Search

We analyze the Large Hadron Collider potential to study triple couplings of the electroweak gauge bosons using their boosted hadronic decays. Deviations from Standard Model predictions spoil cancelations present in the Standard Model leading to the growth of the electroweak diboson production cross section at high center-of-mass energies. In this kinematical limit, $W$'s and $Z$'s are highly boosted, and consequently, their hadronic decays give rise to fat jets. Here, we show that the study of boosted hadronically decaying $W$ and $Z$ leads to limits on triple gauge couplings that are comparable to the ones originating from the leptonic decay channels., Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures

We introduce an optimization technique to discriminate signal and background in any phenomenological study based on the cut and count-based method. The core ideas behind this algorithm is the introduction of a ranking scheme that can quantitatively assess the relative importance of various observables involved in a new physics process, and a more methodical way of choosing what cuts to impose. The technique is an iterative process that works with the help of the MadAnalysis5 interface. Working in the context of a simple BSM scenario with a heavy Higgs boson that decays to four leptons via ZZ, we demonstrate how automating the cut and count process in this specific way results in an enhanced discovery potential compared with the more traditional way of imposing cuts.

We investigate the possibilities of probing the electroweak scale seesaw scenarios such as type-I, type-II and type-III seesaw at $e^-\gamma$ and $\gamma\gamma$ colliders. For the case of type-I seesaw, the heavy neutrinos can be produced at $e^{-}\gamma$ colliders in association with a $W$ boson. We study a variety of final states in this case including single and multilepton modes in association with jets to estimate bounds on the light-heavy neutrino mixing angle. In case of type-II seesaw, doubly charged multiplets of the SU$(2)_L$ triplet scalar can be produced in pair at $\gamma \gamma$ collider. We study the multi-leptonic decay modes coming from this pair production of doubly charged Higgs and show how one can probe neutrino mass hierarchy. We also study same sign $W$ boson production from the doubly charged Higgs to study multilepton modes in association with missing energy. From the type-III seesaw, we study same sign dilepton+jets and trilepton+jets modes at $e^-\gamma$ collider which are coming from the neutral and charged component of the triplet fermion in association with a $W$ boson and $Z$ boson, respectively. Due to the existing limits on the triplet fermions from the LHC we choose heavier mass so that the gauge boson originated from the decay of a neutral multiplet can be sufficiently boosted producing a fat-jet signature in association with same sign dilepton and trilepton. Finally we estimate bounds on the light neutrino-heavy triplet fermion mixing angle and compare with the existing bounds., Comment: 53 pages, 30 figures

In this paper, a collider signature of a heavy Higgs boson at $14$ TeV HL-LHC is studied, where the heavy Higgs boson decays into a pair of standard model Higgs boson, which further decays to $bbZZ$ state and subsequently to $bb\ell^{+} \ell^{-}\nu_{\ell} \nu_{\ell}$ final state. To study this, we consider singlet scalar extension of the standard model and select the parameter space and mass of the heavy Higgs boson such that it prefers a strong first-order electroweak phase transition. The study is done following the $bbZZ$ analysis of CMS Collaboration and further using parameterized machine learning for final discrimination which simplifies the training process along with an improved discrimination between signal and background over the range of benchmark points. Despite the lower branching fraction, this channel can be a potential probe of the electroweak phase transition with the data sets collected by the CMS and ATLAS experiments at the $14$ TeV HL-LHC with $3$ $\rm{ab}^{-1}$ of integrated luminosity and a production of resonant di-Higgs signal can be potentially discovered up to 490 GeV of resonance mass., Comment: 17 pages, 4 figures

The Littlest Seesaw model is a very well motivated dark matter model. Here we consider an extension of that model with an additional scalar and an additional fermionic particle under the freeze-in scenario. Formation of black hole of a certain mass range at primordial times can act as an alternate production mechanism for the dark matter particles as it evaporates via Hawking radiation. Furthermore, the presence of primordial black holes with substantial energy density gives rise to non-standard cosmology which also modifies the freeze-in production. In this paper, we have investigated the extended Littlest Seesaw model under the freeze-in scenario in the presence of a primordial black hole for various interesting cases and constrained the parameter space accordingly. If the universe is primordial black hole dominated at any point in the evolution of the universe, we find that the final relic in that case is dominated mostly by the evaporation component for a high dark matter mass and by the freeze-in component for a low dark matter mass., Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures, accepted in JCAP

