Search

The possibility of a Photon-Photon collider extension to the Beam dump of the $17.5$ GeV European XFEL has been discussed before as the first high energy collider of its sort. It would not just be to study the concept of photon colliders but would also be a collider without competition in the region of $5 - 12$ GeV for photon-photon collision. In this range, $b\overline{b}$ and $c\overline{c}$ resonances, tetraquarks as well as mesonic molecules can be observed. Furthermore, some BSM processes can also be reached in this range. In this paper we want to discuss the possibility of observing ALPs at such a collider. We will use a simplified description of the compton backscattering process to get a first look at cross sections and extend this to the full beam dynamics included prediction., Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, contribution to the proceedings of LCWS2024, Tokyo, July 2024

Some highlights of the physics case for running an $e^+e^-$ collider at 500 GeV and above are discussed with a particular emphasis on the experimental access to the Higgs potential via di-Higgs and (at sufficiently high energy) triple Higgs production. The information obtainable from Higgs pair production at about 500 GeV is compared with the prospects for the HL-LHC and with the indirect information that can be obtained from a Higgs factory running at lower energies., Comment: 9 pages, contribution to the proceedings of LCWS2024, Tokyo, July 2024

Domain walls are a type of topological defects that can arise in the early universe after the spontaneous breaking of a discrete symmetry. This occurs in several beyond Standard Model theories with an extended Higgs sector such as the Next-to-Two-Higgs-Doublet model (N2HDM). In this talk, I will discuss the domain wall solution related to the singlet scalar of the N2HDM and demonstrate the possibility of electroweak symmetry restoration (EWSR) in the vicinity of the domain wall. Such symmetry restoration can have profound implications on the early universe cosmology as the sphaleron rate inside the domain wall would, in principle, be unsuppressed compared with the rate outside the wall., Comment: 4 pages, Contribution to the Proceedings of the ICHEP 2024 Conference

In this work, we examine the criteria for vacuum stability in two models with extended scalar sectors namely, the N2HDM and the 2HDMS and make a detailed comparison between the two. For the purpose of demonstration, we choose a scenario which can accommodate the recently observed 95 GeV excess in both models. We further explore the impact of the measurement of the Yukawa couplings, the gauge boson couplings and most importantly the trilinear self-couplings of the scalars, in distinguishing the vacuum structure in both models. We further investigate the constraints from vacuum stability on the 2HDMS scenario that accommodates a viable dark matter candidate and compare it with the N2HDM case., Comment: 38 pages, 9 figures

Domain walls are a type of topological defects that can arise in the early universe after the spontaneous breaking of a discrete symmetry. They can form in several beyond the Standard Model theories with an extended Higgs sector such as the Next to-Two-Higgs-Doublet model (N2HDM). In this work, we discuss the domain wall solution related to the singlet scalar of the N2HDM and demonstrate the possibility of restoring the electroweak symmetry inside and in the vicinity of the domain wall. Such symmetry restoration can have profound implications on early universe cosmology as the weak sphaleron rate inside the domain wall would, in principle, be unsuppressed compared to the rate outside the wall. We also discuss the possibility of generating CP-violating vacua localized in the vicinity of the domain wall. Our work is a first step towards the realization of electroweak baryogenesis mediated by domain walls in the N2HDM., Comment: 44 pages, 26 figures, DESY-24-109

We study possible CP-violation effects of the 125 GeV Higgs to $Z$ boson coupling at the 250 GeV ILC with transverse and longitudinal beam polarisation via the process $e^+ e^- \rightarrow HZ \rightarrow H \mu^-\mu^+$. We explore the azimuthal angular distribution of the muon pair from the $Z$ boson decay, and constructe CP-odd observables sensitive to CP-violation effects, where we derived this observable both by analytical calculations and by $\mathtt{Whizard}$ simulations. Particularly, we can construct two CP-odd observables with the help of transversely-polarised initial beams and improve the statistical significance of CP-violation effects by combining two measurements. We defined the asymmetries between the signal regions with different signs of the CP-odd observables, and determine the CP-violation effect by comparing with the SM 95% C.L. upper bound. In this paper, we setup a scenario which assumes that the total cross-section is always fixed while CP-violation is varying, and such a scenario helps us to determine the intrinsic CP-mixing angle limit around $|\xi_{CP}|\sim 0.03$ with (90%, 40%) polarised electron-positron beams and 5 ab$^{-1}$ integrated luminosity. In addition, we determine the CP-odd coupling limit $|\widetilde{c}_{HZZ}|\sim 0.01$ as well, where we suppose that the SM tree-level cross-section is fixed and the CP-violation is the varying additional contribution. Comparing with the analysis with unpolarised beams, the sensitivity to the CP-violation effect can be improved by transverse or longitudinal polarisation., Comment: V2: Adding the references and correcting the definition of effective CP-odd fraction $f_{cp}$

We study possible CP-violation effects of the Higgs to $Z$-boson coupling at a future $e^+ e^-$ collider, e.g. the International Linear Collider (ILC). We find that the azimuthal angular distribution of the muon pair, produced by $e^+ e^- \rightarrow H Z \rightarrow H \mu^+ \mu^-$, can be sensitive to such a CP-violation effect when we apply initial transversely polarized beams. Based on this angular distribution, we construct a CP sensitive asymmetry and obtain this asymmetry by \texttt{Whizard} simulation. By comparing the SM prediction with 2$\sigma$ range of this asymmetry, we estimate the discovery limit of the CP-odd coupling in $HZZ$ interaction.

