We examine the theoretical motivations for long-lived particle (LLP) signals at the LHC in a comprehensive survey of standard model (SM) extensions. LLPs are a common prediction of a wide range of theories that address unsolved fundamental mysteries such as naturalness, dark matter, baryogenesis and neutrino masses, and represent a natural and generic possibility for physics beyond the SM (BSM). In most cases the LLP lifetime can be treated as a free parameter from the µm scale up to the Big Bang Nucleosynthesis limit of ∼10 7 m. Neutral LLPs with lifetimes above ∼ 100 m are particularly difficult to probe, as the sensitivity of the LHC main detectors is limited by challenging backgrounds, triggers, and small acceptances. MATHUSLA is a proposal for a minimally instrumented, large-volume surface detector near ATLAS or CMS. It would search for neutral LLPs produced in HL-LHC collisions by reconstructing displaced vertices (DVs) in a low-background environment, extending the sensitivity of the main detectors by orders of magnitude in the long-lifetime regime. We study the LLP physics opportunities afforded by a MATHUSLA-like detector at the HL-LHC, assuming backgrounds can be rejected as expected. We develop a model-independent approach to describe the sensitivity of MATHUSLA to BSM LLP signals, and compare it to DV and missing energy searches at ATLAS or CMS. We then explore the BSM motivations for LLPs in considerable detail, presenting a large number of new sensitivity studies. While our discussion is especially oriented towards the long-lifetime regime at MATHUSLA, this survey underlines the importance of a varied LLP search program at the LHC in general. By synthesizing these results into a general discussion of the top-down and bottom-up motivations for LLP searches, it is our aim to demonstrate the exceptional strength and breadth of the physics case for the construction of the MATHUSLA detector.

Assuming that the lightest neutral component in an SU (2) L gauge multiplet is the main ingredient of dark matter in the universe, we calculate the elastic scattering cross section of the dark matter with nucleon, which is an important quantity for the direct detection experiments. When the dark matter is a real scalar or a Majorana fermion which has only electroweak gauge interactions, the scattering with quarks and gluon are induced through one-and two-loop quantum processes, respectively, and both of them give rise to comparable contributions to the elastic scattering cross section. We evaluate all of the contributions at the leading order and find that there is an accidental cancellation among them. As a result, the spin-independent cross section is found to be O(10 −(46−48) ) cm 2 , which is far below the current experimental bounds.

In this article we have calculated the spin-independent cross section of nucleondark matter scattering process at loop level, which is relevant to dark matter direct detection. Paying particular attention to the scattering of gluon with dark matter, which contributes as leading order in the perturbation, we have systematically evaluated loop diagrams with tracking the characteristic loop momentum which dominates in the loops. Here loop diagrams whose typical loop momentum scales are the masses of quarks and other heavier particles are separately presented. Then, we have properly taken into account each contribution to give the cross section. We assume that the dark matter is pure bino or wino in the supersymmetric models. The application to other models is straightforward.

Unlike minimal SU(5), SO(10) provides a straightforward path towards gauge coupling unification by modifying the renormalization group evolution of the gauge couplings above some intermediate scale which may also be related to the seesaw mechanism for neutrino masses. Unification can be achieved for several different choices of the intermediate gauge group below the SO(10) breaking scale. In this work, we consider in detail the possibility that SO(10) unification may also provide a natural dark matter candidate, stability being guaranteed by a left over Z 2 symmetry. We systematically examine the possible intermediate gauge groups which allow a non-degenerate, fermionic, Standard Model singlet dark matter candidate while at the same time respecting gauge coupling unification. Our analysis is done at the two-loop level. Surprisingly, despite the richness of SO(10), we find that only two models survive the analysis of phenomenological constraints, which include suitable neutrino masses, proton decay, and reheating.

Abstract:We complete the calculation of the wino-nucleon scattering cross section up to the next-to-leading order in α s . We assume that the other sparticles are decoupled and wino interacts with the Standard Model particles via the weak interaction. As a result, the uncertainties coming from the perturbative QCD are significantly reduced to be smaller than those from the nucleon matrix elements. The resultant scattering cross section is found to be larger than the leading-order one by about 70%, which is well above the neutrino background. In the limit of large wino mass the spin-independent scattering cross section with proton turns out σ −0.4 × 10 −47 cm 2 (errors come from perturbative calculation and input parameters, respectively). The computation for a generic SU(2) L multiplet dark matter is also presented.

We reformulate the calculation of the dark matter-nucleon scattering cross sections based on the method of effective field theories. We assume that the scatterings are induced by the exchange of colored mediators, and construct the effective theories by integrating out the colored particles. All of the leading order matching conditions as well as the renormalization group equations are presented. We consider a Majorana fermion, and real scalar and vector bosons for the dark matter and show the results for each case. The treatment for the twist-2 operators is discussed in detail, and it is shown that the scale of evaluating their nucleon matrix elements does not have to be the hadronic scale. The effects of the QCD corrections are evaluated on the assumption that the masses of the colored mediators are much heavier than the electroweak scale. Our formulation is systematic and model-independent, and thus suitable to be implemented in numerical packages, such as micrOMEGAs and DarkSUSY.

The observed rapid cooling of the neutron star (NS) located at the center of the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A) can be explained in the minimal NS cooling scenario. This consequence may be changed if there exists an extra cooling source, such as axion emission. In this work, we study the Cas A NS cooling in the presence of axion emission, taking account of the temperature evolution in the whole life of the Cas A NS. We obtain a lower limit on the axion decay constant, fa (5−7)×10 8 GeV, if the star has an envelope with a thin carbon layer. This is as strong as existing limits imposed by other astrophysical observations such as SN1987A.

In the anomaly-mediated supersymmetry (SUSY) breaking scenario, neutral gaugino of SU(2)_L multiplet, Wino, can be the lightest SUSY particle and become a candidate for dark matter. We calculated scattering cross section of Wino dark matter with nucleon, which is responsible for direct detection of the dark matter, on the assumption that the SUSY particles and the heavier Higgs bosons have masses of the order of the gravitino mass in the SUSY standard model. In such a case, the Wino-nucleon coupling is generated by loop processes. We have included two-loop contribution to Wino-gluon interaction in the calculation, since it is one of the leading contributions to the Wino-nucleon coupling. It was found that the spin-independent scattering cross section with proton is 10^-(46-48) cm^2. While it is almost independent of the Wino mass, the result is quite sensitive to the Higgs boson mass due to the accidental cancellation.Comment: 11 pages, 4 figures