Search for sterile neutrinos in holographic dark energy cosmology: Reconciling Planck observation with the local measurement of the Hubble constant

We search for sterile neutrinos in the holographic dark energy cosmology by using the latest observational data. To perform the analysis, we employ the current cosmological observations, including the cosmic microwave background temperature power spectrum data from the Planck mission, the baryon acoustic oscillation measurements, the type Ia supernova data, the redshift space distortion measurements, the shear data of weak lensing observation, the Planck lensing measurement, and the latest direct measurement of $H_0$ as well. We show that, compared to the $\Lambda$CDM cosmology, the holographic dark energy cosmology with sterile neutrinos can relieve the tension between the Planck observation and the direct measurement of $H_0$ much better. Once we include the $H_0$ measurement in the global fit, we find that the hint of the existence of sterile neutrinos in the holographic dark energy cosmology can be given. Under the constraint of the all-data combination, we obtain $N_{\rm eff}= 3.76\pm0.26$ and $m_{\nu,\rm sterile}^{\rm eff}< 0.215\,\rm eV$, indicating that the detection of $\Delta N_{\rm eff}>0$ in the holographic dark energy cosmology is at the $2.75\sigma$ level and the massless or very light sterile neutrino is favored by the current observations.Comment: 10 pages, 4 figures; typos corrected, published in PR

Simple non-Abelian extensions of the standard model gauge group and the diboson excesses at the LHC

The ATLAS collaboration reported excesses at around 2 TeV in the di-boson production decaying into hadronic final states. We consider the possibility of explaining the excesses with extra gauge bosons in two simple non-Abelian extensions of the Standard Model. One is the so-called $G(221)$ models with a symmetry structure of $SU(2)_1\otimes SU(2)_2\otimes U(1)_X$ and the other is the $G(331)$ models with an extended symmetry of $SU(3)_C\otimes SU(3)_L\otimes U(1)_X$. The $W'$ and $Z'$ bosons emerge after the electroweak symmetry is spontaneously broken. Two patterns of symmetry breaking in the $G(221)$ models are considered in this work: one is $SU(2)_L\otimes SU(2)_2 \otimes U(1)_X \to SU(2)_L\otimes U(1)_Y$, the other is $SU(2)_1\otimes SU(2)_2 \otimes U(1)_Y \to SU(2)_L\otimes U(1)_Y$. The symmetry breaking of the $G(331)$ model is $SU(3)_L\otimes U(1)_X \to SU(2)_L \otimes U(1)_Y$. We perform a global analysis of $W^\prime$ and $Z^\prime$ phenomenology in ten new physics models, including all the channels of $W^\prime/Z^\prime$ decay. Our study shows that the leptonic mode and the dijet mode of $W^\prime/Z^\prime$ decays impose a very stringent bound on the parameter space in several new physics models. Such tight bounds provide a useful guide for building new physics models to address on the diboson anomalies. We also note that the Left-Right and Lepton-Phobic models can explain the $3.4\sigma$ $WZ$ excess if the $2.6\sigma$ deviation in the $W^+W^-$ pair around 2~TeV were confirmed to be a fluctuation of the SM backgrounds.Comment: Publish version; title changed as suggested by journal Edito

Resolving the Degeneracy in Single Higgs Production with Higgs Pair Production

The Higgs boson production can be affected by several anomalous couplings, e.g. $c_t$ and $c_g$ anomalous couplings. Precise measurement of $gg\to h$ production yields two degenerate parameter spaces of $c_t$ and $c_g$; one parameter space exhibits the SM limit while the other does not. Such a degeneracy could be resolved by Higgs boson pair production. In this work we adapt the strategy suggested by the ATLAS collaboration to explore the potential of distinguishing the degeneracy at the 14 TeV LHC. If the $c_t$ anomalous coupling is induced only by the operator $H^\dag H \bar Q_L \tilde{H} t_R$, then the non-SM-like band could be excluded with an integrated luminosity of $\sim 235~{\rm fb}^{-1}$. Making use of the fact that the Higgs boson pair is mainly produced through an $s$-wave scattering, we propose an analytical function to describe the fraction of signal events surviving a series of experimental cuts for a given invariant mass of Higgs boson pair. The function is model independent and can be applied to estimate the discovery potential of various NP models