Research in non-perturbative QED in strong-field backgrounds has gained interest in recent years, due to advances in high-intensity laser technologies that make extreme fields accessible in the laboratory. One key signature of strong-field QED is non-linear Compton scattering in collisions between a relativistic electron beam and a high-intensity laser pulse. In the vicinity of strong fields, the electron gains a larger effective mass, which leads to a laser-intensity-dependent shift of the kinematic Compton edge and the appearance of higher-order harmonics in the energy spectrum. One of the challenges of measuring the Compton energy spectrum in laser-electron-beam collisions is the enormous flux of outgoing Compton-scattered electrons and photons, ranging from $10^3$ to $10^9$ particles per collision. We present a combined detector system for high-rate Compton electron detection in the context of the planned LUXE experiment, consisting of a spatially segmented gas-filled Cherenkov detector and a scintillator screen imaged by an optical camera system. The detectors are placed in a forward dipole spectrometer to resolve the electron energy spectrum. Finally, we discuss techniques to reconstruct the non-linear Compton electron energy spectrum from the high-rate electron detection system and to extract the features of non-perturbative QED from the spectrum.

In several models of beyond Standard Model physics (BSM) discrete symmetries play an important role. For instance, in order to avoid flavor changing neutral currents (FCNC), a discrete $Z_2$ symmetry is imposed on Two-Higgs-Doublet-Models (2HDM). This can lead to the formation of domain walls (DW) as the $Z_2$ symmetry gets spontaneously broken during electroweak symmetry breaking (EWSB) in the early universe. Due to this simultaneous spontaneous breaking of both the discrete symmetry and the electroweak symmetry, the vacuum manifold has the structure of two disconnected 3-spheres and the formed domain walls can exhibit several special properties in contrast to standard domain walls. We focus on some of these properties such as CP and electric charge violating vacua localized inside the domain walls. The breaking of $U(1)_{em}$ inside the wall leads to the known phenomenon of "clash-of-symmetries" mechanism, meaning that the symmetry group inside the wall is smaller than the symmetry group far from the wall. We also discuss the scattering of top quarks off such types of domain walls and show, for example, that they can be reflected or transmitted off the wall as a bottom quark., Comment: 7 pages, 3 figures, Contribution to the proceedings of the European Physical Society Conference on High Energy Physics (EPS-HEP2023), 21-25 August 2023, Hamburg, Germany

Many different approaches have been made to explain the nature of dark matter (DM), but it remains and unsolved mystery of our universe. In this work we examine a type II two-Higgs-doublet model extended by a complex singlet (2HDMS), where the pseudo-scalar component of the singlet acts as a natural DM candidate. The DM candidate is stabilized by a Z'2 symmetry, which is broken spontaneously by the singlet acquiring a vacuum expectation value (vev). This vev in turn causes the scalar component of the singlet to mix with the scalar components of the two doublets, which results in three scalar Higgs particles. Additionally we aim to include an excess around 95 GeV, which was observed at CSM and LEP and can be explained by one of the three scalar Higgs particles. After introducing the model, we apply experimental and theoretical constraints and find a viable benchmark point. We then look into the DM phenomenology as well as collider phenomenology., Comment: 9 pages, 2 figures, 1 table

Discrete symmetries play an important role in several extensions of the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics. For instance, in order to avoid flavor changing neutral currents, a discrete $Z_2$ symmetry is imposed on the Two-Higgs-Doublet Model (2HDM). This can lead to the formation of domain walls (DW) as the $Z_2$ symmetry gets spontaneously broken during electroweak symmetry breaking in the early universe and domain walls form between regions whose vacua are related by the discrete symmetry. Due to this simultaneous spontaneous breaking of both the discrete symmetry and the electroweak symmetry, the vacuum manifold consists of two disconnected 3-spheres. Such a non-trivial disconnected vacuum manifold leads to several choices for the vacua at two adjacent regions, in contrast to models where only the discrete symmetry gets spontaneously broken and the vacuum manifold consists of several disconnected points. Due to this, we end up with several classes of DW solutions having different properties localized inside the wall, such as charge and/or CP violating vacua. We discuss the properties of these different classes of DW solutions as well as the interaction of SM fermions with such topological defects leading to different exotic phenomena such as, for example, the top quark being transmitted or reflected off the wall as a bottom quark., Comment: 65 pages, 50 figures, 2 tables

