No Arabic abstract
The low-energy $U(1)_{B-L}$ gauge symmetry is well-motivated as part of beyond Standard Model physics related to neutrino mass generation. We show that a light $B-L$ gauge boson $Z{}$ and the associated $U(1)_{B-L}$-breaking scalar $varphi$ can both be effectively searched for at high-intensity facilities such as the near detector complex of the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). Without the scalar $varphi$, the $Z{}$ can be probed at DUNE up to mass of 1 GeV, with the corresponding gauge coupling $g_{BL}$ as low as $10^{-9}$. In the presence of the scalar $varphi$ with gauge coupling to $Z{}$, the DUNE capability of discovering the gauge boson $Z{}$ can be significantly improved, even by one order of magnitude in $g_{BL}$, due to additional production from the decay $varphi to Z{}Z{}$. The DUNE sensitivity is largely complementary to other long-lived $Z{}$ searches at beam-dump facilities such as FASER and SHiP, as well as astrophysical and cosmological probes. On the other hand, the prospects of detecting $varphi$ itself at DUNE are to some extent weakened in presence of $Z{}$, compared to the case without the gauge interaction.
While the QCD axion is often considered to be necessarily light ($lesssim$ eV), recent work has opened a viable and interesting parameter space for heavy axions, which solve both the Strong CP and the axion Quality Problems. These well-motivated heavy axions, as well as the generic axion-like-particles, call for explorations in the GeV mass realm at collider and beam dump environments. The primary upcoming neutrino experiment, Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE), is simultaneously also a powerful beam dump experiment, enabled by its multipurpose Near Detector (ND) complex. In this study, we show with detailed analyses that the DUNE ND has a unique sensitivity to heavy axions for masses between $20$ MeV and $2$ GeV, complementary to other future experiments.
The next-to-minimal supersymmetric standard model (NMSSM) with an extended Higgs sector offers one of the Higgs boson as the Standard model (SM) like Higgs with a mass around 125 GeV along with other Higgs bosons with lighter and heavier masses and not excluded by any current experiments. At the LHC, phenomenology of these non SM like Higgs bosons is very rich and considerably different from the other supersymmetric models. In this work, assuming one of the Higgs bosons to be the SM like, we revisit the mass spectrum and couplings of non SM like Higgs bosons taking into consideration all existing constraints and identify the relevant region of parameter space. The discovery potential of these non SM like Higgs bosons, apart from their masses, is guided by their couplings with gauge bosons and fermions which are very much parameter space sensitive. We evaluate the rates of productions of these non SM like Higgs bosons at the LHC for a variety of decay channels in the allowed region of the parameter space. Although bb, {tau}{tau} decay modes appear to be the most promising, it is observed that for a substantial region of parameter space the two-photon decay mode has a remarkably large rate. In this work we emphasize that this diphoton mode can be exploited to find the NMSSM Higgs signal and can also be potential avenue to distinguish the NMSSM from the MSSM. In addition, we discuss briefly the various detectable signals of these non SM Higgs bosons at the LHC.
We have studied three realistic benchmark geometries for a new far detector GAZELLE to search for long-lived particles at the superkekb accelerator in Tsukuba, Japan. The new detector would be housed in the same building as Belle II and observe the same $e^+e^-$ collisions. To assess the discovery reach of GAZELLE, we have investigated three new physics models that predict long-lived particles: heavy neutral leptons produced in tau lepton decays, axion-like particles produced in $B$ meson decays, and new scalars produced in association with a dark photon, as motivated by inelastic dark matter. We do not find significant gains in the new physics discovery reach of GAZELLE compared to the Belle II projections for the same final states. The main reasons are the practical limitations on the angular acceptance and size of GAZELLE, effectively making it at most comparable to Belle II, even though backgrounds in the far detector could be reduced to low rates. A far detector for long-lived particles would be well motivated in the case of a discovery by Belle II, since decays inside GAZELLE would facilitate studies of the decay products. Depending on the placement of GAZELLE, searches for light long-lived particles produced in the forward direction or signals of a confining hidden force could also benefit from such a far detector. Our general findings could help guide the design of far detectors at future electron-positron colliders such as the ILC, FCC-ee or CEPC.
We investigate the capability of the DUNE Near Detector (ND) to constrain Non Standard Interaction parameters (NSI) describing the production of neutrinos ($varepsilon_{alphabeta}^s$) and their detection ($varepsilon_{alphabeta}^d$). We show that the DUNE ND is able to reject a large portion of the parameter space allowed by DUNE Far Detector analyses and to set the most stringent bounds from accelerator neutrino experiments on $|varepsilon_{mu e}^{s,d}|$ for wide intervals of the related phases. We also provide simple analytic understanding of our results as well as a numerical study of their dependence on the systematic errors, showing that the DUNE ND offers a clean environment where to study source and detector NSI.
The planned DUNE experiment will have excellent sensitivity to the vector and axial couplings of the electron to the $Z$-boson via precision measurements of neutrino--electron scattering. We investigate the sensitivity of DUNE-PRISM, a movable near detector in the direction perpendicular to the beam line, and find that it will qualitatively impact our ability to constrain the weak couplings of the electron. We translate these neutrino--electron scattering measurements into a determination of the weak mixing angle at low scales and estimate that, with seven years of data taking, the DUNE near-detector can be used to measure $sin^2theta_W$ with about 2% precision. We also discuss the impact of combining neutrino--electron scattering data with neutrino trident production at DUNE-PRISM.