arXiv subjects

Shao-Feng Ge

Publications and source records attributed to Shao-Feng Ge.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2022

Solar Active-Sterile Neutrino Conversion with Atomic Effects at Dark Matter Direct Detection Experiments

The recent XENON1T excess can be explained by the solar active-sterile neutrino conversion with bound electrons via light mediator. Nevertheless, the atomic effects are usually omitted in the solar neutrino explanations. We systematically establish a second quantization formalism for both bound and ionized electrons to account for the atomic effects. This formalism is of great generality to incorporate various interactions for both neutrino and dark matter scatterings. Our calculation shows that the change in the cross section due to atomic effects can have important impact on the differential cross section. It is necessary to include atomic effects in the low-energy electron recoil signal at dark matter direct detection experiments even for energetic solar neutrinos. With the best-fit values to the XENON1T data, we also project the event rate at PandaX-4T, XENONnT, and LZ experiments.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Hadron Collider Probes of the Quartic Couplings of Gluons to the Photon and $Z$ Boson

We explore the experimental sensitivities of measuring the $gg \rightarrow Z γ$ process at the LHC to the dimension-8 quartic couplings of gluon pairs to the $Z$ boson and photon, in addition to comparing them with the analogous sensitivities in the $gg \to γγ$ process. These processes can both receive contributions from 4 different CP-conserving dimension-8 operators with distinct Lorentz structures that contain a pair of gluon field strengths, $\hat G^a_{μν}$, and a pair of electroweak SU(2) gauge field strengths, $W^i_{μν}$, as well as 4 similar operators containing a pair of $\hat G^a_{μν}$ and a pair of U(1) gauge field strengths, $B_{μν}$. We calculate the scattering angular distributions for $gg \rightarrow Z γ$ and the $Z \to \bar f f$ decay angular distributions for these 4 Lorentz structures, as well as the Standard Model background. We analyze the sensitivity of ATLAS measurements of the $Z(\to \ell^+\ell^-, \bar νν, \bar q q)γ$ final states with integrated luminosities up to 139 fb$^{-1}$ at $\sqrt{s} = 13$ TeV, showing that they exclude values $\lesssim 2$ TeV for the dimension-8 operator scales, and compare the $Z γ$ sensitivity with that of an ATLAS measurement of the $γγ$ final state. We present combined $Z γ$ and $γγ$ constraints on the scales of dimension-8 SMEFT operators and $γγ$ constraints on the nonlinearity scale of the Born-Infeld extension of the Standard Model. We also estimate the sensitivities to dimension-8 operators of experiments at possible future proton-proton colliders with centre-of-mass energies of 25, 50 and 100 TeV, and discuss possible measurements of the $Z$ spin and angular correlations.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Probing Light Mediators in the Radiative Emission of Neutrino Pair

We propose a new possibility of using the coherently enhanced neutrino pair emission to probe light-mediator interactions between electron and neutrinos. With typical momentum transfer at the atomic $\mathcal O(1$\,eV) scale, this process is extremely sensitive for the mediator mass range $\mathcal O(10^{-3} \sim 10^4$) eV. The sensitivity on the product of couplings with electron ($g^e$ or $y^e$) and neutrinos ($g^ν$ or $y^ν$) can touch down to $|y^e y^ν| < 10^{-9} \sim 10^{-19}$ for a scalar mediator and $|g^e g^ν| < 10^{-15} \sim 10^{-26}$ for a vector one, with orders of improvement from the existing constraints.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2022

Revisiting the Fermionic Dark Matter Absorption on Electron Target

We perform a systematic study of the fermionic DM absorption interactions on electron target in the context of effective field theory. The fermionic DM absorption is not just sensitive to sub-MeV DM with efficient energy release, but also gives a unique signature with clear peak in the electron recoil spectrum whose shape is largely determined by the atomic effects. Fitting with the Xenon1T and PandaX-II data prefers DM mass at $m_χ= 59$keV and 105keV, respectively, while the cut-off scale is probed up to around 1TeV. The DM overproduction in the early Universe, the invisible decay effect on the cosmological evolution, and the astrophysical X(gamma)-ray from the DM visible decays are thoroughly explored to give up-to-date constraints. With stringent bounds on the tensor and pseudo-scalar operators, the other fermionic DM operators are of particular interest at tonne-scale direct detection experiments such as PandaX-4T, XENONnT, and LZ.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