The Two-Higgs-Doublet-Standard Model-Axion-Seesaw-Higgs-Portal inflation (2hdSMASH) model consisting of two Higgs doublets, a Standard Model (SM) singlet complex scalar and three SM singlet right-handed neutrinos can embed axion dark matter, neutrino masses and address inflation. We report on an investigation of the inflationary aspects of 2hdSMASH and its subsequent impact on low energy phenomenology. In particular, we identify inflationary directions for which the parameter values required for successful inflation do not violate perturbative unitarity and boundedness-from-below conditions. By analyzing the renormalization-group flow of the parameters we identify the necessary and sufficient constraints for running all parameters perturbatively and maintaining stability from the electroweak to the PLANCK scale. We observe that stringent constraints arise on the singlet scalar self coupling from inflationary constraints, i.e, $\lambda_S\sim 10^{-10}$. Further, we find that all theoretical and experimental constraints are satisfied if the portal couplings are typically in the range $(\frac{v}{v_S})$ and $(\frac{v}{v_S})^2$ (where $v, v_S$ refer to the electroweak and singlet scalar vacuum expectation value respectively). As a consequence, inflation is realized in a variety of field space directions in the effective single field regime. Finally we provide testable benchmark scenarios at colliders., Comment: 72 pages, 18 figures, 7 tables, final version accepted for publication in JCAP

Several designs for high-energy Lepton Colliders serving as Higgs factories but extendable to higher energies up to the TeV range are under discussion. The most mature design is the International Linear Collider (ILC), but also the Compact Linear Collider (CLIC) as well as the new concept of a Hybrid Asymmetric Linear Higgs Factory (HALHF) have a large physics potential. The first energy stage with $\sqrt{s}=250$~GeV requires high luminosity and polarized beams and imposes an effort for all positron source designs at high-energy colliders. In the baseline design of the ILC, an undulator-based source is foreseen for the positron source in order to match the physics requirements. In this contribution an overview is given about the undulator-based source, the target tests, the rotating target wheel design, as well as the pulsed solenoid and the new technology development of plasma lenses as optic matching devices., Comment: 14 pages, 17 figures, talk presented at the International Workshop on Future Linear Colliders (LCWS2023), 15-19 May 2023. C23-05-15.3 Report number added

The positron source is an essential component of the International Linear Collider (ILC) and is an area that poses some design challenges. One consideration is the material for the target, where the 1014 positrons per second for the ILC are generated. The potential material would need to be able to resist the high load created by the intense high energy photon beam. One of such candidates is the titanium alloy Ti-6Al-4V, for which the results of material tests with 3.5 MeV electrons are shown. The material was characterized after the irradiation by high-energy X-ray diffraction (HE-XRD) and changes caused by the irradiation to the crystal structure were studied. These tests revealed there was only minimal change in the phase fractions and crystal structure of the material under conditions as expected for the ILC.

In recent years, the concept of high-gradient, symmetric focusing using active plasma lenses has regained notable attention owing to its potential benefits in terms of compactness and beam dynamics when juxtaposed with traditional focusing elements. An enticing application lies in the optical matching of extensively divergent positrons originating from the undulator-based ILC positron source, thereby enhancing the positron yield in subsequent accelerating structures. Through a collaboration between the University of Hamburg and DESY Hamburg, a scaled-down prototype for this purpose has been conceptualized and fabricated. In this presentation, we provide an overview of the ongoing progress in the development of this prototype. Furthermore, first insights into the development of a particle tracking code especially designed for plasma lenses with implemented Bayes optimization, are given., Comment: TALK PRESENTED AT THE INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP ON FUTURE LINEAR COLLIDERS (LCWS2023), 15-19 MAY 2023. C23-05-15.3., LCWS23, SLAC, Plasma lens, ILC, 3 pages

The Two Higgs Doublet model extended with a complex scalar singlet (2HDMS) is a well-motivated Beyond Standard Model candidate addressing several open problems of nature. In this work, we focus on the dark matter (DM) phenomenology of the complex scalar singlet where the real part of the complex scalar obtains a vacuum expectation value. The model is characterized by an enlarged Higgs spectrum comprising six physical Higgs bosons and a pseudoscalar DM candidate. We address the impact of accommodating the 95 GeV excess on the 2HDMS parameter space and DM observables after including all theoretical and experimental constraints. Finally, we look into the prospects of this scenario at HL-LHC and future lepton colliders for a representative benchmark., Comment: 39 pages, 12 figures, 10 tables

