arXiv subjects

Stephen F. King

Publications and source records attributed to Stephen F. King.

At least 181 records · Page 10Linked to original sources

arXiv2014

A model of quark and lepton mixing

We propose a model of quark and lepton mixing based on the tetrahedral A(4) family symmetry with quark-lepton unification via the tetra-colour Pati-Salam gauge group SU(4)_{PS}, together with SU(2)_L x U(1)_R. The "tetra-model" solves many of the flavour puzzles and remarkably gives ten predictions at leading order, including all six PMNS parameters. The Cabibbo angle is approximately given by 1/4, due to the tetra-vacuum alignment (1,4,2), providing the Cabibbo connection between quark and lepton mixing. Higher order corrections are responsible for the smaller quark mixing angles and CP violation and provide corrections to the Cabibbo and lepton mixing angles and phases. The tetra-model involves an SO(10)-like pattern of Dirac and heavy right-handed neutrino masses, with the strong up-type quark mass hierarchy cancelling in the see-saw mechanism, leading to a normal hierarchy of neutrino masses with an atmospheric angle in the first octant of 40 +/- 1 degree, a solar angle of 34 +/- 1 degree, a reactor angle of 9.0 +/- 0.5 degree, depending on the ratio of neutrino masses m_2/m_3, and a Dirac CP violating oscillation phase of 260 +/- 5 degrees.

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arXiv2013

Three-Higgs-doublet models: symmetries, potentials and Higgs boson masses

We catalogue and study three-Higgs-doublet models in terms of all possible allowed symmetries (continuous and discrete, Abelian and non-Abelian), where such symmetries may be identified as flavour symmetries of quarks and leptons. We analyse the potential in each case, and derive the conditions under which the vacuum alignments (0,0,v), (0,v,v) and (v,v,v) are minima of the potential. For the alignment (0,0,v), relevant for dark matter models, we calculate the corresponding physical Higgs boson mass spectrum. Motivated by supersymmetry, we extend the analysis to the case of three up-type Higgs doublets and three down- type Higgs doublets (six doublets in total). Many of the results are also applicable to flavon models where the three Higgs doublets are replaced by three electroweak singlets.

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arXiv2013

Lepton Mixing Predictions from Delta(6n^2) Family Symmetry

We obtain predictions of lepton mixing parameters for direct models based on Delta(6n^2) family symmetry groups for arbitrarily large n in which the full Klein symmetry is identified as a subgroup of the family symmetry. After reviewing and developing the group theory associated with Delta(6n^2), we find many new candidates for large n able to yield reactor angle predictions within 3 sigma of recent global fits. We show that such Delta(6n^2) models with Majorana neutrinos predict trimaximal mixing with reactor angle theta_{13} fixed up to a discrete choice, an oscillation phase of either zero or pi and the atmospheric angle sum rules theta_{23}=45 degrees -/+ theta_{13}/sqrt{2}, respectively, which are consistent with recent global fits and will be tested in the near future.

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arXiv2013

Testing atmospheric mixing sum rules at precision neutrino facilities

We study the prospects for testing classes of atmospheric mixing sum rules at precision neutrino facilities. Such sum rules, which correlate the atmospheric mixing angle theta23 with the recently measured reactor angle theta13 and the cosine of the oscillation phase delta, are predicted by a variety of semi-direct models based on discrete family symmetry, classified in terms of finite von Dyck groups. We perform a detailed simulation of the performance of the next generation of oscillation experiments, including the wide band superbeam and low-energy neutrino factory proposals, and compare their discriminating power for testing atmospheric mixing sum rules.

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arXiv2013

A Golden A_5 Model of Leptons with a Minimal NLO Correction

We propose a new A_5 model of leptons which corrects the LO predictions of Golden Ratio mixing via a minimal NLO Majorana mass correction which completely breaks the original Klein symmetry of the neutrino mass matrix. The minimal nature of the NLO correction leads to a restricted and correlated range of the mixing angles allowing agreement within the one sigma range of recent global fits following the reactor angle measurement by Daya Bay and RENO. The minimal NLO correction also preserves the LO inverse neutrino mass sum rule leading to a neutrino mass spectrum that extends into the quasi-degenerate region allowing the model to be accessible to the current and future neutrinoless double beta decay experiments.

