Conveners
Astro-particle Physics and Cosmology: Astro-particle Physics and Cosmology
- Adriano Di Giovanni (Gran Sasso Science Institute (IT))
Astro-particle Physics and Cosmology: Astro-particle Physics and Cosmology
- Denise Boncioli
Astro-particle Physics and Cosmology: Astro-particle Physics and Cosmology
- Pietro Betti (Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Florence and INFN sezione di Firenze)
Astro-particle Physics and Cosmology: Astro-particle Physics and Cosmology
- Roman Pasechnik (Lund university)
Astro-particle Physics and Cosmology: Astro-particle Physics and Cosmology
- Eugenio Berti (Universita e INFN, Firenze (IT))
Astro-particle Physics and Cosmology: Astro-particle Physics and Cosmology
- Peter Athron
Astro-particle Physics and Cosmology: Astro-particle Physics and Cosmology
- Alexander Vikman (Czech Academy of Sciences (CZ))
Astro-particle Physics and Cosmology: Astro-particle Physics and Cosmology
- Denise Boncioli
Astro-particle Physics and Cosmology: Astro-particle Physics and Cosmology
- Alexey Yushkov (Institute of Physics AS CR, Prague)
Astro-particle Physics and Cosmology
- Luca Latronico
Astro-particle Physics and Cosmology: Astro-particle Physics and Cosmology
- Eva Santos
The ICARUS LArTPC, currently placed at Fermilab, is collecting data exposed to Booster Neutrino and Numi off-axis beams within the SBN program. A light detection system, based on PMTs deployed behind the TPC wire chambers, is in place to detect vacuum ultraviolet photons produced by ionizing particles in LAr. This system is fundamental for the detector operation, providing an efficient trigger...
The Pacific Ocean Neutrino Experiment (P-ONE) is a planned cubic-kilometer deep-sea detector targeting the study of high-energy neutrinos, their sources, and their unknown acceleration mechanisms. With low expected scattering in the deep sea, the ocean is an ideal location for high-energy neutrino detectors with the potential for sub-degree angular resolution. However, operating large-scale...
High-energy neutrinos propagating over cosmological distances are the ideal messenger particles for astrophysical phenomena, but the neutrino landscape above 10 PeV is currently completely uncharted. At these extreme energies and the frugal flux expected, the dominant experimental strategy is to detect radiofrequency emissions from particle cascades produced by neutrinos interacting in the...
A large mystery that is currently being investigated by the High Energy Physics (HEP) field is the origin and the nature of the Ultra-high energy Cosmic Rays (UHECR). Coming from deep within the Universe, they bring information from afar as well as on possible new physics. This talk reports on the development and design of DUCK (Detector system of Unusual Cosmic-ray casKades), a new...
The Askaryan Radio Array (ARA) is an in-ice ultrahigh energy (UHE, >10 PeV) neutrino experiment at the South Pole that aims to detect radio emissions from neutrino-induced particle cascades. ARA has five independent stations which together have collected nearly 30 station-years of livetime of data. Each of these stations searches for UHE neutrinos by burying in-ice clusters of antennas โผ200...
We present a detailed study of the production of dark matter in the form of a sterile neutrino via freeze-in from decays of heavy right-handed neutrinos. Our treatment accounts for thermal effects in the effective couplings, generated via neutrino mixing, of the new heavy neutrinos with the Standard Model gauge and Higgs bosons and can be applied to several low-energy fermion seesaw scenarios...
The HERD (High Energy cosmic-Radiation Detection facility) experiment is a future experiment for the direct detection of high energy cosmic rays that will be installed on the Chinese space station in 2027. It is constituted by an innovative calorimeter made of about 7500 LYSO scintillating crystals assembled in a spheroidal shape and it is surrounded on five faces by multiple sub-detectors, in...
The High Energy cosmic-Radiation Detection facility (HERD) will be the largest calorimetric experiment dedicated to the direct detection of cosmic rays. HERD aims at probing potential dark matter signatures by detecting electrons from 10 GeV and photons from 500 MeV, up to 100 TeV. It will also measure the flux of cosmic protons and heavier nuclei up to a few PeV, shedding light on the origin...
