Search

Strong first-order phase transitions (SFOPT) during the evolution of the Higgs potential in the early universe not only allow for the dynamical generation of the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry, they can also source a stochastic gravitational wave (GW) background possibly detectable with future space-based gravitational waves interferometers. As SFOPTs are phenomenologically incompatible with the Standard Model (SM) Higgs sector, the observation of GWs from SFOPTs provides an exciting interplay between cosmology and particle physics in the search for new physics. With the C++ code BSMPTv3, we present for the first time a tool that performs the whole chain from the particle physics model to the gravitational wave spectrum. Extending the previous versions BSMPTv1 and v2, it traces the phases of beyond-SM (BSM) Higgs potentials and is capable of treating multiple vacuum directions and multi-step phase transitions. During the tracing, it checks for discrete symmetries, flat directions, and electroweak symmetry restoration, and finally reports the transition history. The transition probability from the false to the true vacuum is obtained from the solution of the bounce equation which allows for the calculation of the nucleation, percolation and completion temperatures. The peak amplitude and frequency of the GWs originating from sound waves and turbulence, are evaluated after the calculation of the thermal parameters at the transition temperature, and finally the signal-to-noise ratio at LISA is provided. The code BSMPTv3 is a powerful self-contained tool that comes more than timely and will be of great benefit for investigations of the vacuum structure of the early universe of not only simple but also complicated Higgs potentials involving several vacuum directions, with exciting applications in the search for new physics., Comment: 78 pages, 13 figures, 4 tables

The complex singlet extension CxSM of the Standard Model (SM) is a simple extension of the SM with two visible Higgs bosons in the spectrum and a Dark Matter (DM) candidate. In this paper we complete the computation of the next-to-leading (NLO) electroweak (EW) corrections to on-shell and non-loop-induced Higgs decays. Our calculations are implemented in the code EWsHDECAY which also includes the relevant QCD corrections. Performing an extensive parameter scan in the model and including all relevant theoretical and experimental single- and di-Higgs as well as DM constraints, we obtain a viable parameter sample. We find that current DM constraints are able to test the model in DM mass regions where collider searches are not sensitive. The relative EW corrections turn out to be large for scenarios with relatively large couplings, threshold effects or small leading-order (LO) widths. Otherwise, they are of typical EW size and can amount up to about 20-25%. The theory uncertainty derived from the change of the renormalization scheme dependence then is of a few per cent. While the NLO corrections applied in the constraints due to single- and di-Higgs searches impact the validity of specific parameter points, the overall shape of the allowed parameter region is not yet sensitive to the EW corrections. This picture will change with further increased experimental precision in the future and necessitates precise predictions on the theory side as presented in this paper.

We formulate a version of the low-scale Majoron model equipped with an inverse seesaw mechanism featuring lepton-number preserving dimension-6 operators in the scalar potential. Contrary to its dimension-4 counterpart, we find that the model can simultaneously provide light and ultralight Majorons, neutrino masses and their mixing, while featuring strong first-order cosmological phase transitions associated to the spontaneous breaking of the lepton number and the electroweak symmetries in the early Universe. We show by a detailed numerical analysis that under certain conditions on the parameter space accounted for in collider physics, the model can be probed via the primordial gravitational wave spectrum potentially observable at LISA and other planned facilities., Comment: Updated invisible Higgs decays constraints, references added, 29 pages, 7 figures

A chiral-symmetric technicolor model successfully reconciles the tension between electroweak precision tests and traditional technicolor models. Focusing on its simplest realization preserving the conventional Higgs mechanism, we study its primordial gravitational wave signatures originating from first order phase transitions in the early Universe. We found that abundant phase transition patterns arise from a physically viable parameter space. Besides, we have also found gravitational wave signals possibly visible by future experiments, such as LISA, BBO and u-DECIGO. Our results stress the importance of gravitational wave detectors in exploring new physics complementary to ground colliders in the multi-messenger astronomy era., Comment: 9 pages, 6 figures, 3 tables; accepted for publication in Phys. Lett. B

The search for dark matter (DM) at colliders is founded on the idea of looking for something invisible. There are searches based on production and decay processes where DM may reveal itself as missing energy. If nothing is found, our best tool to constrain the parameter space of many extensions of the Standard Model (SM) with a DM candidate is the Higgs boson. As the measurements of the Higgs couplings become increasingly precise, higher-order corrections will start to play a major role. The tree-level contribution to the invisible decay width provides information about the portal coupling. Higher-order corrections also gives us access to other parameters from the dark sector of the Higgs potential that are not present in the tree-level amplitude. In this work we will focus on the complex singlet extension of the SM in the phase with a DM candidate. We calculate the one-loop electroweak corrections to the decay of the Higgs boson into two DM particles. We find that the corrections are stable and of the order of a few percent. The present measurement of the Higgs invisible branching ratio, BR$(H \to$ invisible $) < 0.11$, already constrains the parameter space of the model at leading order. We expect that by the end of the LHC the experimental measurement will require the inclusion of the electroweak corrections to the decay in order to match the experimental accuracy. Furthermore, the only competing process, which is direct detection, is shown to have a cross section below the neutrino floor., Comment: 35 pages, 8 figures

In this work we discuss two different phases of a complex singlet extension of the Standard Model (SM) together with an extension that also includes new fermion fields, in particular, a Majoron model equipped with an inverse seesaw mechanism. All considered scenarios contain a global $\mathrm{U}(1)$ symmetry and allow for first-order phase transitions while only two of them are strong enough to favour the detection of primordial gravitational waves (GWs) in planned experiments such as LISA. In particular, this is shown to be possible in the singlet extension with a non vanishing real VEV at zero temperature and also in the model with extra fermions. In the singlet extension with no additional fermions, the detection of GWs strongly depends on the $\mathrm{U}(1)$ symmetry breaking pattern of the scalar potential at zero temperature. We study for the first time the impact of the precision in the determination of the SM parameters on the strength of the GWs spectrum. It turns out that the variation of the SM parameters such as the Higgs boson mass and top quark Yukawa coupling in their allowed experimental ranges has a notable impact on GWs detectability prospects., Comment: 28 pages, 13 figures