We present a minimal non-supersymmetric SO(10) GUT breaking directly to the Standard Model gauge group. Precise gauge coupling unification is achieved due to the presence of two color-octet scalars, one of which is accessible to LHC searches. Proton lifetime is predicted to be below 4.5 x 10(34) years, which is within the projected five-year sensitivity of the proposed Hyper-Kamiokande experiment. We find that the Standard Model observables are reproduced to a reasonable accuracy in a numerical fit, which also predicts the unknown neutrino parameters. Finally, the two scalar representations stabilize the electroweak vacuum and the dark matter is comprised of axions.

We investigate photon signatures of general decaying dark-matter particles in halos of primordial black holes. We derive the halo-profile density and the total decay rate for these combined dark-matter scenarios. For the case of axion-like particles of masses below O(1)keV, we find strong bounds on the decay constant which are several orders of magnitude stronger than the strongest existing bounds, for all halo masses above O(10-5) solar masses. Using future X-ray measurements, it will be possible to push these bounds on such combined dark-matter scenarios even further.

We consider numerical fits to non-supersymmetric SO(10)-based models in which neutrino mass is generated by the type-I or type-II seesaw mechanism or a combination of both. The fits are performed with a sophisticated top-down procedure, taking into account the renormalization group equations of the gauge and Yukawa couplings, integrating out relevant degrees of freedom at their corresponding mass scales, and using recent data for the Standard Model observables. We find acceptable fits for normal neutrino mass ordering only and with neutrino mass generated by either type-I seesaw only or a combination of types I and II seesaw in which type-I seesaw is dominant. Furthermore, we find predictions from the best fit regarding the small neutrino masses, the effective neutrinoless double beta decay mass, and the leptonic CP-violating phase. Finally, we show that the fits are rather insensitive to the chosen value of the unification scale.

We derive constraints on mixed dark-matter scenarios consisting of primordial black holes (PBHs) and weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs). In these scenarios, we expect a density spike of the WIMPs that are gravitationally bound to the PBHs, which results in an enhanced annihilation rate and increased indirect detection prospects. We show that such scenarios provide strong constraints on the allowed fraction of PBHs that constitutes the dark matter, depending on the WIMP mass m(x) and the velocity-averaged annihilation cross-section <sigma v >. For the standard scenario with m(x) = 100 GeV and <sigma v > = 3 x 10(-26) cm(3)/s, we derive bounds that are stronger than all existing bounds for PBHs with masses 10(-12) M-circle dot less than or similar to M-BH less than or similar to 10(4) where M-circle dot, is the solar mass, and mostly so by several orders of magnitude.

We investigate possible interactions between neutrinos and massive scalar bosons via g(phi)(nu) over bar nu phi (or massive vector bosons via g(V)(nu) over bar gamma(mu)nu V-mu) and explore the allowed parameter space of the coupling constant g phi (or g(V)) and the scalar (or vector) boson mass m(phi) (or m(V)) by requiring that these secret neutrino interactions (SNIs) should not spoil the success of big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN). Incorporating the SNIs into the evolution of the early Universe in the BBN era, we numerically solve the Boltzmann equations and compare the predictions for the abundances of light elements with observations. It turns out that the constraint on g(phi) and m(phi) in the scalar-boson case is rather weak, due to a small number of degrees of freedom (d.o.f.). However, in the vector-boson case, the most stringent bound on the coupling g(V) less than or similar to 6 x 10(-10) at 95% confidence level is obtained for m(V) similar or equal to 1 MeV, while the bound becomes much weaker g(V) less than or similar to 8 x 10(-6) for smaller masses m(V) less than or similar to 10(-4) MeV. Moreover, we discuss in some detail how the SNIs affect the cosmological evolution and the abundances of the lightest elements.