The Dark Matter Particle Explorer (DAMPE) is an ongoing space-borne experiment for the direct detection of cosmic rays (CR). Thanks to its large geometric acceptance and thick calorimeter, DAMPE is able to detect CR ions up to unprecedented energies of hundreds of TeV. Following by now more than 8 years of successful operation, DAMPE has amassed a large dataset of high-energy hadronic...
The Calorimetric Electron Telescope (CALET) is a cosmic-ray observatory operating since October 2015 on the International Space Station. The primary scientific goals of the CALET mission include the investigation of the mechanism of cosmic-ray acceleration and propagation in the Galaxy and the detection of potential nearby sources of high-energy electrons and potential dark matter signatures....
In half a century of predictions on the potential of X-Ray polarimetry, we have encountered ideasโsparse yet not infrequentโon how it could provide insights into several fundamental physics problems. These include birefringence or strong-gravity effects as evidence of photon propagation in extreme magnetic or gravitational fields, anomalies in propagation over large distances due to Lorentz...
The Observing Run 4 (O4) is the most recent period of data taking for the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA (LVK) network of ground-based gravitational-wave (GW) interferometric detectors. Its first half, O4a, started in May 2023 and ended in January 2024 while its second part, O4b, is scheduled to start in April 2024 after a two-month commissioning break, and to end in January 2025. After an introduction...
The success of gravitational wave astronomy hinges on precise data quality assessment and the meticulous validation of detected events. This presentation emphasizes the critical role of these processes, focusing on their importance within the ongoing O4 joint observational campaign of the LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA detectors. We begin by introducing the concepts of detector sensitivity and data...
So far, high frequency gravitational waves (GWs) remain unexplored messengers of new physics. Proposed sources in the MHz - GHz band include primordial black hole (PBH) mergers, PBH superradiance and several stochastic backgrounds.
Our collaboration is working on tapping into this source by employing superconducting radio frequency cavities for high precision measurements.
The detection...
The Euclid mission satellite was launched on July 1st, 2023 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, with a Space X Falcon 9 rocket . After one month journey it is set in its orbit around the Sun-Earth L2 point and has already finished its commissioning period. Euclid survey started in February 2024 and will map 15000 deg2 of the sky in the following six years observing more than 1 billion galaxies with...
The Large Hadron Collider forward (LHCf) experiment, located at the LHC, plays a crucial role in high-energy particle physics research, specifically in measuring neutral particle production in the forward pseudorapidity region, to improve the understanding of ultra-high energy cosmic ray interactions with the Earth atmosphere. Our presentation will summarize the latest advancements from LHCf,...
Precision measurements by AMS reveal unique properties of cosmic charged elementary particles. In the absolute rigidity range ~60 to ~500 GV, the antiproton flux and proton flux have nearly identical rigidity dependence. This behavior indicates an excess of high energy antiprotons compared with secondary antiprotons produced from the collision of cosmic rays. More importantly, from ~60 to ~500...
The positron flux measured by the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer in the TeV region exhibits complex energy dependence. It is described by the sum of a term associated with the positrons produced in the collision of cosmic rays, which dominates at low energies, and a new source term, which dominates at high energies and is associated with either dark matter or astrophysical origin. The positron...
Analysis of anisotropy of the arrival directions of galactic positrons, electrons and protons has been performed with the Alpha Magnetic Spectrometer on the International Space Station. This measurement allows to differentiate between point-like and diffuse sources of cosmic rays for the understanding of the origin of high energy positrons. The AMS results of the dipole anisotropy are...
We present the continuous daily electron and positron spectra over twelve years from 1 to 42 GeV. These unique data provide critical information to the understanding of the propagation of the same mass but opposite charge particles in the heliosphere. The characteristics of the data can not be explained by current theoretical models.
One of the main goal of the next generation space experiments is to extend the measurement of cosmic positron in the TeV region: this will provide unique information related to dark matter indirect search and cosmic ray physics. The detection techniques currently in use are not suited to reach this energy region in a relatively short time scale.
An alternative method relies on the detection...
The production of antihelium in pp collisions at โs = 13 TeV is studied with the LHCb experiment. The used dataset corresponds to 5.1 f bโ1. The helium nuclei are identified using mainly ionisation losses in the silicon detectors, resulting in a nearly background-free sample of more than 105 candidates. Recent improvements lead to further suppression of the residual background from photon...