Heterodyne cavity experiments for gravitational wave (GW) detection experience a rising interest since recent studies showed that they allow to probe the ultra high frequency regime above $10\,\text{kHz}$. In this paper, we present a concise theoretical study of the experiment based on ideas from the former MAGO collaboration which already started experiments in turn of the millenium. It extends the former results via deriving an additional term originating from a back-action of the electromagnetic field on the cavity walls, also known as Lorentz Force Detuning. We argue that this term leads to a complex dependence of the signal power $P_{\text{sig}}$ on the coupling coefficient between the mechanical shell modes and the electromagnetic eigenmodes of the cavity. It turns out that one has to adapt the coupling over the whole parameter space since the optimal value depends on the mechanical mode $\omega_l$ and the GW frequency $\omega_g$. This result is particularly relevant for the design of future experiments., Comment: 13 pages + 6 pages of appendices, 5 figures. Changes: Typos in eqn. 22, 23 and 41 corrected, figure 2 revised, added references, minor typos corrected

The constituents of dark matter are still an unresolved puzzle. Several Beyond Standard Model (BSM) Physics offer suitable candidates. In this study here we consider the Two Higgs Doublet model augmented with a complex scalar singlet (2HDMS) and focus on the dark matter phenomenology of 2HDMS with the complex scalar singlet as the dark matter candidate. The parameter space allowed from existing experimental constraints from dark matter, flavour physics and collider searches has been studied. The discovery potential for such a 2HDMS at HL-LHC and at future $e^+e^-$ colliders has been worked out., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, Proceedings of '14th International Conference on Identification of Dark Matter (IDM2022)'

In recent years, Laser Plasma Acceleration (LPA) has become a promising alternative to conventional RF accelerators. However, so far, it has only been theoretically shown that generating polarized LPA beams is possible. The LEAP (Laser Electron Acceleration with Polarization) project at DESY aims to demonstrate this experimentally for the first time, using a pre-polarized plasma target. The electron polarization will be measured with photon transmission polarimetry, which makes use of the production of circularly polarized bremsstrahlung during the passage of the electron beams through a suitable converter target. The photon polarization is then measured with the aid of transmission asymmetry arising from reversing the magnetization direction of an iron absorber. In this contribution an overview of the LEAP project is presented, detailing the generation of the polarized electron beams along with the design and simulation studies of the polarimeter., Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, to be published in JPS Conference Proceedings

The International Linear Collider (ILC) is on the table now as a new global energy-frontier accelerator laboratory taking data in the 2030s. The ILC addresses key questions for our current understanding of particle physics. It is based on a proven accelerator technology. Its experiments will challenge the Standard Model of particle physics and will provide a new window to look beyond it. This document brings the story of the ILC up to date, emphasizing its strong physics motivation, its readiness for construction, and the opportunity it presents to the US and the global particle physics community., Comment: 356 pages, Large pdf file (40 MB) submitted to Snowmass 2021; v2 references to Snowmass contributions added, additional authors; v3 references added, some updates, additional authors

The Two Higgs Doublet model augmented with a complex scalar singlet (2HDMS) is a well-motivated candidate for Beyond Standard Model (BSM) Physics. We investigate the dark matter phenomenology of the 2HDMS with the complex scalar singlet as the dark matter candidate. We perform a study of the parameter space allowed by existing experimental constraints from dark matter, flavour physics and collider searches. The distinction between real and complex scalar dark matter in the context of the 2HDMS is also performed. Furthermore, we discuss the discovery potential for the 2HDMS at the HL-LHC and at future high-energy $e^+e^-$ colliders., Comment: 21 pages, 18 tables, 16 figues

In the future the International Linear Collider (ILC), a helical undulator-based polarized positron source, is expected to be chosen. A high energy electron beam passes through a superconducting helical undulator in order to create circularly polarized photons which will be directed to a conversion target, resulting in electron-positron pairs. The resulting positron beam is longitudinally polarized. Since the photons are produced with an opening angle and pass through a long superconducting helical undulator, some of these photons will strike the undulator walls. Therefore photon masks must be placed along the undulator line in order to keep the power deposited in the undulator walls below the acceptable limit of 1W/m. The baseline design of the ILC is focused on 250 GeV center-of-mass energy and upgrade to center-of-mass energies of 350 and 500 GeV is foreseen. This paper shows a detailed study of the ideal power deposited along the masks for both 350 and 500 GeV center-of-mass energies., Comment: 13 pages, 11 figures and 5 tables. Talk presented at the International Workshop on Future Linear Colliders (LCWS2021), 15-18 March 2021. C21-03-15.1

