In this work, we explore an extension of the Standard Model designed to elucidate the fermion mass hierarchy, account for the dark matter relic abundance, and explain the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe. Beyond the Standard Model particle content, our model introduces additional scalars and fermions. Notably, the light active neutrinos and the first two generations of charged fermions acquire masses at the one-loop level. The model accommodates successful low-scale leptogenesis, permitting the mass of the decaying heavy right-handed neutrino to be as low as 10 TeV. We conduct a detailed analysis of the dark matter phenomenology and explore various interesting phenomenological implications. These include charged lepton flavor violation, muon and electron anomalous magnetic moments, constraints arising from electroweak precision observables, and implications for collider experiments.

In this work, we explore an extension of the Standard Model designed to elucidate the fermion mass hierarchy, account for the dark matter relic abundance, and explain the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe. Beyond the Standard Model particle content, our model introduces additional scalars and fermions. Notably, the light active neutrinos and the first two generations of charged fermions acquire masses at the one-loop level. The model accommodates successful low-scale leptogenesis, permitting the mass of the decaying heavy right-handed neutrino to be as low as 10 TeV. We conduct a detailed analysis of the dark matter phenomenology and explore various interesting phenomenological implications. These include charged lepton flavor violation, muon and electron anomalous magnetic moments, constraints arising from electroweak precision observables, and implications for collider experiments.

We propose a low scale renormalizable left-right symmetric theory that successfully explains the observed SM fermion mass hierarchy, the tiny values for the light active neutrino masses and is consistent with the lepton and baryon asymmetries of the Universe, the muon and electron anomalous magnetic moments as well as with the constraints arising from the meson oscillations. In the proposed model the top and exotic quarks obtain masses at tree level, whereas the masses of the bottom, charm and strange quarks, tau and muon leptons are generated from a tree level Universal Seesaw mechanism, thanks to their mixings with the charged exotic vector like fermions. The masses for the first generation SM charged fermions arise from a radiative seesaw mechanism at one loop level, mediated by charged vector like fermions and electrically neutral scalars. The light active neutrino masses are produced from a one-loop level inverse seesaw mechanism mediated by electrically neutral scalar singlets and right handed Majorana neutrinos. Our model is also consistent with the experimental constraints arising from the Higgs diphoton decay rate as well as with the constraints arising from charged lepton flavor violation. We also discuss the and heavy scalar production at a proton-proton collider.

ANDES (Agua Negra Deep Experiment Site) is an underground laboratory, proposed to be built inside the Agua Negra road tunnel that will connect Chile (IV Region) with Argentina (San Juan Province) under the Andes Mountains. The Laboratory will be 1750 meters under the rock, becoming the 3rd deepest underground laboratory of this kind in the world, and the first in the Southern Hemisphere. ANDES will be an international Laboratory, managed by a Latin American consortium. The laboratory will host experiments in Particle and Astroparticle Physics, such as Neutrino and Dark Matter searches, Seismology, Geology, Geophysics and Biology. It will also be used for the development of low background instrumentation and related services. Here we present the general features of the proposed laboratory, the current status of the proposal and some of its opportunities for science.

We study two- and three-body lepton flavor violating (LFV) decays involving leptons and neu- tral vector bosons V = ρ0, ω, φ, J/ψ, Υ, Z0, as well as pseudoscalar P = π0, η, η′, ηc and scalar S = f0(500), f0(980), a0(980), χc0(1P ) mesons, without referring to a specific mechanism of LFV realization. In particular, we relate the rates of the three-body LFV decays τ (μ) → 3`, where ` = μ or e, to the two-body LFV decays (V, P ) → τ μ(τ e, μe), where V and P play the role of intermediate resonances in the decay process τ (μ) → 3`. From the experimental upper bounds for the branching ratios of τ (μ) → 3` decays, we derive upper limits for the branching ratios of (V, P ) → τ μ(τ e, μe). We compare our results to the available experimental data and known theoretical upper limits from previous studies of LFV processes and find that some of our limits are several orders of magnitude more stringent. Using the idea of quark-hadron duality, we extract limits on various quark-lepton dimension-six LFV operators from data on lepton decays. Some of these limits are either new or stronger than those existing in the literature.