KM3NeT is a deep-sea neutrino observatory currently under construction in the Mediterranean Sea. Its main goals are the search for sources of high energy cosmic neutrinos and the study of neutrino oscillation phenomena with atmospheric neutrinos.
KM3NeT comprises 3D arrays of multi-PMT optical modules optimised to detect the Cherenkov light emitted by charged particles resulting from...
Multi-messenger astronomy studies transient phenomena by combining the information provided by different cosmic messengers, such as neutrinos, photons, charged particles or gravitational waves. A coincident detection enhances the chances for the identification of new astrophysical sources, which motivates the distribution of external alerts and their follow-ups by multiple observatories...
Neutrino telescopes play a fundamental role in highlighting the hadronic component of cosmic ray accelerators in the Universe. The ANTARES underwater neutrino telescope was operated for more than 15 years in the Mediterranean Sea off shore the coast of Toulon, France. The KM3NeT/ARCA detector, designed for the observation of high energy cosmic neutrinos, is under construction at the KM3NeT...
A decade after IceCube's discovery of astrophysical neutrinos, high-energy neutrino astronomy thrives. The blazar TXS 0506+056 and Seyfert Galaxy NGC 1068 emerged as first source candidates amid an otherwise isotropic extragalactic neutrino flux. Their differing energy spectra hint at multiple source populations, which reveals the complexity of the extragalactic neutrino sky. In addition,...
We will present an analysis of IceCube public data from its IC86configuration, namely PSTracks event selection, to search for pseudo-Dirac signatures in high-energy neutrinos from astrophysical sources NGC 1068, TXS 0506+056, PKS 1424+240 and GB6 1542+6129which have been detected with high significance. Neutrino flux from astrophysical sources is reduced in the pseudo-Dirac scenario due to...
In this work, we revisit the experimental constraints on the multipolar dark matter that has derivative coupling to the visible sector mediated by the Standard Model photon. The momentum dependent interaction enables them to be captured efficiently within massive celestial bodies boosted by their steep gravitational potential. This phenomena makes compact celestial bodies as an efficient...
Taking axion inflation as an example, we consider a scenario where the inflaton is coupled solely to a pure SU(3) Yang-Mills sector. In the low-energy phase of this sector, glueball states are formed. If non-renormalizable operators are considered, these glueballs may become unstable and reheat the standard model fields. Yet, for a certain parameter range, C-parity can protect part of the...
I will discuss cosmological domain walls which are described by tension red-shifting with the expansion of the Universe so that this network eventually fades away completely. These melting domain walls emit gravitational waves with the low-frequency spectral shape corresponding to the spectral index ฮณ=3 favoured by the recent NANOGrav 15 yrs data. This scenario involves a feebly coupled scalar...
The initial density of both the Dark Matter(DM) and the Standard Model (SM) particles may be produced via perturbative decay of inflaton with different decay rates, creating an initial temperature ratio, $\xi_i$=T$_{DM,i}$/T$_{SM,i}$. This scenario implies inflaton mediated scatterings between the DM and the SM, that can modify the temperature ratio even for high inflaton mass. The effect of...
We study under which conditions a first-order phase transition in a composite dark sector can yield an observable stochastic gravitational-wave signal. To this end, we employ the Linear-Sigma model featuring Nf = 3, 4, 5 flavours and perform a Cornwall-Jackiw-Tomboulis computation also accounting for the effects of the Polyakov loop. The model allows us to investigate the chiral phase...
Gravitational waves can be produced from first order cosmological phase transitions that occur early in the Universe. Exciting recent results including a possible signal of a stochastic gravitational wave background from pulsar timing array experiments mean that we have now entered an era where robust predictions of the gravitational wave spectra from first order phase transitions are vital....
We perform a phenomenological comparison of the gravitational wave (GW) spectrum expected from cosmic gauge string networks and superstring networks comprised of multiple string types. We show how violations of scaling behavior and the evolution of the number of relativistic degrees of freedom in the early Universe affect the GW spectrum. We derive simple analytical expressions for the GW...
