The non-thermal dark matter (DM) production via the so-called freeze-in mechanism provides a simple alternative to the standard thermal WIMP scenario. In this work, we consider a popular U(1)(B-L) extension of the standard model (SM) in the context of inverse seesaw mechanism which has at least one (fermionic) FIMP DM candidate. Due to the added Z(2) symmetry, a SM gauge singlet fermion, with mass of order keV, is stable and can be a warm DM candidate. Also, the same Z(2) symmetry helps the lightest right-handed neutrino, with mass of order GeV, to be a stable or long-lived particle by making a corresponding Yukawa coupling very small. This provides a possibility of a two component DM scenario as well. Firstly, in the absence of a GeV DM component (i.e., without tuning its corresponding Yukawa coupling to be very small), we consider only a keV DM as a single component DM, which is produced by the freeze-in mechanism via the decay of the extra Z gauge boson associated to U(1)(B-L) and can consistently explain the DM relic density measurements. In contrast with most of the existing literature, we have found a reasonable DM production from the annihilation processes. After numerically studying the DM production, we show the dependence of the DM relic density as a function of its relevant free parameters. We use these results to obtain the parameter space regions that are compatible with the DM relic density bound. Secondly, we study a two component DM scenario and emphasize that the current DM relic density bound can be satisfied for a wide range of parameter space.

Core-collapse supernovae are among the most magnificent events in the observable universe. They produce many of the chemical elements necessary for life to exist and their remnants-neutron stars and black holes-are interesting astrophysical objects in their own right. However, despite millennia of observations and almost a century of astrophysical study, the explosion mechanism of core-collapse supernovae is not yet well understood. Hyper-Kamiokande is a next-generation neutrino detector that will be able to observe the neutrino flux from the next galactic core-collapse supernova in unprecedented detail. We focus on the first 500 ms of the neutrino burst, corresponding to the accretion phase, and use a newly-developed, high-precision supernova event generator to simulate Hyper-Kamiokande's response to five different supernova models. We show that Hyper-Kamiokande will be able to distinguish between these models with high accuracy for a supernova at a distance of up to 100 kpc. Once the next galactic supernova happens, this ability will be a powerful tool for guiding simulations toward a precise reproduction of the explosion mechanism observed in nature.

Neutrino mass hierarchy, CP-violation, and octant of θ23 are the fundamental unknowns in neutrino oscillations. In order to address all these three unknowns, we study the physics reach of a setup, where we replace the antineutrino run of T2HK with antineutrinos from muon decay at rest (μ-DAR). This approach has the advantages of having higher statistics in both neutrino and antineutrino modes, and lower beam-on backgrounds for antineutrino run with reduced systematics. We find that a hybrid setup consisting of T2HK (ν) and μ-DAR (ν¯) in conjunction with full exposure from T2K and NOνA can resolve the issue of mass hierarchy at greater than 3σ C.L. irrespective of the choices of hierarchy, δCP, and θ23. This hybrid setup can also establish the CP-violation at 5σ C.L. for ∼ 55% choices of δCP, whereas the same for conventional T2HK (ν+ν¯) setup along with T2K and NOνA is around 30%. As far as the octant of θ23 is concerned, this hybrid setup can exclude the wrong octant at 5σ C.L. if θ23 is at least 3° away from maximal mixing for any δCP.

Self-interacting dark matter has been proposed as a solution to the small-scale structure problems, such as the observed flat cores in dwarf and low surface brightness galaxies. If scattering takes place through light mediators, the scattering cross section relevant to solve these problems may fall into the non-perturbative regime leading to a non-trivial velocity dependence, which allows compatibility with limits stemming from cluster-size objects. However, these models are strongly constrained by different observations, in particular from the requirements that the decay of the light mediator is sufficiently rapid (before Big Bang Nucleosynthesis) and from direct detection. A natural solution to reconcile both requirements are inelastic endothermic interactions, such that scatterings in direct detection experiments are suppressed or even kinematically forbidden if the mass splitting between the two-states is sufficiently large. Using an exact solution when numerically solving the Schr\"odinger equation, we study such scenarios and find regions in the parameter space of dark matter and mediator masses, and the mass splitting of the states, where the small scale structure problems can be solved, the dark matter has the correct relic abundance and direct detection limits can be evaded.

Self-interacting dark matter has been proposed as a solution to the small-scale structure problems, such as the observed flat cores in dwarf and low surface brightness galaxies. If scattering takes place through light mediators, the scattering cross section relevant to solve these problems may fall into the non-perturbative regime leading to a non-trivial velocity dependence, which allows compatibility with limits stemming from cluster-size objects. However, these models are strongly constrained by different observations, in particular from the requirements that the decay of the light mediator is sufficiently rapid (before Big Bang Nucleosynthesis) and from direct detection. A natural solution to reconcile both requirements are inelastic endothermic interactions, such that scatterings in direct detection experiments are suppressed or even kinematically forbidden if the mass splitting between the two-states is sufficiently large. Using an exact solution when numerically solving the Schrödinger equation, we study such scenarios and find regions in the parameter space of dark matter and mediator masses, and the mass splitting of the states, where the small scale structure problems can be solved, the dark matter has the correct relic abundance and direct detection limits can be evaded.

