arXiv subjects

Zurab Berezhiani

Publications and source records attributed to Zurab Berezhiani.

At least 55 records · Page 3Linked to original sources

arXiv2006

Neutron - Mirror Neutron Oscillations: How Fast Might They Be?

We discuss the phenomenological implications of the neutron (n) oscillation into the mirror neutron (n'), a hypothetical particle exactly degenerate in mass with the neutron but sterile to normal matter. We show that the present experimental data allow a maximal n-n' oscillation in vacuum with a characteristic time $τ$ much shorter than the neutron lifetime, in fact as small as 1 sec. This phenomenon may manifest in neutron disappearance and regeneration experiments perfectly accessible to present experimental capabilities and may also have interesting astrophysical consequences, in particular for the propagation of ultra high energy cosmic rays.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2005

Double protection of the Higgs potential

A mechanism of double protection of the Higgs potential, by supersymmetry and by a global symmetry, is investigated in a class of supersymmetric models with the SU(3)xSU(3)xU(1) gauge symmetry. In such models the electroweak symmetry can be broken with no fine-tuning at all.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2005

Through the Looking-Glass: Alice's Adventures in Mirror World

We briefly review the concept of a parallel `mirror' world which has the same particle physics as the observable world and couples to the latter by gravity and perhaps other very weak forces. The nucleosynthesis bounds demand that the mirror world should have a smaller temperature than the ordinary one. By this reason its evolution should substantially deviate from the standard cosmology as far as the crucial epochs like baryogenesis, nucleosynthesis etc. are concerned. In particular, we show that in the context of certain baryogenesis scenarios, the baryon asymmetry in the mirror world should be larger than in the observable one. Moreover, we show that mirror baryons could naturally constitute the dominant dark matter component of the Universe, and discuss its cosmological implications.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2004

Structure Formation with Mirror Dark Matter: CMB and LSS

In the mirror world hypothesis the mirror baryonic component emerges as a possible dark matter candidate. An immediate question arises: how the mirror baryons behave and what are the differences from the more familiar dark matter candidates as e.g. cold dark matter? In this paper we answer quantitatively to this question. First we discuss the dependence of the relevant scales for the structure formation (Jeans and Silk scales) on the two macroscopic parameters necessary to define the model: the temperature of the mirror plasma (limited by the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis) and the amount of mirror baryonic matter. Then we perform a complete quantitative calculation of the implications of mirror dark matter on the cosmic microwave background and large scale structure power spectrum. Finally, confronting with the present observational data, we obtain some bounds on the mirror parameter space.

astro-ph↗

arXiv2003

Mirror World and its Cosmological Consequences

hep-ph↗

arXiv2002

Limits on the Non-Standard Interactions of Neutrinos from $e^+ e^-$ Colliders

We provide an effective Lagrangian analysis of contact non-standard interactions of neutrinos with electrons, which can be effectively mediated by extra particles, and examine the associated experimental limits. At present, such interactions are strongly constrained only for $ν_μ$: the bounds are loose for $ν_e$ and absent for $ν_τ$. We emphasize the unique role played by the reaction $e^+e^-\to ν\barνγ$ in providing direct constraints on such non-standard interactions.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2002

Probing Non-Standard Couplings of Neutrinos at the Borexino Detector

The present experimental status does not exclude weak-strength non-standard interactions of neutrinos with electrons. These interactions can be revealed in solar neutrino experiments. Our discussion covers several aspects related to this issue. First, we perform an analysis of the Super Kamiokande and SNO data to investigate their sensitivity to such interactions. In particular, we show that the ν_e oscillation into sterile neutrinos can be still allowed if ν_e has extra interactions of the proper strength. Second, we suggest that the Borexino detector can provide good signatures for these non-standard interactions. Indeed, in Borexino the shape of the recoil electron spectrum from the νe \to νe scattering essentially does not depend on the solar neutrino conversion details, since most of the signal comes from the mono-energetic ^7Be neutrinos. Hence, the partial conversion of solar ν_e into a a nearly equal mixture of ν_μand ν_τ, as is indicated by the atmospheric neutrino data, offers the chance to test extra interactions of ν_τ, or of ν_e itself.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2001

Blocking Active-Sterile Neutrino Oscillations in the Early Universe with a Majoron Field

