CUORE is one of the world-leading experiments to search for neutrinoless double beta decay. The excellent energy resolution and the stability of the detectors at CUORE also allow for other rare event searches. This thesis describes an experimental analysis undertaken to search for baryon number violation in 130Te using the data acquired by the CUORE detector. The conservation of the baryon number in the Standard Model relies on an accidental symmetry rather than being deduced from fundamental principles. If there is evidence suggesting a breach of this symmetry, it would significantly impact our understanding of the universe, especially concerning the origin of the matter-antimatter asymmetry. One possible way for this conservation principle to be violated is through tri-nucleon decay, where three nucleons decay simultaneously within a nucleus. For 130Te, the resulting decay products would be emitted with energy in the GeV range, making them a promising signal for detection in the CUORE experiment. This thesis describes the search signatures, the relevant background, and the analysis techniques used in this investigation, and results for an exposure of 236.6 kg·yr are presented. The daughter nucleus of the decay (127In) is unstable, and its decay chain can offer an secondary signature coinciding with the emitted energy. The viability of adding this secondary signature is also presented. / Doctor of Philosophy / Since the beginning of scientific thought, humankind has asked why there is something in the Universe instead of nothing. As our understanding of the working principles of the Universe deepened, this question has been refined and focused on an intriguing imbalance easily ob- served around us: The imbalance of the quantity of matter over anti-matter. We have never observed anti-matter galaxies or stars, and we never observe anti-matter manifesting around us in our daily lives. There are many ideas physicists have developed to explain this mysteri- ous absence of anti-matter, and one of them involves searching for an extremely rare radioac- tive process called triple nucleon decay. This thesis uses the data acquired by the nuclear experiment CUORE, situated in the Gran Sasso mountains in Italy, to look for this process.

This thesis is dedicated to the study of a prominent class of dark matter (DM) models, in which the DM relic density is linked to the baryon asymmetry, often referred to as Asymmetric Dark Matter (ADM) theories. In ADM the relic density is set by a particle-antiparticle asymmetry, in direct analogue to the baryons. This is partly motivated by the observed proximity of the baryon and DM relic densities Ω_{DM} ≈ 5 Ω_{B}, as this can be explained if the DM and baryon asymmetries are linked. A general requisite of models of ADM is that the vast majority of the symmetric component of the DM number density, the DM-antiDM pairs, must be removed for the asymmetry to set the DM relic density and thus to explain the coincidence of Ω_{DM} and Ω_{B}. However we shall argue that demanding the efficient annihilation of the symmetric component leads to a tension with experimental constraints in a large class of models. In order to satisfy the limits coming from direct detection and colliders searches, it is almost certainly required that the DM be part of a richer hidden sector of interacting states. Subsequently, examples of such extended hidden sectors are constructed and studied, in particular we highlight that the presence of light pseudoscalars can greatly aid in alleviating the experimental bounds and are well motivated from a theoretical stance. Finally, we highlight that self-conjugate DM can be generated from hidden sector particle asymmetries, which can lead to distinct phenomenology. Further, this variant on the ADM scenario can circumvent some of the leading constraints.

