arXiv subjects

Sacha Davidson

Publications and source records attributed to Sacha Davidson.

At least 19 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Renormalisation and invariants for two U(1)s

We revisit the renormalisation of models with two U(1) gauge symmetries, in a formulation with non-canonical gauge kinetic terms which is covariant under field reparametrisations among the two gauge bosons. This approach is convenient to study the appearance of kinetic mixing in scale evolution, because a coupling matrix is attributed to the gauge kinetic terms. We obtain simple MSbar renormalisation group equations up to two-loop, which can be solved to give effective millicharges at low energy which depend on the running couplings and heavy mass scales of the model. This formulation allows to construct ``invariants'' out of running Lagrangian parameters, which are invariant under generic gauge field reparametrisations, including rescalings, and which can be related directly to observables such as the millicharge.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2025

Left-Handed Physics is not right for EDMs

Heavy New Physics models with lepton flavour-changing interactions are motivated by neutrino masses, and generically induce dipole interactions for leptons, which can be flavour-changing ($l_j\to l_i \gamma$) or flavour-diagonal (magnetic and electric dipole moments(edms)). We focus on models with complex couplings, and where the singlet Standard Model leptons ($\{e_R^i\}$) do not interact with the New Physics. In such models, edms are calculated to arise at two loops, despite that complex amplitudes for $l_j\to l_i \gamma$ appear at one loop. We explore whether the extra loop suppression of edms survives flavour basis rotations that could be induced by flavour-changing NP contributions to the charged lepton mass matrix. We show that one-loop edms vanish in both the mass and Yukawa eigenstate bases.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2025

Letter Of Intent for a future $\mu^+ \to \mathrm{e}^+ \gamma$ experiment at the High Intensity Muon Beam facility at PSI

Searches for charged lepton flavor violation in the muon sector stand out among the most sensitive and clean probes for physics beyond the Standard Model. Currently, $\mu^+ \to \mathrm{e}^+ \gamma$ experiments provide the best constraints in this field for a wide range of models while, in the coming years, new experiments investigating the processes of $\mu^+ \to \mathrm{e}^+ \mathrm{e}^+ \mathrm{e}^-$ and $\mu \to \mathrm{e}$ conversion in the nuclear field are anticipated to reach comparable or higher sensitivities. The High-Intensity Muon Beam (HIMB) facility at PSI, which is expected to deliver muon beam intensities up to two orders of magnitude higher than the existing beam lines, offers a unique opportunity to significantly enhance the sensitivity of $\mu^+ \to \mathrm{e}^+ \gamma$ searches. The discovery potential could be substantially boosted and a sensitivity comparable to that of all the other projects could be reestablished, which is essential for discriminating among competing new-physics scenarios should an observation occur in any of the channels. In this document, we express our interest in developing a $\mu^+ \to \mathrm{e}^+ \gamma$ experimental program at HIMB, with the goal of improving, within the next decade, the sensitivity of the $\mu^+ \to \mathrm{e}^+ \gamma$ search by more than one order of magnitude relative to the expected final result of the current leading experiment, MEG II. This effort would ensure that PSI retains its leadership in this field.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2024

Constraining New Physics models from $\mu\to e$ observables in bottom-up EFT

Upcoming experiments will improve the sensitivity to $\mu\to e$ processes by several orders of magnitude, and could observe lepton flavour-changing contact interactions for the first time. In this paper, we investigate what could be learned about New Physics from the measurements of these $\mu\to e$ observables, using a bottom-up effective field theory (EFT) approach and focusing on three popular models with new particles around the TeV scale (the type II seesaw, the inverse seesaw and a scalar leptoquark). We showed in a previous publication that $\mu\to e$ observables have the ability to rule out these models because none can fill the whole experimentally accessible parameter space. In this work, we give more details on our EFT formalism and present more complete results. We discuss the impact of some observables complementary to $\mu\to e$ transitions (such as the neutrino mass scale and ordering, and LFV $\tau$ decays) and draw attention to the interesting appearance of Jarlskog-like invariants in our expressions for the low-energy Wilson coefficients.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2023

