arXiv subjects

Zhaofeng Kang

Publications and source records attributed to Zhaofeng Kang.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2015

Light Doubly Charged Higgs Boson via the $WW^*$ Channel at LHC

The doubly charged Higgs bosons $H^{\pm\pm}$ searches at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) have been studied extensively and strong bound is available for $H^{\pm\pm}$ dominantly decaying into a pair of same-sign di-leptons. In this paper we point out that there is a large cavity in the light $H^{\pm\pm}$ mass region left unexcluded. In particular, $H^{\pm\pm}$ can dominantly decay into $WW$ or $WW^*$ (For instance, in the type-II seesaw mechanism the triplet acquires a vacuum expectation value around 1 GeV.), and then it is found that $H^{\pm\pm}$ with mass even below $2m_W$ remains untouched by the current collider searches. Searching for such a $H^{\pm\pm}$ at the LHC is the topic of this paper. We perform detailed signal and background simulation, especially including the non-prompt $t\bar{t}$ background which is the dominant one nevertheless ignored before. We show that such $H^{\pm\pm}$ should be observable at the 14 TeV LHC with 10-30 fb$^{-1}$ integrated luminosity.

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arXiv2015

Upgrading Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter to FI$m$P Using Scale Invariance

In this article we propose a class of extremely light feebly interacting massive particle, FI$m$Ps. They are combination of feebly interacting massive particle with scale invariance, by which DM stability, mass origin and relic density are inherently related. In the scale invariant version of the Standard Model (SM) with three right-handed neutrinos ($ν$SISM), the lightest $N_1$ realizes the FI$m$P scenario. In this example scalar singlets, which are intrinsic to the $ν$SISM, generate mass and relic density for this FI$m$P simultaneously. Moreover, they are badly needed for electroweak symmetry spontaneously breaking. Interestingly, a 7.1 keV $N_1$ with correct relic density, that can explain the recent 3.55 keV $X-$ray line, lies in the bulk parameter space of our model.

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arXiv2015

Perturbativity Limits for Scalar Minimal Dark Matter with Yukawa Interactions: Septuplet

The candidate of minimal dark matter (MDM) is limited if one demands perturbativity up to a very high scale, and it was believed that the MDM model with a real scalar septuplet could keep perturbative up to the Planck or GUT scale. In this work we point out that it is not true after taking into account the running of the quartic self-couplings of the scalar septuplet. For the septuplet mass around $10$ TeV, which is suggested by the observed dark matter relic abundance, these couplings would hit the Landau pole at a scale $\sim 10^8-10^9$ GeV, much lower than the Planck scale. We attempt to push up the Landau pole scale as high as possible by proposing an extension with extra Yukawa interactions of the septuplet. We find that in principle the Landau pole could be deferred to a scale of $\sim 10^{14}$ GeV if one could tolerate a serious fine-tuning of the initial condition of the Yukawa coupling. Moreover, if the MDM particle mass could be relaxed to $\sim10^8$ GeV, which would need some nonthermal production mechanisms to give a correct relic abundance, the Landau pole scale could be pushed up above the Planck scale.

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arXiv2015

Confronting the real scalar septuplet minimal dark matter model with vacuum stability, perturbativity, and Type-I and Type-III seesaws

We study a real scalar septuplet model which has a neutral component regarded as a dark matter particle candidate. The calculation of its thermal relic abundance without (with) the Sommerfeld effect suggests that the observed value corresponds to the mass of the dark matter particle $m_0 \gtrsim 8.8~(25)~\mathrm{TeV}$. Two extra quartic couplings $λ_2$ and $λ_3$ introduced in this model affect the running of other couplings, and hence the vacuum stability and the perturbativity up to the Planck scale. Therefore, the vacuum stability and the perturbativity conditions can constrain these couplings into a narrow region in the $λ_2$-$λ_3$ plane. Other constraints from $h\toγγ$, electroweak oblique parameters, and direct and indirect DM searches are also investigated. Moreover, we survey the vacuum stability and the perturbativity in the model combining the septuplet with the Type-I or Type-III seesaw. The running of couplings is further altered when the energy scale goes above the seesaw scale. In the Type-I case, when the seesaw scale $\sim 10^{15}~\mathrm{GeV}$, the vacuum stability condition makes the acceptable region in the $λ_2$-$λ_3$ plane much narrower. In the Type-III case, if the seesaw scale is $\lesssim 52~\mathrm{TeV}$ or $\gtrsim 10^{15}~\mathrm{GeV}$, the acceptable region vanishes.

