Diego Aristizabal Sierra

Implications of Flavor Dynamics for Fermion Triplet Leptogenesis

We analyze the importance of flavor effects in models in which leptogenesis proceeds via the decay of Majorana electroweak triplets. We find that depending on the relative strengths of gauge and Yukawa reactions the B − L asymmetry can be sizably enhanced, exceeding in some cases an order of magnitude level. We also discuss the impact that such effects can have for TeV-scale triplets showing that as long as the B − L asymmetry is produced by the dynamics of the lightest such triplet they are negligible, but open the possibility for scenarios in which the asymmetry is generated above the TeV scale by heavier states, possibly surviving the TeV triplet related washouts. We investigate these cases and discuss how they can be disentangled by using Majorana triplet collider observables and, in the case of minimal type III see-saw models even through lepton flavor violation observables.

Purely flavored leptogenesis

We study a model for leptogenesis in which the total CP asymmetries in the decays and scatterings involving the SU(2) singlet seesaw neutrinos N{sub {alpha}} vanish ({epsilon}{sub N{sub {alpha}}}=0). Leptogenesis is possible due to nonvanishing CP violating lepton flavor asymmetries, realizing a situation in which the baryon asymmetry is due exclusively to flavor effects. We study the production of a net lepton asymmetry by solving the Boltzmann equations specific to this model, and we show that successful leptogenesis can be obtained at a scale as low as the TeV. We also discuss constraints on the model parameter space arising from current experimental upper limits on lepton flavor violating decays.

Leptonic Charged Higgs Decays in the Zee Model

We consider the version of the Zee model where both Higgs doublets couple to leptons. Within this framework we study charged Higgs decays. We focus on a model with minimal number of parameters consistent with experimental neutrino data. Using constraints from neutrino physics we (i) discuss the reconstruction of the parameter space of the model using the leptonic decay patterns of both of the two charged Higgses, h1,2+→lj+νi, and the decay of the heavier charged Higgs, h2+→h+1h0; (ii) show that the decay rate Γ(h1+→μ+νi) in general is enhanced in comparision to the standard two Higgs doublet model while in some regions of parameter space Γ(h1+→μ+νi) even dominates over Γ(h1+→τ+νi).

Reconstructing neutrino properties from collider experiments in a Higgs triplet neutrino mass model

We extend the minimal supersymmetric standard model with bilinear R-parity violation to include a pair of Higgs triplet superfields. The neutral components of the Higgs triplets develop small vacuum expectation values (VEVs) quadratic in the bilinear R-parity breaking parameters. In this scheme the atmospheric neutrino mass scale arises from bilinear R-parity breaking while for reasonable values of parameters the solar neutrino mass scale is generated from the small Higgs triplet VEVs. We calculate neutrino masses and mixing angles in this model and show how the model can be tested at future colliders. The branching ratios of the doubly charged triplet decays are related to the solar neutrino angle via a simple formula.

Scalar triplet flavored leptogenesis: a systematic approach

Type-II seesaw is a simple scenario in which Majorana neutrino masses are generated by the exchange of a heavy scalar electroweak triplet. When endowed with additional heavy fields, such as right-handed neutrinos or extra triplets, it also provides a compelling framework for baryogenesis via leptogenesis. We derive in this context the full network of Boltzmann equations for studying leptogenesis in the flavored regime. To this end we determine the relations which hold among the chemical potentials of the various particle species in the thermal bath. This takes into account the standard model Yukawa interactions of both leptons and quarks as well as sphaleron processes which, depending on the temperature, may be classified as faster or slower than the Universe Hubble expansion. We find that when leptogenesis is enabled by the presence of an extra triplet, lepton flavor effects allow the production of the B-L asymmetry through lepton number conserving CP asymmetries. This scenario becomes dominant as soon as the triplets couple more to leptons than to standard model scalar doublets. In this case, the way the B-L asymmetry is created through flavor effects is novel: instead of invoking the effect of L-violating inverse decays faster than the Hubble rate, it involves the effect of L-violating decays slower than the Hubble rate. We also analyze the more general situation where lepton number violating CP asymmetries are present and actively participate in the generation of the B-L asymmetry, pointing out that as long as L-violating triplet decays are still in thermal equilibrium when the triplet gauge scattering processes decouple, flavor effects can be striking, allowing to avoid all washout suppression effects from seesaw interactions. In this case the amount of B-L asymmetry produced is limited only by a universal gauge suppression effect, which nevertheless goes away for large triplet decay rates.

Variations on leptogenesis

We study variations of the standard leptogenesis scenario that can arise if an addi- tional mass scale related to the breaking of some new symmetry (as for example a flavor or the B-L symmetry) is present below the mass MN1 of the lightest right- handed Majorana neutrino. Our scheme is inspired by U(1) models of flavorla Froggatt-Nielsen, and involves new vectorlike heavy fields F. We show that de- pending on the specific hierarchy between MN1 and the mass scale of the fields F, qualitatively different realizations of leptogenesis can emerge. We compute the CP asymmetries in N1 decays in all the relevant cases, and we conclude that in most situations leptogenesis could be viable at scales much lower than in the standard scenario.

R-parity violating sneutrino decays

R-parity can be violated through either bilinear and/or trilinear terms in the superpotential. The decay properties of sneutrinos can be used to obtain information about the relative importance of these couplings provided sneutrinos are the lightest supersymmetric particles. We show that in some specific scenarios it is even possible to decide whether bilinear or trilinear terms give the dominant contribution to the neutrino mass matrix.

Diboson anomaly: Heavy Higgs resonance and QCD vectorlike exotics

The ATLAS Collaboration (and also CMS) has recently reported an excess over Standard Model expectations for gauge boson pair production in the invariant mass region 1.8-2.2 TeV. In light of these r ...

Leptogenesis in the presence of exact flavor symmetries

A bstractIn models with flavor symmetries in the leptonic sector leptogenesis can take place in a very different way compared to the standard leptogenesis scenario. We study the generation of a B − L asymmetry in these kind of models in the flavor symmetric phase pointing out that successful leptogenesis requires (i) the right-handed neutrinos to lie in different irreducible representations of the flavor group; (ii) the flavons to be lighter at least that one of the right-handed neutrino representations. When these conditions are satisfied leptogenesis proceeds due to new contributions to the CP violating asymmetry and — depending on the specific model — in several stages. We demonstrate the validity of these arguments by studying in detail the generation of the B − L asymmetry in a scenario of a concrete A4 flavor model realization.

LSP sneutrino decays into heavy standard model pairs

In bilinear R-parity violation (BRpV), in which the superpotential includes a bilinear term between the lepton doublet and the up-type Higgs superfields, a sneutrino LSP can decay into pairs of heavy standard model states: Ws, Zs, tops or Higgs bosons. These finals states can dominate over the traditionally considered bottom pair final state. This would lead to unique and novel supersymmetric signals with each supersymmetric event possibly producing two pairs of these heavy standard model fields. We investigate this possibility and find that the branching ratio into heavier states dominates when the bilinear term is much smaller than the sneutrino vacuum expectation value for a given sneutrino flavor. When BRpV is the only source of neutrino masses these decays can only dominate for one of the sneutrino generations. Relaxing this constraint opens these channels for all three generations.