Production of Dark Sector Particles via Resonant Positron Annihilation on Atomic Electrons.

Resonant positron annihilation on atomic electrons provides a powerful method to search for light new particles coupled to e^{+}e^{-}. Reliable estimates of production rates require a detailed characterization of electron momentum distributions. We describe a general method that harnesses the target material Compton profile to properly include electron velocity effects in resonant annihilation cross sections. We additionally find that high-Z atoms can efficiently act as particle physics accelerators, providing a density of relativistic electrons that allows one to extend by several times the experimental mass reach.

Solar Axions Cannot Explain the XENON1T Excess.

We argue that the interpretation in terms of solar axions of the recent XENON1T excess is not tenable when confronted with astrophysical observations of stellar evolution. We discuss the reasons why the emission of a flux of solar axions sufficiently intense to explain the anomalous data would radically alter the distribution of certain type of stars in the color-magnitude diagram in the first place and would also clash with a certain number of other astrophysical observables. Quantitatively, the significance of the discrepancy ranges from 3.3σ for the rate of period change of pulsating white dwarfs and exceeds 19σ for the R parameter and for M_{I,TRGB}.

Astrophobic Axions.

We propose a class of axion models with generation-dependent Peccei-Quinn charges for the known fermions that allow one to suppress the axion couplings to nucleons and electrons. Astrophysical limits are thus relaxed, allowing for axion masses up to O(0.1) eV. The axion-photon coupling remains instead sizable, so that next-generation helioscopes will be able to probe this scenario. Astrophobia unavoidably implies flavor-violating axion couplings so that experimental limits on flavor-violating processes can provide complementary probes. The astrophobic axion can be a viable dark matter candidate in the heavy mass window and can also account for anomalous energy loss in stars.

Accidental Peccei-Quinn Symmetry Protected to Arbitrary Order.

A SU(N)_{L}×SU(N)_{R} gauge theory for a scalar multiplet Y transforming in the bifundamental representation (N,N[over ¯]) preserves, for N>4, an accidental U(1) symmetry first broken at operator dimension N. A vacuum expectation value for Y can break the symmetry to H_{s}=SU(N)_{L+R} or to H_{h}=SU(N-1)_{L}×SU(N-1)_{R}×U(1)_{L+R}. In the first case the accidental U(1) gets also broken, yielding a pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson with mass suppression controlled by N. In the second case a global U(1) remains unbroken. The strong CP problem is solved by coupling Y to new fermions carrying color. The first case allows for a Peccei-Quinn solution with U(1)_{PQ} protected by the gauge symmetry up to order N. In the second case U(1) can get broken by condensates of the new strong dynamics, resulting in a composite axion. By coupling Y to fermions carrying only weak isospin, models for axionlike particles can be constructed.

Redefining the Axion Window.

A major goal of axion searches is to reach inside the parameter space region of realistic axion models. Currently, the boundaries of this region depend on somewhat arbitrary criteria, and it would be desirable to specify them in terms of precise phenomenological requirements. We consider hadronic axion models and classify the representations R_{Q} of the new heavy quarks Q. By requiring that (i) the Q's are sufficiently short lived to avoid issues with long-lived strongly interacting relics, (ii) no Landau poles are induced below the Planck scale; 15 cases are selected which define a phenomenologically preferred axion window bounded by a maximum (minimum) value of the axion-photon coupling about 2 times (4 times) larger than is commonly assumed. Allowing for more than one R_{Q}, larger couplings, as well as complete axion-photon decoupling, become possible.

Spontaneous breaking of flavor symmetry avoids the strong CP problem.

A promising approach to the standard model flavor puzzle is based on the idea that the SU(3)3 quark-flavor symmetry is spontaneously broken by vacuum expectation values of "Yukawa fields" which minimize the symmetry invariant scalar potential at configurations corresponding to the observed quark masses and mixing angles. We show that this approach provides a simple and elegant explanation for CP conservation in strong interactions.

Importance of the heavier singlet neutrinos in leptogenesis.

We argue that fast interactions of the lightest singlet neutrino N1 would project part of a preexisting lepton asymmetry L{p} onto a direction that is protected from N1 washout effects, thus preventing it from being erased. In particular, we consider an asymmetry generated in N2 decays, assuming that N1 interactions are fast enough to bring N1 into full thermal equilibrium. If N1 decays occur at T > or = 10{9} GeV, that is, before the muon Yukawa interactions enter into thermal equilibrium, then generically part of L{p} survives. In this case some of the constraints implied by the standard N1 leptogenesis scenario hold only if L{p} approximately 0. For T < or = 10{9} GeV, L{p} is generally erased, unless special alignment or orthogonality conditions in flavor space are realized.