17348306
Boltzmann brains and the scale-factor cutoff measure of the multiverse
To make predictions for an eternally inflating 'multiverse', one must adopt a procedure for regulating its divergent spacetime volume. Recently, a new test of such spacetime measures has emerged: normal observers - who evolve in pocket universes cooling from hot big bang conditions - must not be vastly outnumbered by 'Boltzmann brains' - freak observers that pop in and out of existence as a result of rare quantum fluctuations. If the Boltzmann brains prevail, then a randomly chosen observer would be overwhelmingly likely to be surrounded by an empty world, where all but vacuum energy has redshifted away, rather than the rich structure that we observe. Using the scale-factor cutoff measure, we calculate the ratio of Boltzmann brains to normal observers. We find the ratio to be finite, and give an expression for it in terms of Boltzmann brain nucleation rates and vacuum decay rates. We discuss the conditions that these rates must obey for the ratio to be acceptable, and we discuss estimates of the rates under a variety of assumptions.
18711359
Quantum Boltzmann equations in resonant leptogenesis
The quantum Boltzmann equations relevant for leptogenesis, obtained using non-equilibrium quantum field theory, are described. They manifest memory effects leading to a time-dependent CP asymmetry which depends upon the previous history of the system. This result is particularly relevant in resonant leptogenesis where the asymmetry is generated by the decays of nearly mass-degenerate right-handed neutrinos. The impact of the non-trivial time evolution of the CP asymmetry is discussed either in the generic resonant leptogenesis scenario or in the more specific Minimal Lepton Flavour Violation framework. Significant quantitative differences arise with respect to the usual approach in which the time dependence of the CP asymmetry is neglected.
119185656
Conditional probabilities in the excursion set theory: generic barriers and non-Gaussian initial conditions
The excursion set theory, where density perturbations evolve stochastically with the smoothing scale, provides a method for computing the dark matter halo mass function. The computation of the mass function is mapped into the so-called first-passage time problem in the presence of a moving barrier. The excursion set theory is also a powerful formalism to study other properties of dark matter haloes such as halo bias, accretion rate, formation time, merging rate and the formation history of haloes. This is achieved by computing conditional probabilities with non-trivial initial conditions, and the conditional two-barrier first-crossing rate. In this paper we use the path integral formulation of the excursion set theory to calculate analytically these conditional probabilities in the presence of a generic moving barrier, including the one describing the ellipsoidal collapse, and for both Gaussian and non-Gaussian initial conditions. While most of our analysis associated with Gaussian initial conditions assumes Markovianity (top-hat in momentum space smoothing, rather than generic filters), the non-Markovianity of the random walks induced by non-Gaussianity is consistently accounted for. We compute, for a generic barrier, the first two scale-independent halo bias parameters, the conditional mass function and the halo formation time probability, including the effects of non-Gaussianities. We also provide the expression for the two-constant-barrier first-crossing rate when non-Markovian effects are induced by a top-hat filter function in real space.
7068336
Low-scale gaugino mediation, lots of leptons at the LHC
Low-scale gaugino mediation predicts that gauginos are significantly heavier than scalar superpartners. In order of increasing mass the lightest superpartners are the gravitino, right-handed sleptons, and left-handed sleptons (no light neutralino). This implies that squark decay chains pass through one or more sleptons and typical final states from squark and gluino production at the LHC include multiple leptons. In addition, left-handed staus have large branching fractions into right-handed staus and the Higgs. As an example, we compute the spectrum of low-scale deconstructed gaugino mediation. In this model gauginos acquire masses at tree level at 5 TeV while scalar masses are generated radiatively from the gaugino masses.
