Blazar Constraints on Neutrino-Dark Matter Scattering.

Neutrino emission in coincidence with gamma rays has been observed from the blazar TXS 0506+056 by the IceCube telescope. Neutrinos from the blazar had to pass through a dense spike of dark matter (DM) surrounding the central black hole. The observation of such a neutrino implies new upper bounds on the neutrino-DM scattering cross section as a function of DM mass. The constraint is stronger than existing ones for a range of DM masses, if the cross section rises linearly with energy. For constant cross sections, competitive bounds are also possible, depending on details of the DM spike.

Is electroweak baryogenesis dead?

Electroweak baryogenesis is severely challenged in its traditional settings: the minimal supersymmetric standard model, and in more general two Higgs doublet models. Fine tuning of parameters is required, or large couplings leading to a Landau pole at scales just above the new physics introduced. The situation is somewhat better in models with a singlet scalar coupling to the Higgs so as to give a strongly first-order phase transition due to a tree-level barrier, but even in this case no UV complete models had been demonstrated to give successful baryogenesis. Here, we point out some directions that overcome this limitation, by introducing a new source of particle-antiparticle (CP) violation in the couplings of the singlet field. A model of electroweak baryogenesis requiring no fine tuning and consistent to scales far above 1 TeV is demonstrated, in which dark matter plays the leading role in creating a CP asymmetry that is the source of the baryon asymmetry.This article is part of the Theo Murphy meeting issue 'Higgs cosmology'.

Detection of early-universe gravitational-wave signatures and fundamental physics.

Detection of a gravitational-wave signal of non-astrophysical origin would be a landmark discovery, potentially providing a significant clue to some of our most basic, big-picture scientific questions about the Universe. In this white paper, we survey the leading early-Universe mechanisms that may produce a detectable signal-including inflation, phase transitions, topological defects, as well as primordial black holes-and highlight the connections to fundamental physics. We review the complementarity with collider searches for new physics, and multimessenger probes of the large-scale structure of the Universe.