Pedro M. Ferreira, Logan A. Morrison, Stefano Profumo

We analyze the vacuum structure of the one-loop effective potential in the two Higgs doublet model. We find that electroweak-breaking vacuua can coexist with charge breaking ones, contradicting a theorem valid at tree-level. We perform a numerical analysis of the model and supply explicit parameter values for which charge-breaking vacuua can be the global minimum of the theory, and deeper than charge-preserving ones.

Ilja Doršner, Shaikh Saad

We propose a simple $SU(5)$ model that connects the neutrino mass generation mechanism to the observed disparity between the masses of charged leptons and down-type quarks. The model is built out of $5$-, $10$-, $15$-, $24$-, and $35$-dimensional representations of $SU(5)$ and comprises two (three) $3 \times 3$ ($3 \times 1$) Yukawa coupling matrices to accommodate all experimentally measured fermion masses and mixing parameters. The gauge coupling unification considerations, coupled with phenomenological constraints inferred from experiments that probe neutrino masses and mixing parameters and/or look for proton decay, fix all relevant mass scales of the model. The proposed scenario places several multiplets at the scales potentially accessible at the LHC and future colliders and correlates this feature with the gauge boson mediated proton decay signatures. It also predicts that one neutrino is massless.

Gemma Zhang, Zack Li, Jia Liu, David N. Spergel, Christina D. Kreisch, Alice Pisani, Benjamin D. Wandelt

Cosmic voids, the underdense regions in the universe, are particularly sensitive to diffuse density components such as cosmic neutrinos. This sensitivity is enhanced by the match between void sizes and the free-streaming scale of massive neutrinos. Using the massive neutrino simulations \texttt{MassiveNuS}, we investigate the effect of neutrino mass on dark matter halos as a function of environment. We find that the halo mass function depends strongly on neutrino mass and that this dependence is more pronounced in voids than in high-density environments. An observational program that measured the characteristic mass of the most massive halos in voids should be able to place novel constraints on the sum of the masses of neutrinos $\sum m_\nu$. The neutrino mass effect in the simulations is quite strong: In a 512$^3$ $h^{-3}$ Mpc$^3$ survey, the mean mass of the 1000 most massive halos in the void interiors is $(4.82 \pm 0.11) \times 10^{12} h^{-1}M_{\odot}$ for $\sum m_\nu = 0.6$ eV and $(8.21 \pm 0.13) \times 10^{12} h^{-1}M_{\odot}$ for $\sum m_\nu = 0.1$ eV. Subaru (SuMIRe), Euclid and WFIRST will have both spectroscopic and weak lensing surveys. Covering volumes at least 50 times larger than our simulations, they should be sensitive probes of neutrino mass through void substructure.