Distinguishing models with $\mu \to e $ observables

Upcoming experiments will improve the reach for the lepton flavour violating (LFV) processes $\mu \to e \gamma$, $\mu \to e \bar{e} e$ and $\mu A \to e A$ by orders of magnitude. We investigate whether this upcoming data could rule out some popular TeV-scale LFV models (the type II seesaw, the inverse seesaw and a scalar leptoquark) using a bottom-up EFT approach involving twelve Wilson coefficients that can in principle all be determined by experimental measurements. In this 12-dimensional coefficient space, each model can only predict points in a specific subspace; for instance, flavour change involving singlet electrons is suppressed in the seesaw models, and the leptoquark induces negligible coefficients for 4-lepton scalar operators. Using the fact that none of these models can populate the whole region accessible to upcoming experiments, we show that $\mu \to e$ experiments have the ability to rule them out.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Charged Lepton Flavor Violation

This reports summarizes the activities of the Charged Lepton Flavor Violation group of the 2022 Community Summer Study. Charged lepton flavor violating reactions provide unique information on the scale and dynamics of flavor generation, and more generally a wide range of New Physics scenarios, complementing direct searches performed at collider and neutrino physics experiments. These processes already probe mass scales up to thousands of TeV, and an observation would be an unambiguous signature of physics beyond the Standard Model. We review the current status and future experimental opportunities in muon, tau and heavy state transitions, with a focus on US-led initiatives.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2022

Reach and complementarity of $\mu\to e$ searches

In Effective Field Theory, we describe $\mu\leftrightarrow e$ flavour changing transitions using an operator basis motivated by experimental observables. In a six-dimensional subspace probed by $\mu \to e \gamma$, $\mu \to 3e$ and $\mu\to e$ conversion on nuclei, we derive constraints on the New Physics scale from past and future experiments, illustrating the complementarity of the processes in an intuitive way. We also recall that a precise determination of the scalar quark currents in the nucleon will be required to distinguish scalar $\mu\to e$ interactions on u-quarks from those on d-quarks.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

The sensitivity of $\mu\to e$ processes to $\tau$ flavour change

Transforming a $\mu$ to a $\tau$, then the $\tau$ to to an $e$, results in $\mu \to e$. In an EFT framework, we explore the sensitivity of $\mu\to e$ observables to products of $(\mu\to \tau)\times (\tau \to e)$ interactions, and show that the exceptional sensitivity of upcoming $\mu \to e$ experiments could allow to probe parameter space beyond the reach of upcoming $\tau \to l$ searches in Higgs, $\tau$ and $B$ decays. We describe the $\tau \to l$ interactions as dimension six operators in the SM EFT, identify pairs of them giving interesting contributions to $\mu \to e$ processes, and obtain the anomalous dimensions mixing those pairs into dimension eight $\mu\to e$ operators. We find that $\mu \to e$ processes are sensitive to $\tau$ flavour-changing $B$ decays at rates comparable to current $B$ anomalies, but cannot reduce rates -- as appropriate in many current $B$ anomalies -- because they do not interfere with the SM.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

What is Leading Order for LFV in SMEFT?

Upcoming searches for lepton flavour change (LFV) aim to probe New Physics(NP) scales up to $ \sim 10^4$ TeV, implying that they will be sensitive to NP at lower scales that is suppressed by loops or small couplings. We suppose that the NP responsable for LFV is beyond the reach of the LHC and can be parametrised in Effective Field Theory, introduce a small power-counting parameter \`a la Cabibbo-Wolfenstein, and assess whether the existing dimension six operator basis and one-loop RGEs provide a good approximation for LFV. We find that mu to e flavour-changing observables can be sensitive to a few dozen dimension eight operators, and to some effects of two-loop anomalous dimensions, for NP scales below 20-100 TeV. We also explore the effect of some simplifying assumptions in the one-loop RGEs, such as neglecting flavour-changing effects.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Completeness and Complementarity for $\mu \to e \gamma$, $\mu \to 3e$ and $\mu \to e$ conversion