Probing the Dark Axion Portal with Muon Anomalous Magnetic Moment

We propose a new scenario of using the dark axion portal at one-loop level to explain the recently observed muon anomalous magnetic moment by the Fermilab Muon g-2 experiment. Both axion/axion-like particle (ALP) and dark photon are involved in the same vertex with photon. Although ALP or dark photon alone cannot explain muon $g-2$, since the former provides only negative contribution while the latter has very much constrained parameter space, dark axion portal can save the situation and significantly extend the allowed parameter space. The observed muon anomalous magnetic moment provides a robust probe of the dark axion portal scenario.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2021

Diurnal Effect of Sub-GeV Dark Matter Boosted by Cosmic Rays

We point out a new type of diurnal effect for the cosmic ray boosted dark matter (DM). The DM-nucleon interactions not only allow the direct detection of DM with nuclear recoils, but also allow cosmic rays to scatter with and boost the nonrelativistic DM to higher energies. If the DM-nuclei scattering cross sections are sufficiently large, the DM flux is attenuated as it propagates through the Earth, leading to a strong diurnal modulation. This diurnal modulation provides another prominent signature for the direct detection of boosted sub-GeV DM, in addition to signals with higher recoil energy.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

CP-violating Higgs Di-tau Decays: Baryogenesis and Higgs Factories

We demonstrate how probes of CP-violating observables in Higgs di-tau decays at prospective future lepton colliders could provide a test of weak scale baryogenesis with significant discovery potential. Measurements at the Circular Electron Positron Collider, for example, could exclude a CP phase larger than $2.9^\circ$ ($5.6^\circ$) at 68% (95%) C.L. assuming the Standard Model value for magnitude of the tau lepton Yukawa coupling. Conversely, this sensitivity would allow for a $5\,σ$ discovery for 82% of the CP phase range $[0,2π)$. The reaches of the Future Circular Collider - ee and International Linear Collider are comparable. As a consequence, future lepton colliders could establish the presence of CP violation required by lepton flavored electroweak baryogenesis with at least $3\,σ$ sensitivity. Our results illustrate that Higgs factories are not just precision machines but can also make $\mathcal O(1)$ measurement of the new physics beyond the Standard Model.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Parity Violation and Chiral Oscillation of Cosmological Relic Neutrinos

The conventional derivation of neutrino oscillation treats neutrino mass eigenstate as plane wave with an overall evolution phase. Nevertheless, due to the intrinsic parity-violating nature of weak interactions, only the left-chiral neutrino can be produced as initial condition. On the other hand, the neutrino mass term connects the left-chiral component to the right-chiral one and unavoidably leads to generation of the later through oscillation. This chiral oscillation has significant consequences on the detection of the cosmological relic neutrinos. The event rate is reduced by a factor of 2 than the conventional prediction.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Supernova-scope for the Direct Search of Supernova Axions

If a supernova explosion occurs within a few hundred parsecs from the Earth, a huge number of axions, in addition to neutrinos, may arrive at the Earth. In this paper, we discuss in detail the prospect of detecting those supernova axions by an axion helioscope. With the help of a pre-supernova neutrino alert system, it is possible to point a helioscope at an exploding supernova in advance. The supernova axions can then be detected by a gamma-ray detector installed at the end of the helioscope. We call such a detection system an axion supernova-scope (SNscope). We propose a conceptual design for an axion SNscope, where the gamma-ray detector is installed at the opposite end to the X-ray detector for the solar axion. It still functions as an axion helioscope during the normal operation time, and once a pre-SN neutrino alert is received, the scope is temporarily turned around and targeted to a SN candidate, waiting for the supernova axions. We estimate the sensitivity of supernova axion detection and find that SNscopes based on the next-generation axion helioscopes, such as IAXO, have potential to explore the invisible axions and to test the axion interpretation of stellar cooling anomalies.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Probing Flavor Structure of Cosmic Ray $e^\mp$ Spectrum and Implications for Dark Matter Indirect Searches

