arXiv subjects

Roman Pasechnik

Publications and source records attributed to Roman Pasechnik.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Probing cosmological phase transitions with SKAO through nano-Hz gravitational-wave portal

The recent evidence for a stochastic gravitational wave (GW) background at nano-Hz frequencies from pulsar timing arrays (PTAs) provides a strong science case for exploring cosmological histories and phase transitions at the Square Kilometer Array Observatory (SKAO). The latter cosmological events are of primary interest for physics of the early Universe associated with out-of-equilibrium and relaxation phenomena in the vicinity the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) epoch as well as those originating from dark sectors or other phenomena beyond the Standard Model of particle physics. Such a novel GW portal provides a complimentary access to particle physics phenomena that have so far escaped detection at particle colliders, and also probes fundamental aspects of out-of-equilibrium dynamics beyond the perturbation theory and their cosmological implications. This chapter aims at elucidating most interesting physics cases, theoretical models and approaches, as well as cosmological scenarios that are of particular relevance for future GW measurements at SKAO. We elaborate on how such measurements can deepen our understanding of particle interactions and violent processes in the early Universe, and discuss possible competitive advantages and complementarity of SKAO in this research compared to other experiments.

astro-ph.CO↗

arXiv2026

Cosmological Signatures of the Conformal and Non-Conformal Next-to-Minimal Two-Higgs-Doublet Model

We investigate cosmological signatures of the next-to-minimal two-Higgs-doublet model (N2HDM) in both the classically scale-invariant, or conformal, realization and in the corresponding non-conformal theory. Using a one-loop finite-temperature effective potential, collider and flavour constraints implemented through ScannerS, HiggsBounds and HiggsSignals, and a modified on-shell counterterm prescription for the conformal model, we identify parameter regions with a first-order electroweak phase transition and potentially observable stochastic gravitational waves. We find that both conformal and non-conformal scenarios can produce sound-wave signals in the sensitivity range of future space-based interferometers, including LISA, while the electroweak transitions complete promptly ($T_n\simeq T_p$), with pronounced supercooling below the critical temperature confined to the strongest transitions. The two scenarios nevertheless populate different regions of the scalar mass spectrum when the gravitational-wave signal is observable, suggesting that a future stochastic background measurement combined with collider information on the additional Higgs states could discriminate between the two realizations. We further study partonic Higgs-pair production, in the heavy-top approximation, and find that large deviations in the SM-like di-Higgs rate tend to occur away from the regions with the strongest gravitational-wave signals, while enhanced BSM Higgs-pair rates are mainly associated with the conformal model. The analysis highlights a complementary interplay between electroweak cosmology, scalar spectroscopy and Higgs self-interaction probes in extended Higgs sectors.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2026

Minimal Scale-Invariant Dark Matter

We study the minimal classically scale-invariant extension of the Standard Model, containing a single $\mathbb Z_2$-stabilised real scalar singlet whose mass is not an independent input but is generated dynamically through the quantum effective potential and linked to radiative electroweak symmetry breaking through the Higgs portal. We construct the full two-field one-loop effective potential and introduce a modified on-shell renormalisation scheme that fixes the electroweak vacuum, the Higgs mass, the vanishing Higgs--singlet mixing and the singlet curvature at the physical point, yielding predictions stable under renormalisation-scale variation. Since thermal freeze-out is excluded by direct-detection limits, we identify a highly predictive freeze-in realisation of this model. Imposing perturbativity, vacuum stability and the observed relic abundance leads to a freeze-in solution with a dark-matter mass of around $2~{\rm MeV}$. The predicted electron-scattering cross section for this solution lies far below the current sensitivity of DAMIC-M. Current direct-detection experiments therefore do not constrain this scenario. The minimal scale-invariant singlet model thus provides a robust and highly predictive framework connecting radiative electroweak symmetry breaking and freeze-in dark-matter genesis.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2026

Machine Learning for Multi-messenger Probes of New Physics and Cosmology: A Review and Perspective

The multi-messenger exploration of dark matter and physics beyond the Standard Model has emerged as a central direction in modern astro-particle physics, particularly following the discovery of gravitational waves. In this work, we present a comprehensive review and forward-looking perspective on machine-learning-enhanced multi-messenger approaches, combining information from gravitational waves, cosmic rays, gamma rays, neutrinos, and collider experiments. We summarize the current state of the field, discuss recent methodological developments, and outline a coherent research program aimed at integrating heterogeneous datasets within a unified inference framework. Our collaboration proposes here a plan for forthcoming analyses aiming at extracting information on the properties and interactions of dark matter, and finally on its genesis, combining multi-messenger astronomy techniques and inputs from laboratory physics. The main objectives planned in this line of research comprise: i) the multi-messenger analysis of new physics in cosmology, including mainly, but not only, several different models of dark matter; ii) the phenomenology of new physics signatures in ground-based cosmic rays experiments, with cross-correlation to the corresponding physical, astrophysical and cosmological observations; iii) the development of machine learning methods for data analysis in ground-based cosmic rays experiments, in light of the new physics signatures. We note that several groups have explored the use of multi-messenger observations, including gravitational waves, to probe alternative dark matter candidates. The present work builds on these developments by focusing on the role of machine learning in integrating heterogeneous datasets. We foresee that such a cross-fertilizing approach will represent the right path to extract information about the main questions left in fundamental physics.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2026

