariant under four supersymmetry transformations. We find that magnetic fields can significantly reduce the energy of some BPS strings and Dp branes, in particular, some macroscopic Dp branes become light for sufficiently large magnetic fields.

hep-th↗

arXiv2007

Gravitational collapse of a macroscopic string by a Newtonian description including the effect of gravitational radiation

We make an attempt to dynamically study, in four space-time dimensions, the classical gravitational collapse of a macroscopic circular fundamental string, by a truncation of the Einstein equations that suppresses retarded features but keeps the main self-gravity peculiarities of the relativistic string dynamics, and allows the investigation of a possible infinite red-shift. The numerical solution of the string evolution in the self-induced metric shows an infinite red shift at a macroscopic size of the string, when the string reaches the velocity of light. We further include the back-reaction of the radiation of gravitons which induces energy dissipation: now the velocity of light is not reached, the infinite red-shift does not form and the string simply shrinks with damped oscillations.

hep-th↗

arXiv2006

Massless radiation from Strings: quantum spectrum average statistics and cusp-kink configurations

We derive general formulae for computing the average spectrum for Bosonic or Fermionic massless emission from generic or particular sets of closed superstring quantum states, among the many occurring at a given large value of the number operator. In particular we look for states that can produce a Bosonic spectrum resembling the classical spectrum expected for peculiar cusp-like or kink-like classical configurations, and we perform a statistical counting of their average number. The results can be relevant in the framework of possible observations of the radiation emitted by cosmic strings.

hep-th↗

arXiv2005

Cross sections for production of closed superstrings at high energy colliders in brane world models

In brane world string models with large extra dimensions, there are processes where fermion and antifermion (or two gluons) can annihilate producing a light particle (e.g. gluon) carrying transverse momentum and a Kaluza-Klein graviton or an excited closed string that propagates in the extra dimensions. In high energy colliders, this process gives a missing momentum signature. We compute the total cross section for this process within the context of type II superstring theory in the presence of a D brane. This includes all missing energy sources for this string theory model up to s=8M_s^2, and it can be used to put new limits on the string scale M_s.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2004

Search for the most stable massive state in superstring theory

In ten dimensional type II superstring, all perturbative massive states are unstable, typically with a short lifetime compared to the string scale. We find that the lifetime of the average string state of mass M has the asymptotic form T < const.1/(g^2 M). The most stable string state seems to be a certain state with high angular momentum which can be classically viewed as a circular string rotating in several planes ("the rotating ring"), predominantly decaying by radiating soft massless NS-NS particles, with a lifetime T = c_0 M^5/g^2. Remarkably, the dominant channel is the decay into a similar rotating ring state of smaller mass. The total lifetime to shrink to zero size is ~ M^7. In the presence of D branes, decay channels involving open strings in the final state are exponentially suppressed, so the lifetime is still proportional to M^5, except for a D brane at a special angle or flux. For large mass, the spectrum for massless emission exhibits qualitative features typical of a thermal spectrum, such as a maximum and an exponential tail. We also discuss the decay properties of rotating rings in the case of compact dimensions.

hep-th↗

arXiv2004

Long Lived Large Type II Strings: decay within compactification

Motivated also by recent revival of interest about metastable string states (as cosmic strings or in accelerator physics), we study the decay, in presence of dimensional compactification, of a particular superstring state, which was proven to be remarkably long-lived in the flat uncompactified scenario. We compute the decay rate by an exact numerical evaluation of the imaginary part of the one-loop propagator. For large radii of compactification, the result tends to the fully uncompactified one (lifetime T = const M^5/g^2), as expected, the string mainly decaying by massless radiation. For small radii, the features of the decay (emitted states, initial mass dependence,....) change, depending on how the string wraps on the compact dimensions.

hep-th↗

arXiv2003

Decay of long-lived massive closed superstring states: Exact results

We find a one-parameter family of long-lived physical string states in type II superstring theory. We compute the decay rate by an exact numerical evaluation of the imaginary part of the one-loop propagator. Remarkably, the lifetime rapidly increases with the mass. We find a power-law dependence of the form $T = const. g^{-2} Mass^α$, where the value of $α$ depends on the parameter characterizing the state. For the most stable state in this family, one has $α~= 5$. The dominant decay channel of these massive string states is by emission of soft massless particles. The quantum states can be viewed semiclassically as closed strings which cannot break during the classical evolution.

hep-th↗

arXiv2003

Semiclassical decay of strings with maximum angular momentum

We study the classical breaking of a highly excited (closed or open) string state on the leading Regge trajectory, represented by a rotating soliton solution, and we find the resulting solutions for the outgoing two pieces, describing two specific excited string states. This classical picture reproduces very accurately the precise analytical relation of the masses $M_1$ and $M_2$ of the decay products found in a previous quantum computation. The decay rate is naturally described in terms of a semiclassical formula. We also point out some interesting features of the evolution after the splitting process.

hep-th↗

arXiv2002

The decay of massive closed superstrings with maximum angular momentum

We study the decay of a very massive closed superstring (i.e. α' M^2>> 1) in the unique state of maximum angular momentum. This is done in flat ten-dimensional spacetime and in the regime of weak string coupling, where the dominant decay channel is into two states of masses M_1, M_2. We find that the lifetime surprisingly grows with the first power of the mass M: T =c α' M. We also compute the decay rate for each values of M_1, M_2. We find that, for large M, the dynamics selects only special channels of decay: modulo processes which are exponentially suppressed, for every decay into a state of given mass M_1, the mass M_2 of the other state is uniquely determined.

hep-th↗