Effective Field Theory and Time-Reversal Violation in Light Nuclei

Thanks to the unnaturally small value of the QCD vacuum angle $\bar\theta < 10^{-10}$, time-reversal ($T$) violation offers a window into physics beyond the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics. We review the effective-field-theory framework that establishes a clean connection between $T$-violating mechanisms, which can be represented by higher-dimensional operators involving SM fields and symmetries, and hadronic interactions, which allow for controlled calculations of low-energy observables involving strong interactions. The chiral properties of $T$-violating mechanisms leads to a pattern that should be identifiable in measurements of the electric dipole moments of the nucleon and light nuclei.Comment: 35 pages. Accepted for publication in Ann. Rev. Nucl. Part. Sci. 65 (2015

Neutrinoless double beta decay in effective field theory: the light Majorana neutrino exchange mechanism

We present the first chiral effective theory derivation of the neutrinoless double beta-decay $nn\rightarrow pp$ potential induced by light Majorana neutrino exchange. The effective-field-theory framework has allowed us to identify and parameterize short- and long-range contributions previously missed in the literature. These contributions can not be absorbed into parameterizations of the single nucleon form factors. Starting from the quark and gluon level, we perform the matching onto chiral effective field theory and subsequently onto the nuclear potential. To derive the nuclear potential mediating neutrinoless double beta-decay, the hard, soft and potential neutrino modes must be integrated out. This is performed through next-to-next-to-leading order in the chiral power counting, in both the Weinberg and pionless schemes. At next-to-next-to-leading order, the amplitude receives additional contributions from the exchange of ultrasoft neutrinos, which can be expressed in terms of nuclear matrix elements of the weak current and excitation energies of the intermediate nucleus. These quantities also control the two-neutrino double beta-decay amplitude. Finally, we outline strategies to determine the low-energy constants that appear in the potentials, by relating them to electromagnetic couplings and/or by matching to lattice QCD calculations.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figure

Right-handed charged currents in the era of the Large Hadron Collider

We discuss the phenomenology of right-handed charged currents in the framework of the Standard Model Effective Field Theory, in which they arise due to a single gauge-invariant dimension-six operator. We study the manifestations of the nine complex couplings of the $W$ to right-handed quarks in collider physics, flavor physics, and low-energy precision measurements. We first obtain constraints on the couplings under the assumption that the right-handed operator is the dominant correction to the Standard Model at observable energies. We subsequently study the impact of degeneracies with other Beyond-the-Standard-Model effective interactions and identify observables, both at colliders and low-energy experiments, that would uniquely point to right-handed charged currents.Comment: 50 pages plus appendices and reference

Neutrinoless double beta decay in chiral effective field theory: lepton number violation at dimension seven

We analyze neutrinoless double beta decay ($0\nu\beta\beta$) within the framework of the Standard Model Effective Field Theory. Apart from the dimension-five Weinberg operator, the first contributions appear at dimension seven. We classify the operators and evolve them to the electroweak scale, where we match them to effective dimension-six, -seven, and -nine operators. In the next step, after renormalization group evolution to the QCD scale, we construct the chiral Lagrangian arising from these operators. We develop a power-counting scheme and derive the two-nucleon $0\nu\beta\beta$ currents up to leading order in the power counting for each lepton-number-violating operator. We argue that the leading-order contribution to the decay rate depends on a relatively small number of nuclear matrix elements. We test our power counting by comparing nuclear matrix elements obtained by various methods and by different groups. We find that the power counting works well for nuclear matrix elements calculated from a specific method, while, as in the case of light Majorana neutrino exchange, the overall magnitude of the matrix elements can differ by factors of two to three between methods. We calculate the constraints that can be set on dimension-seven lepton-number-violating operators from $0\nu\beta\beta$ experiments and study the interplay between dimension-five and -seven operators, discussing how dimension-seven contributions affect the interpretation of $0\nu\beta\beta$ in terms of the effective Majorana mass $m_{\beta \beta}$.Comment: Matches version published in JHE

Deuteron Magnetic Quadrupole Moment From Chiral Effective Field Theory

We calculate the magnetic quadrupole moment (MQM) of the deuteron at leading order in the systematic expansion provided by chiral effective field theory. We take into account parity and time-reversal violation which, at the quark-gluon level, results from the QCD vacuum angle and dimension-six operators that originate from physics beyond the Standard Model. We show that the deuteron MQM can be expressed in terms of five low-energy constants that appear in the parity- and time-reversal-violating nuclear potential and electromagnetic current, four of which also contribute to the electric dipole moments of light nuclei. We conclude that the deuteron MQM has an enhanced sensitivity to the QCD vacuum angle and that its measurement would be complementary to the proposed measurements of light-nuclear EDMs

The anomalous X-ray pulsar 1E 1048.1-5937: Phase resolved spectroscopy with the XMM-Newton satellite

We report on an observation of the Anomalous X-ray Pulsar 1E 1048.1-5937 performed with the XMM-Newton satellite. The phase averaged spectrum of 1E 1048.1-5937 is well described by the sum of a power law with photon index ~2.9 and a blackbody with temperature ~0.6 keV, without evidence for significant absorption or emission lines. The above spectral parameters do not vary during the phases corresponding to the broad pulse, while the off pulse emission shows a different spectrum characterized by a soft excess at energies below ~1.5 keV. The XMM-Newton observation and a re-analysis of archival BeppoSAX data, show that the spectral parameters and flux of 1E 1048.1-5937 did not change significantly during observations spanning the last four years. All the data are consistent with a 2-10 keV luminosity varying in the range ~(5-7) 10^33 erg/s (for a distance of 3 kpc).Comment: 7 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in A&