No Arabic abstract
We consider aspects of tree and one-loop behavior in a generic 4d EFT of massless scalars, fermions, and vectors, with a particular eye to the high-energy limit of the Standard Model EFT at operator dimensions 6 and 8. First, we classify the possible Lorentz structures of operators and the subset of these that can arise at tree-level in a weakly coupled UV completion, extending the tree/loop classification through dimension 8 using functional methods. Second, we investigate how operators contribute to tree and one-loop helicity amplitudes, exploring the impact of non-renormalization theorems through dimension 8. We further observe that many dimension 6 contributions to helicity amplitudes, including rational parts, vanish exactly at one-loop level. This suggests the impact of helicity selection rules extends beyond one loop in non-supersymmetric EFTs.
We define generic ensembles of infinite trees. These are limits as $Ntoinfty$ of ensembles of finite trees of fixed size $N$, defined in terms of a set of branching weights. Among these ensembles are those supported on trees with vertices of a uniformly bounded order. The associated probability measures are supported on trees with a single spine and Hausdorff dimension $d_h =2$. Our main result is that their spectral dimension is $d_s=4/3$, and that the critical exponent of the mass, defined as the exponential decay rate of the two-point function along the spine, is 1/3.
We study axion effective field theories (EFTs), with a focus on axion couplings to massive chiral gauge fields. We investigate the EFT interactions that participate in processes with an axion and two gauge bosons, and we show that, when massive chiral gauge fields are present, such interactions do not entirely originate from the usual anomalous EFT terms. We illustrate this both at the EFT level and by matching to UV-complete theories. In order to assess the consistency of the Peccei--Quinn (PQ) anomaly matching, it is useful to introduce an auxiliary, non-dynamical gauge field associated to the PQ symmetry. When applied to the case of the Standard Model (SM) electroweak sector, our results imply that anomaly-based sum rules between EFT interactions are violated when chiral matter is integrated out, which constitutes a smoking gun of the latter. As an illustration, we study a UV-complete chiral extension of the SM, containing an axion arising from an extended Higgs sector and heavy fermionic matter that obtains most of its mass by coupling to the Higgs doublets. We assess the viability of such a SM extension through electroweak precision tests, bounds on Higgs rates and direct searches for heavy charged matter. At energies below the mass of the new chiral fermions, the model matches onto an EFT where the electroweak gauge symmetry is non-linearly realised.
In a previous paper we showed how higher-order strong-field-QED processes in long laser pulses can be approximated by multiplying sequences of strong-field Mueller matrices. We obtained expressions that are valid for arbitrary field shape and polarization. In this paper we derive practical approximations of these Mueller matrices in the locally-constant- and the locally-monochromatic-field regimes. We allow for arbitrary laser polarization as well as arbitrarily polarized initial and final particles. The spin and polarization can also change due to loop contributions (the mass operator for electrons and the polarization operator for photons). We derive Mueller matrices for these as well.
I discuss recent progress on fits to dimension-six operators in the Standard Model Effective Theory (SMEFT). I focus on the top quark sector of the SMEFT, as well as the theoretical advances made in computing SMEFT effects through to next-to-leading order in QCD and the use of these calculations in global fits. I also discuss fits performed to the Higgs and electroweak sectors of the SMEFT and the possibility for performing global fits to multiple sectors simultaneously.
Effective field theory (EFT) formulations of dark matter interactions have proven to be a convenient and popular way to quantify LHC bounds on dark matter. However, some of the non-renormalizable EFT operators considered do not respect the gauge symmetries of the Standard Model. We carefully discuss under what circumstances such operators can arise, and outline potential issues in their interpretation and application.