The current challenges in High Energy Physics and Cosmology are to build coherent particle physics models to describe the phenomenology at colliders in the laboratory and the observations in the universe. From these observations, the existence of an inflationary phase in the early universe gives guidance for particle physics models. We study a supersymmetric model which incorporates successfully inflation by a non-minimal coupling to supergravity and shows a unique collider phenomenology. Motivated by experimental data, we set a special emphasis on a new singlet-like state at 97 GeV and single out possible observables for a future linear collider that permit a distinction of the model from a similar scenario without inflation. We define a benchmark scenario that is in agreement with current collider and Dark Matter constraints, and study the influence of the non-minimal coupling on the phenomenology. Measuring the singlet-like state with high precision on the percent level seems to be promising for resolving the models, even though the Standard Model-like Higgs couplings deviate only marginally. However, a hypothetical singlet-like state with couplings of about 20% compared to a Standard Model Higgs at 97 GeV encourages further studies of such footprint scenarios of inflation., Comment: 21 pages, 10 figures; v2 matches published version

In the baseline design of the International Linear Collider (ILC) an undulator-based source is foreseen for the positron source in order to match the physics requirements. The recently chosen first energy stage with sqrt(s)=250 GeV requires high luminosity and imposes an effort for all positron source designs at high-energy colliders. In this paper we perform a simulation study and adopt the new technology of plasma lenses to capture the positrons generated by the undulator photons and to create the required high luminosity positron beam., Comment: Talk presented at the International Workshop on Future Linear Colliders (LCWS2019), Sendai, Japan, 28 October-1 November 2019

The design of the positron source for the International Linear Collider (ILC) is still under discussion. The baseline design plans to use the high-energy electron beam for the positron production before it goes to the IP. The electrons pass a long helical undulator and generate an intense circularly polarized photon beam which hits a thin conversion target to produce $e^+e^-$ pairs. The resulting positron beam is longitudinally polarized which provides an important benefit for precision physics analyses at the ILC. In this paper the status of the positron target design studies is presented. Focus is the positron yield for center-of-mass energies of 250 GeV and also the Z peak. Possibilities to improve the positron collection system and thus to increase the positron yield are discussed., Comment: Talks presented at the International Workshop on Future Linear Colliders (LCWS2019), Sendai, Japan, 28 October-1 November, 2019. C19-10-28. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:1902.07744

In the future, International Linear Collider (ILC), a helical undulator based polarized positron source is expected to be chosen. A high energy electron beam passes through a superconducting helical undulator in order to create circularly polarized photons which will be directed to a conversion target, the result of which, will be electron-positron pairs. The resulting positron beam is longitudinally polarized. In order to produce the required number of positrons in ILC250 the full undulator length is needed. Since the photons are created with an opening angle and traveling through a 320 m long undulator, it is expected that the superconducting undulator vacuum will be hit by the photons. Photon masks are needed to be inserted in the undulator line to keep the power deposition in the vacuum below the acceptable limit which is 1W/m. A detailed study of the power deposition in the vacuum and masks is needed in order to design the photon masks. This paper describes the power deposition in the undulator vacuum due to secondary particles assuming an ideal undulator. In addition, the mask model is proposed., Comment: 25 pages, 12 figures and 10 tables. Talk presented at the International Workshop on Future Linear Colliders (LCWS2019), Sendai, Japan, 28 October-1 November, 2019. C19-10-28

In the baseline design of the International Linear Collider (ILC) an undulator-based source is foreseen for the positron source in order to match the physics requirements. The baseline parameters are optimized for the ILC at sqrt(s)=500 GeV, that means an electron drive beam of 250 GeV. Precision measurements in the Higgs sector, however, require measurements at sqrt(s)=250 GeV, i.e. running with the electron drive beam only at 125 GeV, which imposes a challenge for achieving a high yield. Therefore the baseline undulator parameters have to be optimized as much as possible within their technical performances. In this bachelor thesis we therefore present a theoretical study on the radiation spectra of a helical undulator, based on the equation for the radiated synchrotron energy spectral density per solid angle per electron in the relativistic, far-field and point-like charge approximation. From this starting point the following undulator properties are examined: the deposited power in the undulator vessel, which can disrupt the functionality of the undulator magnets, the protective property of a mask on this disturbances and the number of positrons produced by the synchrotron radiation in a Ti6Al4V target. Those quantities were evaluated for various values for parameters as undulator period, undulator length and magnetic flux in order to find optimal baseline parameter sets for sqrt(s)=250 GeV., Comment: 15 pages, Talk presented at the International Workshop on Future Linear Colliders (LCWS2018), Arlington, Texas, 22-26 October 2018

The positron source of the International Linear Collider is based on a superconducting helical undulator passed by the high-energy electron beam to generate photons which hit a conversion target. Since the photons are circularly polarized the resulting positron beam is polarized. At ILC250, the full undulator is needed to produce the required number of positrons. To keep the power deposition in the undulator walls below the acceptable limit of 1W/m, photon masks must be inserted in the undulator line. The photon mask design requires a detailed study of the power deposition in the walls and masks. This paper describes the power deposition in the undulator wall due to synchrotron radiation., Comment: Talk presented at the International Workshop on Future Linear Colliders (LCWS2018), Arlington, Texas, 22-26 October 2018. C18-10-22

