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1. Search for Baryon Number Violation in Top Quark Production and Decay Using Proton-Proton Collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13\mathrm{TeV}$

   https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.241802  

   Hayrapetyan, A; Tumasyan, A; Adam, W; Andrejkovic, J W; Bergauer, T; Chatterjee, S; Damanakis, K; Dragicevic, M; Hussain, P S; Jeitler, M; et al (June 2024, Physical Review Letters)

   A search is presented for baryon number violating interactions in top quark production and decay. The analysis uses data from proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, collected with the CMS detector at the LHC with an integrated luminosity of $138{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$. Candidate events are selected by requiring two oppositely charged leptons (electrons or muons) and exactly one jet identified as originating from a bottom quark. Multivariate discriminants are used to separate the signal from the background. No significant deviation from the standard model prediction is observed. Upper limits are placed on the strength of baryon number violating couplings. For the first time the production of single top quarks via baryon number violating interactions is studied. This allows the search to set the most stringent constraints to date on the branching fraction of the top quark decay to a lepton, an up-type quark ( $u$or $c$), and a down-type quark ( $d$, $s$, or $b$). The results improve the previous bounds by 3 to 6 orders of magnitude based on the fermion flavor combination of the baryon number violating interactions. © 2024 CERN, for the CMS Collaboration2024CERN 

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2. Searches for baryon number violation in neutrino experiments: a white paper

   https://doi.org/10.1088/1361-6471/ad1658  

   Dev, P. S. B.; Koerner, L. W.; Saad, S.; Antusch, S.; Askins, M.; Babu, K. S.; Barrow, J. L.; Chakrabortty, J.; de Gouvêa, A.; Djurcic, Z.; et al (January 2024, Journal of Physics G: Nuclear and Particle Physics)

   Abstract Baryon number conservation is not guaranteed by any fundamental symmetry within the standard model, and therefore has been a subject of experimental and theoretical scrutiny for decades. So far, no evidence for baryon number violation has been observed. Large underground detectors have long been used for both neutrino detection and searches for baryon number violating processes. The next generation of large neutrino detectors will seek to improve upon the limits set by past and current experiments and will cover a range of lifetimes predicted by several Grand Unified Theories. In this White Paper, we summarize theoretical motivations and experimental aspects of searches for baryon number violation in neutrino experiments. 

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3. Nucleation is more than critical: A case study of the electroweak phase transition in the NMSSM

   https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP03(2021)055  

   Baum, Sebastian; Carena, Marcela; Shah, Nausheen R.; Wagner, Carlos E.; Wang, Yikun (March 2021, Journal of High Energy Physics)

   null (Ed.)

   A bstract Electroweak baryogenesis is an attractive mechanism to generate the baryon asymmetry of the Universe via a strong first order electroweak phase transition. We compare the phase transition patterns suggested by the vacuum structure at the critical temperatures , at which local minima are degenerate, with those obtained from computing the probability for nucleation via tunneling through the barrier separating local minima. Heuristically, nucleation becomes difficult if the barrier between the local minima is too high, or if the distance (in field space) between the minima is too large. As an example of a model exhibiting such behavior, we study the Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model, whose scalar sector contains two SU(2) doublets and one gauge singlet. We find that the calculation of the nucleation probabilities prefers different regions of parameter space for a strong first order electroweak phase transition than the calculation based solely on the critical temperatures. Our results demonstrate that analyzing only the vacuum structure via the critical temperatures can provide a misleading picture of the phase transition patterns, and, in turn, of the parameter space suitable for electroweak baryogenesis. 

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4. Towards TeV-scale supersymmetric electroweak baryogenesis

   https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP02(2023)198  

   Matsedonskyi, Oleksii; Unwin, James; Wang, Qingyun (February 2023, Journal of High Energy Physics)

   A bstract Electroweak baryogenesis (EWBG) offers a compelling narrative for the generation of the baryon asymmetry, however it cannot be realised in the Standard Model, and leads to severe experimental tensions in the Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM). One of the reasons for these experimental tensions is that in traditional approaches to EWBG new physics is required to enter at the electroweak phase transition, which conventionally is fixed near 100 GeV. Here we demonstrate that the addition of sub-TeV fields in supersymmetric extensions of the Standard Model permits TeV-scale strongly first-order electroweak phase transition. While earlier literature suggested no-go arguments with regards to high-temperature symmetry breaking in supersymmetric models, we show these can be evaded by employing a systematic suppression of certain thermal corrections in theories with a large number of states. The models presented push the new physics needed for EWBG to higher scales, hence presenting new parameter regions in which to realize EWBG and evade experimental tensions, however they are not expected to render EWBG completely outside of the foreseeable future experimental reach. 

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5. Lepto-axiogenesis

   https://doi.org/10.1007/JHEP03(2021)017  

   Co, Raymond T.; Fernandez, Nicolas; Ghalsasi, Akshay; Hall, Lawrence J.; Harigaya, Keisuke (March 2021, Journal of High Energy Physics)

   A bstract We propose a baryogenenesis mechanism that uses a rotating condensate of a Peccei-Quinn (PQ) symmetry breaking field and the dimension-five operator that gives Majorana neutrino masses. The rotation induces charge asymmetries for the Higgs boson and for lepton chirality through sphaleron processes and Yukawa interactions. The dimension-five interaction transfers these asymmetries to the lepton asymmetry, which in turn is transferred into the baryon asymmetry through the electroweak sphaleron process. QCD axion dark matter can be simultaneously produced by dynamics of the same PQ field via kinetic misalignment or parametric resonance, favoring an axion decay constant f a ≲ 10 10 GeV, or by conventional misalignment and contributions from strings and domain walls with f a ∼ 10 11 GeV. The size of the baryon asymmetry is tied to the mass of the PQ field. In simple supersymmetric theories, it is independent of UV parameters and predicts the supersymmtry breaking mass scale to be $$ \mathcal{O} $$ O (10 − 10 4 ) TeV, depending on the masses of the neutrinos and whether the condensate is thermalized during a radiation or matter dominated era. The high supersymmetry breaking mass scale may be free from cosmological and flavor/CP problems. We also construct a theory where TeV scale supersymmetry is possible. Parametric resonance may give warm axions, and the radial component of the PQ field may give signals in rare kaon decays from mixing with the Higgs and in dark radiation. 

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