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Sacha Davidson

Publications and source records attributed to Sacha Davidson.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources
arXiv2017

Renormalisation-group improved analysis of $μ\to e$ processes in a systematic effective-field-theory approach

In this article, a complete analysis of the three muonic lepton-flavour violating processes $μ\to e γ$, $μ\to 3e$ and coherent nuclear $μ\to e$ conversion is performed in the framework of an effective theory with dimension six operators defined below the electroweak symmetry breaking scale $m_W$. The renormalisation-group evolution of the Wilson coefficients between $m_W$ and the experimental scale is fully taken into account at the leading order in QCD and QED, and explicit analytic and numerical evolution matrices are given. As a result, muonic decay and conversion rates are interpreted as functions of the Wilson coefficients at any scale up to $m_W$. Taking the experimental limits on these processes as input, the phenomenology of the mixing effects is investigated. It is found that a considerable set of Wilson coefficients unbounded in the simplistic tree-level approach are instead severely constrained. In addition, correlations among operators are studied both in the light of current data and future experimental prospects.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2016

Mu to e gamma and matching at mW

Several experiments search for μ- e flavour change, for instance in μ->e conversion, μ-> e γ, and μ-> 3e. This paper studies how to translate these experimental constraints from low energy to a New Physics scale M >> mW. A basis of QCD and QED-invariant operators (as appropriate below mW) is constructed, then run to mW with one-loop RGEs of QCD and QED. At mW, these operators are matched onto SU(2)-invariant dimension-six operators, which can continue to run up with electroweak RGEs. As an example, the μ-> e γbound is translated to the scale M, where it constrains two sums of operators. The constraints differ from those obtained in previous EFT analyses of μ-> e γ, but reproduce the expected bounds on flavour-changing interactions of the Z and the Higgs, because the matching at mW is pragmatically performed to the loop order required to get the "leading" contribution.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2016

Mu to e gamma in the 2 Higgs Doublet Model: an exercise in EFT

The 2 Higgs Doublet Model (2HDM) of type III has renormalisable Lepton Flavour-Violating couplings, and its one and two-loop ("Barr-Zee") contributions to $μ\to e γ$ are known. In the decoupling limit, where the mass scale M of the second doublet is much greater than the electroweak scale, the model can be parametrised with an Effective Field Theory(EFT) containing dimension six operators. The $1/M^2$ terms of the exact calculation are reproduced in the EFT, provided that the four-fermion operator basis below the weak scale is enlarged with respect to the SU(2)-invariant Buchmuller-Wyler list. The two-loop "Barr-Zee" contributions are located in the EFT, showing that two-loop matching and running would be required to obtain the most important contributions, and that dimension eight operators can be numerically relevant.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2016

Rotating Drops of Axion Dark Matter

We consider how QCD axions produced by the misalignment mechanism could form galactic dark matter halos. We recall that stationary, gravitationally stable axion field configurations have the size of an asteroid with masses of order $10^{-13} $ solar masses (because gradient pressure is insufficient to support a larger object). We call such field configurations "drops". We explore whether rotating drops could be larger, and find that their mass could increase by a factor ~ 10. Remarkably this mass is comparable to the mass of miniclusters generated from misalignment axions in the scenario where the axion is born after inflation. We speculate that misalignment axions today are in the form of drops, contributing to dark matter like a distribution of asteroids (and not as a coherent oscillating background field). We consider some observational signatures of the drops, which seem consistent with a galactic halo made of axion dark matter.

astro-ph.CO↗
arXiv2015

Lepton Flavour Violating top decays at the LHC

We consider lepton flavour violating decays of the top quark, mediated by four-fermion operators. We compile constraints on a complete set of SU(3)*U(1)-invariant operators, arising from their loop contributions to rare decays and from HERA's single top search. The bounds on e-mu flavour change are more restrictive than l-tau; nonetheless the top could decay to a jet $+ e \barμ$ with a branching ratio of order $10^{-3}$. We estimate that the currently available LHC data (20 inverse-fb at 8 TeV) could be sensitive to $BR(t \to e \barμ$+ jet) $ \sim 6\times 10^{-5}$, and extrapolate that 100 inverse-fb at 13 TeV could reach a sensitivity of $ \sim 1 \times 10^{-5}$.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2015