We explore how quantum gravity effects, manifested through the breaking of discrete symmetry responsible for both Dark Matter and Domain Walls, can have observational effects through Dark Matter indirect detections and gravitational waves. To illustrate the idea we consider a simple model with two scalar fields or one fermion field plus one scalar field, together with two $Z_2$ symmetries, one...
The 2016 discovery of gravitational waves by the LIGO-Virgo collaboration is a watershed moment in cosmology. Now, with the approval of the space-based LISA experiment, the hunt is on: A search for gravitational-wave remnants of the Electroweak phase transition; to probe the Higgs potential and perchance even explain the Baryon asymmetry problem. Yet the theoretical hurdles are...
It is often speculated that supermassive black holes (SMBHs) located at the centers of many galaxies can serve as possible sources of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECR). This is also supported by numerous observations of high-energy neutrinos and gamma-rays from the direction of blazars and other SMBH candidates. In this talk, I will present a novel scenario of particle acceleration...
Liquid argon, widely used as active target in neutrino and dark matter experiments, is a scintillator with a light yield of about 40 photons/keV, attenuation length of the order of meters and a scintillation peak at 128 nm. Adding small amounts of xenon (around 10 ppb) allows to shift this to 178 nm without spoiling the light yield. The longer wavelength simplifies the development of imaging...
The Pierre Auger Observatory is the world's largest cosmic ray detector. It employs a hybrid technique combining a 3000 km$^2$ surface detector (SD) array comprising 1660 water-Cherenkov stations with 27 fluorescence telescopes, arranged in 4 sites, that overlook the atmosphere above the SD array during clear and moonless nights. In stable operation since 2004, we have published numerous...
The mass composition of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECR) is the key input in searches for new physics, understanding the astrophysical processes and hadronic interactions at extreme center-of-mass energies exceeding 400 TeV. At the Pierre Auger Observatory, the largest UHECR observatory ever built, accurate inferences on the UHECR mass composition were recently extended up to cosmic-ray...
Ultra-high-energy cosmic rays are a unique probe for studying hadronic interactions at the $\sqrt{s} \sim 100\:\mathrm{TeV}$ scale. The Pierre Auger Observatory, the world's largest cosmic ray detector ever built, has gathered unprecedented statistics about the highest energetic particles in the Universe. Our results point to inconsistencies in hadronic interaction models, namely, a deficit in...
To unveil the origin of galactic PeV cosmic rays, observation of sub-PeV gamma rays is crucial. Sub-PeV gamma-ray astronomy is established in the northern hemisphere since the discovery of the Crab nebula >100TeV by the TibetASฮณ collaboration in 2019. ALPACA is a new air shower experiment under construction in Bolivia to explore the sub-PeV gamma-ray sky in the southern hemisphere for the...
Unraveling the origin and nature of ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) stands as an essential inquiry in astroparticle physics. Motivated by unprecedented observational capabilities, the Fluorescence detector Array of Single-pixel Telescopes (FAST) emerges as a promising next-generation, ground-based UHECR observatory.
The FAST employs a cost-effective array of cutting-edge fluorescence...
The sky in ultra-high-energy cosmic ray (UHECRs) above a few EeV is surprisingly isotropic which complicates the identification of the sources. UHECR spectrum, composition and angular distributions are influenced by interactions with background photon fields and by the deflection in extragalactic and galactic magnetic fields (EGMF and GMF). Moreover, the spatial structure of the EGMF is not...
We present high statistics measurements of primary cosmic rays Proton, Helium, Carbon, Oxygen, Neon, Magnesium, Silicon, Sulfur, Iron, and Nickel.
The data shows that to high degree of accuracy there are only two classes of primary cosmic ray elements for nuclei with Z>=2.
Precision measurements of the cosmic ray D flux are presented as function of rigidity from 1.9 to 21 GV, based on 21 million D nuclei. We observed that over the entire rigidity range D exhibit nearly identical time variations with p, $^3$He, and $^4$He fluxes. Above 4.5 GV, the D/โดHe flux ratio is time independent and its rigidity dependence is well described by a single power law $\propto...