Dark Glueball Direct Detection

We consider glueball dark matter (DM) in a Yang-Mills dark sector confined at $\Lambda_D$ scale and coupled to the Standard Model through electrically and dark-color charged vector-like fermion portals, with the mass scale $m_\psi$. In a simple case with two lightest mass-degenerate vector-like fermions with opposite electric charges the effective amplitudes with one $C$-odd glueball (oddball) and odd number of photons vanish, rendering the lightest $C$-odd spin-1 state with mass $m_\chi$ a viable DM candidate provided that $m_\psi\gtrsim 5.5 \Lambda_D$. We develop a controlled effective field theory framework with non-perturbative information supported by QCD phenomenology leading to a quantitative prediction for coherent elastic glueball scattering off nuclei. We find a steep scaling of the spin-independent cross section $\sigma_{\rm SI}\propto \Lambda_D^{2.15} m_\psi^{-8}$. This implies that the sensitivity of the current and next-generation xenon experiments in the range of $\sigma_{\rm SI} \sim 10^{-46} - 10^{-48}$ cm$^2$ corresponds to $m_\psi \simeq 3-30$ GeV, respectively, for $\Lambda_D\simeq 0.55-5.5$ GeV. We provide a minimal UV completion of the portal sector compatible with collider phenomenology. Our results pave a quantitative foundation for testing glueball DM in direct-detection experiments.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2026

Sterile neutrino dark matter in conformal Majoron models

We study sterile neutrino dark matter (DM) in a classically conformal U(1)' extension of the Standard Model with three right-handed neutrinos and a Majoron-like singlet scalar that generate the observed pattern of active neutrino masses and mixing via the type-I seesaw mechanism. Working in the regime of strongly suppressed active-sterile mixing, we show that the observed DM abundance can be produced through freeze-in from feeble interactions mediated by the heavy Z' and the conformal scalar. We solve the Boltzmann equation for the nonthermal phase-space distribution and confront the scenario with Lyman-$\alpha$ data by computing the matter power spectrum. For keV-scale sterile neutrinos we identify the viable parameter space consistent with structure-formation and X-ray bounds, including regions compatible with a tentative 3.5 keV line. If a second sterile state is long-lived, late decays can realize a two-component setup that alleviates the $S_8$ tension. In a highly fine-tuned variant of the model, the 220 PeV KM3NeT event can also be explained by invoking the decay of a superheavy sterile neutrino.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2026

One loop renormalization of 5D gauge-Yukawa theories

The common lore dictates that extra dimensional theories loose predictive power at energies just above the compatification scale, due to the power-law running of bulk coupling. We show that five-dimensional gauge-Yukawa theories can be valid up to arbitrarily high scales, provided: 1) A finite number of terms are required to absorb power-law divergences; 2) All power-law running couplings flow to UV fixed points. By explicitly computing bulk and localized divergences for a gauge-Yukawa theory on $\mathcal{S}^1/\mathbb{Z}_2$, we prove the one-loop renormalization properties of Lagrangians containing only interactions that would be renormalizable in four dimensions. The existence of UV fixed points imposes further constraints on the content of the model. Our results provide a consistency check for the high-energy behavior of any 5D theory, and provide a discrimination between UV consistent models and those that can describe only a handful of Kaluza-Klein modes. Hence, we offer the first concrete step towards an all-order proof of `renormalizability' for gauge-Yukawa theories in five dimensions.

hep-th↗

arXiv2025

Novel Bounds From The Weak Gravity and Festina Lente Conjectures

We demonstrate that the Weak Gravity Conjecture (WGC) and the Festina-Lente Conjecture (FLC) yield novel bounds on fifth force searches and milli-Charged Particles (mCPs), as well as on the scale of inflation and on the effective Higgs quartic interaction. In particular, we find that combining the FLC with inflation leads to stronger bounds on mCPs than what the simple application of the FLC provides. Furthermore, we have explored the implications of naturalness on both the FLC and WGC, and have found that these conjectures place a lower limit on the charge of a $U(1)$ gauge group.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2025

