• GravitationalWave Signals of Electroweak Phase Transition Triggered by Dark Matter

    分类: 物理学 >> 基本粒子与场物理学 提交时间: 2017-08-02

    摘要: We study in this work a scenario that the universe undergoes a two step phase transition with the first step happened to the dark matter sector and the second step being the transition between the dark matter and the electroweak vacuums, where the barrier between the two vacuums, that is necessary for a strongly first order electroweak phase transition (EWPT) as required by the electroweak baryogenesis mechanism, arises at the tree-level. We illustrate this idea by working with the standard model (SM) augmented by a scalar singlet dark matter and an extra scalar singlet which mixes with the SM Higgs boson. We study the conditions for such pattern of phase transition to occur and especially for the strongly first order EWPT to take place, as well as its compatibility with the basic requirements of a successful dark matter, such as observed relic density and constraints of direct detections. We further explore the discovery possibility of this pattern EWPT by searching for the gravitational waves generated during this process in spaced based interferometer, by showing a representative benchmark point of the parameter space that the generated gravitational waves fall within the sensitivity of eLISA, DECIGO and BBO.

  • A new Direct Detection Strategy for the Cosmic Neutrino Background

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: The direct detection of cosmic neutrino background (CNB) has been a longstanding challenge in particle physics, due to its low number density and tiny neutrino masses. In this work, we consider the spectrum of the CNB boosted by cosmic rays via the neutrino self-interaction, and calculate the event rate of the boosted CNB-plasmon scattering in term of the dielectric response, which accounts for in-medium screening effect of a condensed matter target. This can be taken as the new direct detection strategy for the CNB in complementary to the traditional one, which captures the CNB on a $\beta$-unstable nucleus. Our result shows that one can either see the event of the CNB for the exposure of per kg$\cdot$year, or puts a strong constraint on the neutrino self-interaction. We further explore the background induced by the sub-MeV dark matter and the boosted super-light dark matter.

  • First Order Color Symmetry Breaking and Restoration Triggered by Electroweak Symmetry Non-restoration

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: In this paper we propose a new approach for the spontaneous breaking and restoration of the $SU(3)_C$ color symmetry in the framework of electroweak symmetry non-restoration (EWSNR) at high temperature, which provides an alternative approach for the Baryogenesis. Due to the exotic high vacuum expectation value (VEV) of the SM Higgs doublet in EWSNR, the color symmetry can be spontaneous broken succeeding the electroweak phase transition whenever there is a negative quartic coupling between the SM Higgs and a scalar color triplet. The color symmetry is then restored at low temperature as the VEV of SM Higgs evolving to small value. We show that the phase transitions related to color breaking and restoration can be first order, and the stochastic gravitational wave (GW) signals are smoking-gun of these processes. We demonstrate the possibility of detecting these GW signals in future GW experiments such as DECIGO and BBO.

  • Pseudo-Dirac Sterile Neutrino Dark Matter

    分类: 天文学 >> 天文学 提交时间: 2023-02-19

    摘要: Sterile neutrino is a promising dark matter (DM) candidate. However the parameter space of this scenario has almost been ruled out by the X-ray observation results whenever the sterile neutrino is solely produced by the Dodelson-Widrow (DW) mechanism in the early Universe. In this letter we propose an extension to the minimal sterile neutrino DM model by introducing the pseudo-Dirac sterile neutrino, which implies the existence of two nearly degenerate Majorana states $\hat N_{1,2}^{}$, and a permutation symmetry. The heavy state $\hat N_1$ is produced via the DW mechanism, and the light state $\hat N_2$, which serves as the DM, is produced from the decay of $\hat N_1$ in the early Universe. The X-ray constraint is avoided by the permutation symmetry, which forbidden the two-body decay of the DM into active neutrinos and photon. A promising signal of this scenario is the effective number of neutrino species, which will be precisely measured in future experiments, such as CMB stage IV. We further study the impact of this model on the cosmological parameters. The Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis for the Planck + BAO+R19 data gives $H_0=69.2_{-0.59}^{+0.58}$, which may relieve the Hubble tension.