We consider the light cone sum-rule description of the pion-photon transition form factor, based on dispersion relations, in combination with the renormalization group of QCD, in terms of the formal solution of the Efremov-Radyushkin-Brodsky-Lepage evolution equation, and show that the emerging scheme amounts to a certain version of fractional analytic perturbation theory (FAPT). In order to ensure the correct asymptotic behavior of the considered physical quantity, this modified FAPT version has to be supplemented by process-specific boundary conditions—in contrast to the standard one. However, it provides the advantage of significantly improving the inclusion of radiative corrections in the low-momentum regime of QCD perturbation theory using renormalization-group summation.

In scenarios of strongly coupled electroweak symmetry breaking, heavy composite particles of different spin and parity may arise and cause observable effects on signals that appear at loop levels. The recently observed process of Higgs to γγ at the LHC is one of such signals. We study the new constraints that are imposed on composite models from , together with the existing constraints from the high precision electroweak tests. We use an effective chiral Lagrangian to describe the effective theory that contains the Standard Model spectrum and the extra composites below the electroweak scale. Considering the effective theory cutoff at , consistency with the T and S parameters and the newly observed can be found for a rather restricted range of masses of vector and axial-vector composites from 1.5 TeV to 1.7 TeV and 1.8 TeV to 1.9 TeV, respectively, and only provided a non-standard kinetic mixing between the and fields is included.

We study the possibility of having CP asymmetries in the decay K± → π ∓` ±` ± (` = e, µ). This decay violates Lepton Number by two units and occurs only if there are Majorana particles that mediate the transition. Even though the absolute rate is highly suppressed by current bounds, we search for Majorana neutrino scenarios where the CP asymmetry arising from the lepton sector could be sizeable. This is indeed the case if there are two or more Majorana neutrinos with similar masses in the range around 102 MeV. In particular, the asymmetry is potentially near unity if two neutrinos are nearly degenerate, in the sense ∆mN ∼ ΓN . The full decay, however, may be difficult to detect not only because of the suppression caused by the heavy-to-light lepton mixing, but also because of the long lifetime of the heavy neutrino, which would induce large space separation between the two vertices where the charge leptons are produced. This particular problem should be less serious in heavier meson decays, as they involve heavier neutrinos with shorter lifetimes.

A search for sub-GeV dark matter production mediated by a new vector boson A′, called dark photon, is performed by the NA64 experiment in missing energy events from 100 GeV electron interactions in an active beam dump at the CERN SPS. From the analysis of the data collected in the years 2016, 2017, and 2018 with 2.84×1011 electrons on target no evidence of such a process has been found. The most stringent constraints on the A′ mixing strength with photons and the parameter space for the scalar and fermionic dark matter in the mass range ≲0.2 GeV are derived, thus demonstrating the power of the active beam dump approach for the dark matter search.

The beam-spin asymmetry, , for the reaction γ d → pn has been measured using the CEBAF Large Acceptance Spectrometer (CLAS) at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility (JLab) for six photon-energy bins, between 1.1 and 2.3 GeV, and proton angles in the center-of-mass frame, θc.m., between 25◦ and 160◦. These are the first measurements of beam-spin asymmetries at θc.m. = 90◦ for photon-beam energies above 1.6 GeV, and the first measurements for angles other than θc.m. = 90◦. The angular and energy dependence of is expected to aid in the development of QCD-based models to understand the mechanisms of deuteron photodisintegration in the transition region between hadronic and partonic degrees of freedom, where both effective field theories and perturbative QCD cannot make reliable predictions.