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arXiv2013

The Power of Neutrino Mass Sum Rules for Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay Experiments

Neutrino mass sum rules relate the three neutrino masses within generic classes of flavour models, leading to restrictions on the effective mass parameter measured in experiments on neutrinoless double beta decay as a function of the lightest neutrino mass. We perform a comprehensive study of the implications of such neutrino mass sum rules, which provide a link between model building, phenomenology, and experiments. After a careful explanation of how to derive predictions from sum rules, we discuss a large number of examples both numerically, using all three global fits available for the neutrino oscillation data, and analytically wherever possible. In some cases, our results disagree with some of those in the literature for reasons that we explain. Finally we discuss the experimental prospects for many current and near-future experiments, with a particular focus on the uncertainties induced by the unknown nuclear physics involved. We find that, in many cases, the power of the neutrino mass sum rules is so strong as to allow certain classes of models to be tested by the next generation of neutrinoless double beta decay experiments. Our study can serve as both a guideline and a theoretical motivation for future experimental studies.

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arXiv2013

Fine Tuning in the Constrained Exceptional Supersymmetric Standard Model

Supersymmetric unified models in which the Z' couples to the Higgs doublets, as in the E6 class of models, have large fine tuning dominated by the experimental mass limit on the Z'. To illustrate this we investigate the degree of fine tuning throughout the parameter space of the Constrained Exceptional Supersymmetric Standard Model (cE6SSM) that is consistent with a Higgs mass m_h ~ 125 GeV. Fixing tan beta = 10, and taking specific values of the mass of the Z' boson, with M_Z' ~ 2-4 TeV. We find that the minimum fine tuning is set predominantly from the mass of Z' and varies from ~ 200-400 as we vary M_Z' from ~ 2-4 TeV. However, this is significantly lower than the fine tuning in the Constrained Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (cMSSM), of O(1000), arising from the large stop masses required to achieve the Higgs mass.

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arXiv2013

Dark Radiation or Warm Dark Matter from long lived particle decays in the light of Planck

Although Planck data supports the standard ΛCDM model, it still allows for the presence of Dark Radiation corresponding up to about half an extra standard neutrino species. We propose a scenario for obtaining a fractional "effective neutrino species" from a thermally produced particle which decays into a much lighter stable relic plus standard fermions. At lifetimes much longer than 1 sec, both the relic particles and the non-thermal neutrino component contribute to Dark Radiation. By increasing the stable-to-unstable particle mass ratio, the relic particle no longer acts as Dark Radiation but instead becomes a candidate for Warm Dark Matter with mass O(1keV - 100GeV). In both cases it is possible to address the lithium problem.

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arXiv2013

Spontaneous CP violation in A4xSU(5) with Constrained Sequential Dominance 2

We revisit a two right-handed neutrino model with two texture zeros, namely an indirect model based on A4 with the recently proposed new type of constrained sequential dominance (CSD2), involving vacuum alignments along the (0,1,-1)^T and (1,0,2)^T directions in flavour space, which are proportional to the neutrino Dirac mass matrix columns. In this paper we construct a renormalizable and unified indirect A4xSU(5) model along these lines and show that, with spontaneous CP violation and a suitable vacuum alignment of the phases, the charged lepton corrections lead to a reactor angle in good agreement with results from Daya Bay and RENO. The model predicts a right-angled unitarity triangle in the quark sector and a Dirac CP violating oscillation phase in the lepton sector of delta approximately 130 degrees, while providing a good fit to all quark and lepton masses and mixing angles.

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arXiv2013

Minimal predictive see-saw model with normal neutrino mass hierarchy

We consider the type I see-saw model with two right-handed neutrinos and a normal neutrino mass hierarchy and impose a zero coupling between the right-handed neutrino mainly responsible for the atmospheric neutrino mass and the electron neutrino. We derive a master formula which relates see-saw input parameters in a one to one correspondence with physical neutrino observables. Using the master formula we search for simple ratios of couplings consistent with current data on neutrino mass and lepton mixing. We discover a minimal predictive example in which the right-handed neutrino mainly responsible for the atmospheric neutrino mass has couplings to (nu_e, nu_mu, nu_tau) proportional to (0,1,1) and the right-handed neutrino mainly responsible for the solar neutrino mass has couplings to (nu_e, nu_mu, nu_tau) proportional to (1,1,3) or (1,3,1), with a relative phase eta = -/+ pi/3, providing the link between leptogenesis and CP violation in neutrino oscillation experiments. We show how these patterns of couplings could arise from an A_4 family symmetry model of leptons which predicts all the PMNS parameters in terms of the neutrino mass ratio m_2/m_3, corresponding to approximate Tri-bimaximal-Cabibbo mixing, accurate to one degree, with the prediction delta = +/- pi/2.

