Related papers: Leading bounds on micro- to picometer fifth forces…
Experimental searches for fifth forces coupled to muons are fundamentally limited by the scarcity of muons in ordinary matter, whereas neutron stars contain abundant muon populations. We show that these compact objects therefore provide…
Strong constraints on the coupling of new light particles to the Standard Model (SM) arise from their production in the hot cores of stars, and the effects of this on stellar cooling. For new light particles which have an effective…
We revisit the stellar cooling limits on the light scalar boson whose coupling to the Standard Model particles is described by its mixing with the Higgs boson. Strong constraints have been obtained from the electron-nucleus bremsstrahlung…
We study the relationship between the strength of fifth forces and the origin of scale breaking in the Standard Model (SM) of particle physics. We start with a light scalar field that is conformally coupled to a toy SM matter sector through…
We study supernova cooling constraints on new light scalars that mix with the Higgs, couple only to nucleons, or couple only to leptons. We show that in all these cases scalars with masses smaller than the plasma frequency in the supernova…
The evidence for the observation of the Higgs spin-0-boson as a manifestation of a scalar field provides the missing corner stone for the standard model of particles (SM). However, the SM fails to explain the non-visible but gravitationally…
Fifth force and equivalence principle tests search for new interactions by precisely measuring forces between macroscopic collections of atoms and molecules and their properties under free fall. In contrast, the early Universe plasma probes…
Supernovae provide among the most powerful probes of weakly-coupled new particles in the MeV mass range, where laboratory experiments lose sensitivity. In this work, we derive improved supernova constraints on CP-even scalars mixing with…
A light CP-even Standard Model (SM) gauge-singlet scalar $S$ can be produced abundantly in the supernova core, via the nucleon bremsstrahlung process $N N \to N N S$, due to its mixing with the SM Higgs boson. Including the effective $S$…
We revisit stellar energy-loss bounds on the Yukawa couplings $g_{\rm B,L}$ of baryophilic and leptophilic scalars $\phi$. The white-dwarf luminosity function yields $g_{\rm B}\lesssim 7 \times 10^{-13}$ and $g_{\rm L}\lesssim 4 \times…
Measuring the Higgs couplings accurately at colliders is one of the best routes for finding physics Beyond the Standard Model (BSM). If the measured couplings deviate from the SM predictions, then this would give rise to energy-growing…
We study the recent \XeT excess in context of solar scalar, specifically in the framework of Higgs-portal and the relaxion model. We show that $m_\phi = 1.9\,\keV$ and $g_{\phi e}=2.4\times 10^{-14}$ can explain the observed excess in…
We propose a new model of scalarized neutron stars (NSs) realized by a self-interacting scalar field $\phi$ nonminimally coupled to the Ricci scalar $R$ of the form $F(\phi)R$. The scalar field has a self-interacting potential and sits at…
Scalar-tensor theories have a long history as possible phenomenological alternatives to General Relativity, but are known to potentially produce deviations from the (strong) equivalence principle in systems involving self-gravitating…
The effect of spin-0 goldstino superpartners is considered on the nucleosynthesis bounds arising when a superlight gravitino appears as an effective massless neutrino species. When the scalar and pseudoscalar superpartners are relativistic…
We use $Planck$ 2018 data to constrain the simplest models of scalar-tensor theories characterized by a coupling to the Ricci scalar of the type $F(\sigma) R$ with $F(\sigma) = N_{pl}^2 + \xi \sigma^2$. We update our results with previous…
A primary goal of present and future colliders is measuring the Higgs couplings to Standard Model (SM) particles. Any observed deviation from the SM predictions for these couplings is a sign of new physics whose energy scale can be bounded…
An extremely light ($m_{\phi} \ll 10^{-33} {\rm eV}$), slowly-varying scalar field $\phi $ (quintessence) with a potential energy density as large as 60% of the critical density has been proposed as the origin of the accelerated expansion…
We study the structure of neutron stars in scalar-tensor theories for the nonminimal coupling of the form $(1+\kappa \xi \phi^{2})\cal R$. We solve the hydrostatic equilibrium equations for two different types of scalar field potentials and…
In this Letter, we motivate the fact that couplings between a scalar field and the Standard Model with strengths $10^{-6}(m_\phi/{\rm eV})^{-1/4}$ relative to gravity yield the total measured cosmological dark matter abundance over a broad…