Measuring high energy cosmic ray electrons/positrons (CRE) provides important means for the dark matter (DM) indirect detection and for probing the nearby galactic sources. In this work, we perform a systematic analysis of the flavor structure of DM annihilations into charged leptons based on the cosmic ray CRE spectra measured by DAMPE, Fermi-LAT, AMS-02, and CALET experiments. We study the annihilations of possible TeV scale DM particles in a nearby subhalo, which is proposed to explain the possible peak-like structure of the DAMPE CRE data. We pay special attention to the possible non-resonant excess (besides the possible peak-like structure) and demonstrate that such non-resonant excess can mainly arise from the decay of muons produced by the DM annihilations in the subhalo. With these we study the flavor composition of the lepton final states from DM annihilations $χχ\to e^+e^-, μ^+μ^-, τ^+τ^-$ by fitting the CRE data. We demonstrate that decays of the final states $μ^+ μ^-$ and $τ^+ τ^-$ can provide the non-resonant excess, while the peak excess arises from the $e^+ e^-$ final state. We further analyze the constraints on the lepton flavor composition using the Fermi-LAT $γ$-ray measurements. We find that the flavor composition is consistent with the Fermi-LAT data at relatively low Galactic latitudes, while the fraction of the final state $τ^\pm$ is severely bounded.

astro-ph.HE↗

arXiv2020

Phenomenological Advantages of the Normal Neutrino Mass Ordering

The preference of the normal neutrino mass ordering from the recent cosmological constraint and the global fit of neutrino oscillation experiments does not seem like a wise choice at first glance since it obscures the neutrinoless double beta decay and hence the Majorana nature of neutrinos. Contrary to this naive expectation, we point out that the actual situation is the opposite. The normal neutrino mass ordering opens the possibility of excluding the higher solar octant and simultaneously measuring the two Majorana CP phases in future $0\nu2β$ experiments. Especially, the funnel region will completely disappear if the solar mixing angle takes the higher octant. The combined precision measurement by the JUNO and Daya Bay experiments can significantly reduce the uncertainty in excluding the higher octant. With a typical $\mathcal O(\mbox{meV})$ sensitivity on the effective mass $|m_{ee}^{}|$, the neutrinoless double beta decay experiment can tell if the funnel region really exists and hence exclude the higher solar octant. With the sensitivity further improved to sub-meV, the two Majorana CP phases can be simultaneously determined. Thus, the normal neutrino mass ordering clearly shows phenomenological advantages over the inverted one.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Solar Neutrino Scattering with Electron into Massive Sterile Neutrino

The recent Xenon1T excess can be explained by solar neutrino scattering with electron via a light mediator, either scalar or vector, in addition to many other explanations from the dark sector. Since only the recoil electron is observable, a keV sterile neutrino instead of an active neutrino can appear in the final state. The sterile neutrino allows pseudoscalar mediator to explain the Xenon1T excess which was thought impossible. In addition, nonzero recoil energy lower bound arises from the sterile neutrino mass, which can be used to testify if the sterile neutrino is massive or not. We also briefly discuss the case of a sterile neutrino final state with light $Z'$ mediator.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2020

Probing the Scale of New Physics in the $ZZγ$ Coupling at $e^+e^-$ Colliders

The $ZZγ$ triple neutral gauge couplings are absent in the Standard Model (SM) at the tree level. They receive no contributions from dimension-6 effective operators, but can arise from effective operators of dimension-8. We study the scale of new physics associated with such dimension-8 operators that can be probed by measuring the reaction $e^+e^-\to Zγ$, followed by $Z \to \ell\bar{\ell},ν\barν$ decays, at future $e^+e^-$ colliders including the ILC, CEPC, FCC-ee and CLIC. We demonstrate how angular distributions of the final state mono-photon and leptons can play a key role in suppressing SM backgrounds. We further show that using electron/positron beam polarizations can significantly improve the signal sensitivities. We find that the dimension-8 new physics scale can be probed up to the multi-TeV region at such lepton colliders.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Broken Democracy with Intermediate $\mathbb S_2 \times \mathbb S_2$ Residual Symmetry and Random Perturbations