A gauged U$(1)$ extension of the Standard Model (SM) is a simple and anomaly free framework where three generations of Majorana type right-handed neutrinos (RHNs) are introduced to generate light neutrino mass and flavor mixings through the seesaw mechanism. We investigate such models at different hadron and lepton colliders via $Z^\prime$ induced Majorana type RHNs pair production. We derive bounds on U$(1)$ gauge coupling $(g^\prime)$ comparing the model cross sections with experimentally observed data for different $Z^\prime$ mass $(M_{Z^\prime})$ and RHNs mass $(M_N)$. Using these limits we estimate the allowed RHN pair production cross section which can be manifested by lepton number violating signatures in association with fat-jets at the hadron colliders depending on the mass of the RHNs. Hence we study dilepton and trilepton modes with fat-jet/s of the signal for different benchmark values of $M_{Z^\prime}$ and $M_N$. Using fat-jet signatures and studying the signal and corresponding SM backgrounds, we estimate bounds on $M_N-M_{Z^\prime}$ plane at different center of mass energies which could be probed at different hadron colliders. In the context of the lepton colliders we consider electron positron initial states where Majorana type RHNs can be produced from $Z^\prime$ manifesting same sign dilepton plus jets signature and trilepton plus jets in association with missing energy. Studying the signal and corresponding SM backgrounds we estimate the bounds on the $M_N-M_{Z^\prime}$ plane for different center of mass energies. In the context of U$(1)$ extension of the SM there is an SM singlet BSM scalar which couples with the RHNs. We can probe the Majorana nature of RHNs via this BSM scalar production at electron positron colliders., Comment: 33 pages, 18 figures, matched with published version

The nature of neutrinos, whether Dirac or Majorana, is hitherto not known. Assuming that the neutrinos are Dirac, which needs $B-L$ to be an exact symmetry, we make an attempt to explain the observed proportionality between the relic densities of dark matter (DM) and baryonic matter in the present Universe ${\it i.e.,}\,\, \Omega_{\rm DM} \approx 5\, \Omega_{\rm B}$. Assuming the existence of heavy $SU(2)_L$ scalar doublet $(X= (X^0, X^-)^T)$ in the early Universe, an equal and opposite $B-L$ asymmetry can be generated in left and right-handed sectors by the CP-violating out-of-equilibrium decay $X^0 \to \nu_L \nu_R$ since $B-L$ is an exact symmetry. We ensure that $\nu_L-\nu_R$ equilibration does not occur until below the electroweak (EW) phase transition during which a part of the lepton asymmetry gets converted to dark matter asymmetry through a dimension eight operator, which conserves $B-L$ symmetry and is in thermal equilibrium. The remaining $B-L$ asymmetry then gets converted to a net B-asymmetry through EW-sphalerons which are active at a temperature above 100 GeV. To alleviate the small-scale anomalies of $\Lambda$CDM, we assume the DM to be self-interacting via a light mediator, which not only depletes the symmetric component of the DM, but also paves a way to detect the DM at terrestrial laboratories through scalar portal mixing., Comment: 17 pages, 10 captioned figures, Version accepted for publication in PRD

We consider an effective field theory framework with three standard model (SM) gauge singlet right handed neutrinos, and an additional SM gauge singlet scalar field. The framework successfully generates eV masses of the light neutrinos via seesaw mechanism, and accommodates a feebly interacting massive particle (FIMP) as dark matter candidate. Two of the gauge singlet neutrinos participate in neutrino mass generation, while the third gauge singlet neutrino is a FIMP dark matter. We explore the correlation between the $\textit{vev}$ of the gauge singlet scalar field which translates as mass of the BSM Higgs, and the mass of dark matter, which arises due to relic density constraint. We furthermore explore the constraints from the light neutrino masses in this set-up. We chose the gauge singlet BSM Higgs in this framework in the TeV scale. We perform a detailed collider analysis to analyse the discovery prospect of the TeV scale BSM Higgs through its di-fatjet signature, at a future $pp$ collider which can operate with $\sqrt{s}=100$ TeV c.m.energy., Comment: 39 pages, 15 figures

