Publications (66)
Inflating to the Weak Scale
Michael Geller, Yonit Hochberg, Eric Kuflik
We present a new solution to the hierarchy problem, where the Higgs mass is at its observed electroweak value because such a patch inflates the most in the early universe. If the H…
SIMP Spectroscopy
Yonit Hochberg, Eric Kuflik, Hitoshi Murayama
We study the interactions between strongly interacting massive particle dark matter and the Standard Model via a massive vector boson that is kinetically mixed with the hypercharge…
Odd Top Partners at the LHC
Archana Anandakrishnan, Jack H. Collins, Marco Farina +2
LHC searches for fermionic top partners focus on three decay topologies: , , and . However, top partners may carry new conserved quantum numbers that…
US Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in Dark Matter 2017: Community Report
Marco Battaglieri, Alberto Belloni, Aaron Chou +248
This white paper summarizes the workshop "U.S. Cosmic Visions: New Ideas in Dark Matter" held at University of Maryland on March 23-25, 2017.
Viable Twin Cosmology from Neutrino Mixing
Csaba Csaki, Eric Kuflik, Salvator Lombardo
Twin Higgs models solve the little hierarchy problem without introducing new colored particles, however they are often in tension with measurements of the radiation density at late…
Dark Spectroscopy
Yonit Hochberg, Eric Kuflik, Hitoshi Murayama
Rich and complex dark sectors are abundant in particle physics theories. Here we propose performing spectroscopy of the mass structure of dark sectors via mono-photon searches at l…
Fitting the Higgs to Natural SUSY
Raffaele Tito D'Agnolo, Eric Kuflik, Marco Zanetti
We present a fit to the 2012 LHC Higgs data in different supersymmetric frameworks using naturalness as a guiding principle. We consider the MSSM and its D-term and F-term extensio…
Glueballs in a Thermal Squeezeout Model
Pouya Asadi, Eric David Kramer, Eric Kuflik +2
It has been shown that a first order confinement phase transition can drastically change the relic dark matter abundance in confining dark sectors with only heavy dark quarks. We s…
A new (string motivated) approach to the little hierarchy problem
Daniel Feldman, Gordon Kane, Eric Kuflik +1
We point out that in theories where the gravitino mass, , is in the range (10-50)TeV, with soft-breaking scalar masses and trilinear couplings of the same order, there exi…
The SIMPlest Miracle
Yonit Hochberg, Eric Kuflik, Hitoshi Murayama +2
It has recently been proposed that dark matter could be a thermal relic of 3-to-2 scatterings in a strongly coupled hidden sector. We present explicit classes of strongly coupled g…
Heating Galaxy Clusters with Interacting Dark Matter
Yutaro Shoji, Eric Kuflik, Yuval Birnboim +1
The overcooling of cool core clusters is a persistent puzzle in the astrophysics of galaxy clusters. We propose that it may naturally be resolved via interactions between the baryo…
Impact of Dark Compton Scattering on Direct Dark Matter Absorption Searches
Yonit Hochberg, Belina von Krosigk, Eric Kuflik +1
Direct detection experiments are gaining in mass reach. Here we show that the inclusion of dark Compton scattering, which has typically been neglected in absorption searches, has a…
Bounds on Scalar Masses in Theories of Moduli Stabilization
Bobby Samir Acharya, Gordon Kane, Eric Kuflik
In recent years it has been realised that pre-BBN decays of moduli can be a significant source of dark matter production, giving a `non-thermal WIMP miracle' and substantially redu…
Extracting the Wavefunction of the LSP at the LHC
Gordon Kane, Eric Kuflik, Brent D. Nelson
We consider associated production of squarks and gluinos with the lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP), or states nearly degenerate in mass with it. Though sub-dominant to pair p…
Phases of Dark Matter from Inverse Decays
Ronny Frumkin, Yonit Hochberg, Eric Kuflik +1
Inverse decays are an interesting avenue for producing dark matter in the early universe. We study in detail various phases of dark matter parameter space where inverse decays cont…
Concentrated Dark Matter: Enhanced Small-scale Structure from Co-Decaying Dark Matter
Jeff A. Dror, Eric Kuflik, Brandon Melcher +1
We study the cosmological consequences of co-decaying dark matter - a recently proposed mechanism for depleting the density of dark matter through the decay of nearly degenerate pa…
Vector SIMP dark matter
Soo-Min Choi, Yonit Hochberg, Eric Kuflik +4
