Including the Fermion Vacuum Fluctuations in the (2+1)(2+1) flavor Polyakov Quark Meson Model

We consider the $(2+1)$ flavor Polyakov Quark Meson Model and study the effect of including fermion vacuum fluctuations on the thermodynamics and phase diagram. The resulting model predictions are compared to the recent QCD lattice simulations by the HotQCD and Wuppertal-Budapest collaborations. The variation of the thermodynamic quantities across the phase transition region becomes smoother. This results in better agreement with the lattice data. Depending on the value of the mass of the sigma meson, including the vacuum term results in either pushing the critical end point into higher values of the chemical potential or excluding the possibility of a critical end point altogether.Comment: 15 figures, some parts rewritten, new figures adde

Clockworking FIMPs

We study freeze-in dark matter production in models that rely on the Clockwork mechanism to suppress the dark matter couplings to the visible sector. We construct viable scalar and fermionic dark matter models within this Clockwork FIMP scenario, with several subtleties that need to be taken into account revealed in the model-building process. We also provide analytic, semi-analytic and numerical results for the diagonalization of Clockwork-type mass matrices and briefly discuss the LHC phenomenology of the corresponding scenarios.Comment: 27 pages, 3 figures. Some typos in the appendices corrected. Accepted for JHE

Lab-frame observables for probing the top-Higgs interaction

We investigate methods to explore the CP nature of the $t\bar{t}h$ coupling at the LHC, focusing on associated production of the Higgs with a $t \bar{t}$ pair. We first discuss the constraints implied by low-energy observables and by the Higgs-rate information from available LHC data, emphasizing that they cannot provide conclusive evidence on the nature of this coupling. We then investigate kinematic observables that could probe the $t\bar{t}h$ coupling directly, in particular quantities that can be constructed out of just lab-frame kinematics. We define one such observable by exploiting the fact that $t \bar{t}$ spin correlations do also carry information about the CP-nature of the $t\bar{t}h$ coupling. Finally, we introduce a CP-odd quantity and a related asymmetry, able to probe CP violation in the $t\bar{t}h$ coupling and likewise constructed out of lab-frame momenta only.Comment: 32 pages, updated with latest data from ATLAS and references adde

Boosting Higgs CP properties via VH Production at the Large Hadron Collider

We consider ZH and WH production at the Large Hadron Collider, where the Higgs decays to a bb pair. We use jet substructure techniques to reconstruct the Higgs boson and construct angular observables involving leptonic decay products of the vector bosons. These efficiently discriminate between the tensor structure of the HVV vertex expected in the Standard Model and that arising from possible new physics, as quantified by higher dimensional operators. This can then be used to examine the CP nature of the Higgs as well as CP mixing effects in the HZZ and HWW vertices separately.Comment: 5 pages, 3 figures. v2: two references added and typo correcte