Anomalies, U(1)' and the MSSM

This Thesis reviews an extension of the MSSM by the addition of an anomalous abelian vector multiplet and contains some original results concerning the phenomenology of an anomalous $Z'$. The review part covers an introduction of the MSSM focusing on its main features, a discussion on the chiral anomalies and how to cancel them in the Standard Model and by the Green-Schwarz mechanism. Then, the original results are presented. We build the Lagrangian for the Minimal Anomalous $U(1)'$ Extension of the MSSM where the anomalies are cancelled by the Green-Schwarz mechanism and the addition of Chern-Simons terms, stressing the main differences between our model and the MSSM. The advantage of this choice over the standard one is that it allows for arbitrary values of the quantum numbers of the extra U(1). As a first step towards the study of hadron annihilations producing four leptons in the final state (a clean signal which might be studied at LHC) we then compute the decays Z'\to Z_0 \g and $Z'\to Z_0 Z_0$. We find that the largest values of the decay rate are $\sim 10^{-4}$ GeV, while the expected number of events per year at LHC is at most of the order of 10. Then we compute the relic density predicted by our model with a new dark matter candidate, the axino, which is the LSP of the theory. We find agreement with experimental data admitting a bino-higgsino NLSP or a wino-like NLSP, almost degenerate in mass to the axino.Comment: 145 pages, 29 figures, feynmf, [dvipdfm]{hyperref}, PhD Thesis (Advisor: F. Fucito), University of Rome Tor Vergat

Super-Heavy Dark Matter - Towards Predictive Scenarios from Inflation

A generic prediction of the Coleman-Weinberg inflation is the existence of a heavy particle sector whose interactions with the inflaton, the lightest state in this sector, generate the inflaton potential at loop level. For typical interactions the heavy sector may contain stable states whose relic abundance is generated at the end of inflation by the gravity alone. This general feature, and the absence of any particle physics signal of dark matter so far, motivates us to look for new directions in the dark sector physics, including scenarios in which dark matter is super-heavy. In this article we study the possibility that the dark matter is even heavier than the inflaton, its existence follows from the inflaton dynamics, and its abundance today is {\it naturally} determined by the weakness of gravitational interaction. This implies that the super-heavy dark matter scenarios can be tested via the measurements of inflationary parameters and/or the CMB isocurvature perturbations and non-Gaussianities. We explicitly work out details of three Coleman-Weinberg inflation scenarios, study the systematics of super-heavy dark matter production in those cases, and compute which parts of the parameter spaces can be probed by the future CMB measurements.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures. Matches the published version on NP

Linear inflation from quartic potential

We show that if the inflaton has a non-minimal coupling to gravity and the Planck scale is dynamically generated, the results of Coleman-Weinberg inflation are confined in between two attractor solutions: quadratic inflation, which is ruled out by the recent measurements, and linear inflation which, instead, is in the experimental allowed region. The minimal scenario has only one free parameter -- the inflaton's non-minimal coupling to gravity -- that determines all physical parameters such as the tensor-to-scalar ratio and the reheating temperature of the Universe. Should the more precise future measurements of inflationary parameters point towards linear inflation, further interest in scale-invariant scenarios would be motivated.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures, revised version published on JHE

Embedding inflation into the Standard Model - more evidence for classical scale invariance

If cosmological inflation is due to a slowly rolling single inflation field taking trans-Planckian values as suggested by the BICEP2 measurement of primordial tensor modes in CMB, embedding inflation into the Standard Model challenges standard paradigm of effective field theories. Together with an apparent absence of Planck scale contributions to the Higgs mass and to the cosmological constant, BICEP2 provides further experimental evidence for the absence of large $M_{\rm P}$ induced operators. We show that classical scale invariance, the paradigm that all fundamental scales in Nature are induced by quantum effects, solves the problem and allows for a remarkably simple scale-free Standard Model extension with inflaton without extending the gauge group. Due to trans-Planckian inflaton values and vevs, a dynamically induced Coleman-Weinberg-type inflaton potential of the model can predict tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$ in a large range, converging around the prediction of chaotic $m^2\phi^2$ inflation for a large trans-Planckian value of the inflaton vev. Precise determination of $r$ in future experiments will single out a unique scale-free inflation potential, allowing to test the proposed field-theoretic framework.Comment: 20 pages, 6 figures, revised version published on JHE

Phase transition and gravitational wave phenomenology of scalar conformal extensions of the Standard Model

Thermal corrections in classically conformal models typically induce a strong first-order electroweak phase transition, thereby resulting in a stochastic gravitational wave background that could be detectable at gravitational wave observatories. After reviewing the basics of classically conformal scenarios, in this paper we investigate the phase transition dynamics in a thermal environment and the related gravitational wave phenomenology within the framework of scalar conformal extensions of the Standard Model. We find that minimal extensions involving only one additional scalar field struggle to reproduce the correct phase transition dynamics once thermal corrections are accounted for. Next-to-minimal models, instead, yield the desired electroweak symmetry breaking and typically result in a very strong gravitational wave signal.Comment: 9 pages and 7 figures. Minor changes to match the published versio

Implications of the effective axial-vector coupling of gluon on top-quark charge asymmetry at the LHC

We study different top quark charge asymmetries and the variation of $t\bar t$ total cross section induced by the effective axial-vector coupling of gluon in the LHC experiments. We show that rapidity cut-dependent asymmetries are more sensitive to the new physics than the independent ones. We also study the dependence of the asymmetries and variations of total $t\bar t$ cross sections on the invariant mass of $t\bar t$ system and show that it would be necessary to measure those quantities as functions of $m_{tt}$ at the LHC. In the context of considered new physics scenario, 7 TeV LHC has enough sensitivity either to confirm the Tevatron top asymmetry anomaly or to rule it out. In the latter case the LHC is able to put stringent constraint on the new physics scale $\Lambda$ in this framework.Comment: few small changes in the text, Fig. 2 corrected, same as published version, 12 pages, 9 figure