This paper describes the physics case for a new fixed target facility at CERN SPS. The SHiP (search for hidden particles) experiment is intended to hunt for new physics in the largely unexplored domain of very weakly interacting particles with masses below the Fermi scale, inaccessible to the LHC experiments, and to study tau neutrino physics. The same proton beam setup can be used later to look for decays of tau-leptons with lepton flavour number non-conservation, $\tau \to 3\mu $ and to search for weakly-interacting sub-GeV dark matter candidates. We discuss the evidence for physics beyond the standard model and describe interactions between new particles and four different portals—scalars, vectors, fermions or axion-like particles. We discuss motivations for different models, manifesting themselves via these interactions, and how they can be probed with the SHiP experiment and present several case studies. The prospects to search for relatively light SUSY and composite particles at SHiP are also discussed. We demonstrate that the SHiP experiment has a unique potential to discover new physics and can directly probe a number of solutions of beyond the standard model puzzles, such as neutrino masses, baryon asymmetry of the Universe, dark matter, and inflation.

/pdf/a-facility-to-search-for-hidden-particles-at-the-cern-sps-3pxaggnjt6.pdf

A facility to search for hidden particles at the CERN SPS: the SHiP physics case.

This paper describes the physics case for a new fixed target facility at CERN SPS. The SHiP (Search for Hidden Particles) experiment is intended to hunt for new physics in the largely unexplored domain of very weakly interacting particles with masses below the Fermi scale, inaccessible to the LHC experiments, and to study tau neutrino physics. The same proton beam setup can be used later to look for decays of tau-leptons with lepton flavour number non-conservation, $\tau\to 3\mu$ and to search for weakly-interacting sub-GeV dark matter candidates. We discuss the evidence for physics beyond the Standard Model and describe interactions between new particles and four different portals - scalars, vectors, fermions or axion-like particles. We discuss motivations for different models, manifesting themselves via these interactions, and how they can be probed with the SHiP experiment and present several case studies. The prospects to search for relatively light SUSY and composite particles at SHiP are also discussed. We demonstrate that the SHiP experiment has a unique potential to discover new physics and can directly probe a number of solutions of beyond the Standard Model puzzles, such as neutrino masses, baryon asymmetry of the Universe, dark matter, and inflation

/pdf/a-facility-to-search-for-hidden-particles-at-the-cern-sps-brmu5s54o3.pdf

A facility to Search for Hidden Particles at the CERN SPS: the SHiP physics case

In response to the 2013 Update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics, the Future Circular Collider (FCC) study was launched, as an international collaboration hosted by CERN. This study covers a highest-luminosity high-energy lepton collider (FCC-ee) and an energy-frontier hadron collider (FCC-hh), which could, successively, be installed in the same 100 km tunnel. The scientific capabilities of the integrated FCC programme would serve the worldwide community throughout the 21st century. The FCC study also investigates an LHC energy upgrade, using FCC-hh technology. This document constitutes the second volume of the FCC Conceptual Design Report, devoted to the electron-positron collider FCC-ee. After summarizing the physics discovery opportunities, it presents the accelerator design, performance reach, a staged operation scenario, the underlying technologies, civil engineering, technical infrastructure, and an implementation plan. FCC-ee can be built with today’s technology. Most of the FCC-ee infrastructure could be reused for FCC-hh. Combining concepts from past and present lepton colliders and adding a few novel elements, the FCC-ee design promises outstandingly high luminosity. This will make the FCC-ee a unique precision instrument to study the heaviest known particles (Z, W and H bosons and the top quark), offering great direct and indirect sensitivity to new physics.