Pendant mes trois ans de doctorat j'ai eu le plaisir de travailler sur trois projets très variés ayant un but commun: mieux contraindre certains modèles de nouvelle physique entre cosmolo- gie et le LHC. Le fait que les densités reliques de matière noire et de baryons sont similaires semble indiquer qu'il y a un lien entre les deux. Nous essayons d'expliquer les valeurs observées en reliant un modèle de leptogenèse au miracle des WIMPs, qui produit naturellement la bonne densité relique. Si l'asymétrie baryonique est produit dans des désintégrations hors équilibre à l'échelle électro-faible et si la matière noire est constituée de WIMPs, les deux densités reliques sont con- trôlées par des processus électro-faibles hors équilibre. Je construis un modèle de leptogenèse à l'échelle du TeV en utilisant une extension du type seesaw inverse du modèle standard avec des singlets additionnels. Pour produire suffisamment d'asymétrie baryonique il faut une violation CP ∼ O(1) qui est difficile à obtenir dans mon cadre. Les axions, tout comme les WIMPs sont de bons candidats de matière noire bien motivés. Il serait très utile de pouvoir les distinguer. Sikivie argumente que si des axions sont dans un condensat de Bose-Einstein, alors ils forment des halos galactiques différents des halos de WIMPs. D'après Sikivie ce sont les interactions gravitationnelles qui thermalisent les axions et qui les condensent. La formation d'un condensat nécessite la génération d'entropie qui ne peut pas être fourni par les interactions gravitationnelles au premier ordre. J'étudie la génération d'entropie par les interactions gravitationnelles en estimant une longueur de dissipation dans le fluide d'axions qui vient de la présence d'une pression anisotrope. Je ne peux pas confirmer la thermalisation rapide d'axions causé par leurs interactions gravitationnelles. Des nouveaux bosons de jauges comme le Z' apparaissent dans un grand nombre d'extensions du modèle standard. On les recherche le plus souvent comme une résonance dans le spectre de masse invariante de leurs produits de désintégration. Le Z' doit être produit sur couche de masse dans ces recherches résonantes. Mais la présence d'un Z' peut aussi influencer d'autres observ- ables cinématiques sans être produit directement, ce qu'on peut utiliser dans des recherches non-résonantes. Je compare ces deux types de recherches au LHC et trouve que pour des petits couplages les recherches résonantes sont plus adaptées mais pour de plus grandes masses et couplages les recherches non-résonantes sont plus performantes / During the three years as a PhD student I had the pleasure to work on three major projects which are united in the goal to better constrain new physics models between cosmology and the LHC. The similar values of dark matter and baryon relic abundances raise the question whether there is a link between them. We attempt to explain the observed values by relating leptogenesis to the WIMP miracle which gives naturally the right relic abundance. If the baryon asymmetry is produced in electroweak-scale-out-of-equilibrium decays and dark matter is made of WIMPs, both relic densities are controlled by electroweak scale interactions going out of equilibrium. We construct a TeV-scale leptogenesis model using an inverse-seesaw extension of the SM with additional singlets. To produce a large enough asymmetry we require CP violation ∼ O(1) which is difficult to achieve in our set-up. Axions as well as WIMPs are well motivated dark matter candidates. It would be very useful to be able to tell them apart. Sikivie argues that if axions are in a Bose-Einstein condensate they could form a different galactic dark matter halo than WIMPs and that gravitational interactions drive axions into a Bose-Einstein condensate. However for the formation of such a condensate entropy generation is needed which leading order gravitational interactions do not provide. We explore the entropy generation of gravitational interactions by estimating a dissipation scale in the axion fluid due to the presence of a anisotropic stress. We cannot confirm a fast gravitational thermalisation rate. New neutral gauge bosons like the Z' are generic extensions of the standard model which appear in many different models. Traditionally these particles are searched for in resonant searches at colliders, i.e. by producing the particles on-shell and looking for a resonance in the invariant mass spectrum of their decay products. However the presence of a Z' can also affect other kinematic observables without being actually produced on-shell, i.e. non-resonant searches. We compare compare resonant and non-resonant searches at the LHC and find that while for small couplings resonant searches are more sensitive, for larger couplings non-resonant searches are more efficient

The lack of direct evidence for physics beyond the SM at the LHC has led some to reevaluate the need for such physics to solve the hierarchy problem. Instead, the notion that the SM, or something like it, is valid up to the Planck scale and that technical naturalness is sufficient for solving the hierarchy problem has been suggested. This thesis examines minimal extensions of the SM that address its phenomenological and theoretical shortcomings while avoiding new physics between the electroweak and Planck scales that introduces a hierarchy problem. This thesis first studies two issues with the vMSM - an extension of the SM by three right-handed neutrinos - and their possible solutions. The first issue is the tension between dark matter production in the nuMSM and constraints from the Lyman-alpha forest data. To avoid this tension, the vMSM is extended by a Higgs singlet Φ and neutrino dark matter is produced through the decays of Φ rather than through left-right neutrino mixing. It is shown that the hierarchical parameters of this model can arise from symmetries broken at or near the Planck scale for two specific examples: one in which Φ stabilizes the electroweak vacuum and one in which Φ is a light inflaton. The second issue pertains to Higgs ξ-inflation. In the vMSM, a large non-minimal coupling ξ of the Higgs to gravity gives inflation but leads to a possible violation of perturbative unitarity below the inflationary scale. A study of Higgs ξ-inflation with M_h ≃ 125-126 GeV, for which the Higgs self-coupling λ runs to small values near the Planck scale, is carried out. It is shown that small λ can significantly reduce ξ required for inflation, but ξ cannot be small enough to address the possible unitarity issue. For small λ, a new region of Higgs ξ-inflation with a large tensor-to-scalar ratio r that is consistent with BICEP2 is discovered. This thesis then studies the technical naturalness and cosmology of a model that addresses the strong CP problem. It is shown that a classically scale invariant DFSZ invisible aξon model with a Peccei-Quinn scalar S, whose couplings to the SM are ultra-weak, can solve the strong CP problem and generate electroweak symmetry breaking via the Coleman-Weinberg mechanism. The ultra-weak couplings of S are natural due to an underlying approξmate shift symmetry. The model contains a light pseudo-Goldstone dilaton that can be consistent with cosmological bounds while the aξon can be the dark matter of the universe. Finally, a summary of the thesis is presented and future research topics are suggested.

Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN), together with the analyses of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies, confirm what our day to day experience of life attests : antimatter is far less present than matter in the Universe. In addition, these observables also permit to evaluate that there exists about one proton for every 10^{10} photons present in the Universe. This is in contradiction with expectations coming from the standard hot big bang, where no distinction between matter and antimatter is made, and where subsequent annihilations would lead to equal matter and antimatter contents, at a level 10^{−10} smaller than the observed one. The Standard Model of fundamental interactions fails to explain this result, leading us to search for ‘Beyond the Standard Model’ physics. Among the possible mechanism which could be responsible for the creation of such a matter asymmetry, leptogenesis is particularly attractive because it only relies on the same ingredients previously introduced to generate neutrino masses. Unfortunatelly, this elegant proposal suffers from a major difficulty : it resists to any tentative of being probed by our low energy observables. In this thesis, we tackle the problem the other way around and propose a way to falsify this mechanism. Considering the type-I leptogenesis mechanism, i.e. a mechanism based on the asymmetric decay of right-handed neutrinos, in a left-right symmetric framework, we show that the observation of a right-handed gauge boson W_R at future colliders would rule out any possibility for such mechanism to be responsible of the matter asymmetry present in our Universe. Another intriguing question that analyses of the anisotropies of the CMB confirmed is the presence of a non-baryonic component of matter in our Universe, i.e. the dark matter. As hinted by observations of galactic rotation curves, it should copiously be present in our galactic halo, but is notoriously difficult to detect directly. We can take advantage on the fact that antimatter almost disappeared from our surroundings to detect the contamination of cosmic rays from standard sources the annihilation products of dark matter would produce. The second subject tackled in this work is the study of the imprints the Inert Doublet Modem (IDM) could leave in (charged) cosmic rays, namely positrons, antprotons and antideuterons. This model, first proposed to allow the Bout-Englert-Higgs particle to evade the Electroweak Precision Test (EWPT) measurements, introduces an additional scalar doublet which is inert in the sense that it does not couple directly to fermions. This latter property brings an additional virtue to this additional doublet : since it interacts weakly with particles, it can play the role of dark matter. This study will be done in the light of the data recently released by the PAMELA, ATIC and Fermi-GLAST collaborations, which reported e^± excesses in two different energy ranges.

