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Wen Yin

Publications and source records attributed to Wen Yin.

At least 127 records · Page 7Linked to original sources

Boosted Neutrinos and Relativistic Dark Particles as Messengers from Reheating

Usually information from early eras such as reheating is hard to come by. In this paper we argue that, given the right circumstances, right-handed sterile neutrinos decaying to left-handed active ones at relatively late times can carry information from reheating by propagating freely over the thermal history. For not too small mixing angles, suitable right-handed neutrino masses are around ${\cal O}$(MeV-GeV). We identify the typical spectra and argue that they provide information on the ratio of the inflaton mass to the reheating temperature. This primordial neutrino signal can be strong enough that it can be detected in IceCube. More speculatively, for a reheating temperature and inflaton mass satisfying $T_R={\cal O}(1-100)\, {\rm MeV}$, and $m_ϕ={\cal O}(10^{16-19})\,$GeV they may even explain the observed PeV events. Also more general relativistic dark particles can play the role of such messengers, potentially not only allowing for the PeV events but also alleviating the $H_0$-tension .

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What if ALP dark matter for the XENON1T excess is the inflaton

The recent XENON1T excess in the electron recoil data can be explained by anomaly-free axion-like particle (ALP) dark matter with mass $m_ϕ= 2.3 \pm 0.2\,$keV and the decay constant $f_ϕ/q_e \simeq 2 \times 10^{10} \sqrt{Ω_ϕ/Ω_{\rm DM}}\,{\rm GeV}$. Intriguingly, the suggested mass and decay constant are consistent with the relation, $f_ϕ\sim 10^3 \sqrt{m_ϕM_p}$, predicted in a scenario where the ALP plays the role of the inflaton. This raises a possibility that the ALP dark matter responsible for the XENON1T excess also drove inflation in the very early universe. We study implications of the XENON1T excess for the ALP inflation and thermal history of the universe after inflation.

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Muon $g-2$ in Higgs-anomaly mediation

A simple model for the explanation of the muon anomalous magnetic moment was proposed by the present authors within the context of the minimal supersymmetric standard model [1607.05705, 1608.06618]: "Higgs-anomaly mediation". In the setup, squarks, sleptons, and gauginos are massless at tree-level, but the Higgs doublets get large negative soft supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking masses squared $m_{H_u}^2 \simeq m_{H_d}^2 < 0$ at a certain energy scale, $M_{\rm inp}$. The sfermion masses are radiatively generated by anomaly mediation and Higgs-loop effects, and gaugino masses are solely determined by anomaly mediation. Consequently, the smuons and bino are light enough to explain the muon $g-2$ anomaly while the third generation sfermions are heavy enough to explain the observed Higgs boson mass. The scenario avoids the SUSY flavor problem as well as various cosmological problems, and is consistent with the radiative electroweak symmetry breaking. In this paper, we show that, although the muon $g-2$ explanation in originally proposed Higgs-anomaly mediation with $M_{\rm inp}\sim 10^{16}\,$GeV is slightly disfavored by the latest LHC data, the muon $g-2$ can still be explained at $1σ$ level when Higgs mediation becomes important at the intermediate scale, $M_{\rm inp} \sim 10^{12}\,$GeV. The scenario predicts light SUSY particles that can be fully covered by the LHC and future collider experiments. We also provide a simple realization of $m_{H_u}^2 \simeq m_{H_d}^2 < 0$ at the intermediate scale.

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The ALP miracle revisited

We revisit the ALP miracle scenario where the inflaton and dark matter are unified by a single axion-like particle (ALP). We first extend our previous analysis on the inflaton dynamics to identify the whole viable parameter space consistent with the CMB observation. Then, we evaluate the relic density of the ALP dark matter by incorporating uncertainties of the model-dependent couplings to the weak gauge bosons as well as the dissipation effect. The preferred ranges of the ALP mass and coupling to photons are found to be $0.01\lesssim m_ϕ\lesssim 1$\,eV and $g_{ϕγγ} = {\cal O}(10^{-11})$\,GeV$^{-1}$, which slightly depend on these uncertainties. Interestingly, the preferred regions are within reach of future solar axion helioscope experiments, IAXO and TASTE, and laser-based stim