Strongly Interacting Massive Particles (SIMPs) have recently been proposed as light thermal dark matter relics. Here we consider an explicit realization of the SIMP mechanism in th…
Light Neutralinos with Large Scattering Cross Sections in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model
Eric Kuflik, Aaron Pierce, Kathryn M. Zurek
Motivated by recent data from CoGeNT and the DAMA annual modulation signal, we discuss collider constraints on MSSM neutralino dark matter with mass in the 5-15 GeV range. Such an…
Angle and Axial Anomaly in Holographic QCD
Csaba Csáki, Eric Kuflik, Wei Xue +1
We present a bottom-up holographic description of the QCD -vacuum and the anomaly in five dimensions. The multi-branched -vacuum structure emerges geometrically fr…
Roadmap to Thermal Dark Matter Beyond the WIMP Unitarity Bound
Ronny Frumkin, Eric Kuflik, Itay Lavie +1
We study the general properties of the freezeout of a thermal relic. We give analytic estimates of the relic abundance for an arbitrary freezeout process, showing when instantaneou…
Early-Universe Model Building
Pouya Asadi, Saurabh Bansal, Asher Berlin +37
Theoretical investigations into the evolution of the early universe are an essential part of particle physics that allow us to identify viable extensions to the Standard Model as w…
Rare Z Decays and Neutrino Flavor Universality
Gauthier Durieux, Yuval Grossman, Matthias König +2
We study rare four-body decays of the Z-boson involving at least one neutrino and one charged lepton. Large destructive interferences make these decays very sensitive to the Z coup…
The SIMP Miracle
Yonit Hochberg, Eric Kuflik, Tomer Volansky +1
We present a new paradigm for achieving thermal relic dark matter. The mechanism arises when a nearly secluded dark sector is thermalized with the Standard Model after reheating. T…
Elastically Decoupling Dark Matter
Eric Kuflik, Maxim Perelstein, Nicolas Rey-Le Lorier +1
We present a novel dark matter candidate, an Elastically Decoupling Relic (ELDER), which is a cold thermal relic whose present abundance is determined by the cross-section of its e…
Dynamical R-Parity Violation
Csaba Csaki, Eric Kuflik, Tomer Volansky
We present a new paradigm for supersymmetric theories with R-parity violation (RPV). At high scale, R-parity is conserved in the visible sector but spontaneously broken in the SUSY…
Super heavy thermal dark matter
Hyungjin Kim, Eric Kuflik
We propose a mechanism of elementary thermal dark matter with mass up to GeV, within a standard cosmological history, whose relic abundance is determined solely by its in…
Constraining Light Dark Matter with Diffuse X-Ray and Gamma-Ray Observations
Rouven Essig, Eric Kuflik, Samuel D. McDermott +2
We present constraints on decaying and annihilating dark matter (DM) in the 4 keV to 10 GeV mass range, using published results from the satellites HEAO-1, INTEGRAL, COMPTEL, EGRET…
The Holographic QCD Axion in Five Dimensions
Csaba Csáki, Eric Kuflik, Wei Xue +1
We present a holographic construction of the QCD axion based on a warped 5D model. A key ingredient of our setup is the introduction of a bulk scalar field , which is holograph…
Theory and Phenomenology of mu in M theory
Bobby Samir Acharya, Gordon Kane, Eric Kuflik +1
We consider a solution to the mu-problem within M theory on a G2-manifold. Our study is based upon the discrete symmetry proposed by Witten that forbids the mu-term and solves the…
Phenomenology of a Long-Lived LSP with R-Parity Violation
Csaba Csaki, Eric Kuflik, Salvator Lombardo +2
We present the leading experimental constraints on supersymmetric models with R-parity violation (RPV) and a long-lived lightest superpartner (LSP). We consider both the well-motiv…
Higgs After the Discovery: A Status Report
Dean Carmi, Adam Falkowski, Eric Kuflik +2
Recently, the ATLAS and CMS collaborations have announced the discovery of a 125 GeV particle, commensurable with the Higgs boson. We analyze the 2011 and 2012 LHC and Tevatron Hig…
Phenomenology of ELDER Dark Matter
Eric Kuflik, Maxim Perelstein, Nicolas Rey-Le Lorier +1
We explore the phenomenology of Elastically Decoupling Relic (ELDER) dark matter. ELDER is a thermal relic whose present density is determined primarily by the cross-section of its…
Top Channel for Early SUSY Discovery at the LHC
Gordon L. Kane, Eric Kuflik, Ran Lu +1
In recent years many models of supersymmetry have implied a large production rate for events including a high multiplicity of third generation quarks, such as four top quarks. It i…