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arXiv2013

Little Z' Models

We propose a new class of models called Little Z' models in order to reduce the fine-tuning due to the current experimental limits on the Z' mass in E_6 inspired supersymmetric models, where the Higgs doublets are charged under the extra U(1)' gauge group. The proposed Little Z' models allow a lower mass Z' due to the spontaneously broken extra U(1)' gauge group having a reduced gauge coupling. We show that reducing the value of the extra gauge coupling relaxes the experimental limits, leading to the possibility of low mass Z' resonances, for example down to 200 GeV, which may yet appear in LHC searches. Although the source of tree level fine-tuning due to the Z' mass is reduced in Little Z' models, it typically does so at the expense of increasing the vacuum expectation value of the U(1)'-breaking standard model singlet field, reducing the fine-tuning to similar levels to that in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model.

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arXiv2012

Natural NMSSM Higgs Bosons

We study the phenomenology of Higgs bosons close to 126 GeV within the scale invariant unconstrained next-to-minimal supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM), focusing on the regions of parameter space favoured by low fine-tuning considerations, namely stop masses of order 400 GeV to 1 TeV and an effective $μ$ parameter between 100-200 GeV, with large (but perturbative) $λ$ and low $\tan β=$2-4. We perform scans over the above parameter space, focusing on the observable Higgs cross sections into $γγ$, $WW$, $ZZ$, $bb$, $ττ$ final states, and study the correlations between these observables. We show that the $γγ$ signal strength may be enhanced up to a factor of about two not only due to the effect of singlet-doublet mixing, which occurs more often when the 126 GeV Higgs boson is the next-to-lightest CP-even one, but also due to light stops (and to a lesser extent light chargino and charged Higgs loops). There may be also smaller enhancements in the Higgs decay channels into $WW$, $ZZ$, correlated with the $γγ$ enhancement. However there is no such correlation observed involving the Higgs decay channels into $bb$, $ττ$. The requirement of having perturbative couplings up to the GUT scale favours the interpretation of the 126 GeV Higgs boson as being the second lightest NMSSM CP-even state, which can decay into pairs of lighter neutralinos, CP-even or CP-odd Higgs bosons, leading to characteristic signatures of the NMSSM. In a non-negligible part of the parameter range the increase in the $γγ$ rate is due to the superposition of rates from nearly degenerate Higgs bosons. Resolving these Higgs bosons would rule out the Standard Model, and provide evidence for the NMSSM.

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arXiv2012

E6 Models from F-theory

F-theory is a non-perturbative formulation of type IIB superstring theory which allows for the decoupling of gravity and for the formulation of GUT theories based on the gauge group E6. In this paper we explore F-theory models in which the low energy supersymmetric theory contains the particle content of three 27 dimensional representations of the underlying E6 gauge group, plus two extra right-handed neutrinos predicted from F and D flatness. The resulting TeV scale effective theory resembles either the E6SSM or the NMSSM+, depending on whether an additional Abelian gauge group does or does not survive. However there are novel features compared to both these models as follows: (i) If the additional Abelian gauge group is unbroken then it can have a weaker gauge coupling than in the E6SSM; (ii) If the additional Abelian gauge group is broken then non-perturbative effects can violate the scale invariance of the NMSSM+ leading to a generalised model; (iii) Unification is achieved not at the field theory level but at the F-theory level since the gauge couplings are split by flux effects, negating the need for any additional doublet states which are usually required; (iv) Proton decay is suppressed by the geometric coupling suppression of a singlet state, a mechanism peculiar to F-theory, which effectively suppresses the coupling of the exotic charge -1/3 colour triplet state D to quarks and leptons; (v) The D bar couples to left-handed leptoquarks, providing characteristic and striking signatures at the LHC.