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FCC-ee: The Lepton Collider: Future Circular Collider Conceptual Design Report Volume 2

We present a comprehensive review of keV-scale sterile neutrino Dark Matter, collecting views and insights from all disciplines involved—cosmology, astrophysics, nuclear, and particle physics—in each case viewed from both theoretical and experimental/observational perspectives. After reviewing the role of active neutrinos in particle physics, astrophysics, and cosmology, we focus on sterile neutrinos in the context of the Dark Matter puzzle. Here, we first review the physics motivation for sterile neutrino Dark Matter, based on challenges and tensions in purely cold Dark Matter scenarios. We then round out the discussion by critically summarizing all known constraints on sterile neutrino Dark Matter arising from astrophysical observations, laboratory experiments, and theoretical considerations. In this context, we provide a balanced discourse on the possibly positive signal from X-ray observations. Another focus of the paper concerns the construction of particle physics models, aiming to explain how sterile neutrinos of keV-scale masses could arise in concrete settings beyond the Standard Model of elementary particle physics. The paper ends with an extensive review of current and future astrophysical and laboratory searches, highlighting new ideas and their experimental challenges, as well as future perspectives for the discovery of sterile neutrinos.

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A White Paper on keV sterile neutrino Dark Matter

HIV testing and counselling is the first crucial step for linkage to HIV treatment and prevention. However, despite high HIV burden in sub-Saharan Africa, testing coverage is low, particularly among young adults and men. Community-based HIV testing and counselling (testing outside of health facilities) has the potential to reduce coverage gaps, but the relative impact of different modalities is not well assessed. We conducted a systematic review of HIV testing modalities, characterizing community (home, mobile, index, key populations, campaign, workplace and self-testing) and facility approaches by population reached, HIV positivity, CD4 count at diagnosis and linkage. Of 2,520 abstracts screened, 126 met eligibility criteria. Community HIV testing and counselling had high coverage and uptake and identified HIV-positive people at higher CD4 counts than facility testing. Mobile HIV testing reached the highest proportion of men of all modalities examined (50%, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 47-54%) and home with self-testing reached the highest proportion of young adults (66%, 95% CI = 65-67%). Few studies evaluated HIV testing for key populations (commercial sex workers and men who have sex with men), but these interventions yielded high HIV positivity (38%, 95% CI = 19-62%) combined with the highest proportion of first-time testers (78%, 95% CI = 63-88%), indicating service gaps. Community testing with facilitated linkage (for example, counsellor follow-up to support linkage) achieved high linkage to care (95%, 95% CI = 87-98%) and antiretroviral initiation (75%, 95% CI = 68-82%). Expanding home and mobile testing, self-testing and outreach to key populations with facilitated linkage can increase the proportion of men, young adults and high-risk individuals linked to HIV treatment and prevention, and decrease HIV burden.

Systematic review and meta-analysis of community and facility-based HIV testing to address linkage to care gaps in sub-Saharan Africa

We consider classically scale-invariant extensions of the Standard Model (CSI ESM ) which stabilise the Higgs potential and have good dark matter candidates. In this framework all mass scales, including electroweak and dark matter masses, are generated dynamically and have a common origin. We consider Abelian and non-Abelian hidden sectors portally coupled to the SM with and without a real singlet scalar. We perform a careful analysis of RG running to determine regions in the parameter space where the SM Higgs vacuum is stabilised. After combining this with the LHC Higgs constraints, in models without a singlet, none of the regained parameter space in Abelian ESMs, and only a small section in the non-Abelian ESM survives. However, in all singlet-extended models we find that the Higgs vacuum can be stabilised in all of the parameter space consistent with the LHC constraints. These models naturally contain two dark matter candidates: the real singlet and the dark gauge boson in non-Abelian models. We determine the viable range of parameters in the CSI ESM framework by computing the relic abundance, imposing direct detection constraints and combining with the LHC Higgs constraints. In addition to being instrumental in Higgs stabilisation, we find that the singlet component is required to explain the observed dark matter density.

