I will discuss the ongoing experiments (CASPEr and GNOME) searching for ultralight galactic dark matter using magnetic-resonance techniques. I will also discuss testing fundamental symmetries of Nature using spectroscopic techniques, including the search for new particles and forces, measuring parity violation in atomic and molecular systems, and testing the permutation-symmetry postulate and the spin-statistics connection in atomic transitions.
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Spring Institute: Challenging the Standard Model after the Higgs discovery
Aim of the workshop: The Spring Institute will gather theorists and experimentalists, working mostly in the Rome area in the field of collider physics. In an informal environment, we shall investigate a few selected topics on possible tests of the Standard Model and its extensions after the discovery of the Higgs boson. In particular, we will discuss of recent progresses in effective field theories, of the trilinear Higgs self-coupling, as well as of the hunting for heavy resonances at the LHC, from both experimental and theoretical viewpoints.
Read More »A Rare Opportunity – the Mu2e experiment at Fermilab
Quarks and neutrinos are known to change flavors, but what about the charged leptons? The proposed Mu2e experiment at Fermilab will offer a sensitivity to charged-lepton flavor violating processes four orders of magnitude better than anything to have come before it. This extraordinary improvement in sensitivity will give Mu2e significant discovery potential over a wide range of new physics models. Moreover, Mu2e probes for this new physics in a manner complementary to the rest of the world’s HEP physics program at effective mass scales approaching 10,000 TeV. The physics motivations, design sensitivity, and status of the Mu2e experiment will be presented.
Read More »MUSE General Meeting
2017 Annual General Meeting reviewing the activities supported by the MUSE project. MUSE is a EU funded project under the Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation program, Grant Agreement 690835. It coordinates the activities of about 70 researchers from various European research institutes (INFN, University College London, University of Liverpool, Helmholtz-Centrum Dresden-Rossendorf, Fermilab) and industries (PRISMA, CAEN, AdvanSid) for the participation to the experiments at the Muon Campus of the Fermi National Laboratory (FNAL), in USA. The meeting will be held at the Frascati National Laboratory of INFN.
Read More »53rd Scientific Committee Meeting
The shape of (new) physics in the B decay anomalies
High-precision measurements of flavour-changing processes are sensitive to the virtual effects of particles at energies beyond the reach of current colliders; thus, any New-Physics addressing the hierarchy problem of the electroweak scale must have a non trivial structure in flavour space to avoid all the stringent flavour constraints. In fact, although no new heavy particles have been identified in the high-energy frontier yet, there are tantalizing tensions with the SM in B-meson decays measured at the LHCb and B factories. The first type of anomalies appear in observables of the FCNC rare b→s ll decays, like in the angular distributions of B→K*μ μ, or in the ratio RK = Γ(B→K μ μ) / Γ(B→K e e) . These are currently in 4σ tension with the SM, putatively corresponding to the tree-level exchange of a neutral particle with mass Λ ~ 10 TeV selectively coupling to muons. The second type of anomalies appear in the CC b→ c τ ν transitions which have been measured through the ratios RD(*) = Γ(B→D(*) τ ν)/ Γ(B→D(*) l ν), where l is the muon or the electron. The average of the measurements is enhanced with respect to the SM and it would correspond to the tree-level exchange of a charged particle with mass Λ ~ 1 TeV and coupled selectively to τ leptons. In this talk I will review these decays, discussing the extent up to which the SM predictions are understood and the type of new physics one would need to explain the …
Read More »Rainbows with positrons and carbon nanotubes
The lecture is devoted to a quantum mechanical consideration of the transmission of positrons of a kinetic energy of 1 MeV through very short (11, 9) single-wall chiral carbon nanotubes. The nanotube lengths are between 50 and 320 nm. The transmission process is determined by the rainbow effects. The interaction potential of a positron and the nanotube is deduced from the Molière’s interaction potential of the positron and a nanotube atom using the continuum approximation. The time-dependent Schrödinger equation is solved numerically, and the spatial and angular distributions of transmitted positrons are calculated. The initial positron beam is assumed to be an ensemble of non-interacting Gaussian wave packets. The spatial and angular distributions are generated using a computer simulation method. The examination is focused on the spatial and angular primary rainbows. It begins with an analysis of the corresponding classical rainbows, and continues with a detailed investigation of the amplitudes and phases of the wave functions of transmitted positrons. These analyses enable one to identify the principal and supernumerary primary rainbows appearing in the spatial and angular distributions. They also result in a detailed explanation of the way of their generation, which includes the effects of wrinkling of each wave packet during its deflection from the nanotube wall, and of its concentration just before a virtual barrier lying close to the corresponding classical rainbow. The wrinkling of the wave packets occurs due to their internal focusing. In addition, the wave packets wrinkle in a mutually coordinated way.
Read More »A new approach to the physics of complex systems
Recent theoretical developments highlight a set of shared principles underpinning macroscopic quantum coherence in high temperature superconducting (HTSC) materials and the emergence of long-range order and macroscopic quantum coherence phenomena such as photosynthesis in biological structures. Preliminary investigations suggest that the emergence of functionality and structure in these systems is driven by dissipative processes, which lead to fractal assembly and a fractal network of charges (with associated quantum potentials) at the molecular scale. At critical levels of charge density and fractal dimension, a percolation threshold is reached where individual quantum potentials merge to form an infinitely interconnected `charged-induced’ macroscopic quantum potential (MQP), which can be viewed as a macroscopic path integral. The process by which a MQP acts as a structuring force (in competition with environmental perturbation) dictating the emergence of structure and function in biological and inorganic systems will be described within the context of a new set of macroscopic quantum mechanics processes. Specific issues to be highlighted include the emergence of different phases (coherent electron pairs, Charge Density Waves and Spin Density Waves) observed in complex HTSC materials. The macroscopic quantum processes that underpin these different phenomena will be compared and contrasted with standard quantum mechanics to highlight the extent of commonality (and key differences) between the two quantum systems. Within the context of these new theoretical developments we consider a new experimental approach to the development of inorganic structures and macroscopic coherent systems, analogous to those emerging through biological processes. It is anticipated that this work will …
Read More »The Precision Proton Spectrometer at the LHC
The CMS-TOTEM Precision Proton Spectrometer (CT-PPS) is an approved project to add tracking and timing information at approximately ±210~m from the interaction point around the CMS detector. It is designed to operate at high luminosity with up to 50 interactions per 25~ns bunch crossing to perform measurements of e.g. the quartic gauge couplings and search for rare exclusive processes. During 2016, CT-PPS took data in normal high-luminosity proton-proton LHC collisions. In the coming years, high radiation doses and large multiple-vertex interactions will represent difficult challenges that resemble those of the high-luminosity LHC program. A coordinated effort of detector upgrades with the goal of reaching the physics goals while mitigating the degradation effects is under way. The ongoing program, including the status and the planned upgrade projects for the tracking and timing detectors are discussed.
Read More »Hidden symmetries of deformed oscillators
We associate with each simple Lie algebra a system of second-order differential equations invariant under a non-compact real form of the corresponding Lie group. In the limit of a contraction to a Schrodinger algebra, these equations reduce to a system of ordinary harmonic oscillators. We provide two clarifying examples of such deformed oscillators: one system invariant under SO(2,3) transformations, and another system featuring G2(2) symmetry. The construction of invariant actions requires adding semi-dynamical degrees of freedom; we illustrate the algorithm with the two examples mentioned.
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