Gravitational Waves from Dark Gauge Sectors

We explore gravitational-wave (GW) signatures from a strong first-order phase transition in a non-Abelian dark sector, which naturally gives rise to vector dark matter (DM). We consider a general class of models featuring a new dark gauge sector communicating with the Standard Model (SM) through a Higgs portal and a vector-like fermionic portal. We also study the scenario where the dark sector interacts with the SM only via gravity. In all cases, we scan the full parameter space and analyse GW production and highlight the regions with visible GW signatures. Notably, the fermionic portal yields distinctive GW signals at LISA with peak frequencies of 1--10 mHz, reaching up to 1 Hz for future interferometers like BBO and DECIGO, while the Higgs portal scenario remains limited to around 1 mHz. Both frameworks account for the observed DM abundance and predict detectable LISA signals for dark vector bosons near 1--4 TeV, with a $\sim$10 GeV dark Higgs. Finally, we identify a unique six-top final state from pair-produced vector-like fermions, offering a striking collider signature within HL-LHC reach. Its detection would provide a smoking-gun signal for the fermionic portal, establishing complementarity between collider, GW, and DM signals.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2025

Primordial black holes and magnetic fields in conformal neutrino mass models

Sufficiently strong and long-lasting first-order phase transitions can produce primordial black holes (PBHs) that contribute substantially to the dark matter abundance of the Universe, and can produce large-scale primordial magnetic fields. We study these mechanisms in a generic class of conformal $\mathrm{U(1)}^\prime$ models that also explain active neutrino oscillation data via the type-I seesaw mechanism. We find that phase transitions that occur at seesaw scales between $10^4$ GeV and $10^{11}$ GeV produce gravitational wave signals (from the dynamics of the phase transition and from the decay of cosmic string loops) at LISA/ET that can be correlated with microlensing signals of PBHs at the Roman Space Telescope, while scales near $10^{11}$ GeV can be correlated with Hawking evaporation signals at future gamma-ray telescopes. LISA can probe the entire range of PBH masses between $1\times 10^{-16}M_\odot$ and $8\times 10^{-11}M_\odot$ if PBHs fully account for the dark matter abundance. For Z' masses between 5 TeV and 100 TeV, and $\sim 3$ TeV right-handed neutrinos, helical magnetic fields can be produced with magnitudes $\sim 10^{-16}$-$10^{-13}$ G and coherence lengths $\sim 10^{-4}$-$10^{-2}$ Mpc, above current blazar lower bounds.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2025

Are there minimal exceptional aGUTs from stable 5D orbifolds?

In analysing five dimensional orbifolds with exceptional gauge groups, we seek to find stable vacua configurations which satisfy the minimal requirements for asymptotic grand unified models. In this respect we show that no minimal asymptotic grand unified theory can be built. Our results point towards non-minimal models based on $E_6$: one featuring supersymmetry, and the other needing a modification of the Coleman-Weinberg potential to stabilise the breaking of $E_6$ to the standard model gauge group.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2025

Supercooled phase transitions in conformal dark sectors explain NANOGrav data

According to recent lore, it is difficult to explain the evidence for a stochastic gravitational wave background obtained by pulsar timing arrays with supercooled first-order phase transitions (FOPTs). We demonstrate that supercooled FOPTs in dark U(1)' models with a conformal dark sector easily explain the nHz signal at NANOGrav.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2025

Gravitational waves from color restoration in a leptoquark model of radiative neutrino masses

We study the first-order phase transitions and the emerging stochastic gravitational wave spectrum in a minimal leptoquark extension of the Standard Model that explains active neutrino oscillation data while satisfying current flavor physics constraints. This model exhibits diverse phase transition patterns, including color symmetry-breaking scenarios in the early Universe. Strong correlations between model parameters and gravitational-wave signals yield testable predictions for future experiments such as LISA, BBO, and DECIGO. Specifically, a detectable signal in the mHz$\unicode{x2013}$0.1~Hz frequency range features color-restoration and leptoquark masses near $1.5~\mathrm{TeV}$. With this article, we also present the first application in the literature of \texttt{Dratopi}. This is a soon-to-be-released tool for phase transition analysis using the dimensional reduction formalism, that interfaces the \texttt{DRalgo} package with \texttt{Python} and a slightly modified version of \texttt{CosmoTransitions}.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

Gravitational waves from supercooled phase transitions in conformal Majoron models of neutrino mass

We study supercooled first-order phase transitions above the QCD scale in a wide class of conformal Majoron-like U(1)' models that explain the totality of active neutrino oscillation data and produce a detectable stochastic gravitational wave background (SGWB) at LIGO, LISA and ET. We place constraints on the U(1)' breaking scale and gauge coupling using current LIGO-Virgo-Kagra data. We find that strong supercooling can be ruled out in large regions of parameter space if a SGWB is not detected by these experiments. A null signal at LIGO and ET will disfavor a type-I seesaw scale above $10^{14}$ GeV, while a positive signal is a signature of heavy right-handed neutrinos. On the other hand, LISA will be sensitive to seesaw scales as low as a TeV, and could detect a SGWB even if the right-handed neutrinos are decoupled.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

