Two-loop Master Integrals with the Simplified Differential Equations approach

We calculate the complete set of two-loop Master Integrals with two off mass-shell legs with massless internal propagators, that contribute to amplitudes of diboson $V_1V_2$ production at the LHC. This is done with the Simplified Differential Equations approach to Master Integrals, which was recently proposed by one of the authors.Comment: 4 figures, 6 ancillary files. Version as published in JHE

The Pentabox Master Integrals with the Simplified Differential Equations approach

We present the calculation of massless two-loop Master Integrals relevant to five-point amplitudes with one off-shell external leg and derive the complete set of planar Master Integrals with five on-mass-shell legs, that contribute to many $2\to 3$ amplitudes of interest at the LHC, as for instance three jet production, $\gamma, V, H +2$ jets etc., based on the Simplified Differential Equations approach.Comment: Revised version accepted for publication in JHEP. Ancillary files with results can be downloaded from https://www.dropbox.com/s/90iiqfcazrhwtso/results.tgz?dl=

Cosmogenic neutrino fluxes under the effect of active-sterile secret interactions

Ultra High Energy cosmogenic neutrinos may represent a unique opportunity to unveil possible new physics interactions once restricted to the neutrino sector only. In the present paper we study the observable effects of a secret active-sterile interactions, mediated by a pseudoscalar, on the expected flux of cosmogenic neutrinos. The results show that for masses of sterile neutrinos and pseudoscalars of hundreds MeV, necessary to evade cosmological, astrophysical and elementary particle constraints, the presence of such new interactions can significantly change the energy spectrum of cosmogenic neutrinos at Earth in the energy range from PeV to ZeV. Interestingly, the distortion of the spectrum results to be detectable at GRAND apparatus if the scalar mediator mass is around 250 MeV and the UHECRs are dominated by the proton component. Larger mediator masses or a chemical composition of UHECRs dominated by heavier nuclei would require much larger cosmic rays apparatus which might be available in future.Comment: 10 pages, 3 figure

A new approach to analysing HST spatial scans: the transmission spectrum of HD 209458 b

The Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3) on Hubble Space Telescope (HST) is currently one of the most widely used instruments for observing exoplanetary atmospheres, especially with the use of the spatial scanning technique. An increasing number of exoplanets have been studied using this technique as it enables the observation of bright targets without saturating the sensitive detectors. In this work we present a new pipeline for analyzing the data obtained with the spatial scanning technique, starting from the raw data provided by the instrument. In addition to commonly used correction techniques, we take into account the geometric distortions of the instrument, whose impact may become important when combined to the scanning process. Our approach can improve the photometric precision for existing data and also push further the limits of the spatial scanning technique, as it allows the analysis of even longer spatial scans. As an application of our method and pipeline, we present the results from a reanalysis of the spatially scanned transit spectrum of HD 209458 b. We calculate the transit depth per wavelength channel with an average relative uncertainty of 40 ppm. We interpret the final spectrum with T-Rex, our fully Bayesian spectral retrieval code, which confirms the presence of water vapor and clouds in the atmosphere of HD 209458 b. The narrow wavelength range limits our ability to disentangle the degeneracies between the fitted atmospheric parameters. Additional data over a broader spectral range are needed to address this issue.Comment: 13 pages, 15 figures, 7 tables, Accepted for publication in Ap

A Principal Component Analysis-based method to analyse high-resolution spectroscopic data

High-Resolution Spectroscopy (HRS) has been used to study the composition and dynamics of exoplanetary atmospheres. In particular, the spectrometer CRIRES installed on the ESO-VLT has been used to record high-resolution spectra in the Near-IR of gaseous exoplanets. Here we present a new automatic pipeline to analyze CRIRES data-sets. Said pipeline is based on a novel use of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Cross-Correlation Function (CCF). The exoplanetary atmosphere is modeled with the $\tau$-REx code using opacities at high temperature from the ExoMol project. In this work, we tested our analysis tools on the detection of CO and H$_2$O in the atmospheres of the hot-Jupiters HD209458b and HD189733b. The results of our pipeline are in agreement with previous results in the literature and other techniques.Comment: 14 pages, 12 figures, 2 tables, published in Ap

Quantum Topological Invariants, Gravitational Instantons and the Topological Embedding

Certain topological invariants of the moduli space of gravitational instantons are defined and studied. Several amplitudes of two and four dimensional topological gravity are computed. A notion of puncture in four dimensions, that is particularly meaningful in the class of Weyl instantons, is introduced. The topological embedding, a theoretical framework for constructing physical amplitudes that are well-defined order by order in perturbation theory around instantons, is explicitly applied to the computation of the correlation functions of Dirac fermions in a punctured gravitational background, as well as to the most general QED and QCD amplitude. Various alternatives are worked out, discussed and compared. The quantum background affects the propagation by generating a certain effective ``quantum'' metric. The topological embedding could represent a new chapter of quantum field theory.Comment: LaTeX, 18 pages, no figur

Slow and fast collective neutrino oscillations: Invariants and reciprocity

The flavor evolution of a neutrino gas can show ''slow'' or ''fast'' collective motion. In terms of the usual Bloch vectors to describe the mean-field density matrices of a homogeneous neutrino gas, the slow two-flavor equations of motion (EOMs) are $\dot{\mathbf{P}}_\omega=(\omega\mathbf{B}+\mu\mathbf{P})\times\mathbf{P}_\omega$, where $\omega=\Delta m^2/2E$, $\mu=\sqrt{2} G_{\mathrm{F}} (n_\nu+n_{\bar\nu})$, $\mathbf{B}$ is a unit vector in the mass direction in flavor space, and $\mathbf{P}=\int d\omega\,\mathbf{P}_\omega$. For an axisymmetric angle distribution, the fast EOMs are $\dot{\mathbf{D}}_v=\mu(\mathbf{D}_0-v\mathbf{D}_1)\times\mathbf{D}_v$, where $\mathbf{D}_v$ is the Bloch vector for lepton number, $v=\cos\theta$ is the velocity along the symmetry axis, $\mathbf{D}_0=\int dv\,\mathbf{D}_v$, and $\mathbf{D}_1=\int dv\,v\mathbf{D}_v$. We discuss similarities and differences between these generic cases. Both systems can have pendulum-like instabilities (soliton solutions), both have similar Gaudin invariants, and both are integrable in the classical and quantum case. Describing fast oscillations in a frame comoving with $\mathbf{D}_1$ (which itself may execute pendulum-like motions) leads to transformed EOMs that are equivalent to an abstract slow system. These conclusions carry over to three flavors.Comment: 16 pages; typo below Eq. (5) and in Eq. (47) correcte

Bump-hunting in the diffuse flux of high-energy cosmic neutrinos

The origin of the bulk of the high-energy astrophysical neutrinos seen by IceCube, with TeV--PeV energies, is unknown. If they are made in photohadronic, i.e., proton-photon, interactions in astrophysical sources, this may manifest as a bump-like feature in their diffuse flux, centered around a characteristic energy. We search for evidence of this feature, allowing for variety in its shape and size, in 7.5 years of High-Energy Starting Events (HESE) collected by the IceCube neutrino telescope, and make forecasts using larger data samples from upcoming neutrino telescopes. Present-day data reveals no evidence of bump-like features, which allows us to constrain candidate populations of photohadronic neutrino sources. Near-future forecasts show promising potential for stringent constraints or decisive discovery of bump-like features. Our results provide new insight into the origins of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos, complementing those from point-source searches.Comment: 29 pages, 13 figure