We investigate the complete renormalization group running of fermion observables in two different realistic non-supersymmetric models based on the gauge group SO(10) with intermediate symmetry breaking for both normal and inverted neutrino mass orderings. Contrary to results of previous works, we find that the model with the more minimal Yukawa sector of the Lagrangian fails to reproduce the measured values of observables at the electroweak scale, whereas the model with the more extended Yukawa sector can do so if the neutrino masses have normal ordering. The difficulty in finding acceptable fits to measured data is a result of the added complexity from the effect of an intermediate symmetry breaking as well as tension in the value of the leptonic mixing angle theta 23

We study the general Zee model, which includes an extra Higgs scalar doublet and a new singly-charged scalar singlet. Neutrino masses are generated at one-loop level, and in order to describe leptonic mixing, both the Standard Model and the extra Higgs scalar doublets need to couple to leptons (in a type-III two-Higgs doublet model), which necessarily generates large lepton flavor violating signals, also in Higgs decays. Imposing all relevant phenomenological constraints and performing a full numerical scan of the parameter space, we find that both normal and inverted neutrino mass orderings can be fitted, although the latter is disfavored with respect to the former. In fact, inverted ordering can only be accommodated if theta(23) turns out to be in the first octant. A branching ratio for h -> tau mu of up to 10(-2) is allowed, but it could be as low as 10(-6). In addition, if future expected sensitivities of tau -> mu gamma are achieved, normal ordering can be almost completely tested. Also, mu e conversion is expected to probe large parts of the parameter space, excluding completely inverted ordering if no signal is observed. Furthermore, non-standard neutrino interactions are found to be smaller than 10(-6), which is well below future experimental sensitivity. Finally, the results of our scan indicate that the masses of the additional scalars have to be below 2.5 TeV, and typically they are lower than that and therefore within the reach of the LHC and future colliders.

We investigate the renormalization group evolution of fermion masses, mixings and quartic scalar Higgs self-couplings in an extended non-supersymmetric SO(10) model, where the Higgs sector contains the 10(H), 120(H), and 126(H) representations. The group SO(10) is spontaneously broken at the GUT scale to the Pati-Salam group and subsequently to the Standard Model (SM) at an intermediate scale MI. We explicitly take into account the effects of the change of gauge groups in the evolution. In particular, we derive the renormalization group equations for the different Yukawa couplings. We find that the computed physical fermion observables can be successfully matched to the experimental measured values at the electroweak scale. Using the same Yukawa couplings at the GUT scale, the measured values of the fermion observables cannot be reproduced with a SM-like evolution, leading to differences in the numerical values up to around 80%. Furthermore, a similar evolution can be performed for a minimal SO(10) model, where the Higgs sector consists of the 10(H) and 126(H) representations only, showing an equally good potential to describe the low-energy fermion observables. Finally, for both the extended and the minimal SO(10) models, we present predictions for the three Dirac and Majorana CP-violating phases as well as three effective neutrino mass parameters.

We investigate compact halos of sterile-neutrino dark matter and examine observable signatures with respect to neutrino and photon emission. Primarily, we consider two cases: primordial black-hole halos and ultracompact minihalos. In both cases, we find that there exists a broad range of possible parameter choices such that detection in the near future with x-ray and gamma-ray telescopes might be well possible. In fact, for energies above 10 TeV, the neutrino telescope IceCube would be a splendid detection machine for such macroscopic dark-matter candidates.

We introduce and develop a novel approach to extend the ordinary two-flavor neutrino oscillation formalism in matter using a non-Hermitian PT symmetric effective Hamiltonian. The condition of PT symmetry is weaker and less mathematical than that of hermicity, but more physical, and such an extension of the formalism can give rise to sub-leading effects in neutrino flavor transitions similar to the effects by so-called non-standard neutrino interactions. We derive the necessary conditions for the spectrum of the effective Hamiltonian to be real as well as the mappings between the fundamental and effective parameters. We find that the real spectrum of the effective Hamiltonian will depend on all new fundamental parameters introduced in the non-Hermitian PT symmetric extension of the usual neutrino oscillation formalism and that either i) the spectrum is exact and the effective leptonic mixing must always be maximal or ii) the spectrum is approximate and all new fundamental parameters must be small.