The democratic mass matrix is an intriguing possibility for explaining the observed fermion mixings due to its inherent hierarchical mass eigenvalues and large mixing angles. Nevertheless, two of the three mass eigenvalues are zero if the flavor democracy is exact, in obvious contradiction with the experimental observations. One possibility is breaking the flavor democracy with anarchical perturbations as we proposed in an earlier work. However, even within the first two generations, the charged fermion masses are also hierarchical which may not be a coincidence. The democratic $\mathbb S^L_3 \times \mathbb S^R_3$ symmetry of the three generations may first be broken down to an intermediate $\mathbb S^L_2 \times \mathbb S^R_2$ symmetry among the first two generations to regulate the sequential hierarchies, followed by random perturbations, that generate the correct size of all measured observables. Unique predictions for neutrinoless double beta decay are also found.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Scalar Non-Standard Interactions in Neutrino Oscillation

The scalar nonstandard interactions (NSI) can also introduce matter effect for neutrino oscillation in a medium. Especially the recent Borexino data prefers nonzero scalar NSI, $η_{ee} = - 0.16$. In contrast to the conventional vector NSI, the scalar type contributes as a correction to the neutrino mass matrix rather than the matter potential. Consequently, the scalar matter effect is energy independent while the vector one scales linearly with neutrino energy. This leads to significantly different phenomenological consequences in reactor, solar, atmospheric, and accelerator neutrino oscillations. A synergy of different types of experiments, especially those with matter density variation, is necessary to identify the scalar NSI and guarantee the measurement of CP violation at accelerator experiments.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Apparent CPT Violation in Neutrino Oscillation from Dark Non-Standard Interactions

A natural realization of CPT violation in neutrino oscillation can arise due to the coupling to a light scalar or vector dark matter (DM). The dark non-standard interaction (NSI) is associated with the $γ_0$ matrix in neutrino's effective propagator and hence corrects the neutrino Hamiltonian as dark matter potential, in the same way as the ordinary matter effect. The effect is, however, inversely proportional to the neutrino energy and hence appears as a correction to the neutrino mass squared. Due to a sign difference in the corrections for neutrino and anti-neutrino modes, the neutrino oscillation receives CPT violation from the dark NSI. Seeing difference in the neutrino and anti-neutrino mass squared differences not necessarily leads to the conclusion of CPT symmetry breaking in the fundamental Lagrangian but can indicate light DM and its coupling with neutrinos.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2019

Precision Higgs Physics at CEPC

The discovery of the Higgs boson with its mass around 125 GeV by the ATLAS and CMS Collaborations marked the beginning of a new era in high energy physics. The Higgs boson will be the subject of extensive studies of the ongoing LHC program. At the same time, lepton collider based Higgs factories have been proposed as a possible next step beyond the LHC, with its main goal to precisely measure the properties of the Higgs boson and probe potential new physics associated with the Higgs boson. The Circular Electron Positron Collider~(CEPC) is one of such proposed Higgs factories. The CEPC is an $e^+e^-$ circular collider proposed by and to be hosted in China. Located in a tunnel of approximately 100~km in circumference, it will operate at a center-of-mass energy of 240~GeV as the Higgs factory. In this paper, we present the first estimates on the precision of the Higgs boson property measurements achievable at the CEPC and discuss implications of these measurements.

hep-ex↗

arXiv2018

Constraining Photon Portal Dark Matter with Texono and Coherent Data

Dark matter may reside in sector without Standard Model (SM) gauge interactions. One way in which such a dark sector can still impact SM particles through non-gravitational interactions is via the "photon portal" in which a dark photon kinetically mixes with the ordinary SM photon. We study the implications of this setup for electron recoil events at TEXONO reactor and nuclear recoil events at the COHERENT experiment. We find that the recent COHERENT data rules out previously allowed regions of parameter space favored by the thermal relic hypothesis for the DM abundance. When mapped onto the DM-electron cross section, we find that COHERENT provides the leading direct constraints for DM masses < 30 MeV.

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