The design of the positron source for the International Linear Collider (ILC) is still under consideration. The baseline design plans to use the electron beam for the positron production before it goes to the IP. The high-energy electrons pass a long helical undulator and generate an intense circularly polarized photon beam which hits a thin conversion target to produce $e^+e^-$ pairs. The resulting positron beam is longitudinally polarized which provides an important benefit for precision physics analyses. In this paper the status of the design studies is presented with focus on ILC250. In particular, the target design and cooling as well as issues of the optical matching device are important for the positron yield. Some possibilities to optimize the system are discussed., Comment: Talk presented at the International Workshop on Future Linear Colliders (LCWS2018), Arlington, Texas, 22-26 October 2018. C18-10-22

The Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM) can incorporate inflation, where a combination of the Higgs-doublet fields plays the role of the inflaton. At the high scale, the Higgs doublets are non-minimally coupled to supergravity; this coupling appears as an additional contribution to the $\mu$ term in the low-energy effective superpotential and potentially changes physics at the electroweak scale. In a recent publication, we investigate the extended parameter space of this model with respect to collider phenomenology at the electroweak scale, and discuss scenarios which are potentially different from the pure NMSSM. We analyse the stability of the electroweak vacuum, the masses of neutralinos/charginos and Higgs bosons as well as the mixing and decays of Higgs bosons. Some important aspects of this study are described in the following., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures

Little Higgs models - which can most easily be thought of as a variant of composite Higgs models - explain a light Higgs boson at 125 GeV as an pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson of a spontaneously broken global symmetry. The mechanism of collective symmetry breaking shifts the UV scale of these models to the 10 TeV scale and higher. T-parity is introduced as a discrete symmetry to remove tree-level constraints on the electroweak precision data. Still after run 1 of LHC, electroweak precision observables gave stronger constraints than Higgs data and direct searches. We present a full recast of all available 13 TeV searches from LHC run 2 to show that now direct searches supersede electroweak precision observables. The latest exclusion limits on the LHT model will be presented, as well as an outlook on the full high-luminosity phase of LHC., Comment: 4 pages, 2 figures, to be submitted to proceedings of ICHEP 2018

A high-energy $e^+e^-$ Linear Collider has been considered since a long time as an important complement to the LHC. Unprecedented precision measurements as well as the exploration of so far untouched phase space for direct production of new particles will provide unique information to advance the limits of our understanding of our universe. Within this project, the physics prospects of such a collider as well as their interplay with design of the accelerator and the detectors have been investigated in a quantitative way. This kind of study required a close collaboration between theory and experiment, always taking into account results of the LHC and other relevant experiments. In this article we will summarize some of the most important developments and results, covering all core areas of the physics progamme of future $e^+e^-$ colliders., Comment: 26 pages, 16 figures. Part of the final report of the Collaborative Research Center 676 "Particles, Strings and the Early Universe" 2006 - 2018

The concept of Higgs inflation can be elegantly incorporated in the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (NMSSM). A linear combination of the two Higgs-doublet fields plays the role of the inflaton which is non-minimally coupled to gravity. This non-minimal coupling appears in the low-energy effective superpotential and changes the phenomenology at the electroweak scale. While the field content of the inflation-inspired model is the same as in the NMSSM, there is another contribution to the $\mu$ term in addition to the vacuum expectation value of the singlet. We explore this extended parameter space and point out scenarios with phenomenological differences compared to the pure NMSSM. A special focus is set on the electroweak vacuum stability and the parameter dependence of the Higgs and neutralino sectors. We highlight regions which yield a SM-like $125\,$GeV Higgs boson compatible with the experimental observations and are in accordance with the limits from searches for additional Higgs bosons. Finally, we study the impact of the non-minimal coupling to gravity on the Higgs mixing and in turn on the decays of the Higgs bosons in this model., Comment: 44 pages, 12 figures

The design of the conversion target for the undulator-based ILC positron source is still under development. One important issue is the cooling of the target. Here, the status of the design studies for cooling by thermal radiation is presented., Comment: Talk presented at the International Workshop on Future Linear Colliders (LCWS2017), Strasbourg, France, 23-27 October 2017. C17-10-23.2

In the baseline design of the International Linear Collider (ILC) an undulator-based source is foreseen for the positron source. In this study the energy deposition in the pulsed flux concentrator (FC) of positron source is calculated for the ILC at 250 GeV center-of-mass energy. The peak energy of 33 J/g deposited by one beam pulse in the current design of the FC is above the limit for copper material. Several promising options were considered to solve the issue of overheating the FC: the quarter wave transformer (QWT) has a significantly bigger aperture and is considered as an valuable and safe alternative for the FC. Since the positron source with a QWT is expected to lead to a lower positron capture efficiency, also the expected positron yield was calculated in addition to the energy deposition in QWT., Comment: Talk presented at the International Workshop on Future Linear Colliders (LCWS2017), Strasbourg, France, 23-27 October 2017. C17-10-23.2

