Related papers: Neutron's Dark Secret
Thermal relics lighter than an MeV contribute to the energy density of the universe at the time of nucleosynthesis and recombination. Constraints on extra radiation degrees of freedom typically exclude even the simplest of such dark…
Recent theoretical works have shown that matter swapping between two parallel braneworlds could occur under the influence of magnetic vector potentials. In our visible world, galactic magnetism possibly produces a huge magnetic potential.…
The search for neutrino-less double-beta decay has been a very active field of research in the last decade. Neutrino-less double-beta decay may answer essential open questions in neutrino physics. While double-beta decay accompanied by the…
Underground laboratories host two kind of experiments at the frontier of our knowledge in Particle Physics, Astrophysics and Cosmology: the direct detection of the Dark Matter of the Universe and the search for the Neutrinoless Double Beta…
The MiniBooNE low-energy excess stands as an unexplained anomaly in short-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments. It has been shown that it can be explained in the context of dark sector models. Here, we provide an overview of the…
The baryon-dark matter coincidence is a long-standing issue. Interestingly, the recent observations suggest the presence of dark radiation, which, if confirmed, would pose another coincidence problem of why the density of dark radiation is…
We introduce a dark neutrino sector which respects a hidden $U(1)^\prime$ gauge symmetry, subsequently broken by the vacuum expectation value of a dark scalar. The model is a self-consistent realisation of an extended hidden sector that…
In some extensions of the Standard Model (SM), two neutrons are allowed to decay into two sterile anti-neutrinos ($nn \rightarrow \bar{\chi}\bar{\chi}$) via new scalar bosons. This process violates both the baryon number ($\mathcal{B}$) and…
The nature of dark matter remains a central question in particle physics, cosmology, and astrophysics. The prevailing hypothesis postulates that dark matter consists of particles that interact only weakly with Standard Model particles.…
We study the formation and properties of dark neutron stars in a scenario where dark matter is made up of (heavy) dark baryons in a sequestered copy of the MSSM. This scenario naturally explains the coincidence of baryonic and dark matter…
We review the status of the Standard Model theory of neutron beta decay. Particular emphasis is put on the recent developments in the electroweak radiative corrections. Given that some existing approaches give slightly different results, we…
The neutron lifetime, $\tau$ = 880.2 $\pm$ 1.0 sec , is an important parameter for particle physics and cosmology. There is, however, an 8.4 sec (4.0$\,\sigma$) deviation between the measured value of the neutron lifetime using two methods…
In the context of multi-brane Universe models, matter swapping between two braneworlds is allowed leading to a baryon number violation in our visible world. An experimental framework is described to test such a phenomenology with cold…
The neutrino deficits observed in four solar neutrino experiments, relative to the theoretical predictions, have led to fresh insights into neutrino and solar physics. Neutrino emission from distant, energetic astronomical systems may form…
We investigate the scattering of solar neutrinos on electrons and nuclei in dark matter direct detection experiments. The rates of these processes are small in the Standard Model, but can be enhanced by several orders of magnitude if the…
Dark photons, hypothetical feebly interacting massive vector bosons, appear in many extensions of the Standard Model. This study investigates their production and subsequent decay during supernova explosions. We demonstrate that the decay…
At present, the strongest upper limit on $\sum m_{\nu}$, the sum of neutrino masses, is from cosmological measurements. However, this bound assumes that the neutrinos are stable on cosmological timescales, and is not valid if the neutrino…
Measurements by various international groups of researchers determine the strength of the weak interaction of the neutron, which gives us unique information on the question of the quark mixing. Neutron decay experiments now challenge the…
We discuss decays of ultra-relativistic neutrinos over cosmological distances by solving the decay equation in terms of its redshift dependence. We demonstrate that there are significant conceptual differences compared to more simplified…
It is often said that asymmetric dark matter is light compared to typical weakly interacting massive particles. Here we point out a simple scheme with a neutrino portal and $\mathcal{O}(60 \text{ GeV})$ asymmetric dark matter which may be…