We analyze double Higgs boson production at the Large Hadron Collider in the context of Little Higgs models. In double Higgs production, the diagrams involved are directly related to those that cause the cancellation of the quadratic divergence of the Higgs self-energy, providing a robust prediction for this class of models. We find that in extensions of this model with the inclusion of a so-called T-parity, there is a significant enhancement in the cross sections as compared to the Standard Model.

Nanotubes have been proved as promising candidates for many technological applications in the nanoscale word and different physical properties have been studied and measured along the few recent years. Here we investigate the role played by external magnetic and electric fields on the electronic properties of toroidal and cylindrical straight carbon nanotubes. A single-π band tight-binding Hamiltonian is used and two types of model-calculations are adopted: real-space renormalization techniques, based on Green function formalism, and straight diagonalization calculation. Both electric and magnetic fields may be properly applied, in different configurations, to modify the energy spectra and transport properties, providing metal-insulator transitions for particular tube geometries.

The electrical transport mechanism of non-percolated copper ultrathin films was studied. For this purpose, resistance behavior was measured during sample growth, aging in vacuum and oxidation in air, and contrasted with a model based on tunnel current and on film’s morphology. In addition, the electrical characterization of chromium and gold ultrathin films was performed and compared with that obtained for copper. All films were grown on muscovite mica through thermal evaporation under high vacuum conditions. Electrical characterization throughout films’ growth, aging and oxidation was performed in situ and in real time. Finally, to address the transport mechanism of non-percolated oxidized copper films, samples were put into a cryostat in which electrical resistance was measured changing the temperature between 35 and 300 K. It was found that the three materials present an almost constant resistance decay during growth. This resistance decrease was studied for copper films by fitting a tunnel transport model which considered islands’ distance as a function of film thickness, indicating a resistance reduction given by coalescing islands. During aging, the resistance of copper and gold ultrathin films increases without reaching a saturation value after 30 min, with a behavior independent of the material or the initial resistance. The theoretical model applied to copper film resistance explains the increment by further formation of 3D structures, mainly conducted by atom diffusion on the substrate. Finally, a change in the resistance behavior is observed during the oxidation of copper ultrathin films, electrical transport is mediated by two mechanisms a semi-conductor type, resembling that of oxidized chromium layers, and a tunnel conduction type, observed in gold films. The first mechanism dominates when temperature is above 200 K, while tunneling is the main process for temperatures below 150 K.

Organic nitrogen plays a significant role in the fermentation performance and production of esters and higher alcohols. This study assessed the use of yeast protein hydrolysate (YPH) as a nitrogen source for grape must fermentation. In this study, we prepared an enzymatic protein hydrolysate using yeasts recovered from a previous fermentation of wine. Three treatments were performed. DAP supplementation was used as a control, while two YPH treatments were used. Low (LDH) and high degrees of hydrolysis (HDH), 3.5% and 10%, respectively, were chosen. Gas chromatography and principal component analysis indicated a significant positive influence of YPH-supplementations on the production of esters and higher alcohols. Significantly high concentrations of 3-methyl-1-penthanol, isoamyl alcohol, isobutanol, and 2-phenylethanol were observed. Significant odorant activity was obtained for 3-methyl-1-pentanol and ethyl-2-hexenoate. The use of YPH as nitrogen supplementation is justified as a recycling yeasts technique by the increase in volatile compounds.

The decay rate of neutrinoless double beta (0νββ) decay contains terms from heavy particle exchange, which lead to dimension-9 (d ¼ 9) six fermion operators at low energies. Limits on the coefficients of these operators have been derived previously neglecting the running of the operators between the high scale, where they are generated, and the energy scale of 0νββ decay, where they are measured. Here we calculate the leading-order QCD corrections to all possible d ¼ 9 operators contributing to the 0νββ amplitude and use renormalization group running to calculate 1-loop improved limits. Numerically, QCD running dramatically changes some limits by factors of the order of or larger than typical uncertainties in nuclear matrix element calculations. For some specific cases, operator mixing in the running changes limits even by up to 3 orders of magnitude. Our results can be straightforwardly combined with new experimental limits or improved nuclear matrix element calculations to rederive updated limits on all short-range contributions to 0νββ decay.