Non-Abelian discrete symmetries provide an interesting opportunity to address the flavor puzzle in the lepton sector. However, the number of currently viable models based on such symmetries is rather large. High-precision measurements of the leptonic mixing parameters by future neutrino experiments, including ESSnuSB, T2HK, DUNE, and JUNO, will be crucial to test such models. We show that the complementarity among these experiments offers a powerful tool for narrowing down this broad class of lepton flavor models.

We review and investigate lepton flavor models, stemming from discrete non- Abelian flavor symmetries, described by one or two free model parameters. First, we confront eleven one- and seven two-parameter models with current results on leptonic mixing angles from global fits to neutrino oscillation data. We find that five of the one- and five of the two-parameter models survive the confrontation test at 3 sigma. Second, we investigate how these ten one- and two-parameter lepton flavor models may be discriminated at the proposed ESSnuSB experiment in Sweden. We show that the three one-parameter models that predict sin delta(CP) = 0 can be distinguished from those two that predict vertical bar sin delta(CP)vertical bar = 1 by at least 7 sigma. Finally, we find that three of the five one-parameter models can be excluded by at least 5 sigma and two of the one-parameter as well as at most two of the five two-parameter models can be excluded by at least 3 sigma with ESSnuSB if the true values of the leptonic mixing parameters remain close to the present best-fit values.

A mechanism for generating primordial black hole mass spectra with many spikes is proposed and investigated. This mechanism relics on the choice of non-Bunch-Davies vacua, which lead to oscillatory features in the inflationary power spectrum. This in turn generates oscillations in the primordial black hole mass function with exponentially enhanced spikes. This "multimodal" effect is demonstrated for most of the well-studied models of primordial black hole formation.

We will discuss the prospects of determining the neutrino mass hierarchy in the next generation proposed experiments. In particular, we will look at the expected sensitivity in atmospheric neutrino experiments, near future long baseline experiments and intermediate baseline reactor experiments. 

Active-sterile neutrino mixing is known to affect the neutrino oscillation probabilities at both short as well as long-baselines. In particular, constraints on active-sterile neutrino oscillation parameters can be obtained from long-baseline experiments such as T2HK and DUNE. We present here existence of fake solution in the appearance channel for the 3 + 1 scenario at long-baseline experiments. We show that the appearance probability is same for values of Delta m(41)(2) for which the fast oscillations are averaged out and for Delta m(41)(2) = (1/2) Delta m(31)(2). The fake solution does not appear for the disappearance channel.

Neutrino fluxes could arise due to annihilation of Weakly Interactive Massive Particles (WIMPs) in the center of the sun. We study the prospects of search for muon events due to such neutrinos at the upcoming Iron CALorimeter (ICAL) detector to be housed at India-based Neutrino Observatory (INO). Although the atmospheric neutrinos will pose a serious background to the signal neutrinos produced through WIMP annihilation, the former could be supressed significantly by using the directional property of signal neutrinos. For 50kt×10 years of ICAL running and WIMP masses (mχ ) between 3-100 GeV, we perform a χ2 analysis and present expected exclusion regions in the σβ-mx and σβι-mx plane, where σβ and σβι are the WIMP-nucleon Spin-Dependent (SD) and Spin-Independent (SI) scattering cross-sections, respectively. For mx = 25 GeV, the expected 90 % C.L. exclusion limit on σβ are σβ < 7.82 x 10-41 cm2 for τ+τ- channel and σβ < 1.23 10-39 cm2 for 66 channel. For same m×, the expected 90 % C.L. exclusion limits on σβι are σβι < 8.97 × 10-43 cm2 for τ +τ - channel and σβι < 1.43×10-41 cm2 for 66 channel.

When studying astrophysical structures with sizes ranging from dwarf galaxies to galaxy clusters, it becomes clear that there are vast amounts of unobservable gravitating mass. A compelling hypothesis is that this missing mass, which we call dark matter, consists of elementary particles that can be described in the same manner as those of the standard model of particle physics. This thesis is dedicated to the study of particle dark matter in astrophysical systems.

The solar composition problem refers to the current mismatch between theoretical predictions and observations of the solar convection zone depth and sound speed profile. It has been shown that heat transfer by dark matter in the Sun may cool the solar core and alleviate the problem. We discuss solar capture of a self-interacting Dirac fermion dark matter candidate and show that, even though particles and antiparticles annihilate, the abundance of such a particle may be large enough to influence solar physics.

Currently, direct and indirect methods are employed in searches for dark matter. In this context, we study inelastic dark matter, where a small mass splitting separates two dark matter particles and scattering takes one into the other. This affects the scattering kinematics, which in turn affects direct detection and solar capture rates. We also discuss the information contained in a direct detection signal and how it can be used to infer a minimal solar capture rate of dark matter.