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arXiv2015

Higgs Naturalness and Dark Matter Stability by Scale Invariance

Extending the spacetime symmetries of standard model (SM) by scale invariance (SI) may address the Higgs naturalness problem. In this article we attempt to embed accidental dark matter (DM) into SISM, requiring that the symmetry protecting DM stability is accidental due to the model structure rather than imposed by hand. In this framework, if the light SM-like Higgs boson is the pseudo Goldstone boson of SI spontaneously breaking, we can even pine down the model, two-Higgs-doublets plus a real singlet: The singlet is the DM candidate and the extra Higgs doublet triggers electroweak symmetry breaking via the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism; Moreover, it dominates DM dynamics. We study spontaneously breaking of SI using the Gillard-Weinberg approach and find that the second doublet should acquire vacuum expectation value near the weak scale. Moreover, its components should acquire masses around 380 GeV except for a light CP-odd Higgs boson. Based on these features, we explore viable ways to achieve the correct relic density of DM, facing stringent constraints from direct detections of DM. For instance, DM annihilates into $b\bar b$ near the SM-like Higgs boson pole, or into a pair of CP-odd Higgs boson with mass above that pole.

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arXiv2015

View FImP Miracle (by Scale Invariance) $\acute{\rm a}$ $\rm la$ Self-interaction

Combining feebly interacting massive particle (FIMP) dark matter (DM) with scale invariance (SI) leads to extremely light FIMP (thus the FImP) with FImP miracle, i.e., the mass and relic generations of FImP DM share the same dynamics. In this paper we show that due to the lightness of FImP, it, especially for a scalar FImP, can easily accommodate large DM self-interaction. For a fermionic FImP, such as the sterile neutrino, self-interaction additionally requires a mediator which is another FImP, a scalar boson with mass either much lighter or heavier than the FImP DM. DM self-interaction opens a new window to observe FImP (miracle), which does not leave traces in the conventional DM searches. As an example, FImP can account for the offsets between the centroid of DM halo and stars of galaxies recently observed in the galaxy cluster Abel 3827.

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arXiv2015

Accidental Dark Matter: Case in the Scale Invariant Local $B-L$ Models

We explore the idea of accidental dark matter (aDM) stability in the scale invariant local $U(1)_{B-L}$ model, which is a theory for neutrino and at the same time radiatively breaks scale invariance via quantum mechanical dynamics in the $U(1)_{B-L}$ sector. A real singlet scalar can be accidental DM with an accidental $Z_2$, by virtue of both extended symmetries. A $U(1)_{B-L}$ charged complex scalar can also be a viable accidental DM due to an accidental (or remanent) $Z_3$. They can reproduce correct relic density via the annihilations through the conventional Higgs portal or dark Higgs portal. The dark Higgs portal scenario is in tension with the LHC bound on $Z_{B-L}$, and only heavy DM of a few TeVs can have correct relic density. In particular, DM may trigger spontaneous breaking of scale Invariance (SISB). The situation is relaxed significantly in the $Z_3$ case due to the effective semi-annihilation mode and then light DM can be accommodated easily. In addition, the $Z_3$ model can accommodate the GeV scale $γ-$ray excess from the galactic center (GC) via semi-annihilation into pseudo Goldstone boson (PGSB). The best fit is achieved at a DM about 52 GeV, with annihilation cross section consistent with the thermal relic density. The invisible Higgs branching ratio is negligible because the Higgs portal quartic coupling is very small $λ_{hϕ} \lesssim 10^{-3}$.

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arXiv2015

Natural $X$-ray Lines from the Low Scale Supersymmetry Breaking

In the supersymmetric models with low scale supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking where the gravitino mass is around keV, we show that the 3.5 keV $X-$ray lines can be explained naturally through several different mechanisms: (I) A keV scale dark gaugino plays the role of sterile neutrino in the presence of bilinear $R-$partiy violation. Because the light dark gaugino obtains Majorana mass only via gravity mediation, it is a decaying warm dark matter (DM) candidate; (II) Compressed cold DM states, whose mass degeneracy is broken by gavity mediated SUSY breaking, emit such a line via the heavier one decay into the lighter one plus photon(s). A highly supersymmetric dark sector may readily provide such kind of system; (III) Light axino, whose mass again is around the gravitino mass, decays to neutrino plus gamma in the $R-$partiy violating SUSY. Moreover, we comment on dark radiation from dark gaugino.

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arXiv2014

New Insights of Electroweak Phase Transition in NMSSM

We perform a detailed semi-analytical analysis of the electroweak phase transition (EWPT) property in NMSSM, which serves as a good benchmark model in which the 126 GeV Higgs mixes with a singlet. In this case, a strongly first order electroweak phase transition (SFOEWPT) is achieved by the tree-level effects and the phase transition strength $γ_c$ is determined by the vacua energy gap at $T=0$. We make an anatomy of the energy gap at both tree-level and loop-level and extract out a dimensionless phase transition parameter $R_κ\equiv 4 κv_s / A_κ$, which can replace $A_κ$ in the parameterization and affect the light CP odd and even Higgs spectra. We find that SFOEWPT only occurs in $R_κ\sim -1$ and positive $R_κ\lesssim \mathcal{O}(10)$, which in the non-PQ limit case would prefer either a relatively light CP odd or CP even Higgs boson $\sim (60, 100)$ GeV, therefore serves as a smoking gun signal and requires new search strategies at the LHC.