Orientador: Pedro Cunha de Holanda / Dissertação (mestrado) - Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Instituto de Física Gleb Wataghin / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-31T06:55:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Sato_EduardoAkio_M.pdf: 2319995 bytes, checksum: fc82384c799d5812bf14a71fe2723e2d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016 / Resumo: Nesta dissertação analiso como uma classe de modelos sugeridos para acomodar neutrinos massivos no modelo padrão, os assim chamados mecanismos seesaw, podem também resolver o problema de assimetria bariônica no universo. Os requisitos mínimos para uma geração dinâmica bem sucedida de assimetria bariônica, conhecidos como condições de Sakharov, são: não conservação de número bariônico, violação de simetria CP e ausência de equilíbrio térmico. Para mostrar que mecanismos seesaw respeitam estas regras, reviso alguns tópicos como: a violação de número bariônico através do processo de sphalerons, a teoria de violação de CP através de invariantes de base fraca e a mecânica estatística de não equilíbrio através da equação de Boltzmann. Como exemplo considero um cenário de mecanismo seesaw tipo I (3+3) com massas de neutrinos estéreis altamente hierárquicas. A assimetria observada impõe um limite inferior na massa dos neutrinos estéreis ($M_1 \geq 8.4 \times 10^{8} \; \text{GeV}$) e um limite superior na massa dos neutrinos ativos ($m_1 < 0.11 \; \text{eV}$), consistente com limites previamente obtidos na literatura / Abstract: In this dissertation I analyse how a class of models suggested to accommodate massive neutrinos in the standard model, the so-called seesaw mechanisms, can also solve the baryon asymmetry of the universe problem. The minimal requisites to a successful dynamical generation of baryon asymmetry, known as Sakharov's conditions, are: Non-conservation of baryon number, violation of CP symmetry and absence of thermal equilibrium. To show that seesaw mechanisms respect those rules, I review some topics such as: the standard model baryon non-conservation via sphalerons process, the theory of CP violation via weak-basis invariants and non-equilibrium statistical physics via Boltzmann equation. As a example I consider a type I (3+3) seesaw mechanism scenario with highly hierarchical sterile neutrino masses and the observed asymmetry impose a lower bound in the sterile neutrino masses ($M_1 \geq 8.4 \times 10^{8} \; \text{GeV}$) and a upper bound in the active neutrino masses ($m_1 < 0.11 \; \text{eV}$), consistent with limits previously obtained in the literature / Mestrado / Física / Mestre em Física / 1370441/2014 / CAPES

Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN), together with the analyses of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) anisotropies, confirm what our day to day experience of life attests :antimatter is far less present than matter in the Universe. In addition, these observables also permit to evaluate that there exists about one proton for every 10^{10} photons present in the Universe. This is in contradiction with expectations coming from the standard hot big bang, where no distinction between matter and antimatter is made, and where subsequent annihilations would lead to equal matter and antimatter contents, at a level 10^{−10} smaller than the observed one. The Standard Model of fundamental interactions fails to explain this result, leading us to search for ‘Beyond the Standard Model’ physics.<p><p>Among the possible mechanism which could be responsible for the creation of such a matter asymmetry, leptogenesis is particularly attractive because it only relies on the same ingredients previously introduced to generate neutrino masses. Unfortunatelly, this elegant proposal suffers from a major difficulty :it resists to any tentative of being probed by our low energy observables. In this thesis, we tackle the problem the other way around and propose a way to falsify this mechanism. Considering the type-I leptogenesis mechanism, i.e. a mechanism based on the asymmetric decay of right-handed neutrinos, in a left-right symmetric framework, we show that the observation of a right-handed gauge boson W_R at future colliders would rule out any possibility for such mechanism to be responsible of the matter asymmetry present in our Universe.<p><p>Another intriguing question that analyses of the anisotropies of the CMB confirmed is the presence of a non-baryonic component of matter in our Universe, i.e. the dark matter. As hinted by observations of galactic rotation curves, it should copiously be present in our galactic halo, but is notoriously difficult to detect directly. We can take advantage on the fact that antimatter almost disappeared from our surroundings to detect the contamination of cosmic rays from standard sources the annihilation products of dark matter would produce.<p><p>The second subject tackled in this work is the study of the imprints the Inert Doublet Modem (IDM) could leave in (charged) cosmic rays, namely positrons, antprotons and antideuterons. This model, first proposed to allow the Bout-Englert-Higgs particle to evade the Electroweak Precision Test (EWPT) measurements, introduces an additional scalar doublet which is inert in the sense that it does not couple directly to fermions. This latter property brings an additional virtue to this additional doublet :since it interacts weakly with particles, it can play the role of dark matter. This study will be done in the light of the data recently released by the PAMELA, ATIC and Fermi-GLAST collaborations, which reported e^± excesses in two different energy ranges. / Doctorat en Sciences / info:eu-repo/semantics/nonPublished