Boson Cloud Atlas: Direct mass measurements of superradiance clouds near black holes
Majed Khalaf, Eric Kuflik, Alessandro Lenoci +1
Ultralight scalars emerge naturally in several motivated particle physics scenarios and are viable candidates for dark matter. While laboratory detection of such bosons is challeng…
Dark Sectors 2016 Workshop: Community Report
Jim Alexander, Marco Battaglieri, Bertrand Echenard +201
This report, based on the Dark Sectors workshop at SLAC in April 2016, summarizes the scientific importance of searches for dark sector dark matter and forces at masses beneath the…
Simplified Models for LHC New Physics Searches
Daniele Alves, Nima Arkani-Hamed, Sanjay Arora +92
This document proposes a collection of simplified models relevant to the design of new-physics searches at the LHC and the characterization of their results. Both ATLAS and CMS hav…
Instanton NDA and Applications to Axion Models
Csaba Csáki, Raffaele Tito D'Agnolo, Eric Kuflik +1
We present a simple set of power counting rules which allows us to easily estimate calculable instanton effects up to factors. We apply the resulting Instanton NDA to examin…
Interpreting LHC Higgs Results from Natural New Physics Perspective
Dean Carmi, Adam Falkowski, Eric Kuflik +1
We analyze the 2011 LHC Higgs data in the context of simplified new physics models addressing the naturalness problem. These models are expected to contain new particles with sizab…
Dark Matter Through the Axion-Gluon Portal
Patrick J. Fitzpatrick, Yonit Hochberg, Eric Kuflik +2
Axion-like-particles are a well-motivated extension of the Standard Model that can mediate interactions between the dark matter and ordinary matter. Here we consider an axion porta…
Inelastically Decoupling Dark Matter
Ronny Frumkin, Yonit Hochberg, Eric Kuflik +1
We present a new dark matter candidate, the `inELastically DEcoupling Relic' (iELDER), which is a cold thermal relic whose abundance is determined by the freeze out of its inelasti…
On the Dynamical Origin of the Potential and the Axion Mass
Csaba Csáki, Raffaele Tito D'Agnolo, Rick S. Gupta +3
We investigate the dynamics responsible for generating the potential of the , the (would-be) Goldstone boson associated with the anomalous axial symmetry of QCD. The st…
SIMPs through the axion portal
Yonit Hochberg, Eric Kuflik, Robert McGehee +2
Dark matter could be a thermal relic comprised of strongly interacting massive particles (SIMPs), where interactions set the relic abundance. Such interactions ge…
Dark Matter in Very Supersymmetric Dark Sectors
Avital Dery, Jeff A. Dror, Laurel Stephenson Haskins +2
If supersymmetry exists at any scale, regardless of whether it is restored around the weak scale, it may be a good symmetry of the dark sector, enforcing a degeneracy between its l…
Models of Dynamical R-Parity Violation
Csaba Csaki, Eric Kuflik, Oren Slone +1
The presence of R-parity violating interactions may relieve the tension between existing LHC constraints and natural supersymmetry. In this paper we lay down the theoretical framew…
Neutrino Phenomenology in a 3+1+1 Framework
Eric Kuflik, Samuel D. McDermott, Kathryn M. Zurek
Evidence continues to grow in the MiniBooNE (MB) antineutrino mode supporting a low-energy excess compatible with the MB neutrino mode and possibly also confirming the results of t…
Extracting the Dark Matter Mass from Single Stage Cascade Decays at the LHC
Timothy Cohen, Eric Kuflik, Kathryn M. Zurek
We explore a variant on the MT2 kinematic variable which enables dark matter mass measurements for simple, one stage, cascade decays. This will prove useful for constraining a subs…
Thermal Squeezeout of Dark Matter
Pouya Asadi, Eric David Kramer, Eric Kuflik +3
We carry out a detailed study of the confinement phase transition in a dark sector with a gauge group and a single generation of dark heavy quark. We focus on heavy enough…
Thermal Dark Matter from Freezeout of Inverse Decays
Ronny Frumkin, Yonit Hochberg, Eric Kuflik +1
We propose a new thermal dark matter candidate whose abundance is determined by the freezeout of inverse decays. The relic abundance depends parametrically only on a decay width, w…
Interpreting the Higgs
Dean Carmi, Adam Falkowski, Eric Kuflik +1
The LHC and Tevatron Higgs data are interpreted as constraints on an effective theory of a Higgs boson with mass close to 125 GeV. We focus on the diphoton, ZZ*, WW* channels at th…
Axion-like Relics: New Constraints from Old Comagnetometer Data
Itay M. Bloch, Yonit Hochberg, Eric Kuflik +1