118449412
Excursion set theory for generic moving barriers and non‐Gaussian initial conditions
Excursion set theory, where density perturbations evolve stochastically with the smoothing scale, provides a method for computing the mass function of cosmological structures like dark matter haloes, sheets and filaments. The computation of these mass functions is mapped into the so-called first-passage time problem in the presence of a moving barrier. In this paper we use the path-integral formulation of the excursion set theory developed recently to analytically solve the first-passage time problem in the presence of a generic moving barrier, in particular the barrier corresponding to ellipsoidal collapse. We perform the computation for both Gaussian and non-Gaussian initial conditions and for a window function which is a top-hat in wavenumber space. The expression of the halo mass function for the ellipsoidal collapse barrier and with non-Gaussianity is therefore obtained in a fully consistent way and it does not require the introduction of any form factor artificially derived from the Press–Schechter formalism based on the spherical collapse and usually adopted in the literature.
118597692
Electroweak lights from Dark Matter annihilations
The energy spectra of Standard Model particles originated from Dark Matter annihilations can be significantly altered by the inclusion of electroweak gauge boson radiation from the final state. A situation where this effect is particularly important is when a Majorana Dark Matter particle annihilates into two light fermions. This process is in p-wave and hence suppressed by the small value of the relative velocity of the annihilating particles. The inclusion of electroweak radiation eludes this suppression and opens up a potentially sizeable s-wave contribution to the annihilation cross section. I will discuss the impact of this effect on the fluxes of stable particles resulting from the Dark Matter annihilations, which are relevant for Dark Matter indirect searches.
111077296
Exploiting new CPU architectures in the SuperB software framework
The SuperB asymmetric-energy e+e? collider and detector to be built at the newly founded Nicola Cabibbo Lab will provide a uniquely sensitive probe of New Physics in the flavour sector of the Standard Model. Studying minute effects in the heavy quark and heavy lepton sectors requires a data sample of 75ab?1 and a luminosity target of 1036cm?2s?1. These parameters require a substantial growth in computing requirements and performances. The SuperB collaboration is thus investigating the advantages of new CPU architectures (multi and many cores) and how to exploit their capability of task parallelization in the framework for simulation and analysis software. In this work we present the underlying architecture which we intend to use and some preliminary performance results of the first framework prototype.
122046903
SuperB evaluation of DIRAC Distributed Infrastructure
The SuperB asymmetric energy e+e− collider and detector to be built at the newly founded Nicola Cabibbo Lab will provide a uniquely sensitive probe of New Physics in the flavour sector of the Standard Model. SuperB distributed computing group performed a detailed evaluation of DIRAC Distributed Infrastructure for use in the SuperB experiment based on the two use cases: End User Analysis and Monte Carlo Production. Test aims to evaluate DIRAC capabilities to manage both gLite and OSG sites, File Catalog management, job and data management features in SuperB realistic use cases.
120349976
Geant4-based simulation of a beam radiation monitor for SUPERB
Abstract Radiation control in the region close to the interaction point is a crucial task for the success of the SuperB experiment. The detector itself is now in its prototyping phase, with different technologies being evaluated. One important parameter to drive the choice of the detection technology are the expected radiation levels. A preliminary result based on full-simulation is presented here, and dose estimates are reported.
123029029
Higgs in ATLAS
62151974
SuperB R&D computing program: HTTP direct access to distributed resources
The SuperB asymmetric energy e+e− collider and detector to be built at the newly founded Nicola Cabibbo Lab will provide a uniquely sensitive probe of New Physics in the flavor sector of the Standard Model. Studying minute effects in the heavy quark and heavy lepton sectors requires a data sample of 75 ab−1 and a luminosity target of 1036cm−2s−1. The increasing network performance also in the Wide Area Network environment and the capability to read data remotely with good efficiency are providing new possibilities and opening new scenarios in the data access field. Subjects like data access and data availability in a distributed environment are key points in the definition of the computing model for an HEP experiment like SuperB. RD robust and reliable protocols as HTTP/WebDAV and xrootd are the subjects of a specific R&D line in a mid-term scenario. In this work we present the R&D results obtained in the study of new data access technologies for typical HEP use cases, focusing on specific protocols such as HTTP and WebDAV in Wide Area Network scenarios. Reports on efficiency, performance and reliability tests performed in a data analysis context have been described. Future R&D plan includes HTTP and xrootd protocols comparison tests, in terms of performance, efficiency, security and features available.