The public collider phenomenology computing tool CheckMATE (Check Models at Terascale Energies) was originally designed to allow theorists to quickly test their favourite BSM models against various existing LHC analyses performed by ATLAS and CMS. It offers an automatised chain of Monte Carlo event generation, detector simulation, event analysis and statistical evaluation so that it can automatically determine whether a given parameter point of a BSM model is excluded or not. Currently, it contains more than 50 individual ATLAS or CMS analyses whose several hundred signal regions target various final states as they typically appear in theories beyond the Standard Model. In this study, we extend this functionality to allow sensitivity studies for the International Linear Collider. As an example, we implemente a dark matter monophoton search and use it to analyse three benchmark scenarios with different assumptions about the interaction between dark matter and Standard Model particles. We determine the ILC sensitivity expected for a $\sqrt{s} =$ 500 GeV, $L = 500$ fb$^{-1}$and compare the results for the cases of completely unpolarised beams and for individual lepton polarisation settings., Comment: 10 pages, 7 figures; Talk presented at the International Workshop on Future Linear Colliders (LCWS2017), Strasbourg, France, 23-27 October 2017. C17-10-23.2

We exploit all LHC available Run 2 data at center-of-mass energies of 8 and 13 TeV for searches for physics beyond the Standard Model. We scrutinize the allowed parameter space of Little Higgs models with the concrete symmetry of T-parity by providing comprehensive analyses of all relevant production channels of heavy vectors, top partners, heavy quarks and heavy leptons and all phenomenologically relevant decay channels. Constraints on the model will be derived from the signatures of jets and missing energy or leptons and missing energy. Besides the symmetric case, we also study the case of T-parity violation. Furthermore, we give an extrapolation to the LHC high-luminosity phase at 14 TeV as well., Comment: 50 pages, 32 figures

The International Linear Collider is now proposed with a staged machine design, with the first stage at $\sqrt{s}=$~250 GeV and an integrated luminosity goal of 2~ab$^{-1}$. One of the questions for the machine design is the importance of positron polarization. In this report, we review the impact of positron polarization on the physics goals of the $250$ GeV stage of the ILC and demonstrate that positron polarization has distinct advantages., Comment: 19

The tunnelling of virtual matter-antimatter pairs from the quantum vacuum in multidimensions is studied. We consider electric backgrounds as a linear combination of a spatial Sauter field and, interchangeably, certain weaker time dependent fields without poles in the complex plane such as the sinusoidal and Gaussian cases. Based on recent geometric considerations within the worldline formalism, we employ the relevant critical points in order to analytically estimate a characteristic threshold for the temporal inhomogeneity. We set appropriate initial conditions and apply additional symmetry constraints in order to determine the classical periodic paths in spacetime. Using these worldline instantons, we compute the corresponding leading order exponential factors showing large dynamical enhancement in general. We work out the main differences caused by the analytic structure of such composite backgrounds and also discuss the case with a strong temporal variation of Sauter-type., Comment: 11 pages, 9 figures

We study the tunneling of virtual matter-antimatter pairs from the quantum vacuum in the presence of a spatially uniform, time-dependent electric background composed of a strong, slow field superimposed with a weak, rapid field. After analytic continuation to Euclidean spacetime, we obtain from the instanton equations two critical points. While one of them is the closing point of the instanton path, the other serves as an Euclidean mirror which reflects and squeezes the instanton. It is this reflection and shrinking which is responsible for an enormous enhancement of the vacuum pair production rate. We discuss how important features of two different mechanisms can be analysed and understood via such a rotation in the complex plane. a) Consistent with previous studies, we first discuss the standard assisted mechanism with a static strong field and certain weak fields with a distinct pole structure in order to show that the reflection takes place exactly at the poles. We also discuss the effect of possible sub-cycle structures. We extend this reflection picture then to weak fields which have no poles present and illustrate the effective reflections with explicit examples. An additional field strength dependence for the rate occurs in such cases. We analytically compute the characteristic threshold for the assisted mechanism given by the critical combined Keldysh parameter. We discuss significant differences between these two types of fields. For various backgrounds, we present the contributing instantons and perform analytical computations for the corresponding rates treating both fields nonperturbatively. b) In addition, we also study the case with a nonstatic strong field which gives rise to the assisted dynamical mechanism. For different strong field profiles we investigate the impact on the critical combined Keldysh parameter. [...], Comment: 54 pages, 23 figures, revised, restructured to improve readability, matches journal version