The noble-alkali comagnetometer, developed in recent years, has been shown to be a very accurate measuring device of anomalous magnetic-like fields. An ultra-light relic axion-like…
Minimal Proton-Mass Dark Matter
Majed Khalaf, Eric Kuflik, Alessandro Lenoci +2
We present a minimal dark matter scenario: a single complex scalar carrying baryon and lepton number, with no new exact stabilizing symmetry. Its leading interaction is a dimension…
Super-Resonant Dark Matter
Csaba Csáki, Andrew Gomes, Yonit Hochberg +3
We introduce Super-Resonant Dark Matter, a model of self-interacting dark matter based on the low energy effective theory of supersymmetric QCD. The structure of the theory ensures…
Constraints on axion-like dark matter from a SERF comagnetometer
Itay M. Bloch, Roy Shaham, Yonit Hochberg +3
Ultralight axion-like particles are well-motivated relics that might compose the cosmological dark matter and source anomalous time-dependent magnetic fields. We report on terrestr…
Heavy Thermal Relics from Zombie Collisions
Eric David Kramer, Eric Kuflik, Noam Levi +2
We propose a new thermal freezeout mechanism which results in dark matter masses exceeding the unitarity bound by many orders of magnitude, without violating perturbative unitarity…
Constraining the Higgs-Dilaton with LHC and Dark Matter Searches
Aielet Efrati, Eric Kuflik, Shmuel Nussinov +2
We study a scenario in which the dilaton, a pseudo-Goldstone boson of the spontaneous breaking of conformal symmetry, provides a portal between dark matter and the visible sector.…
Co-Decaying Dark Matter
Jeff Asaf Dror, Eric Kuflik, Wee Hao Ng
We propose a new mechanism for thermal dark matter freezeout, termed Co-Decaying Dark Matter. Multi-component dark sectors with degenerate particles and out-of-equilibrium decays c…
Accidentally Asymmetric Dark Matter
Pouya Asadi, Eric David Kramer, Eric Kuflik +3
We study the effect of a first-order phase transition in a confining dark sector with heavy dark quarks. The baryons of this sector are the dark matter candidate. During th…
Long-Lived Particles at the Energy Frontier: The MATHUSLA Physics Case
David Curtin, Marco Drewes, Matthew McCullough +85
We examine the theoretical motivations for long-lived particle (LLP) signals at the LHC in a comprehensive survey of Standard Model (SM) extensions. LLPs are a common prediction of…
Light Dark Matter from Leptogenesis
Adam Falkowski, Eric Kuflik, Noam Levi +1
We consider the implications of a shared production mechanism between the baryon asymmetry of the universe and the relic abundance of dark matter, that does not result in matching…
Searching for Displaced Higgs Decays
Csaba Csaki, Eric Kuflik, Salvator Lombardo +1
We study a simplified model of the SM Higgs boson decaying to a degenerate pair of scalars which travel a macroscopic distance before decaying to SM particles. This is the leading…
Identifying Multi-Top Events from Gluino Decay at the LHC
Bobby S. Acharya, Phill Grajek, Gordon L. Kane +3
We study the LHC signal of a light gluino whose cascade decay is dominated by channels involving top, and, sometimes, bottom quarks. This is a generic signature for a number of sup…
Comments on Flipped SU(5) (and F-theory)
Eric Kuflik, Joseph Marsano
We study the impact of nonrenormalizable operators in flipped SU(5) that can generate a large mu term, R-parity violation, and rapid proton decay. While our motivation is to determ…
Twin SIMPs
Yonit Hochberg, Eric Kuflik, Hitoshi Murayama
The hierarchy problem and the identity of dark matter are two of the central driving forces in particle physics. Twin Higgs models provide an elegant solution to the little hierarc…
A Cosmological Solution to the Doublet-Triplet Splitting Problem
Csaba Csaki, Raffaele Tito D'Agnolo, Eric Kuflik +1
We propose a model that provides a simultaneous solution to the doublet-triplet splitting problem of grand unified theories, the electroweak hierarchy problem and the strong CP pro…
Implications of Higgs Searches on the Four Generation Standard Model
Eric Kuflik, Yosef Nir, Tomer Volansky
Within the four generation Standard Model, the Higgs couplings to gluons and to photons deviate in a significant way from the predictions of the three generation Standard Model. As…
Heavy Baryon Dark Matter from Confinement: Bubble Wall Velocity and Boundary Effects
Yann Gouttenoire, Eric Kuflik, Di Liu
Confinement in Yang-Mills theories is known to proceed through first-order phase transition. The wall velocity is bounded by due to the need…