Particle Physics

One of the puzzles that the newly data-rich fields of cosmology and astrophysics are most advantaged to tackle is the nature of the dark sector.  In particular, a dark sector that thermalizes with the SM bath at some epoch has present-day observable properties that are directly tied to early-universe interactions. In this talk I survey some recent work on detecting different types of thermal dark particles by leveraging different cosmological and astrophysical datasets.  I discuss the utility of each of these different probes, the implication for particle theories, and prospects for the future. 

Axion-like particles (ALPs) are one of the most attractive solutions to the dark matter issue. In this talk, I will discuss new ideas in the search for ALPs in astrophysical structures. In particular, I will focus on the emission associated with their decay into photons. The discussion will involve different ALP mass ranges and wavelength bands.

Rolling scalar fields play an important role in understanding cosmology within a particle physics framework. Coupling a rolling scalar field to light degrees of freedom gives rise to a thermal friction which, if large enough, induces a thermal bath. In the context of inflation the presence of such a thermal bath has compelling consequences as it significantly alters the usual observables, leading to a suppression of the tensor-to-scalar ratio r and a unique prediction for non-gaussianities. In my talk, I will illuminate why the axion of a non-Abelian gauge group is the ideal candidate for generating the thermal friction and how it sets the stage for a minimal setup of warm inflation, as well as a potential solution to the Hubble tension.

I discuss a new approach to the Higgs naturalness problem, where the value of the Higgs mass is tied to cosmic stability and the possibility of a large observable Universe. The Higgs mixes with the dilaton of a CFT sector whose true ground state has a large negative vacuum energy. If the Higgs VEV is non-zero and below O(TeV), the CFT also admits a second metastable vacuum, where the expansion history of the Universe is conventional. As a result, only Hubble patches with unnaturally small values of the Higgs mass support inflation and post-inflationary expansion, while all other patches rapidly crunch. I will also comment on alternative realizations of the mechanism that do not require a CFT sector and have a simple perturbative description.

The potential for discovering new gauge fields of nature relies upon extending the collision energy of hadron colliding beams as far as possible beyond the present 14 TeV capability of LHC.  We must seek a balance of minimum cost/TeV for the ring of superconducting magnets, feasibility and cost of a tunnel to contain the ring, and balancing the luminosity against synchrotron radiation.  Balancing feasibility, technology, and cost is crucial if there is to be a high-energy frontier for discovery of new gauge fields. Three design cases exhibit the tricky balance among these parameters:

FCC-hh:                                100 TeV,              ~100 km tunnel around Geneva,               ~16 T magnets using Nb3Sn

SuperCIC:            100 TeV,              270 km tunnel around Dallas,                      4.5 T magnets using NbTi

Collider-in-the-Sea:         500 TeV,              1900 km pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico,  3.5 T magnets using REBCO

Hoop conjecture suggests that microscopic black holes can be produced in collisions of high energy particles if the fundamental gravity scale is lowered to the electroweak scale in extra dimension models. This opens up the possibility of studying extra dimensions in collliders and neutrino telescopes. In this talk, I will introduce the unique signatures associated with black holes from cosmic neutrino-nucleon scattering in IceCube-Gen2. These signatures include new topologies, distinct energy distributions and unusual ratios of hadronic-to-electronic energy deposition. I will also discuss the study of dark sector in future colliders through the investigation of the production and decay of microscopic black holes and the implications of these black holes for the early universe.

The axion solution to the strong CP problem also provides a natural dark matter candidate. If the Peccei-Quinn symmetry has ever been restored after inflation, topological defects of the axion field would have formed and produced relic axions, whose abundance is in principle calculable. We study the contribution to the abundance produced by string defects during the so-called scaling regime. Clear evidence of scaling violations is found, the most conservative extrapolation of which strongly suggests a large number of axions from strings. The overall result is a lower bound on the QCD axion mass in the post-inflationary scenario that is substantially stronger than the naive one from misalignment.

We revisit the physics of neutrino magnetic moments, focusing in particular on the case where the right-handed, or sterile, neutrinos are heavier (up to several MeV) than the left-handed Standard Model neutrinos. The discussion is centered around the idea of detecting an upscattering event mediated by a transition magnetic moment in a neutrino or dark matter experiment. Considering neutrinos from all known sources, as well as including all available data from XENON1T and Borexino, we derive the strongest up-to-date exclusion limits on the active-to-sterile neutrino transition magnetic moment. We then study complementary constraints from astrophysics and cosmology, performing, in particular, a thorough analysis of BBN. We find that these data sets scrutinize most of the relevant parameter space. Explaining the XENON1T excess with transition magnetic moments is marginally possible if conservative assumptions are adopted regarding the supernova 1987 A and CMB constraints. Finally, we discuss model-building challenges that arise in scenarios that feature large magnetic moments while keeping neutrino masses well below 1 eV. We present a successful ultraviolet-complete model of this type based on TeV-scale leptoquarks, establishing links with muon magnetic moment, B physics anomalies, and collider searches at the LHC.