151 research outputs found
Planck-scale effects on WIMP dark matter
There exists a widely known conjecture that gravitational effects violate
global symmetries. We study the effect of global-symmetry violating
higher-dimension operators induced by Planck-scale physics on the properties of
WIMP dark matter. Using an effective description, we show that the lifetime of
the WIMP dark matter candidate can satisfy cosmological bounds under reasonable
assumptions regarding the strength of the dimension-five operators. On the
other hand, the indirect WIMP dark matter detection signal is significantly
enhanced due to new decay channels.Comment: 12 pages, 4 figures. Version accepted for publication in Frontier
Bi-large neutrino mixing and the Cabibbo angle
Recent measurements of the neutrino mixing angles cast doubt on the validity
of the so-far popular tri-bimaximal mixing ansatz. We propose a parametrization
for the neutrino mixing matrix where the reactor angle seeds the large solar
and atmospheric mixing angles, equal to each other in first approximation. We
suggest such bi-large mixing pattern as a model building standard, realized
when the leading order value of the reactor angle equals the Cabibbo angle.Comment: 4 pages, 2 figs. v2: matches version appearing in Phys.Rev.D, rapid
communication
Structure of nanoparticles embedded in micellar polycrystals
We investigate by scattering techniques the structure of water-based soft
composite materials comprising a crystal made of Pluronic block-copolymer
micelles arranged in a face-centered cubic lattice and a small amount (at most
2% by volume) of silica nanoparticles, of size comparable to that of the
micelles. The copolymer is thermosensitive: it is hydrophilic and fully
dissolved in water at low temperature (T ~ 0{\deg}C), and self-assembles into
micelles at room temperature, where the block-copolymer is amphiphilic. We use
contrast matching small-angle neuron scattering experiments to probe
independently the structure of the nanoparticles and that of the polymer. We
find that the nanoparticles do not perturb the crystalline order. In addition,
a structure peak is measured for the silica nanoparticles dispersed in the
polycrystalline samples. This implies that the samples are spatially
heterogeneous and comprise, without macroscopic phase separation, silica-poor
and silica-rich regions. We show that the nanoparticle concentration in the
silica-rich regions is about tenfold the average concentration. These regions
are grain boundaries between crystallites, where nanoparticles concentrate, as
shown by static light scattering and by light microscopy imaging of the
samples. We show that the temperature rate at which the sample is prepared
strongly influence the segregation of the nanoparticles in the
grain-boundaries.Comment: accepted for publication in Langmui
Accidental stability of dark matter
We propose that dark matter is stable as a consequence of an accidental Z2
that results from a flavour-symmetry group which is the double-cover group of
the symmetry group of one of the regular geometric solids. Although
model-dependent, the phenomenology resembles that of a generic Higgs portal
dark matter scheme.Comment: 12 pages, final version, published in JHE
Improving interinstitutional and intertechnology consistency of pulmonary SBRT by dose prescription to the mean internal target volume dose.
Dose, fractionation, normalization and the dose profile inside the target volume vary substantially in pulmonary stereotactic body radiotherapy (SBRT) between different institutions and SBRT technologies. Published planning studies have shown large variations of the mean dose in planning target volume (PTV) and gross tumor volume (GTV) or internal target volume (ITV) when dose prescription is performed to the PTV covering isodose. This planning study investigated whether dose prescription to the mean dose of the ITV improves consistency in pulmonary SBRT dose distributions.
This was a multi-institutional planning study by the German Society of Radiation Oncology (DEGRO) working group Radiosurgery and Stereotactic Radiotherapy. CT images and structures of ITV, PTV and all relevant organs at risk (OAR) for two patients with early stage non-small cell lung cancer (NSCLC) were distributed to all participating institutions. Each institute created a treatment plan with the technique commonly used in the institute for lung SBRT. The specified dose fractionation was 3 × 21.5 Gy normalized to the mean ITV dose. Additional dose objectives for target volumes and OAR were provided.
In all, 52 plans from 25 institutions were included in this analysis: 8 robotic radiosurgery (RRS), 34 intensity-modulated (MOD), and 10 3D-conformal (3D) radiation therapy plans. The distribution of the mean dose in the PTV did not differ significantly between the two patients (median 56.9 Gy vs 56.6 Gy). There was only a small difference between the techniques, with RRS having the lowest mean PTV dose with a median of 55.9 Gy followed by MOD plans with 56.7 Gy and 3D plans with 57.4 Gy having the highest. For the different organs at risk no significant difference between the techniques could be found.
This planning study pointed out that multiparameter dose prescription including normalization on the mean ITV dose in combination with detailed objectives for the PTV and ITV achieve consistent dose distributions for peripheral lung tumors in combination with an ITV concept between different delivery techniques and across institutions
Dark Matter from Minimal Flavor Violation
We consider theories of flavored dark matter, in which the dark matter
particle is part of a multiplet transforming nontrivially under the flavor
group of the Standard Model in a manner consistent with the principle of
Minimal Flavor Violation (MFV). MFV automatically leads to the stability of the
lightest state for a large number of flavor multiplets. If neutral, this
particle is an excellent dark matter candidate. Furthermore, MFV implies
specific patterns of mass splittings among the flavors of dark matter and
governs the structure of the couplings between dark matter and ordinary
particles, leading to a rich and predictive cosmology and phenomenology. We
present an illustrative phenomenological study of an effective theory of a
flavor SU(3)_Q triplet, gauge singlet scalar.Comment: 10 pages, 2 figures; v2: references added, minor changes to collider
analysis, conclusions unchange
WIMP dark matter as radiative neutrino mass messenger
The minimal seesaw extension of the Standard SU(3)(c)circle times SU(2)(L)circle times U(1)(Y) Model requires two electroweak singlet fermions in order to accommodate the neutrino oscillation parameters at tree level. Here we consider a next to minimal extension where light neutrino masses are generated radiatively by two electroweak fermions: one singlet and one triplet under SU(2)(L). These should be odd under a parity symmetry and their mixing gives rise to a stable weakly interactive massive particle (WIMP) dark matter candidate. For mass in the GeV-TeV range, it reproduces the correct relic density, and provides an observable signal in nuclear recoil direct detection experiments. The fermion triplet component of the dark matter has gauge interactions, making it also detectable at present and near future collider experiments
Effective description of general extensions of the Standard Model: the complete tree-level dictionary
We thank Nuria Rius and Arcadi Santamaria for an interesting discussion that motivated
this work. We also thank Paco del Águila and Toni Pich for useful comments.We compute all the tree-level contributions to the Wilson coefficients of
the dimension-six Standard-Model effective theory in ultraviolet completions with general
scalar, spinor and vector feld content and arbitrary interactions. No assumption about
the renormalizability of the high-energy theory is made. This provides a complete ultraviolet/
infrared dictionary at the classical level, which can be used to study the low-energy
implications of any model of interest, and also to look for explicit completions consistent
with low-energy dataThe work
of J.C.C., M.P.V. and J.S. has been supported by the Spanish MICINN project FPA2013-
47836-C3-2-P, the MINECO project FPA2016-78220-C3-1-P (Fondos FEDER) and the
Junta de Andalucía grant FQM101. The work of J.C.C. has also been supported by the
Spanish MECD grant FPU14. The work of M.P.V. and J.S. has also been supported by the European Commission through the contract PITN-GA-2012-316704 (HIGGSTOOLS).
J.C.C. is grateful for the hospitality of the Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia \Galileo
Galilei" of the University of Padova during part of this work. J.S. would like to thank
the Mainz Institute for Theoretical Physics (MITP) for its hospitality and partial support
during the completion of this work
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