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Stochastic Axion Dark Matter in Axion Landscape

We study the stochastic axion dark matter scenario in the axion landscape, where one of the axions is light and stable and therefore explains dark matter. If the axion mass at the potential is a typical value of the curvature along the direction, the potential can be well approximated by a quadratic mass term. On the other hand, if the axion mass happens to be suppressed in the vicinity of the minimum, the potential may be approximated by a quartic potential plus a suppressed quadratic one, for which the initial angle, and thus the axion abundance, can be significantly suppressed compared to the quadratic case. We delineate the viable parameter region by taking account of various observational constraints, and find that a broader range of the inflation scale is allowed. Also, if the curvature of the potential is suppressed over a certain range of the potential, the onset of coherent oscillations can be delayed. Then, the axion dark matter with a small decay constant is possible. We also discuss the πnflation mechanism to realize the hilltop initial condition in the stochastic axion scenario.

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QCD Axion Window and False Vacuum Higgs Inflation

The abundance of the QCD axion is known to be suppressed if the Hubble parameter during inflation, $H_{\rm inf}$, is lower than the QCD scale, and if the inflation lasts sufficiently long. We show that the tight upper bound on the inflation scale can be significantly relaxed if the eternal old inflation is driven by the standard-model Higgs field trapped in a false vacuum at large field values. Specifically, $H_{\rm inf}$ can be larger than $100\,$GeV if the false vacuum is located above the intermediate scale. We also discuss the slow-roll inflation after the tunneling from the false vacuum to the electroweak vacuum.

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Bino-wino coannihilation as a prediction in the $E_7$ unification of families

We study the phenomenological consequences of the supersymmetric (SUSY) $E_7/SU(5)\times U(1)^3$ non-linear sigma model coupled to supergravity, where the three generations of quark and lepton chiral multiplets appear as (pseudo) Nambu Goldstone (NG) multiplets, that is, the origin of the three families is explained. To break SUSY, we introduce a SUSY breaking field charged under some symmetry avoiding the Polonyi problem. The gaugino mass spectrum is almost uniquely determined when one requires the electroweak vacuum to be (meta)stable: it would be a miracle that the mass difference between the bino and wino turns out to be within $O(1)\%$ at the low energy. Thus, a bino-wino coannihilation is naturally predicted, which can explain the correct relic abundance of dark matter. Moreover, we find that the bottom-tau Yukawa couplings and the gauge couplings are unified up to $O(1)\%$ in most of the viable region. This scenario can be fully tested at the LHC and future collider experiments since the gauginos and some of the pseudo-NG bosons are light. An axion-like multiplet, which can be identified with the QCD axion, is also predicted.

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QCD Axion on Hilltop by a Phase Shift of $π$

We show that the initial misalignment angle of the QCD axion (or axion-like particles) can be set very close to $π$, if the QCD axion has a mixing with another heavy axion which induces the phase shift $\approx π$ after inflation. In the simplest case, the heavy axion plays the role of the inflaton, and we call such inflation as "$π$nflation." The basic idea was first proposed by Daido and the present authors in Ref. [1702.03284] in 2017 and more recently discussed in Ref. [1903.00462]. We show that the QCD axion with a decay constant $f_a \gtrsim 3 \times 10^9\,$ GeV can explain dark matter by the $π$nflation mechanism. A large fraction of the parameter region has an overlap with the projected sensitivity of ORGAN, MADMAX, TOORAD and IAXO. We also study implications for the effective neutrino species and isocurvature perturbations. The $π$nflation can provide an initial condition for the hilltop inflation in the axion landscape, and in a certain set-up, a chain of the hilltop inflation may take place.