We propose a new mechanism to block the active-sterile neutrino oscillations in the Early Universe. We show that a typical consequence of theories where the lepton number is spontaneously broken is the existence of a coherent cosmological Majoron field with a strength proportional to the lepton and baryon numbers of the Universe. This field interacts with leptons and changes the potentials relevant for neutrino oscillations. If the scale of lepton number symmetry breaking is of the order of 1 GeV then a Majoron field and lepton number asymmetry of the order of the baryon asymmetry are strong enough to block the active-sterile neutrino oscillations with the atmospheric neutrino mass gap which otherwise would bring the sterile neutrino into equilibrium at the big bang nucleosynthesis epoch.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2001

Baryogenesis: The Lepton Leaking Mechanism

We propose a baryo- and leptogenesis mechanism in which the B-L asymmetry is produced in the conversion of ordinary leptons into particles of some depleted hidden sector. In particular, we consider the lepton number violating reactions, l Higgs -> l' Higgs', \bar{l'} \bar{Higgs'}, mediated by the heavy Majorana neutrinos N of the seesaw mechanism, where l and Higgs are ordinary lepton and Higgs doublets and l', Higgs' the ``sterile'' leptons and Higgs. This mechanism can operate even if the reheat temperature is smaller than the N Majorana masses, in which case the usual leptogenesis mechanism through N decays is ineffective. In particular, the reheat tempearture can be as low as 10^9 GeV or less.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2001

Leptogenesis via Collisions: Leaking Lepton Number to the Hidden Sector

We propose a lepto-baryogenesis mechanism in which the non-zero B-L of the universe is produced in out-of-equilibrium, lepton number and CP violating scattering processes that convert ordinary particles into particles of some hidden sector. In particular, we consider the processes $l ϕ> l' ϕ', \bar l' \bar phi'$ mediated by the heavy Majorana neutrinos $N$ of the seesaw mechanism, where $l$ and $ϕ$ are ordinary lepton and Higgs doublets and $l'$, $ϕ'$ their hidden counterparts. Such a leptogenesis mechanism is effective even if the reheating temperature is much smaller than the heavy neutrino masses. In particular, it can be as low as $10^{9}$ GeV.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2001

Affleck-Dine leptogenesis via right-handed sneutrino fields in a supersymmetric hybrid inflation model

The onset of inflation in hybrid models require fine tuning in the initial conditions. The inflaton field should have an initial value close to the Planck scale $M_{P}$, whereas the auxiliary "orthogonal" field must be close to zero with an extreme accuracy. This problem can be alleviated if the orthogonal field fastly decays into some states not coupled to the inflaton. Natural candidates for such states can be the right-handed neutrinos. We show that a non-trivial evolution of the classic sneutrino fields after inflation offers an interesting mechanism for generating a correct amount of lepton asymmetry, which being reprocessed by sphalerons can explain the observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe. Our scenario implies interesting bounds for the neutrino masses in the context of seesaw mechanism.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2001

Flavour structure, flavour symmetry and supersymmetry

We discuss the role played by the horizontal flavour symmetry in supersymmetric theories. In particular, we consider the horizontal symmetry $SU(3)_H$ between the three fermion families and show how this concept can help in explaining the fermion mass spectrum and mixing pattern in the context of SUSY GUTs.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2001

TeV scale unification in four dimensions versus extra dimensions

The gauge coupling constant unification at the low ($O$(TeV)) scale can be obtained just in four dimensions, without help of the power like renormalization group evolution in extra dimensions, due to the presence of some extra particle states at intermediate scales. We show explicit examples of such extra states in the range of 100 GeV -- 1 TeV which can be easily observed on future colliders and can have important impact on the particle phenomenology. The problems of the low scale grand unification and proton stability are also discussed.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2001

Strong CP problem and mirror world: the Weinberg Wilczek axion revisited

A new possibility for solving the strong CP-problem is suggested,which assumes that apart of the ordinary world of observable particles described by standard model, there exits a mirror sector of particles and two sectors share the same Peccei-Quinn symmetry realized {\it a là} Weinberg-Wilczek model. The mirror gauge group is completely analogous to that of the standard model for ordinary particles but having somewhat larger electroweak scale,which in turn implies the infrared scale $Λ'$ of the mirror strong interactions has to be larger than the ordinary QCD scale $Λ$. In this way, the axion mass and interaction constants are actually determined by mirror sector scales $v'$ and $Λ'$, while the $θ$ terms are simultaneously cancelled in both sectors due to mirror symmetry. The experimental and astrophysical limits on such an axion is discussed. An interesting parameter window is found where $f_a \sim {\rm few}\times 10^4$ GeV whereas the axion mass is $\sim 1$ MeV.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2001

The Early Mirror Universe: Inflation, Baryogenesis, Nucleosynthesis and Dark Matter

