120635612
Highlights of DAMA
DAMA is an observatory for rare processes and it is operative deep underground at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory of the I.N.F.N.. In particular, the DAMA/NaI setup ( 100 kg highly radiopure NaI(Tl)) has effectively investigated the model-independent annual modulation signature. The data of seven annual cycles (total exposure of 107731 kg × day) have offered 6.3 σ C.L. model-independent evidence for the presence of a Dark Matter particle component in the galactic halo. Some corollary model-dependent quests for the candidate particle have been investigated. In particular, in addition to WIMPs, also light bosonic candidates can account for the model independent DAMA/NaI result. At present, the second generation DAMA/LIBRA set-up ( 250 kg highly radiopure NaI(Tl)) is in data taking.
124862840
DIRECT DETECTION OF DARK MATTER PARTICLES
17766827
Investigating electron interacting dark matter
Some extensions of the standard model provide dark matter candidate particles which can have a dominant coupling with the lepton sector of the ordinary matter. Thus, such dark matter candidate particles (chi(0)) can be directly detected only through their interaction with electrons in the detectors of a suitable experiment, while they are lost by experiments based on the rejection of the electromagnetic component of the experimental counting rate. These candidates can also offer a possible source of the 511 keV photons observed from the galactic bulge. In this paper this scenario is investigated. Some theoretical arguments are developed and related phenomenological aspects are discussed. Allowed intervals and regions for the characteristic phenomenological parameters of the considered model and of the possible mediator of the interaction are also derived considering the DAMA/NaI data.
119701812
Signals from dark Universe: DAMA/LIBRA at LNGS
The DAMA/LIBRA set-up (about 250 kg highly radiopure NaI(Tl) sensitive mass) is running at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory of the INFN. The first DAMA/LIBRA results point out the presence of a dark matter particle component in the galactic halo, as well as the former DAMA/NaI set-up; cumulatively the data support such evidence at 8.2σ CL and satisfy all the peculiarities of the dark matter annual modulation signature.
149983804
First results from DAMA/LIBRA
118311956
DAMA investigations on Dark Matter at Gran Sasso: results and perspectives
The DAMA/NaI experiment (≃ 100 kg highly radiopure NaI(Tl)) at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory of the I.N.F.N. had the unique feature to effectively investigate the presence of Dark Matter particles in the galactic halo by exploiting the model independent annual modulation signature. A total exposure of more than 105 kg × day, collected over seven annual cycles, has pointed out at 6.3 σ C.L. an effect which satisfies all the many peculiarities of the signature. Neither systematics nor side reactions able to account for the observed effect were found. No experiment whose result can be directly compared in a model independent way with the experimental one of DAMA/NaI is available so far. Searches in space experiments are not in contradiction with DAMA/NaI. Several (but still few with respect to the possibilities) corollary model dependent quests for the candidate particle have also been carried out; others are in progress. At present the second generation DAMA/LIBRA set‐up (≃ 250 kg highly radiopure NaI(...
11786208
Universal non-oblique corrections in Higgsless models and beyond
Abstract Recently Barbieri et al. have introduced a formalism to express the deviations of electroweak interactions from their Standard Model forms in “universal” theories, i.e., theories in which the corrections due to new physics can be expressed solely by modifications to the two-point correlation function of electroweak gauge currents of fermions. The parameters introduced by these authors are defined by the properties of the correlation functions at zero momentum, and differ from the quantities calculated by examining the on-shell properties of the electroweak gauge bosons. In this Letter we discuss the relationship between the zero-momentum and on-shell parameters. In addition, we present the results of a calculation of these zero-momentum parameters in an arbitrary Higgsless model in which the low-energy ρ parameter is one and which can be deconstructed to a linear chain of SU ( 2 ) groups adjacent to a chain of U ( 1 ) groups. Our results demonstrate the importance of the universal “non-oblique” corrections which are present and elucidate the relationships among various calculations of electroweak quantities in these models. Our expressions for these zero-momentum parameters depend only on the spectrum of heavy vector-boson masses; therefore, the minimum size of the deviations present in these models is related to the upper bound on the heavy vector-boson masses derived from unitarity. We find that these models are disfavored by precision electroweak data, independent of any assumptions about the background metric or the behavior of the bulk coupling.
