2,141 research outputs found
Light particles - A window to fundamental physics
In these proceedings we illustrate that light, very weakly interacting
particles can arise naturally from physics which is fundamentally connected to
very high energy scales. Searching for them therefore may give us interesting
new insights into the structure of fundamental physics. Prime examples are the
axion, and more general axion-like particles, as well as hidden sector photons
and matter charged under them.Comment: 8 pages, 1 figure, contributed to the proceedings of Axions 2010,
January 15-17, 2010, Gainesville, Florid
The Physics Case for Axions, WIMPs, WISPs and Other Weird Stuff
We argue that there exists an excellent `physics case' motivating the search
for axions, WIMPs, WISPs and other phenomena testable at low energies. This
physics case arises from both experimental and observational evidence as well
as the desire to test theoretical model building.Comment: 6 pages. Contribution to the ``4th Patras Workshop on Axions, WIMPs
and WISPs'', 18-21 June 2008, Hamburg, German
A Family of WISPy Dark Matter Candidates
Dark matter made from non-thermally produced bosons can have very low,
possibly sub-eV masses. Axions and hidden photons are prominent examples of
such "dark" very weakly interacting light (slim) particles (WISPs). A suitable
mechanism for their non-thermal production is the misalignment mechanism. Their
dominant interaction with Standard Model (SM) particles is via photons. In this
note we want to go beyond these standard examples and discuss a wide range of
scalar and pseudo-scalar bosons interacting with SM matter fermions via
derivative interactions. Suitably light candidates arise naturally as
pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone bosons. In particular we are interested in examples,
inspired by familons, whose interactions have a non-trivial flavor structure.Comment: 14 pages, 3 figures. v2 corrected Eq. (3.14
Getting Stuck: Using Monosignatures to Test Highly Ionizing Particles
In this paper we argue that monojet and monophoton searches can be a
sensitive test of very highly ionizing particles such as particles with charges
and more generally particles that do not reach the outer parts
of the detector. 8 TeV monojet data from the CMS experiment excludes such
objects with masses in the range and charges
. This nicely complements searches for highly ionizing objects at
ALICE, ATLAS, CMS and LHCb. Expected improvements in these channels will extend
the sensitivity range to . This search strategy can
directly be generalized to other particles that strongly interact with the
detector material, such as e.g. magnetic monopoles.Comment: 15 pages, 8 figures, version published in PL
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