We use the known renormalon structure of Bjorken polarised sum rule (BSR) to evaluate the leading-twist part of that quantity. In addition, we include and Operator Product Expansion (OPE) terms and fit this expression to available experimental data for inelastic BSR. Since we use perturbative QCD (pQCD) coupling, which fails at low squared spacelike momenta due to Landau singularities, the fit is performed for where . Due to large BSR experimental uncertainties, the extracted value of the pQCD coupling has very large uncertainties, especially when is varied. However, when we fix the pQCD coupling to the known world average values, the and residue parameters can be determined within large but reasonable uncertainties.

We evaluate QCD effects in the neutrinoless double beta (0νββ) decay, originating from a new physics short-range mechanism in the form of five dimension-9 operators. For this, we employ the one-loop and two-loop renormalization group equations for the corresponding Wilson coefficients, performing the RGE evolution from the new physics scales (estimated as Λ ∼ 102 GeV) to the typical spacelike 0νββ scale Q ∼ 0.1 GeV. Since the latter scale is clearly nonperturbative, we apply various IR-safe variants of QCD in which the running coupling has no Landau singularities at low spacelike Q. We point out that the correct treatment of the IR-safe analogs of the (noninteger) powers of the couplings is important. It turns out that in most cases of the considered operators the resulting QCD effects can be significant in this process, i.e., can be stronger than the effects of the present uncertainties in the nuclear matrix elements.

Exclusive photoproduction cross sections have been measured for the process γp → pπ0[e+e−(γ )] with the Dalitz decay final state using tagged photon energies in the range of Eγ = 1.275–5.425 GeV. The complete angular distribution of the final state π0, for the entire photon energy range up to large values of t and u, has been measured for the first time. The data obtained show that the cross section dσ/dt, at mid to large angles, decreases with energy as s−6.89±0.26. This is in agreement with the perturbative QCD quark counting rule prediction of s−7. Paradoxically, the size of angular distribution of measured cross sections is greatly underestimated by the QCD-based generalized parton distribution mechanism at highest available invariant energy s = 11 GeV2 . At the same time, the Regge-exchange-based models for π0 photoproduction are more consistent with experimental data.

In the past two decades, deeply virtual Compton scattering of electrons has been successfully used to advance our knowledge of the partonic structure of the free proton and investigate correlations between the transverse position and the longitudinal momentum of quarks inside the nucleon. Meanwhile, the structure of bound nucleons in nuclei has been studied in inclusive deep-inelastic lepton scattering experiments off nuclear targets, showing a significant difference in longitudinal momentum distribution of quarks inside the bound nucleon, known as the EMC effect. In this Letter, we report the first beam spin asymmetry (BSA) measurement of exclusive deeply virtual Compton scattering off a proton bound in 4 He . The data used here were accumulated using a 6 GeV longitudinally polarized electron beam incident on a pressurized 4 He gaseous target placed within the CLAS spectrometer in Hall-B at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. The azimuthal angle (𝜙) dependence of the BSA was studied in a wide range of virtual photon and scattered proton kinematics. The 𝑄2, 𝑥𝐵, and t dependencies of the BSA on the bound proton are compared with those on the free proton. In the whole kinematical region of our measurements, the BSA on the bound proton is smaller by 20% to 40%, indicating possible medium modification of its partonic structure.

We analyze two consequences of the relationship between collinear factorization and 𝑘𝑡-factorization. First, we show that the 𝑘𝑡-factorization gives a fundamental justification for the choice of the hard scale 𝑄2 done in the collinear factorization. Second, we show that in the collinear factorization there is an uncertainty on this choice which will not be reduced by higher orders. This uncertainty is absent within the 𝑘𝑡-factorization formalism.