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Throwing away antimatter via neutrino oscillations during the reheating era

The simplest possibility to explain the baryon asymmetry of the Universe is to assume that radiation is created asymmetrically between baryons and anti-baryons after the inflation. We propose a new mechanism of this kind where CP-violating flavor oscillations of left-handed leptons in the reheating era distribute the lepton asymmetries partially into the right-handed neutrinos while net asymmetry is not created. The asymmetry stored in the right-handed neutrinos is later washed out by the lepton number violating decays, and it ends up with the net lepton asymmetry in the Standard Model particles, which is converted into the baryon asymmetry by the sphaleron process. This scenario works for a range of masses of the right-handed neutrinos while no fine-tuning among the masses is required. The reheating temperature of the Universe can be as low as $O(10)$~TeV if we assume that the decays of inflatons in the perturbative regime are responsible for the reheating. For the case of the reheating via the dissipation effects, the reheating temperature can be as low as $O(100)$~GeV.

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Explaining electron and muon $g-2$ anomaly in SUSY without lepton-flavor mixings

We propose a SUSY scenario to explain the current electron and muon $g-2$ discrepancies without introducing lepton flavor mixings. Threshold corrections to the Yukawa couplings can enhance the electron $g-2$ and flip the sign of the SUSY contributions. The mechanism predicts a flavor-dependent slepton mass spectrum. We show that it is compatible with the Higgs mediation scenario.

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ALP inflation and Big Bang on Earth

We study a hilltop inflation model where an axion-like particle (ALP) plays the role of the inflaton. We find that, for a broad class of potentials, the decay constant and the mass at the potential minimum satisfy the relation, $m_ϕ\sim 10^{-6} f$, to explain the CMB normalization. The ALP is necessarily coupled to the standard model particles for successful reheating. The ALP with the above relation can be searched at beam dump experiments, e.g., the SHiP experiment, if the inflation scale is sufficiently low. In this case, the ALP decays through the interactions that led to the reheating of the Universe. In other words, the Big Bang may be probed at ground-based experiments.

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Highly-boosted dark matter and cutoff for cosmic-ray neutrino through neutrino portal

We study the cutoff for the cosmic-ray neutrino, set by the scattering with cosmic background neutrinos into dark sector particles through a neutrino portal interaction. We find that a large interaction rate is still viable, when the dark sector particles are mainly coupled to the $τ-$neutrino, so that the neutrino mean free path can be reduced to be $O(10)~$Mpc over a wide energy range. If stable enough, the dark sector particle, into which most of the cosmic-ray neutrino energy is transferred, can travel across the Universe and reach the earth. The dark sector particle can carry the energy as large as $Ø({\rm EeV})$ if originates from a cosmogenic neutrino.

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Relaxing the Cosmological Moduli Problem by Low-scale Inflation

We show that the cosmological abundance of string axions is much smaller than naive estimates if the Hubble scale of inflation, $H_{\rm inf}$, is sufficiently low (but can still be much higher than the axion masses) and if the inflation lasts sufficiently long. The reason is that the initial misalignment angles of the string axions follow the Bunch-Davies distribution peaked at the potential minima. As a result, the cosmological moduli problem induced by the string axions can be significantly relaxed by low-scale inflation, and astrophysical and cosmological bounds are satisfied over a wide range of the mass without any fine-tuning of the initial misalignment angles. Specifically, the axion with its decay constant $f_ϕ= 10^{16}$\,GeV satisfies the bounds over $10^{-18}{\rm \, eV} \lesssim m_ϕ\lesssim 10{\rm\,TeV}$ for $H_{\rm inf} \lesssim 10{\rm\,keV}- 10^{6}$\,{\rm GeV}. We also discuss cases with multiple axions and the QCD axion.

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Dark Matter, Neutrino mass, Cutoff for Cosmic-Ray Neutrino, and Higgs Boson Invisible Decay from a Neutrino Portal Interaction