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arXiv2014

Higgs Boson Mass and Complex Snuetrino Dark Matter in the Supersymmetric Inverse Seesaw Models

The discovery of a relatively heavy Standard Model (SM) -like Higgs boson challenges naturalness of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) from both Higgs and dark matter (DM) sectors. We study these two aspects in the MSSM extended by the low-scale inverse seesaw mechanism. Firstly, it admits a sizable radiative correction on the Higgs boson mass m_h, up to \sim 4 GeV in the case of an IR-fixed point of the coupling Y_νLH_uν^c and a large sneutrino mixing. Secondly, the lightest sneutrino, highly complex as expected, is a viable thermal DM candidate. Owing to the correct relic density and XENON100, two cases survive: a Higgs-portal complex DM with mass lying around the Higgs pole or above $W$ threshold, and a coannihilating DM with slim prospect of detection. Given an extra family of sneutrinos, both scenarios naturally work when we attempt to suppress the DM left-handed sneutrino component, confronting with enhancing m_h.

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arXiv2014

Decaying Asymmetric Dark Matter Relaxes the AMS-Fermi Tension

The first result of AMS-02 confirms the positron fraction excess observed by PAMELA, but the spectrum is somewhat softer than that of PAMELA. In the dark matter (DM) interpretation it brings a tension between AMS-02 and Fermi-LAT, which reported an excess of the electron plus positron flux. In this work we point out that the asymmetric cosmic ray from asymmetric dark matter (ADM) decay relaxes the tension. It is found that in the case of two-body decay a bosonic ADM around 2.4 TeV and decaying into $μ^-τ^+$ can significantly improve the fits. Based on the $R-$parity-violating supersymmetry with operators $LLE^c$, we propose a minimal model to realize that ADM. The model introduces only a pair of singlets $(X,\bar X)$ with a tiny coupling $LH_uX$, which makes the ADM share the lepton asymmetry and decay into $μ^-τ^+$ along the operator $LLE^c$.

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arXiv2014

The Nelson-Seiberg theorem revised

The well-accepted Nelson-Seiberg theorem relates R-symmetries to supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking vacua, and provides a guideline for SUSY model building which is the most promising physics beyond the Standard Model. In the case of Wess-Zumino models with perturbative superpotentials, we revise the theorem to a combined necessary and sufficient condition for SUSY breaking which can be easily checked before solving the vacuum. The revised theorem provides a powerful tool to construct either SUSY breaking or SUSY vacua, and offers many practicable applications in low energy SUSY model building and string phenomenology.

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arXiv2013

Simplified Supersymmetry with Sneutrino LSP at 8 TeV LHC

The current searches of supersymmetry (SUSY) are based on the neutralino lightest sparticle (LSP). In this article we instead focus on SUSY with sneutrino LSP. It is well motivated in many contexts, especially in which sneutrino services as a dark matter candidate. We first develop a simplified model, which contains the stop, chagino/neutralino and sneutrino, to describe the LHC phenomenologies of a large class of models with sneutrino LSP. Then we investigate bounds on the model using the SUSY searches at the 8 TeV LHC. Strong exclusion limits are derived, e.g., masses of stop and chargino can be excluded up to about 900 GeV and 550 GeV, respectively. We also propose optimizations for some searches without turning to higher energy and luminosity.

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arXiv2013

Implications of Higgs Sterility for the Higgs and Stop Sectors

The LHC data implies that the newly discovered Higgs boson h may be sterile (highly SM-like). In supersymmetric SMs (SSMs), Higgs couplings are often modified by Higgs mixing and stop loop corrections, so we study the Higgs sterility in the Higgs and stop sectors in two SSMs: (I) The Minimal SSM (MSSM). In the nearly decoupling region, the doublet-doublet mixing effect can only enhance C_{hb\bar b} by 2m_Z^2/M_A^2. Sterility places M_A\gtrsim 900 GeV. But it hardly constrains the stop sector due to the heaviness of Higgs boson mass m_h; (II) The next to MSSM(NMSSM). In the presence of doublet-singlet mixing, the mixing structure is complicated. We find a simple approximation to understand Higgs sterility and its implications, says the amount of pushing-up m_h\lesssim 5 GeV while the pulling-down scenario is favored. Stops can be light here, so Higgs sterility significantly constrains them directly and indirectly except for blind spots. We also study the LHC features of the whole stop sector facing a sterile Higgs and find that, in virtue of decays between stops and sbottom, characteristic signatures like same-sign leptons and multi b-jets are promising probes.