Lepton Flavour Violation(LFV) is New Physics that must occur, but is stringently constrained by experiments searching for mu to e flavour change, such as $\mu \to e \gamma$, $\mu \to 3e$ and $\mu \to e$ conversion. However, in an Effective Field Theory(EFT) parametrisation, there are many more $\mu \leftrightarrow e$ operators than restrictive constraints, so determining operator coefficients from data is a remote dream. It is nonetheless interesting to learn about New Physics from data, so this manuscript introduces "observable-vectors" in the space of operator coefficients, which identify at any scale the combination of coefficients probed by the observable. These vectors have at least partpermil overlap with most of the coefficients, and are used to study whether $\mu \to e \gamma$, $\mu \to 3e$ and $\mu \to e$ conversion give complementary information about New Physics. The appendix gives updated sensitivities of these processes, (and a subset of LFV tau decays), to operator coefficients at the weak scale in the SMEFT and in the EFT below mW.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Probing $\mu e \gamma \gamma$ contact interactions with $\mu \to e$ conversion

Contact interactions of a muon, an electron and two photons can contribute to the decay $\mu \to e \gamma \gamma$, but also to the conversion of a muon into an electron in the electric field of a nucleus. We calculate the $\mu \to e$ conversion rate, and show that for the coefficients of operators involving the combination $FF \propto |\vec{E}|^2$ (as opposed to $F\tilde{F} \propto \vec{E} \cdot \vec{B}$), the current bound on $\mu \to e$ conversion is more sensitive than the bound on $\mu \to e \gamma \gamma$.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Charged lepton flavour change and Non-Standard neutrino Interactions

Non-Standard neutrino Interactions (NSI) are vector contact interactions involving two neutrinos and two first generation fermions, which can affect neutrino propagation in matter. SU(2) gauge invariance suggests that NSI should be accompanied by more observable charged lepton contact interactions. However, these can be avoided at tree level in various ways. We focus on lepton flavour-changing NSI, suppose they are generated by New Physics heavier than $m_W$ that does not induce (charged) Lepton Flavour Violation (LFV) at tree level, and show that LFV is generated at one loop in most cases. The current constraints on charged Lepton Flavour Violation therefore suggest that mu <---> e flavour-changing NSI are unobservable and tau <---> l flavour-changing NSI are an order of magnitude weaker than the weak interactions. This conclusion can be avoided if the heavy New Physics conspires to cancel the one-loop LFV, or if NSI are generated by light New Physics to which our analysis does not apply.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2018

Selecting mu -> e Conversion Targets to distinguish Lepton Flavour-Changing Operators

The experimental sensitivity to $\mu \to e$ conversion on nuclei is set to improve by four orders of magnitude in coming years. However, various operator coefficients add coherently in the amplitude for $\mu \to e$ conversion, weighted by nucleus-dependent functions, and therefore in the event of a detection, identifying the relevant new physics scenarios could be difficult. Using a representation of the nuclear targets as vectors in coefficient space, whose components are the weighting functions, we quantify the expectation that different nuclear targets could give different constraints.We show that all but two combinations of the 10 Spin-Independent (SI) coefficients could be constrained by future measurements, but discriminating among the axial, tensor and pseudoscalar operators that contribute to the Spin-Dependent (SD) process would require dedicated nuclear calculations. We anticipate that $\mu \to e$ conversion could constrain 10 to 14 combinations of coefficients; if $\mu \to e \gamma$ and $\mu \to 3e$ constrain eight more, that leaves 60 to 64 "flat directions" in the basis of QED$\times$QCD-invariant operators which describe $\mu \to e$ flavour change below $m_W$.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2018