There can exist a parallel `mirror' world which has the same particle physics as the observable world and couples the latter only gravitationally. The nucleosynthesis bounds demand that the mirror sector should have a smaller temperature than the ordinary one. By this reason its evolution should be substantially deviated from the standard cosmology as far as the crucial epochs like baryogenesis, nucleosynthesis etc. are concerned. Starting from an inflationary scenario which could explain the different initial temperatures of the two sectors, we study the time history of the early mirror universe. In particular, we show that in the context of the GUT or electroweak baryogenesis scenarios, the baryon asymmetry in the mirror world should be larger than in the observable one and in fact the mirror baryons could provide the dominant dark matter component of the universe. In addition, analyzing the nucleosynthesis epoch, we show that the mirror helium abundance should be much larger than that of ordinary helium. The implications of the mirror baryons representing a kind of self-interacting dark matter for the large scale structure formation, the CMB anysotropy, the galactic halo structures, microlensing, etc. are briefly discussed.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2000

Predictive Grand Unified Textures for Quark and Neutrino Masses and Mixings

We propose new textures for the fermion Yukawa matrices which are generalizations of the so-called Stech ansatz. We discuss how these textures can be realized in supersymmetric grand unified models with horizontal symmetry SU(3)_H among the fermion generations. In this framework the mass and mixing hierarchy of fermions (including neutrinos) can emerge in a natural way. We emphasize the central role played by the SU(3)_H adjoint Higgs field which reduces SU(3)_H to U(2)_H at the GUT scale. A complete SO(10)\times SU(3)_H model is presented in which the desired Yukawa textures can be obtained by symmetry reasons. The phenomenological implications of these textures are thoroughly investigated. Among various realistic possibilities for the Clebsch factors between the quark and lepton entries, we find three different solutions which provide excellent fits of the quark masses and CKM mixing angles. Interestingly, all these solutions predict the correct amount of CP violation via the CKM mechanism, and, in addition, lead to an appealing pattern of the neutrino masses and mixing angles. In particular, they all predict nearly maximal 23 mixing and small 12 mixing in the lepton sector, respectively in the range needed for the explanation of the atmospheric and solar neutrino anomaly.

hep-ph↗

arXiv2000

Classical Nambu-Goldstone fields

It is shown that a Nambu-Goldstone (NG) field may be coherently produced by a large number of particles in spite of the fact that the NG bosons do not couple to flavor conserving scalar densities like $\barψψ$. If a flavor oscillation process takes place the phases of the pseudo-scalar or flavor violating densities of different particles do not necessarily cancel each other. The NG boson gets a macroscopic source whenever the total (spontaneously broken) quantum number carried by the source particles suffers a net increase or decrease in time. If the lepton numbers are spontaneously broken such classical NG (majoron) fields may significantly change the neutrino oscillation processes in stars pushing the observational capabilities of neutrino-majoron couplings down to $m_ν/300$ GeV.

hep-ph↗

arXiv1999

Gamma Ray Bursts via emission of axion-like particles

The Pseudo-Goldstone Boson (PGB) emission could provide a very efficient mechanism for explaining the cosmic Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs). The PGBs could be produced during the merging of two compact objects like two neutron stars or neutron star - black hole, and then decay into electron-positron pairs and photons at distances ~ 100-1000 km. In this way, a huge energy (up to more than 10^{54} erg) can be deposited into the outer space with low baryon density in the form of ultrarelativistic e^+e^- plasma, the so called fireball, which originates the observed gamma-ray bursts. The needed ranges for the PGB parameters are: mass of order MeV, coupling to nucleons g_{aN} ~ few x 10^{-6} and to electrons g_{ae} ~ few x 10^{-9}. Interestingly enough, the range for coupling constants correspond to that of the invisible axion with the Peccei-Quinn symmetry breaking scale V ~ few x 10^5 GeV, but the mass of the PGB is many orders of magnitude larger than what such a scale would demand to an axion. Neither present experimental data nor astrophysical and cosmological arguments can exclude such an ultramassive axion, however the relevant parameters' window is within the reach of future experiments. Another exciting point is that our mechanism could explain the association of some GRBs with supernovae type Ib/c, as far as their progenitor stars have a radius ~ 10^4 km. And finally, it also could help the supernova type II explosion: PGBs emitted from the core of the collapsing star and decaying in the outer shells would deposit a kinetic energy of the order of 10^{51} erg. In this way, emission of such an axion-like particle could provide an unique theoretical base for understanding the gamma ray bursts and supernova explosions.

hep-ph↗