A facility to Search for Hidden Particles at the CERN SPS: the SHiP physics case

This paper describes the physics case for a new fixed target facility at CERN SPS. The SHiP (Search for Hidden Particles) experiment is intended to hunt for new physics in the largely unexplored domain of very weakly interacting particles with masses below the Fermi scale, inaccessible to the LHC experiments, and to study tau neutrino physics. The same proton beam setup can be used later to look for decays of tau-leptons with lepton flavour number non-conservation, $τ\to 3μ$ and to search for weakly-interacting sub-GeV dark matter candidates. We discuss the evidence for physics beyond the Standard Model and describe interactions between new particles and four different portals - scalars, vectors, fermions or axion-like particles. We discuss motivations for different models, manifesting themselves via these interactions, and how they can be probed with the SHiP experiment and present several case studies. The prospects to search for relatively light SUSY and composite particles at SHiP are also discussed. We demonstrate that the SHiP experiment has a unique potential to discover new physics and can directly probe a number of solutions of beyond the Standard Model puzzles, such as neutrino masses, baryon asymmetry of the Universe, dark matter, and inflation

hep-ph↗
arXiv2014

Axions: Bose Einstein Condensate or Classical Field?

The axion is a motivated dark matter candidate, so it would be interesting to find features in Large Scale Structures specific to axion dark matter. Such features were proposed for a Bose Einstein condensate of axions, leading to confusion in the literature (to which I contributed) about whether axions condense due to their gravitational interactions. This note argues that the Bose Einstein condensation of axions is a red herring: the axion dark matter produced by the misalignment mechanism is already a classical field, which has the distinctive features attributed to the axion condensate (BE condensates are described as classical fields). This note also estimates that the rate at which axion particles condense to the field, or the field evaporates to particles, is negligeable.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2014

Including the Z in an Effective Field Theory for dark matter at the LHC

An Effective Field Theory for dark matter at a TeV-scale hadron collider should include contact interactions of dark matter with the partons, the Higgs and the Z. This note estimates the impact of including dark matter-Z interactions on the complementarity of spin dependent direct detection and LHC monojet searches for dark matter. Their effect is small, because they are suppressed by electroweak couplings and the contact interaction self-consistency condition $C/Λ^2 < 4π/\hat{s}$. In this note, the contact interactions between the Z and dark matter are parametrised by derivative operators; this is convenient at colliders because such interactions do not match onto the quark-dark matter contact interactions.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2014

Of Contact Interactions and Colliders

The hierarchy of scales which would allow dimension-six contact interactions to parametrise New Physics may not be verified at colliders. Instead, we explore the feasability and usefulness of parametrising the high-energy tail of distributions at the LHC using form factors. We focus on the process pp -> l+l- in the presence of t (or s)-channel New Physics, guess a form factor from the partonic cross-section, and attempt to use data to constrain its coefficients, and the coefficients to constrain models. We find that our choice of form factor decribes t-channel exchange better than a contact interaction, and the coefficients in a particular model can be obtained from the partonic cross-section. We estimate bounds on the coefficients by fitting the form factors to available data. For the parametrisation corresponding to the contact interaction approximation, our expected bounds on the scale $Λ$ are within ~ 15% of the latest limits from the LHC experiments.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2014

Estimated constraints on t-channel Leptoquark exchange from LHC contact interaction searches

The t-channel exchange of a first generation leptoquark could contribute to the cross-section for q q-bar to e+e-. The leptoquark is off-shell, so this process can be sensitive to leptoquarks beyond the mass reach of pair production searches at the LHC (currently m_{LQ}> 830 GeV). We attempt to analytically translate ATLAS bounds on $ (\bar{q} γ^μq) (\bar{e} γ_μe) $ contact interactions to the various scalar leptoquarks, and obtain a bound on their quark-lepton coupling of order $λ^2 \leq (m_{LQ}/2$ TeV)$^2$. The greatest difficulty in this translation is that the leptoquarks do not induce the contact interaction studied by ATLAS, so the interference with the Standard Model is different. If bounds were quoted on the functional dependance of the cross-section on s-hat, rather than on particular contact interaction models, this difficulty in applying experimental bounds to theoretical models could be circumvented.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2013

Bose Einstein condensation of the classical axion field in cosmology?