We present high statistics measurements of the secondary cosmic rays Lithium, Beryllium, Boron, Fluorine, and Phosphorus The unexpected rigidity dependence of the secondary cosmic ray fluxes and their ratios to the primary cosmic rays such as Li/C, Be/C, B/C, Li/O, Be/O, B/O, F/Si, and P/Si are discussed.
We present for the first time the high statistics precision measurement of time structures of Li, Be, B, C, N, and O nuclei in cosmic rays in an entire solar cycle (11 years), from May 2011 to Nov 2022 between 2 and 60 GV. The fluxes and their ratios have been determined for 147 Bartels rotations. The fluxes are anti-correlated with solar activity, and the amplitude of the time structures...
Information on time variations of the anti-proton spectrum is very limited. We present the continuous twelve-year measurements of cosmic ray anti-protons spectrum from 1 to 42 GV. The measured antiproton spectrum time variations are distinctly different from electrons, positrons, and protons. This provides unique information to the understanding of heliosphere physics.
The NUSES space mission focuses on advancing observational and technological approaches to investigate various cosmic phenomena.
This includes high-energy astrophysical neutrinos, the study of low-energy cosmic and gamma rays, the Sun-Earth environment, space weather, and the interactions within the Magnetosphere-Ionosphere-Lithosphere Coupling (MILC) system.
NUSES embodies two experiments,...
In this talk, a mechanism for producing a cosmologically-significant relic density of one or more sterile neutrinos will be discussed. This scheme invokes two steps: First, a population of "heavy" sterile neutrinos is created by scattering-induced decoherence of active neutrinos; Second, this population is transferred, via sterile neutrino self-interaction-mediated scatterings and decays, to...
Nowadays, research in Beyond Standard Model scenarios aimed at describing the nature of dark matter is a very active field. DarkPACK is a recently released software conceived to help to study such models. It can already compute the relic density in the freeze-out scenario, and its potential can be used to compute other observables. With the present contribution, I would like to introduce...
We study the new approaches to explore the ultralight (axion) dark matter by gravitational wave experiments and radio telescope based on the superradiance process and resonant conversion process.
A strongly self-interacting component of dark matter can lead to formation of compact objects. These objects (dark stars) can in principle be detected by emission of gravitational waves from coalescence with black holes or other neutron stars or via gravitational lensing. However, in the case where dark matter admits annihilations, these compact dark matter made objects can have significant...
Magnetic monopoles are intriguing hypothetical particles and inevitable predictions of Theories of Grand Unification. They are produced during phase transitions in the early universe, but mechanisms like the Schwinger effect in strong magnetic fields could also contribute to the monopole number density. I will show how from the detection of intergalactic magnetic fields we can infer additional...
One of the most significant problems in modern physics is the apparent asymmetry of matter and antimatter in the Universe. Recent laser experiments in the United States have demonstrated that high intensity lasers striking high-Z targets release electron/positron pairs that can be separated magnetically, while also resulting in transmutation of the lasers' targets. With these experimental...
Knowledge of the primordial matter density field from which the present non-linear observations formed is of fundamental importance for cosmology, as it contains an immense wealth of information about the physics, evolution, and initial conditions of the universe. Reconstructing this density field from the galaxy survey data is a notoriously difficult task, requiring sophisticated statistical...
Mounting evidence suggests that planned and present gravitational-wave detectors may be sensitive to signatures from first-order phase transitions in the early universe. Here, we investigate the influence of heavy vector-like fermions on the phase transition. Specifically, we consider the recently-proposed "flavour transfer" model, where the SM flavour structure is augmented by a new...
The Two-Higgs-Doublet-Standard Model-Axion-Seesaw-Higgs-Portal inflation (2hdSMASH) model consisting of two Higgs doublets, a Standard Model (SM) singlet complex scalar and three SM singlet right-handed neutrinos can embed axion dark matter, neutrino masses and address inflation. We report on an investigation of the inflationary aspects of 2hdSMASH and its subsequent impact on low energy...
The occurence of $CP$-asymmetric processes is one of the necessary conditions for successful matter-antimatter asymmetry generation in the early universe. Considering any initial state, by unitarity and $CPT$ symmetry, the sum of the asymmetries over all possible final states vanishes. In this contribution, we present a diagrammatic approach to simplifying asymmetry calculations and allowing...