This document summarises the talks and discussions happened during the VBSCan Mid-Term Scientific Meeting workshop. The VBSCan COST action is dedicated to the coordinated study of vector boson scattering (VBS) from the phenomenological and experimental point of view, for the best exploitation of the data that will be delivered by existing and future particle colliders., Comment: Editors: I.Brivio, C.Charlot, R.Covarelli, R.L.Delgado, K.Lohwasser, M.Pellen, M.Slawinska, G.Ortona, K.Ozdemir, C.Petridou, I.Puljak, M.Zaro. Proceedings for the VBSCan Mid-Term Scientific Meeting of the VBSCan COST action

The anticipated experimental resolution and data cache of the High Luminosity Large Hadron Collider will enable precision investigations of polarization in multiboson processes. This includes, for the first time, vector boson scattering. To facilitate such studies, we report the automation of polarized matrix element computations in the publicly available Monte Carlo tool suite, MadGraph5_aMC@NLO. This enables scattering and decay simulations involving helicity-polarized asymptotic or intermediate states, preserving both spin-correlation and off-shell effects. As demonstrations of the method, we investigate the leading order production and decay of polarized weak gauge bosons in the process $pp \to j j W^+_\lambda W^-_{\lambda'}$, with helicity eigenstates $(\lambda,\lambda')$ defined in various reference frames. We consider the Standard Model at both $\mathcal{O}(\alpha^4)$ and $\mathcal{O}(\alpha^2 \alpha_s^2)$ as well as a benchmark composite Higgs scenario. We report good agreement with polarization studies based on the On-Shell Projection (OSP) technique. Future capabilities are discussed., Comment: 47 pages, 10 figures (36 pdf files). Published in the JHEP

We analyze a novel signature of the type II seesaw model - same-sign tetra-lepton signal arising from the mixing of neutral Higgs bosons and their subsequent decays to singly and doubly charged Higgs bosons. For this, we consider wide ranges of the triplet vacuum expectation value (vev) and Yukawa couplings, that are consistent with the observed neutrino masses and mixing as well as the LHC search limits. We find that a doubly charged Higgs boson with mass around 250 GeV and triplet vev around $10^{-4}-10^{-2}$ GeV can give significantly large number of events through it decay to same-sign $W$ gauge bosons at High-Luminosity LHC with $3000 \text{fb}^{-1}$ of data. We also pursue the analysis for a future hadron collider with the c.m. energy of 100 TeV. Considering a heavy Higgs boson around 900 GeV and an intermediate region of the triplet vev, where both same-sign dilepton and gauge boson decays can occur, we identify a limited range of the parameters where the number of same-sign tetra-lepton events are as large as 1000., Comment: 20 pages, 9 figures

We propose a minimal model for the cosmic coincidence problem $\Omega_{\rm DM}/\Omega_B \sim 5$ and neutrino mass in a type-II seesaw scenario. We extend the standard model of particle physics with a $\rm SU(2)$ singlet leptonic Dirac fermion $\chi$, which represents the candidate of dark matter (DM), and two triplet scalars $\Delta_{1,2}$ with hierarchical masses. In the early Universe, the CP violating out-of-equilibrium decay of lightest $\Delta$ generates a net $B-L$ asymmetry in the visible sector (comprising of SM fields), where $B$ and $L$ represents the total baryon and lepton number respectively. A part of this asymmetry gets transferred to the dark sector (comprising of DM $\chi$) through a dimension eight operator which conserves $B-L$. Above the electroweak phase transition, the $B-L$ asymmetry of the visible sector gets converted to a net $B$-asymmetry by the $B+L$ violating sphalerons, while the $B-L$ asymmetry of the dark sector remains untouched which we see today as relics of DM. We show that the observed DM abundance can be explained for a DM mass about 8 GeV. We then introduce an additional singlet scalar field $\phi$ which mixes with the SM-Higgs to annihilate the symmetric component of the DM resonantly which requires the singlet scalar mass to be twice the DM mass, {\it i.e.} around 16 GeV, which can be searched at collider experiments. In our model, the active neutrinos also get small masses by the induced vacuum expectation value (vev) of the triplet scalars $\Delta_{1,2}$. In the later part of the paper we discuss all the constraints on model parameters coming from invisible Higgs decay, Higgs signal strength, DM direct detection and relic density of DM., Comment: 22 pages, 11 figures. Change in title, added text and figures, matches accepted version