The axion is a motivated cold dark matter candidate, which it would be interesting to distinguish from weakly interacting massive particles. Sikivie has suggested that axions could behave differently during non-linear galaxy evolution, if they form a Bose-Einstein condensate, and argues that ``gravitational thermalisation'' drives them to a Bose-Einstein condensate during the radiation dominated era. Using classical equations of motion during linear structure formation, we explore whether the gravitational interactions of axions can generate entropy. At linear order in Newton's constant, we interpret that the principle activities of gravity are to expand the Universe and grow density fluctuations. To quantify the rate of entropy creation we use the anisotropic stress to estimate a short dissipation scale for axions, which does not confirm previous estimates of their gravitational thermalisation rate.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2013

Constraining flavoured contact interactions at the LHC

Contact interactions are the low-energy footprints of New Physics, so ideally, constraints upon them should be as generic and model independent as possible. Hadron colliders search for four-quark contact interactions with incident valence quarks, and the LHC currently sets limits on a flavour sum (over uu,dd and ud) of selected interactions. We approximately translate these bounds to a more complete (and larger) set of dimension-six interactions of specified flavours. These estimates are obtained at the parton level, are mostly analytic and are less restrictive than the experimental bounds on flavour-summed interactions. The estimates may scale in a simple way to higher energy and luminosity.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2013

Baryogenesis through split Higgsogenesis

We study the cosmological evolution of asymmetries in the two-Higgs doublet extension of the Standard Model, prior to the electroweak phase transition. If Higgs flavour-exchanging interactions are sufficiently slow, then a relative asymmetry among the Higgs doublets corresponds to an effectively conserved quantum number. Since the magnitude of the Higgs couplings depends on the choice of basis in the Higgs doublet space, we attempt to formulate basis-independent out-of-equilibrium conditions. We show that an initial asymmetry between the Higgs scalars, which could be generated by CP violation in the Higgs sector, will be transformed into a baryon asymmetry by the sphalerons, without the need of $B-L$ violation. This novel mechanism of baryogenesis through (split) Higgsogenesis is exemplified with simple scenarios based on the out-of-equilibrium decay of heavy singlet scalar fields into the Higgs doublets.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2012

LHC sensitivity to the decay of a Higgs boson to tau mu

We study the sensitivity of the LHC, with 20 inverse-fb of data, to lepton flavour violating Higgs boson decays h -> tau+ mu- (and h -> tau+ e-). We consider the large population of Higgses produced in gluon fusion, combined with leptonic decays of the tau, and estimate that the LHC could set a 95 % confidence level bound BR(h -> tau mu) < 4.5 \times 10^{-3}. This correponds to a coupling of order the Cheng-Sher ansatz y_{tau mu} = sqrt{m_tau m_mu/v^2}.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2012

LHC sensitivity to lepton flavour violating Z boson decays

We estimate that the LHC could set bounds BR(Z -> mu^\pm e^\mp) < 4.1 * 10^{-7} and BR(Z -> tau^\pm mu^\mp)< 3.5 * 10^{-6} (at 95% C.L.) with 20 inverse fb of data at 8 TeV. A similar sensitivity can be anticipated for Z -> tau^\pm e^\mp, because we consider leptonic tau decays such that Z -> tau^+ mu^- gives e^+ μ^- +$ invisibles. These limits can be compared to the LEP1 bounds of order 10^{-5} to 10^{-6}. Such collider searches are sensitive to a flavour-changing effective Z coupling which is energy dependent, so are complementary to bounds obtained from tau to 3mu and mu to 3e.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2012

Similar Dark Matter and Baryon abundances with TeV-scale Leptogenesis

We estimate the Baryon Asymmetry of the Universe (BAU) produced in an inverse seesaw model containing extra light singlets, and with lepton number conservation prior to the electroweak phase transition. An order one CP asymmetry epsilon is required to obtain a large enough BAU. We discuss the relation between the baryon and WIMP relic densities in baryogenesis scenarios using the out-of-equilibrium decay of a baryon-parent of mass M: when baryon number violation freezes out, the remaining density of baryon-parents is of order M/m_W times the WIMP relic density. So the baryon/WIMP ratio is or order epsilon M/m_W. A natural explanation of the similar WIMP and baryon densities could be that CP violation is of order the ratio m_W/M.

hep-ph↗
arXiv2012

Learning about flavour structure from tau to ell gamma and mu to e gamma?

Current and upcoming experiments should improve the sensitivity to radiative lepton decays by an order of magnitude. This paper assumes that one of the tau --> (e, mu) gamma decays is observed, and explores the structure and consequences of the required new flavoured couplings. In simple models (a low-scale seesaw, leptoquarks) it is shown that the dipole vertex function is proportional to a product of flavoured matrices from the Lagrangian (a "Jarlskog-like" invariant), provided that the loop particles are weakly coupled to the Higgs. Secondly, if the dipole vertex function has a hierarchical structure, this can imply that only some of the tau --> (e, mu) gamma modes can be observed, due to the "approximate zero" implied by the bound on mu --> e gamma. The assumptions underlying this potential test of a hierarchical structure are discussed.

hep-ph↗