55815188
Probing Gravitational Dark Matter
So far all evidences of dark matter (DM) come from astrophysical and cosmological observations, due to gravitational interactions of the DM. It is possible that the true DM particle in the universe joins gravitational interactions only, but nothing else. Such a Gravitational DM (GDM) may act as a weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP), which is conceptually simple and attractive. In this work, we explore this direction by constructing the simplest scalar GDM particle s . It is a Z 2 odd singlet under the standard model (SM) gauge group, and naturally joins the unique dimension-4 interaction with Ricci curvature, s 2 R , where s is the dimensionless nonminimal coupling. We demonstrate that this gravitational interaction s 2 R , together with Higgs-curvature nonminimal coupling term h H y HR , induces eective couplings between 2 and SM elds, and can account for the observed DM thermal relic abundance. We analyze the annihilation cross sections of GDM particles and derive the viable parameter space for realizing the DM thermal relic density. We further study the direct/indirect detections and the collider signatures of such a scalar GDM. These turn out to be highly predictive and testable.
7672098
Unitarity in Higher Dimensions and Gauge Unification
Unitarity of the 4d standard model is ensured by the conventional Higgs mechanism with a fundamental spin-0 Higgs boson, responsible for gauge boson mass-generations. On the contrary Kaluza-Klein (KK) compactification of extra spatial dimensions can geometrically realize the gauge boson mass generation without invoking a fundamental Higgs scalar. We reveal that massive gauge boson scattering in the compactified theories is unitary at low energies, and the unitarity violation is {\it delayed} to the intrinsic ultraviolet (UV) scale of the higher dimensional gauge theory. We demonstrate that this is a generic consequence of the ``geometric Higgs mechanism'' (GHM), manifested via Kaluza-Klein equivalence theorem (KK-ET). We further show that the presence of many gauge KK states below the UV cutoff scale imposes strong bounds on the highest KK level (N_KK). Applying these bounds to higher-dimensional SUSY GUTs implies that only a small number of KK states can be used to accelerate gauge coupling unification, and suggests that the GUT scale in the 5d minimal SUSY SU(5) is above 10^{14} GeV.
73581246
Unitarity of deconstructed five-dimensional Yang–Mills theory
Abstract The low-energy properties of a compactified five-dimensional gauge theory can be reproduced in a four-dimensional theory with a replicated gauge group and an appropriate gauge symmetry breaking pattern. The lightest vector bosons in these “deconstructed” or “remodeled” theories have masses and couplings approximately equal to those of the Kaluza–Klein tower of massive vector states present in a compactified higher-dimensional gauge theory. We analyze the unitarity of low-energy scattering of the massive vector bosons in a deconstructed theory, and examine the relationship between the scale of unitarity violation and the scale of the underlying chiral symmetry breaking dynamics which breaks the replicated gauge groups. As in the case of compactified five-dimensional gauge theories, low-energy unitarity is ensured through an interlacing cancellation among contributions from the tower of massive vector bosons. We show that the behavior of these scattering amplitudes is manifest without such intricate cancellations in the scattering of the would-be Goldstone bosons of the deconstructed theory. Unlike compactified five-dimensional gauge theories, the amplitude for longitudinal vector boson scattering in deconstructed theories does grow with energy, though this effect is suppressed by 1/( N +1), with N +1 being the number of replicated gauge groups.
119339675
Inconsistency of QED in the presence of Dirac monopoles
A precise formulation ofU (1) local gauge invariance in QED is presented, which clearly shows that the gauge coupling associated with the unphysical longitudinal photon field is non-observable and actually has an arbitrary value. We then re-examine the Dirac quantization condition and find that its derivation involves solely the unphysical longitudinal coupling. Hence an inconsistency inevitably arises in the presence of Dirac monopoles and this can be considered as a theoretical evidence against their existence. An alternative, independent proof of this conclusion is also presented.