Search

In effective field theory, the positivity bounds of higher derivative operators are derived from analyticity, causality, and unitarity. We show that the positivity bounds on some operators of the effective field theory, e.g., dimension-eight term of a single massless scalar field, the Standard Model Effective Field Theory dimension-eight $SU(N)$ gauge bosonic operators, and higher-derivative operators in the Einstein-Maxwell theory, generated by interactions between heavy and light degrees of freedom can be derived by the non-negativity of relative entropy. For such effective field theories, we prove that the interactions increase thermodynamic entropy at a fixed charge and an extremal point of energy, which is intimately connected with the extremality relations of black holes exhibiting Weak-Gravity-Conjecture. These arguments are applicable when corrections from the interactions involving higher-derivative operators of light fields are not dominant in the effective field theories. The entropy constraint is a consequence of the Hermiticity of Hamiltonian, and any theory violating the non-negativity of entropy would not respect the second law of thermodynamics., Comment: 31 pages, 2 figures; several explanations were modified, and detailed calculations and explanations were added

As one of the key properties of the Higgs boson, the Higgs total width is sensitive to global profile of the Higgs boson couplings, and thus new physics would modify the Higgs width. We investigate the total width in various new physics models, including various scalar extension, composite Higgs models, and fraternal twin Higgs model. Typically the Higgs width is smaller than the standard model value due to mixture with other scalar if the Higgs is elementary, or curved Higgs field space for the composite Higgs. On the other hand, except the possible invisible decay mode, the enhanced Yukawa coupling in the two Higgs doublet model or the exotic fermion embeddings in the composite Higgs, could enhance the Higgs width greatly. The precision measurement of the Higgs total width at the high-luminosity LHC can be used to discriminate certain new physics models.

The magnetic moment ($a_\gamma$) and weak magnetic moment ($a_W$) of charged leptons and quarks are sensitive to quantum effects of new physics heavy resonances. In effective field theory $a_\gamma$ and $a_W$ are induced by two independent operators, therefore, one has to measure both the $a_\gamma$ and $a_W$ to shed lights on new physics. The $a_W$'s of the SM fermions are measured at the LEP. In this work, we analyze the contributions from magnetic and weak magnetic moment operators in the processes of $pp\to H \gamma$ and $gg\to H \to \tau^+ \tau^- \gamma$ at the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider. We demonstrate that the two processes could cover most of the parameter space that cannot be probed at the LEP.

We show that the signature of two boosted $W$-jets plus large missing energy is very promising to probe heavy charged resonances ($X^\pm$) through the process of $pp\to X^+X^-\to W^+W^- X^0 X^0$ where $X^0$ denotes dark matter candidate. The hadronic decay mode of the $W$ boson is considered to maximize the number of signal events. When the mass split between $X^\pm$ and $X^0$ is large, one has to utilize the jet-substructure technique to analyze the boosted $W$-jet. For illustration we consider the process of chargino pair production at the LHC, i.e., $pp\to \chi_1^+\chi^-_1 \to W^+W^-\chi_1^0\chi_1^0$, and demonstrate that the proposed signature is able to cover more parameter space of $m_{\chi_1^\pm}$ and $m_{\chi_1^0}$ than the conventional signature of multiple leptons plus missing energy. More importantly, the signature of our interests is not sensitive to the spin of heavy resonances.

One way to probe new physics beyond standard model is to check the correlation among higher dimension operators in effective field theory. We examine the strong correlation between the processes of $pp\rightarrow tHq$ and $pp\rightarrow tq$ which both depend on the same three operators. The correlation indicates that, according to the data of $pp\rightarrow tq$, $\sigma_{tHq}=\big[106.8 \pm 64.8\big]~{\rm fb}$ which is far below the current upper limit $\sigma_{tHq}\leq 900~{\rm fb}$.

We explore constraints on various new physics resonances from four top-quark production based on current experimental data. Both light and heavy resonances are studied in the work. A comparison of full width effect and narrow width approximation is also made., Comment: 7 pages, 10 figures; published version of Chinese Physics C; English typo corrected

Magnesium and its alloys have aroused tremendous interests because of their promising mechanical properties and biocompatibility. However, their excessively fast corrosion rate hinders the development of Mg alloys in the biomedical fields. Inspired by conventional ion implantation, a less-toxic functional group (hydroxyl) is used as the ion source to bombard the ZK60 Mg alloy surface to form a functionalized oxide layer. This functionalized oxide layer significantly facilitates the corrosion resistance of the ZK60 Mg alloy substrate and the proliferation of MC3T3-E1 cells, which is confirmed by electrochemical, immersion, and in vitro cytocompatibility tests. In comparison with results of ZK60 alloy implanted with carboxyl ions in our previous work, it is concluded that hydroxyl-treated alloys exhibit slightly higher corrosion rate while better biocompatibility. In summary, less-toxic functional ion implantation can be an effective strategy for inhibiting corrosion of Mg alloy implants and promoting their biocompatibility., Comment: 15 pages, 9 figures, 4 tables

To realize first-order electroweak phase transition, it is necessary to generate a barrier in the thermal Higgs potential, which is usually triggered by scalar degree of freedom. We instead investigate phase transition patterns in pure fermion extensions of the standard model, and find that additional fermions with mass hierarchy and mixing could develop such barrier and realize strongly first-order phase transition in such models. In the Higgs potential with polynomial parametrization, the barrier can be generated in the following two patterns: (I) positive quadratic term, negative cubic term and positive quartic term or (II) positive quadratic term, negative quartic term and positive higher dimensional term, such as dimensional 6 operator., Comment: 26 pages, 9 figures

We propose a new dihedral angle observable to measure the CP property of the interaction of top quark and Higgs boson in the $t\bar{t}H$ production at the 14~TeV LHC. We consider two decay modes of the Higgs boson, $H\to b\bar{b}$ and $H\to \gamma\gamma$ and show that the dihedral angle distribution is able to distinguish the CP-even and the CP-odd hypothesis at 95\% confidence level with an integrated luminosity of $\sim 180~{\rm fb}^{-1}$.