When comparing simulated dark matter halos with collisionless dark matter with dark matter halos inferred from observations, problems appear in the smallest structures. A proposed solution is self-interacting dark matter with long range forces. As the simplest models are under severe constraints, we study self-interactions in a model of inelastic dark matter.

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 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.

Constraints on primordial black holes in the range 10(-18) M circle dot to 10(3) M circle dot are reevaluated for a general class of extended mass functions. Whereas previous work has assumed that PBHs are produced with one single mass, instead there is expected to be a range of masses even in the case of production from a single mechanism; constraints therefore change from previous literature. Although tightly constrained in the majority of cases, it is shown that, even under conservative assumptions, primordial black holes in the mass range 10(-10) M circle dot to 10(-8) M circle dot could still constitute the entirety of the dark matter. This stresses both the importance for a comprehensive reevaluation of all respective constraints that have previously been evaluated only for a monochromatic mass function and the need to obtain more constraints in the allowed mass range.

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.

Despite the successes of the Standard Model of particle physics, it is known to suffer from a number of deficiencies. Several of these can be addressed within non-supersymmetric theories of grand unification based on SO(10). However, achieving gauge coupling unification in such theories is known to require additional physics below the unification scale, such as symmetry breaking in multiple steps. Many such models are disfavored due to bounds on the proton lifetime. Corrections arising from threshold effects can, however, modify these conclusions. We analyze all seven relevant breaking chains with one intermediate symmetry breaking scale, assuming the "survival hypothesis" for the scalar masses. Two are allowed by proton lifetime and two are disfavored by a failure to unify the gauge couplings. The remaining three unify at a too low scale, but can be salvaged by various amounts of threshold corrections. We parametrize this and thereby rank the models by the size of the threshold corrections required to save them.

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 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 consider a class of SO(10) models with flavor symmetries in the Yukawa sector and investigate their viability by performing numerical fits to the fermion masses and mixing parameters. The fitting procedure involves a top-down approach in which we solve the renormalization group equations from the scale of grand unification down to the electroweak scale. This allows the intermediate scale right-handed neutrinos and scalar triplet, involved in the type I and II seesaw mechanisms, to be integrated out at their corresponding mass scales, leading to a correct renormalization group running. The result is that, of the 14 models considered, only two are able to fit the known data well. Both these two models correspond to Z(2) symmetries. In addition to being able to fit the fermion masses and mixing parameters, they provide predictions for the sum of light neutrino masses and the effective neutrinoless double beta decay mass parameter, which are both within current observational bounds.

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 derive the threshold corrections in SO (10) grand unified models with the intermediate symmetry being flipped SU(5)×U(1) or SU(3)×SU(2)×U(1)×U(1), with the masses of the scalar fields set by the survival hypothesis. These models do not achieve gauge coupling unification if the matching conditions do not take threshold corrections into account. We present results showing the required size of threshold corrections for any value of the intermediate and unification scales. In particular, our results demonstrate that both of these models are disfavored since they require large threshold corrections to allow for unification with a predicted proton lifetime above current experimental bounds.

The vast majority of experiments in particle physics can be described by the Standard Model of particle physics (SM). However, there are indications for physics beyond it. The only experimentally demonstrated problem of the model is the difficulty to describe neutrino masses and leptonic mixing. There is a plethora of models that try to describe these phenomena and this thesis investigates several possibilities for new models, both full theories and effective frameworks.

The values of the parameters in a model are dependent on the energy scale and we say that the parameters run. The exact behavior of the running depends on the model and it provides a signature of the model. For a model defined at high energies it is necessary to run the parameters down to the electroweak scale in order to perform a comparison to the known values of observed quantities. In this thesis, we discuss renormalization group running in the context of extra dimensions and we provide an upper limit on the cutoff scale. We perform renormalization group running in two versions of a non-supersymmetric SO(10) model and we show that the SM parameters can be accommodated in both versions. In addition, we perform the running for the gauge couplings in a large set of radiative neutrino mass models and conclude that unification is possible in some of them.

The Higgs boson provides new possibilities to study physics beyond the SM. Its properties have to be tested with extremely high precision before it could be established whether the particle is truly the SM Higgs boson or not. In this thesis, we perform Bayesian parameter inference and model comparison. For models where the magnitude of the Higgs couplings is varied, we show that the SM is favored in comparison to all other models. Furthermore, we discuss lepton flavor violating processes in the context of the Zee model. We find that these can be sizeable and close to the experimental limits.

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 θ23 turns out to be in the first octant. A branching ratio for h→τμ of up to 10−2 is allowed, but it could be as low as 10−6. In addition, if future expected sensitivities of τ→μγ are achieved, normal ordering can be completely tested. Also, μeconversion is expected to strongly reduce the allowed parameter space, excluding completely inverted ordering. 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 10H, 120H, and 126H 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 10H and 126H 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.