We study an effective theory beyond the standard model (SM) where either of two additional gauge singlets, a Majorana fermion and a real scalar, constitutes all or some fraction of dark matter. In particular, we focus on the masses of the two singlets in the range of O(10) MeV-O(10) GeV, with a neutrino portal interaction which plays important roles not only in particle physics but also in cosmology and astronomy. We point out that the dark matter abundance can be thermally explained with (co)annihilation, where the dark matter with a mass greater than 2 GeV can be tested in future lepton colliders, CEPC, ILC, FCC-ee and CLIC, in the light of the Higgs boson invisible decay. When the gauge singlets are lighter than O(100)MeV, the interaction can affect the neutrino propagation in the universe due to its annihilation with the cosmic background neutrino into the gauge singlets. Although can not be the dominant dark matter in this case, the singlets are produced by the invisible decay of the Higgs boson at a rate fully within the reach of the future lepton colliders. In particular, a high energy cutoff of cosmic-ray neutrino, which may account for the non-detection of Greisen-Zatsepin-Kuzmin (GZK) neutrinos or non-observation of Glashow resonance, can be set. Interestingly, given the cutoff and the mass (range) of the WIMP, a neutrino mass can be "measured" kinematically.

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Peccei-Quinn symmetry from a hidden gauge group structure

We introduce a natural origin of the Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry with a sufficiently good precision. In the standard model, the baryon number symmetry U(1)_B arises accidentally due to the SU(3)_C color gauge symmetry, and it protects the proton from a decay at a sufficient level. Likewise, if there is an SU(N) gauge symmetry in the hidden sector, an accidental hidden baryon number symmetry U(1)_{B_H} can appear. The hidden baryon number is solely obtained by the structure of the SU(N) group. In particular, the quality of the U(1)_{B_H} can be arbitrarily good for an asymptotically-free theory with large enough N. The U(1)_{B_H} can be identified as a PQ symmetry. Using our findings, we build two types of novel composite axion models: a model where only one SU(N) gauge symmetry is required to both guarantee the quality and break the U(1)_{B_H}, and a model with SU(N)xSU(M) gauge symmetry where the exotic quarks responsible to the axion-gluon coupling do not confine into exotic hadrons through the dynamical breaking of the PQ symmetry, and have masses of TeV scales.

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Leptogenesis via Neutrino Oscillation Magic

The possibility of generating the baryon asymmetry of the Universe via flavor oscillation in the early Universe is discussed. After the inflation, leptons are born in some states, travel in the medium, and are eventually projected onto flavor eigenstates due to the scattering via the Yukawa interactions. By using the Lagrangian of the Standard Model with the Majorana neutrino mass terms, llHH, we follow the time evolution of the density matrices of the leptons in this very first stage of the Universe and show that the CP violation in the flavor oscillation can explain the baryon asymmetry of the Universe. In the scenario where the reheating is caused by the decay of the inflaton into the Higgs bosons, the baryon asymmetry is generated by the CP phases in the Pontecorvo-Maki-Nakagawa-Sakata matrix and thus can be tested by the low energy neutrino experiments.

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Charge Quantization and Neutrino Mass from Planck-scale SUSY

We show a possibility for the charge quantization of the standard model (SM) particles. If a global symmetry makes the three copies of a generation and supersymmetry (SUSY) relates the Higgs boson to a lepton, all the charges of the SM particles can be quantized through gauge-anomaly cancellation. In the minimal model realizing the possibility, the gravitino mass around the Planck-scale is needed to generate the SM couplings through (quantum) supergravity. Much below the Planck-scale, the SM is obtained as the effective theory. Interestingly, if the gaugino masses are generated through anomaly mediation, one of the neutrino masses is predicted to be around the neutrino oscillation scales. In an extension of the model, millicharged particles can exist without introducing massless hidden photons.

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The QCD Axion Window and Low Scale Inflation

We show that the upper bound of the classical QCD axion window can be significantly relaxed for low-scale inflation. If the Gibbons-Hawking temperature during inflation is lower than the QCD scale, the initial QCD axion misalignment angle follows the Bunch-Davies distribution. The distribution is peaked at the strong CP conserving minimum if there is no other light degree of freedom contributing to the strong CP phase. As a result, the axion overproduction problem is significantly relaxed even for an axion decay constant larger than $10^{12}$GeV. We also provide concrete hilltop inflation models where the Hubble parameter during inflation is comparable to or much smaller than the QCD scale, with successful reheating taking place via perturbative decays or dissipation processes.

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