The sensitivity of direct detection of dark matter (DM) approaches the so-called neutrino floor below which it is hard to disentangle the DM candidate from the background neutrino. In this work we consider the scenario that no DM signals are reported in various DM direct detection experiments and explore whether the collider searches could probe the DM under the neutrino floor. We adopt several simplified models in which the DM candidate couples only to electroweak gauge bosons or leptons in the standard model through high dimensional operators. After including the RGE running effect we investigate constraints from direct detection, indirect detection and collider searches. The collider search can probe a light DM below neutrino floor. Especially, for the effective interaction of $\bar{\chi}\chi B_{\mu\nu}B^{\mu\nu}$, current data of the mono-photon channel at the 13 TeV LHC has already covered entire parameter space of the neutrino floor.

Direct detection experiments turn to lose sensitivity of searching for a sub-MeV light dark matter candidate due to the threshold of recoil energy. However, such light dark matter particles can be accelerated by energetic cosmic-rays such that they can be detected with existing detectors. We derive the constraints on the scattering of a boosted light dark matter and electron from the XENON100/1T experiment. We illustrate that the energy dependence of the cross section plays a crucial role in improving both the detection sensitivity and also the complementarity of direct detection and other experiments., Comment: 5 pages with supplements

We propose to utilize the polarization information of the $Z$ bosons in $ZZ$ production, via the gluon-gluon fusion process $gg\to ZZ$, to probe the $Zt\bar{t}$ gauge coupling. The contribution of longitudinally polarized $Z$ bosons is sensitive to the axial-vector component ($a_t$) of the $Zt\bar{t}$ coupling. We demonstrate that the angular distribution of the charged lepton from $Z$ boson decays serves well for measuring the polarization of $Z$ bosons and the determination of $a_t$. We show that $ZZ$ production via the $gg\to ZZ$ process complement to $Zt\bar{t}$ and $tZj$ productions in measuring the $Zt\bar{t}$ coupling at hadron colliders., Comment: 6 pages, 8 figures; Final version published in PRD

We present a detailed phenomenological study of the multiple soft gluon radiation for the $t$-channel single top and anti-top quark production at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC). By applying the transverse momentum dependent factorization formalism, large logarithms introduced by small total transverse momentum $q_\perp$ of the single-top (anti-top) plus one-jet final state system are resummed to all orders in the expansion of the strong interaction coupling at the accuracy of Next-to-Leading Logarithm. We discuss various kinematical distributions which are sensitive to this effect and find that soft gluon radiation become more important when the final state jet is required to be in the forward region. We show that the main difference from PYTHIA prediction lies on the inclusion of the exact color coherence effect between the initial and final states in our resummation calculation. We further propose to apply the experimental observable $\phi^*$ to test the effect of multiple gluon radiation in the single-top and anti-top events. The bottom quark mass effect and jet rapidity distribution are also discussed., Comment: 22 pages. arXiv admin note: substantial text overlap with arXiv:1801.09656, arXiv:1811.01428

Different from other multiple top-quark productions, triple top-quark production requires the presence of both flavor violating neutral interaction and flavor conserving neutral interaction. We describe the interaction of triple top-quarks and up-quark in terms of two dimension-6 operators; one can be induced by a new heavy vector resonance, the other by a scalar resonance. Combining same-sign top-quark pair production and four top-quark production, we explore the potential of the 13 TeV LHC on searching for the triple top-quark production.

We demonstrate that the multi-top productions efficiently probe the CP-property of top-Higgs interaction and the Higgs-boson width at the LHC. The four top-quark production alone can exclude a purely CP-odd top-quark Yukawa coupling at the 13~TeV LHC with an integrated luminosity of $430~{\rm fb}^{-1}$, regardless the size of the Yukawa coupling. Combining the single Higgs-boson production, the $t\bar{t}H$ associated production and the four top-quark production, we show that the CP-phase of the top-quark Yukawa coupling and the Higgs-boson width can be stringently bounded at the LHC with integrated luminosities of $300~{\rm fb}^{-1}$ and $3000~{\rm fb}^{-1}$.

We consider the special case that the dark matter (DM) candidate is not detected in direct-detection programs when the experimental sensitivity reaches the neutrino flux background. In such circumstance the DM searches at the colliders impose constraints on the DM relic abundance if the DM candidate is a WIMPs type. Specifically, we consider the triplet (quintet and septet) DMs in the framework of minimal DM model and explore the potential of discovering the DM candidate in the mono-jet, mono-photon and vector boson fusion channels at the Large Hadron Collider and future 100~TeV hadron collider. If the DM candidate in such a scenario is discovered at the LHC, then additional DM candidates are needed to explain the observed relic abundance. On the other hand, null results in those DM searching programs at the colliders give rise to lower limits of DM relic abundance.

If the Higgs boson is a pseudo Nambu-Goldstone boson (PNGB), the $hZ\gamma$ contact interaction induced by the $\mathcal{O}(p^4)$ invariants of the non-linear sigma model is free from its nonlinearity effects. The process $h\rightarrow Z\gamma$ can be used to eliminate the universal effects of heavy particles, which can fake the nonlinearity effects of the PNGB Higgs boson in the process $h\rightarrow V^*V$ ($V=W^\pm$,\ $Z$). We demonstrate that the ratio of the signal strength of $h\rightarrow Z\gamma$ and $h\rightarrow V^*V$ is good to distinguish the signature of the PNGB Higgs boson from Higgs coupling deviations.