Axion absorption and the spin temperature of primordial hydrogen

An absorption dip in the spectrum of the cosmic microwave background observed by the EDGES experiment suggests an unexplained reduction of the hydrogen spin temperature at cosmic redshift z ~ 17. The mass of dark-matter axions could correspond to the hyperfine splitting of 5.9 micro-eV, between the triplet (H1) and singlet (H0) state. We calculate the rate for a+ H0 <-> H1 in two ways, and find that it is orders of magnitude smaller than the CMB-mediated transition rate, so irrelevant. As a result, this process cannot be used to rule in or out dark matter axions of mass = hyperfine splitting. The axion rate nonetheless has interesting features, for example, on balance it heats the spin temperature, and the axion couplings to protons and electrons contribute on equal footing.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2018

Constraints on 2l2q operators from $\mu - e$ flavour-changing meson decays

We study lepton flavour violating two- and three-body decays of pseudoscalar mesons in Effective Field Theory (EFT). We give analytic formulae for the decay rates in the presence of a complete basis of QED and QCD-invariant operators. The constraints are obtained at the experimental scale, then translated to the weak scale via one-loop RGEs. The large RG-mixing between tensor and (pseudo)scalar operators weakens the constraints on scalar and pseudoscalar operators at the weak scale.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2018

Majorana Neutrino Masses in the RGEs for Lepton Flavour Violation

We suppose that the observed neutrino masses can be parametrised by a lepton number violating dimension-five operator, and calculate the mixing of double insertions of this operator into lepton flavour changing dimension-six operators of the standard model effective theory. This allows to predict the log-enhanced, but $m_\nu^2$-suppressed lepton flavour violation that is generic to high-scale Majorana neutrino mass models. We also consider the Two Higgs Doublet Model, where the second Higgs allows the construction of three additional dimension-five operators, and evaluate the corresponding anomalous dimensions. The sensitivity of current searches for lepton flavour violation to these additional Wilson coefficients is then examined.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Spin-dependent ${\mu \to e}$ Conversion on Light Nuclei

The experimental sensitivity to $\mu \to e$ conversion will improve by four or more orders of magnitude in coming years, making it interesting to consider the "spin-dependent" (SD) contribution to the rate. This process does not benefit from the atomic-number-squared enhancement of the spin-independent (SI) contribution, but probes different operators. We give details of our recent estimate of the spin dependent rate, expressed as a function of operator coefficients at the experimental scale, and explore the prospects for distinguishing coefficients by using different targets. For this purpose, a geometric representation of different targets as vectors in coefficient space is introduced. It is found that comparing the rate on isotopes with and without spin could allow to detect spin dependent coefficients that are at least a factor of few larger than the spin independent ones. Distinguishing among the axial, tensor and pseudoscalar operators that induce the SD rate would require calculating the nuclear matrix elements for the second two. Comparing the SD rate on nuclei with an odd proton vs odd neutron could allow to distinguish operators involving $u$ quarks from those involving $d$ quarks; this is interesting because the distinction is difficult to make for SI operators.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2017

Spin-dependent $\mu \to e$ conversion

The experimental sensitivity to $\mu \to e$ conversion on nuclei is expected to improve by four orders of magnitude in coming years. We consider the impact of $\mu \to e$ flavour-changing tensor and axial-vector four-fermion operators which couple to the spin of nucleons. Such operators, which have not previously been considered, contribute to $\mu \to e$ conversion in three ways: in nuclei with spin they mediate a spin-dependent transition; in all nuclei they contribute to the coherent ($A^2$-enhanced) spin-independent conversion via finite recoil effects and via loop mixing with dipole, scalar, and vector operators. We estimate the spin-dependent rate in Aluminium (the target of the upcoming COMET and Mu2e experiments), show that the loop effects give the greatest sensitivity to tensor and axial-vector operators involving first-generation quarks, and discuss the complementarity of the spin-dependent and independent contributions to $\mu \to e$ conversion

hep-ph↗