André de Gouvêa

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, [Formula: see text] 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.

Lepton flavor and number conservation, and physics beyond the standard model

The physics responsible for neutrino masses and lepton mixing remains unknown. More experimental data are needed to constrain and guide possible generalizations of the standard model of particle physics, and reveal the mechanism behind nonzero neutrino masses. Here, the physics associated with searches for the violation of lepton-flavor conservation in charged-lepton processes and the violation of lepton-number conservation in nuclear physics processes is summarized. In the first part, several aspects of charged-lepton flavor violation are discussed, especially its sensitivity to new particles and interactions beyond the standard model of particle physics. The discussion concentrates mostly on rare processes involving muons and electrons. In the second part, the status of the conservation of total lepton number is discussed. The discussion here concentrates on current and future probes of this apparent law of Nature via searches for neutrinoless double beta decay, which is also the most sensitive probe of the potential Majorana nature of neutrinos.

Neutrino mass hierarchy, vacuum oscillations, and vanishing |U(e3)|

Is the relatively isolated member of the neutrino mass spectrum heavier or lighter than the two closely-spaced members? This question--the character of the neutrino mass hierarchy--is of great theoretical interest. All previously identified experiments for addressing it via neutrino oscillations require that the currently unknown size of the U{sub e3} element of the leptonic mixing matrix (parameterized by the unknown {theta}{sub 13} mixing angle) be sufficiently large, and will utterly fail in the limit {theta}{sub 13}{yields}0. For this reason, we explore alternative oscillation approaches that would still succeed even if {theta}{sub 13} vanishes. We identify several alternatives that require neither a nonzero vertical bar U{sub e3} vertical bar nor the presence of significant matter effects (even if the latter are unavoidable in the case of long-baseline, Earth-based experiments). All include multiple percent-level neutrino oscillation measurements, usually involving muon-neutrino (or antineutrino) disappearance and very long baselines. We comment on the degree of promise that these alternative approaches show.

Right-handed Sneutrinos as Nonthermal Dark Matter

When the minimal supersymmetric standard model is augmented by three right-handed neutrino superfields, one generically predicts that the neutrinos acquire Majorana masses. We postulate that all supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking masses as well as the Majorana masses of the right-handed neutrinos are around the electroweak scale and, motivated by the smallness of neutrino masses, assume that the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) is an almost-pure right-handed sneutrino. We discuss the conditions under which this LSP is a successful dark matter candidate. In general, such an LSP has to be nonthermal in order not to overclose the universe, and we find the conditions under which this is indeed the case by comparing the Hubble expansion rate with the rates of the relevant thermalizing processes, including self-annihilation and co-annihilation with other SUSY and standard model particles.

Non-standard neutrino interactions at DUNE

We explore the effects of non-standard neutrino interactions (NSI) and how they modify neutrino propagation in the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE). We find that NSI can significantly modify the data to be collected by the DUNE experiment as long as the new physics parameters are large enough. For example, if the DUNE data are consistent with the standard three-massive-neutrinos paradigm, order 0.1 (in units of the Fermi constant) NSI effects will be ruled out. On the other hand, if large NSI effects are present, DUNE will be able to not only rule out the standard paradigm but also measure the new physics parameters, sometimes with good precision. We find that, in some cases, DUNE is sensitive to new sources of CP-invariance violation. We also explored whether DUNE data can be used to distinguish different types of new physics beyond nonzero neutrino masses. In more detail, we asked whether NSI can be mimicked, as far as the DUNE setup is concerned, by the hypothesis that there is a new light neutrino state.

Global Constraints on a Heavy Neutrino

We estimate constraints on the existence of a heavy, mostly sterile neutrino with mass between 10 eV and 1 TeV. We improve upon previous analyses by performing a global combination and expanding the experimental inputs to simultaneously include tests for lepton universality, lepton-flavor-violating processes, electroweak precision data, dipole moments, and neutrinoless double beta decay. Assuming the heavy neutrino and its decay products are invisible to detection, we further include, in a self-consistent manner, constraints from direct kinematic searches, the kinematics of muon decay, cosmology, and neutrino oscillations, in order to estimate constraints on the values of

Pseudo-Dirac Neutrinos in the New Standard Model

|U_{e4}|^2

Criteria for Natural Hierarchies

,

Solving the solar neutrino puzzle with KamLAND and solar data

|U_{\mu4}|^2

Sterile neutrino at the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment

, and