We introduce the gluequark Dark Matter candidate, an accidentally stable bound state made of adjoint fermions and gluons from a new confining gauge force. Such scenario displays an unusual cosmological history where perturbative freeze-out is followed by a non-perturbative re-annihilation period with possible entropy injection. When the gluequark has electroweak quantum numbers, the critical density is obtained for masses as large as PeV. Independently of its mass, the size of the gluequark is determined by the confinement scale of the theory, leading at low energies to annihilation rates and elastic cross sections which are large for particle physics standards and potentially observable in indirect detection experiments.

The observation of the cosmic 21-cm spectrum can serve as a probe for Dark Matter properties. We point out that the knowledge of the signal amplitude at a given redshift allows one to put conservative bounds on the DM decay rate which are independent of astrophysical parameters. These limits are valid for the vast majority of DM models, those without extra IGM cooling or additional background radiation. Using the experimental results reported by the EDGES collaboration, we derive bounds that are stronger than the ones derived from other CMB observations and competitive with the ones from indirect detection. †

A class of chiral gauge theories is studied with accidentally-stable pseudo Nambu-Goldstone bosons playing the role of dark matter (DM). The gauge group contains a vector-like dark color factor that confines at energies larger than the electroweak scale, and a U(1)D factor that remains weakly coupled and is spontaneously broken. All new scales are generated dynamically, including the DM mass, and the IR dynamics is fully calculable. We analyze minimal models of this kind with dark fermions transforming as non-trivial vector-like representations of the Standard Model (SM) gauge group. In realistic models, the DM candidate is a SM singlet and comes along with charged partners that can be discovered at high-energy colliders. The phenomenology of the lowest-lying new states is thus characterized by correlated predictions for astrophysical observations and laboratory experiments.

We develop the effective theory for perturbations around black holes with scalar hair, in two directions. First, we show that the scalar-Gauss-Bonnet theory, often used as an example exhibiting scalar black hole hair, can be deformed by galileon operators leading to order unity changes to its predictions. The effective theory for perturbations thus provides an efficient framework for describing and constraining broad classes of scalar-tensor theories, of which the addition of galileon operators is an example. Second, we extend the effective theory to perturbations around an axisymmetric, slowly rotating black hole, at linear order in the black hole spin. We also discuss the inclusion of parity-breaking operators in the effective theory.

We introduce a class of composite axion models that provide a natural solution to the strong CP problem, and possibly account for the observed dark matter abundance. The QCD axion arises as a composite Nambu-Goldstone boson (NGB) from the dynamics of a chiral gauge theory with a strongly-interacting and confining SU(N) factor and a weakly-interacting U(1), with no fundamental scalar fields. The Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry is accidental and all the mass scales are generated dynamically. We analyze specific models where the PQ symmetry is broken only by operators of dimension 12 or higher. We also classify several other models where the PQ symmetry can be potentially protected up to the dimension 15 or 18 level. Our framework can be easily extended to a scenario where the Standard Model (SM) is unified into a simple gauge group, and we discuss the case of non-supersymmetric SU(5) unification. The GUT models predict the existence of additional pseudo NGBs, parametrically lighter than the GUT and PQ scales, which could have an impact on the cosmological evolution and leave observable signatures. We also clarify the selection rules under which higher-dimensional PQ-violating operators can generate a potential for the axion in the IR, and provide a discussion of the discrete symmetries in composite axion models associated to the number of domain walls. These results can be of general interest for composite axion models based on a QCD-like confining gauge group.

We study the expected sensitivity to measure the branching ratio of Higgs boson decays to invisible particles at a future circular e + e − collider (FCC-ee) in the process e + e − → H Z with Z → + − ( = e or μ) using an integrated luminosity of 3.5 ab −1 at a center-of-mass energy √ s = 240 GeV. The impact of the energy spread of the FCC-ee beam and of the resolution in the reconstruction of the leptons is discussed. The minimum branching ratio for a 5σ observation after 3.5 ab −1 of data taking is 1.7±0.1%(stat +syst). The branching ratio exclusion limit at 95% CL is 0.63 ± 0.22%((stat + syst)).

Quasinormal modes describe the ringdown of compact objects deformed by small perturbations. In generic theories of gravity that extend General Relativity, the linearized dynamics of these perturbations is described by a system of coupled linear differential equations of second order. We first show, under general assumptions, that such a system can be brought to a Schrödinger-like form. We then devise an analytic approximation scheme to compute the spectrum of quasinormal modes. We validate our approach using a toy model with a controllable mixing parameter ε and showing that the analytic approximation for the fundamental mode agrees with the numerical computation when the approximation is justified. The accuracy of the analytic approximation is at the (sub-) percent level for the real part and at the level of a few percent for the imaginary part, even when ε is of order one. Our approximation scheme can be seen as an extension of the approach of Schutz and Will [1] to the case of coupled systems of equations, although our approach is not phrased in terms of a WKB analysis, and offers a new viewpoint even in the case of a single equation.

No abstract