Glueball Axion-Like Particles

Dark Yang-Mills sectors that confine to form stable composite states, known as glueballs, have been traditionally proposed as a potential explanation for cosmological Dark Matter (DM). Earlier studies have established viability of the lightest scalar glueball as a possible DM candidate. In this work, we explore a whole class of effective composite sectors in the confined Yang-Mills regime featuring an additional pseudoscalar glueball state. We also investigate the role of effective interactions of the dark glueball sector with the visible sectors via higher-dimensional operators primarily focusing on dimension-8 couplings of glueballs to photons and gluons. We stress the remarkable similarities between the phenomenology of such glueball effective theories and Standard Model extensions featuring Axion-Like Particles (ALPs). Hence, one deals with a new class of composite Glueball ALPs (or GALPs) coupled to photons and/or nucleons in a wide mass range, from sub-eV to the Planck scale, yielding viable DM candidates that can be probed by astrophysical and cosmological observations.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

Invisible Higgs decay from dark matter freeze-in at stronger coupling

We study the Higgs boson decay into dark matter (DM) in the framework of freeze-in at stronger coupling. Even though the Higgs-DM coupling is significant, up to order one, DM does not thermalize due to the Boltzmann suppression of its production at low temperatures. We find that this mechanism leads to observable Higgs decay into invisible final states with the branching fraction of 10% and below, while producing the correct DM relic abundance. This applies to the DM masses down to the MeV scale, which requires a careful treatment of the hadronic production modes. For DM masses below the muon threshold, the Boltzmann suppression is not operative and the freeze-in nature of the production mechanism is instead guaranteed by the smallness of the electron Yukawa coupling. As a result, MeV DM with a significant coupling to the Higgs boson remains non-thermal as long as the reheating temperature does not exceed $\mathcal{O}(100)\;$MeV. Our findings indicate that there are good prospects for observing light non-thermal DM via invisible Higgs decay at the LHC and FCC.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

General vacuum stability of orbifold gauge breaking and application to asymptotic grand unification

We examine the vacuum stability of gauge symmetry breaking in five dimensions, compactified on the $S_1/(\mathbb{Z}_2 \times \mathbb{Z}'_2)$ orbifold. We consider $SU(N)$, $Sp(N)$, $SO(2N)$ and $SO(2N+1)$ theories in the bulk, and provide an exhaustive classification of possible parity assignments that lead to stable orbifolds and of the corresponding symmetry breaking patterns. We use these results in the search for viable asymptotic grand unification theories (aGUT), testing the stability criteria on models based on $SU(6)$ and $SU(8)$. As a result, we identify two viable aGUTs: a unique $SU(6)$ pathway down to the Standard Model, and one $SU(8)$ model leading to an intermediate Pati-Salam partial unification.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2024

A geometric phase approach to quark confinement from stochastic gauge-geometry flows

We apply a stochastic version of the geometric (Ricci) flow, complemented with the stochastic flow of the gauge Yang--Mills sector, in order to seed the chromo-magnetic and chromo-electric vortices that source the area-law for QCD confinement. The area-law is the key signature of quark confinement in Yang--Mills gauge theories with a non-trivial center symmetry. In particular, chromo-magnetic vortices enclosed within the chromo-electric Wilson loops instantiate the area-law asymptotic behaviour of the Wilson loop vacuum expectation values. The stochastic gauge-geometry flow is responsible for the topology changes that induce the appearance of the vortices. When vortices vanish, due to topology changes in the manifolds associated to the hadronic ground states, the evaluation of the Wilson loop yields a dependence on the length of the path, hence reproducing the perimeter law of the hadronic (Higgs) phase of real QCD. Confinement, instead, is naturally achieved within this context as a by-product of the topology change of the manifold over which the dynamics of the Yang--Mills fields is defined. It is then provided by the Aharonov--Bohm effect induced by the concatenation of the compact chromo-electric and chromo-magnetic fluxes originated by the topology changes. The stochastic gauge-geometry flow naturally accomplishes a treatment of the emergence of the vortices and the generation of turbulence effects. Braiding and knotting, resulting from topology changes, namely stochastic fluctuations, stabilize the chromo-magnetic vortices. Finally, we observe that dimensional transmutation for the Yang-Mills fields can be derived from the scaling property of the geometric part of the stochastic flow. Specifically, a relation that involves the infrared equilibrium limit of the Planck constant can be derived that yields the correct order of magnitude for $\Lambda_{\rm QCD}$.

hep-th↗