We explore the discovery prospect of a very heavy neutrino at the proposed $e^+e^-$ collider for two different c.m.energies $\sqrt{s}=1.4$ TeV and 3 TeV. We consider production of heavy neutrino via $s$ and $t$-channel processes, and its subsequent prompt decays leading to semi-leptonic final states, along with significant missing energy. For our choice of masses, the gauge boson produced from heavy neutrino decay is highly boosted, leading to a fat-jet. We carry out a detail signal and background analysis for $e^{\pm}+j_{\rm{fat}}+\cancel{E}_{T}$ final state using both cut based and multivariate techniques. We show that a heavy neutrino of mass $600-2700$ GeV and active-sterile mixing $|V_{eN}|^2 \sim 10^{-5}$ can be probed with $5\sigma$ significance at $e^{+}e^{-}$ collider after collecting $\mathcal{L}=500$ $\rm{fb}^{-1}$ of data. We find the sensitivity reach at $e^{+}e^{-}$ collider is order of magnitude enhanced as compared to LHC., Comment: 25 pages, 13 figures and 6 tables

We propose an extension of the standard model (SM) by including a dark sector comprising of three generations of heavy right-handed neutrinos, a singlet scalar and a singlet Dirac fermion, where the latter two particles are stable and are viable candidates of dark matter (DM). In the early Universe, the CP-violating out-of-equilibrium decay of heavy right-handed neutrinos to singlet Dirac fermion and scalar in the dark sector generates a net DM asymmetry. The latter is then transported to the visible sector via a dimension eight operator which conserves $B-L$ symmetry and is in thermal equilibrium above the sphaleron decoupling temperature. An additional light singlet scalar is introduced which mixes with the SM Higgs and pave a path for annihilating the symmetric components of the DM candidates. Then we discuss the constraints on singlet-doublet Higgs mixing from invisible Higgs decay, signal strength at LHC and direct search of DM at terrestrial laboratories. At tree level the neutrinos are shown to be massless since the symmetry of dark sector forbids the interaction of right-handed neutrinos with the SM particles. However, at one loop level the neutrinos acquire sub-eV masses as required by the oscillation experiments., Comment: 12 pages, 12 figures

We investigate the production and decays of doubly-charged Higgs bosons for the Type-II seesaw mechanism at an $e^{+} e^{-}$ collider with two center of mass energies, $\sqrt{s}=380$ GeV and 3 TeV, and analyze the fully hadronic final states in detail. Lower mass ranges can be probed during the 380 GeV run of the collider, while high mass ranges, which are beyond the 13 TeV Large Hadron Collider discovery reach, can be probed with $\sqrt{s}=3$ TeV. For such a heavy Higgs boson, the final decay products are collimated, resulting in fat-jets. We perform a substructure analysis to reduce the background and find that a doubly-charged Higgs boson in the mass range 800-1120 GeV can be discovered during the 3 TeV run, with integrated luminosity $\mathcal{L} \sim 95\, \rm{fb}^{-1}$ of data. For 380 GeV center of mass energy, we find that for the doubly-charged Higgs boson in the range 160-172 GeV, a $5\sigma$ significance can be achieved with only integrated luminosity $\mathcal{L} \sim 24 \, \rm{fb}^{-1}$. Therefore, a light Higgs boson can be discovered immediately during the run of a future $e^{+} e^{-}$ collider., Comment: 20 pages, 8 figures and 5 tables