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arXiv2013

Highlights of Supersymmetric Hypercharge $\pm1$ Triplets

The discovery of a standard model (SM)-like Higgs boson with a relatively heavy mass $m_h$ and hints of di-photon excess has deep implication to supersymmetric standard models (SSMs). We consider the SSM extended with hypercharge $\pm1$ triplets, and investigate two scenarios of it: (A) Triplets significantly couple to the Higgs doublets, which can substantially raise $m_h$ and simultaneously enhance the Higgs to di-photon rate via light chargino loops; (B) Oppositely, these couplings are quite weak and thus $m_h$ can not be raised. But the doubly-charged Higgs bosons, owing to the gauge group structure, naturally interprets why there is an excess rather than a deficient of Higgs to di-photon rate. Additionally, the pseudo Dirac triplet fermion is an inelastic non-thermal dark matter candidate. Light doubly-charged particles, especially the doubly-charged Higgs boson around 100 GeV in scenario B, are predicted. We give a preliminary discussion on their search at the LHC.

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arXiv2013

Probing the CP-even Higgs Sector via $H_3\to H_2H_1$ in the Natural NMSSM

After the discovery of a Standard Model (SM) like Higgs boson, naturalness strongly favors the next to the Minimal Supersymmetric SM (NMSSM). In this letter, we point out that the most natural NMSSM predicts the following CP-even Higgs $H_i$ sector: (A) $H_2$ is the SM-like Higgs boson with mass pushed-upward by a lighter $H_1$ with mass overwhelmingly within $[m_{H_2}/2,m_{H_2}]$; (B) $m_{H_3}\simeq 2μ/\sin2β\gtrsim300$ GeV; (C) $H_3$ has a significant coupling to top quarks and can decay to $H_1H_2$ with a large branching ratio. Using jet substructure we show that all the three Higgs bosons can be discovered via $gg\to H_3 \to H_1H_2\to b\bar b \ellνjj$ at the 14 TeV LHC. Especially, the LEP-LHC scenario with $H_1\simeq98$ GeV has a very good discovery potential.

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arXiv2012

Asymmetric Origin for Gravitino Relic Density in the Hybrid Gravity-Gauge Mediated Supersymmetry Breaking

We propose the hybrid gravity-gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking where the gravitino mass is about several GeV. The strong constraints on supersymmetry viable parameter space from the CMS and ATLAS experiments at the LHC can be relaxed due to the heavy colored supersymmetric particles, and it is consistent with null results in the dark matter (DM) direct search experiments such as XENON100. In particular, the possible maximal flavor and CP violations from the relatively small gravity mediation may naturally account for the recent LHCb anomaly. In addition, because the gravitino mass is around the asymmetric DM mass, we propose the asymmetric origin of the gravitino relic density and solve the cosmological coincident problem on the DM and baryon densities Ω_{\rm DM}:Ω_{B}\approx 5:1. The gravitino relic density arises from asymmetric metastable particle (AMP) late decay. However, we show that there is no AMP candidate in the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model (SM) due to the robust gaugino/Higgsino mediated wash-out effects. Interestingly, AMP can be realized in the well motivated supersymmetric SMs with vector-like particles or continuous U(1)_R symmetry. Especially, the lightest CP-even Higgs boson mass can be lifted in the supersymmetric SMs with vector-like particles.

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arXiv2012

On Naturalness of the MSSM and NMSSM

With a bottom-up approach, we consider naturalness in the MSSM and NMSSM. Assuming the light stops, the LHC gluino search implies that the degree of fine tuning in both models is less than 2.5%. Taking the LHC hints for the SM-like Higgs boson mass m_h\sim125 GeV seriously, we find that naturalness will favor the NMSSM. We study the Higgs boson mass for several scenarios in the NMSSM: (1) A large λand the doublet-singlet Higgs boson mixing effect pushing upward or pulling downward m_h. The former case can readily give the di-photon excess of the Higgs boson decay whereas the latter case can not. However, we point out that the former case has a new large fine-tuning related to strong λ-RGE running effect and vacuum stability. (2) A small λand the mixing effect pushing m_h upward. Naturalness status becomes worse and no significant di-photon excess can be obtained. In these scenarios, the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) as a dark matter candidate is strongly disfavored by the XENON100 experiment. Even if the LSP can be a viable dark matter candidate, there does exist fine-tuning. The above naturalness evaluation is based on a high mediation scale for supersymmetry breaking, whereas for a low mediation scale, fine-tuning can be improved by about one order.

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