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arXiv2012

Discovering $E_6$ SUSY models in gluino cascade decays at the LHC

We point out that the extra neutralinos and charginos generically appearing in a large class of $E_6$ inspired models lead to distinctive signatures from gluino cascade decays in comparison to those from the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). These signatures involve longer decay chains, more visible transverse energy, higher multiplicities of jets and leptons, and less missing transverse energy than in the MSSM. These features make the gluino harder to discover for certain types of conventional analyses, for example in the 6 jet channel we show that a 1 TeV MSSM gluino may resemble an 800 GeV $E_6$ gluino. However, the enriched lepton multiplicity provides enhanced 3- and 4-lepton signatures, which are much more suppressed in the case of the MSSM. As an example we analyse various scenarios in the E$_6$SSM, demonstrating the utility of a \texttt{CalcHEP} model that we have now made publicly available on HEPMDB (High Energy Physics Models DataBase). After extensive scans over the parameter space, we focus on representative benchmark points. We perform detailed Monte Carlo analyses, concentrating on the 3-lepton channel at the 7, 8, and 14 TeV Large Hadron Collider (LHC), and demonstrate that $E_6$ inspired models are clearly distinguishable from the MSSM in gluino cascade decays. We emphasise to the LHC experimental groups that the distinctive features present in gluino cascade decays, such as those discussed here, not only represents a unique footprint of a particular model but also may provide the key to an earlier discovery of supersymmetry.

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arXiv2012

A Grand Delta(96) x SU(5) Flavour Model

Recent results from the Daya Bay and RENO reactor experiments have measured the smallest lepton mixing angle and found it to have a value of theta_13 approximately 9 degrees. This result presents a new challenge for the existing paradigms of discrete flavour symmetries which attempt to describe all quark and lepton masses and mixing angles. Here we propose a Supersymmetric Grand Unified Theory of Flavour based on Delta(96) x SU(5), together with a U(1) x Z3 symmetry, including a full discussion of Delta(96) in a convenient basis. The Grand Delta(96) x SU(5) Flavour Model relates the quark mixing angles and masses in the form of the Gatto-Sartori-Tonin relation and realises the Georgi-Jarlskog mass relations between the charged leptons and down-type quarks. We predict a Bi-trimaximal (not Tri-bimaximal) form of neutrino mixing matrix, which, after including charged lepton corrections with zero phase, leads to the following GUT scale predictions for the atmospheric, solar, and reactor mixing angles: theta_23=36.9 degrees, theta_12=32.7 degrees and theta_13=9.6 degrees, in good agreement with recent global fits, and a zero Dirac CP phase delta~0.

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arXiv2012

NMSSM+

It is well known that the scale invariant NMSSM has lower fine-tuning than the MSSM, but suffers from the domain wall problem. We propose a new improved scale invariant version of the NMSSM, called the NMSSM+, which introduces extra matter in order to reduce even more the fine-tuning of the NMSSM. The NMSSM+ also provides a resolution of the domain wall problem of the NMSSM due to a discrete R-symmetry, which also stabilises the proton. The extra matter descends from an E6 gauge group and fills out three complete 27-dimensional representations at the TeV scale, as in the E6SSM. However the U(1)_N gauge group of the E6SSM is broken at a high energy scale leading to reduced fine-tuning. The extra matter of the NMSSM+ includes charge 1/3 colour triplet D-fermions which may be naturally heavier than the weak scale because they receive their mass from singlet field vacuum expectation values other than the one responsible for the weak scale effective μ parameter.

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arXiv2012

SUSY S4 x SU(5) revisited

Following the recent results from Daya Bay and RENO, which measure the lepton mixing angle theta^l_13 ~ 0.15, we revisit a supersymmetric S4 x SU(5) model, which predicts tri-bimaximal (TB) mixing in the neutrino sector with theta^l_13 being too small in its original version. We show that introducing one additional S4 singlet flavon into the model gives rise to a sizable theta^l_13 via an operator which leads to the breaking of one of the two Z2 symmetries preserved in the neutrino sector at leading order. The results of the original model for fermion masses, quark mixing and the solar mixing angle are maintained to good precision. The atmospheric and solar mixing angle deviations from TB mixing are subject to simple sum rule bounds.

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arXiv2012

Warm Dark Matter from keVins

We propose a simple model for Warm Dark Matter (WDM) in which two fermions are added to the Standard Model: (quasi-) stable "keVins" (keV inert fermions) which account for WDM and their unstable brothers, the "GeVins" (GeV inert fermions), both of which carry zero electric charge and lepton number, and are (approximately) "inert", in the sense that their only interactions are via suppressed couplings to the Z. We consider scenarios in which stable keVins are thermally produced and their abundance is subsequently diluted by entropy production from the decays of the heavier unstable GeVins. This mechanism could be implemented in a wide variety of models, including E_6 inspired supersymmetric models or models involving sterile neutrinos.

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