Nonlinear phenomena of lepton-photon interactions in external backgrounds with a generalised periodic plane-wave geometry are studied. We discuss nonlinear Compton scattering in head-on lepton-photon collisions extended properly to beyond the soft-photon regime. In addition, our results are applied to stimulated lepton-antilepton pair production in photon collisions with unrestricted energies. Derivations are considered semi-classically based on unperturbed fermionic Volkov representations encoding the full interaction with the background field. Closed expressions for total probabilities considering S-matrix elements have been derived. The general formula is applied to Compton scattering by an electron propagating in an external laser-like background. We obtain additive contributions in the extended unconstrained result which turns out to be stringently required in the highly nonlinear regime. A detailed comparison of contributing harmonics is discussed for various field parameters., Comment: 39 pages, 8 figures, minor changes in introduction, references added, a few misprints found

We exploit offshell regions in the process $e^+e^-\rightarrow W^+W^-b\bar{b}$ to gain access to the top-quark width. Working at next-to-leading order in QCD we show that carefully selected ratios of offshell regions to onshell regions in the reconstructed top and antitop invariant mass spectra are, \emph{independently} of the coupling $g_{tbW}$, sensitive to the top-quark width. We explore this approach for different centre of mass energies and initial-state beam polarisations at $e^+e^-$ colliders and briefly comment on the applicability of this method for a measurement of the top-quark width at the LHC., Comment: 31 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables

The importance of off-shell contributions is discussed for $H\to VV^{(*)}$ with $V\in\{Z,W\}$ for large invariant masses $m_{VV}$ involving a standard model (SM)-like Higgs boson with $m_H=125$GeV at a linear collider (LC). Both dominant production processes $e^+e^-\to ZH\to ZVV^{(*)}$ and $e^+e^-\to\nu\bar\nu H\to\nu\bar\nu VV^{(*)}$ are taken into account, and the signal processes are compared with background yielding the same final state. The relative size of the off-shell contributions is strongly dependent on the centre-of-mass energy. These contributions can have an important impact on the determination of cross sections and branching ratios. However, the combination of on- and off-shell contributions can also be utilised to lift degeneracies allowing to test higher-dimensional operators, unitarity and light and heavy Higgs interferences in extended Higgs sectors. The latter is demonstrated in the context of a 2-Higgs-Doublet model. We also discuss the impact of these aspects for the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) where they are relevant. The importance of a precise measurement of the Higgs mass for on-shell contributions in $H\to VV^{(*)}$ is emphasized. A particular focus is put on methods for extracting the Higgs width at a LC. Off-shell contributions are shown to have a negligible impact on the width determination at low $\sqrt{s}$ when applying the $Z$ recoil method to extract branching ratios in combination with an appropriate determination of a partial width. On the other hand, off-shell contributions can be exploited to constrain the Higgs width in a similar fashion as in recent analyses at the LHC. It is demonstrated that this approach, besides relying heavily on theoretical assumptions, is affected by the negative interference of Higgs and background contributions that may limit the sensitivity that is achievable with the highest foreseeable statistics at the LHC and a LC., Comment: 33 pages, 15 figures; minor clarifications, updated references, matches published version

Non-decoupling D-term extensions of the MSSM enhance the tree-level Higgs mass compared to the MSSM, therefore relax fine-tuning and may allow lighter stops with rather low masses even without maximal mixing. We present the anatomy of various non-decoupling D-term extensions of the MSSM and explore the potential of the LHC and of the International Linear Collider (ILC) to determine their deviations in the Higgs couplings with respect to the Standard Model. Depending on the mass of the heavier Higgs $m_H$, such deviations may be constrained at the LHC and determined at the ILC. We evaluate the Higgs couplings in different models and study the prospects for a model distinction at the different stages of the ILC at $\sqrt{s}=$250, 500, 1000 GeV, including the full luminosity upgrade and compare it with the prospects at HL-LHC., Comment: 33 pages, 26 figures

It is one of the most challenging tasks at the Large Hadron Collider and at a future Linear Collider not only to observe physics beyond the Standard Model, but to clearly identify the underlying new physics model. In this paper we concentrate on the distinction between two different supersymmetric models, the MSSM and the NMSSM, as they can lead to similar low energy spectra. The NMSSM adds a singlet superfield to the MSSM particle spectrum and simplifies embedding a SM-like Higgs candidate with the measured mass of about 125.5 GeV. In parts of the parameter space the Higgs sector itself does not provide sufficient indications for the underlying model. We show that exploring the gaugino/higgsino sectors could provide a meaningful way to distinguish the two models. Assuming that only the lightest chargino and neutralino masses and polarized cross sections $e^+e^-\to \tilde{\chi}^0_i\tilde{\chi}^0_j$, $\tilde{\chi}^+_i\tilde{\chi}^-_j$ are accessible at the linear collider, we reconstruct the fundamental MSSM parameters $M_1$, $M_2$, $\mu$, $\tan\beta$ and study whether a unique model distinction is possible based on this restricted information. Depending on the singlino admixture in the lightest neutralino states, as well as their higgsino or gaugino nature, we define several classes of scenarios and study the prospects of experimental differentiation., Comment: 20 pages, 11 figures