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Higgs vacuum stability from the dark matter portal

The Standard Model with an added Higgs portal interaction and no explicit mass terms is a classically scale-invariant theory. In this case the scale of electroweak symmetry breaking can be induced radiatively by the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism operational in a hidden sector, and then transmitted to the Standard Model through the Higgs portal. The smallness of the generated values for the Higgs vev and mass, compared to the UV cutoff of our classically scale-invariant effective theory, is naturally explained by this mechanism. We show how these classically conformal models can generate the baryon asymmetry of the Universe without the need of introducing mass scales by hand or their resonant fine-tuning. The minimal model we consider is the Standard Model coupled to the Coleman-Weinberg scalar field charged under the U(1)
 B−L
 gauge group. Anomaly cancellation requires automatic inclusion of three generations of right-handed neutrinos. Their GeV-scale Majorana masses are induced by the Coleman-Weinberg field and lead to the generation of active neutrino masses through the standard see-saw mechanism. Leptogenesis occurs via flavour oscillations of right-handed sterile neutrinos and is converted to the baryon asymmetry by electroweak sphalerons.

/pdf/leptogenesis-and-neutrino-oscillations-in-the-classically-6i9jtl24de.pdf

Leptogenesis and neutrino oscillations in the classically conformal standard model with the Higgs portal

The Standard Model with an added Higgs portal interaction and no explicit mass terms is a classically scale-invariant theory. In this case the scale of electroweak symmetry breaking can be induced radiatively by the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism operational in a hidden sector, and then transmitted to the Standard Model through the Higgs portal. The smallness of the generated values for the Higgs vev and mass, compared to the UV cutoff of our classically scale-invariant effective theory, is naturally explained by this mechanism. We show how these classically conformal models can generate the baryon asymmetry of the Universe without the need of introducing mass scales by hand or their resonant fine-tuning. The minimal model we consider is the Standard Model coupled to the Coleman-Weinberg scalar field charged under the $U(1)_{B-L}$ gauge group. Anomaly cancellation requires automatic inclusion of three generations of right-handed neutrinos. Their GeV-scale Majorana masses are induced by the Coleman-Weinberg field and lead to the generation of active neutrino masses through the standard see-saw mechanism. Leptogenesis occurs via flavour oscillations of right-handed sterile neutrinos and is converted to the baryon asymmetry by electroweak sphalerons.

/pdf/leptogenesis-and-neutrino-oscillations-in-the-classically-ui6rldbkqs.pdf

Leptogenesis and Neutrino Oscillations in the Classically Conformal Standard Model with the Higgs Portal

Implementation of a cloud-based electronic medical record for maternal and child health in rural Kenya

In a secluded dark sector which is coupled to the Standard Model via a Higgs portal interaction we arrange for the existence of ’t Hooft-Polyakov magnetic monopoles and study their implications for cosmology. We point out that a dark sector which can accommodate stable monopoles will also contain massless dark photons 0 as well as charged massive vector bosonsW 0 . The dark matter in this scenario will be a combination of magnetically and electrically charged species under the unbroken U(1) subgroup of the dark sector. We estimate the cosmological production rate of monopoles and the rate of monopole-anti-monopole annihilation and conclude that monopoles with masses of few hundred TeV or greater, can produce sizeable contributions to the observed dark matter relic density. We scan over the parameter space and compute the relic density for monopoles and vector bosons. Turning to dark photons, we compute their contribution to the measured density of relativistic particles Ne and also apply observational constraints from the Bullet cluster and other large scale galaxies on long-range interactions of monopoles and of dark vector bosons. At scales relevant for dwarf galaxies we identify regions on the parameter space where selfinteracting monopole and vector dark mater components can aid solving the core-vs-cusp and the too-big-to-fail problems.

/pdf/dark-matter-monopoles-vectors-and-photons-3tt0tf9qp7.pdf

Gunnar Ro

Papers

Higgs vacuum stability from the dark matter portal

Leptogenesis and neutrino oscillations in the classically conformal standard model with the Higgs portal

Leptogenesis and Neutrino Oscillations in the Classically Conformal Standard Model with the Higgs Portal

Implementation of a cloud-based electronic medical record for maternal and child health in rural Kenya

Dark matter monopoles, vectors and photons