arXiv Daily Digest - 2026-06-25

We study positron-emitting and electron-capturing double-beta-decay modes as probes complementary to the usual double beta decay. Motivated by the proposed NuDoubt++ experiment, we analyze the candidate isotopes ${}^{78}$Kr, ${}^{106}$Cd, and ${}^{124}$Xe, providing nuclear matrix elements and phase-space factors for both neutrinoful and neutrinoless modes. For the Standard-Model channels, we find that $2ν$ECEC and $2νβ^+$EC are the most experimentally accessible, whereas $2νβ^+β^+$ remains strongly phase-space suppressed. For the neutrinoless channel, we interpret a projected sensitivity of $T_{1/2}^{0ν} = 10^{24}$ y in terms of dimension-seven SMEFT operators and find sensitivity to lepton-number-violating new-physics scales of order 1-100 TeV. We further show that measurements in multiple isotopes can help to resolve degeneracies in multi-operator scenarios, making positron-emitting double-beta searches a useful complement to conventional neutrinoless double beta decay experiments.

We present the public software release of Parnassus, a Python/PyTorch, GPU-compatible framework for fast detector simulation and reconstruction in particle and nuclear physics. Parnassus provides a user-friendly framework with interchangeable detector models: neural models can emulate computationally expensive Geant4-based detector simulation and reconstruction chains, while parametric models provide PyTorch implementations of selected Delphes-style detector responses. This initial release includes two models of the CMS detector: one based on a flow-matching neural network architecture and one based on a PyTorch implementation of the Delphes CMS card (parametric bias and smearing). PyTorch versions of the ATLAS and ALEPH Delphes cards are also available, together with a flow-matching neural model of the ALEPH detector that extends the framework to the e+e- LEP environment. All detector-specific backends share the same process-agnostic and detector-agnostic API: users select a detector card - analogous to choosing a detector card in Delphes - and the same tool can be applied to new physics processes without retraining the released detector model. There are native interfaces to the event generator Pythia and the event clustering package FastJet. Unlike previous C++/ROOT-based tools, Parnassus provides GPU-capable PyTorch detector-response backends and requires no ROOT installation. We describe the installation, command-line and Python API, configuration system, and demonstrate the framework on Standard Model and BSM processes.

We discuss the impact of neutral current parity-violating deep-inelastic scattering (PVDIS) of electrons from protons and deuterons on the determination of the weak mixing angle, $\sin^{2}{θ_{\rm W}}$, and parton distribution functions (PDFs) at large parton momentum fractions $x$. Using the JAM global QCD analysis framework, we study the effect of incorporating pseudodata simulated for 11 GeV and 22 GeV Jefferson Lab kinematics, accounting for radiative corrections in a factorized QED+QCD approach and uncertainties from higher twist corrections in $γZ$ exchange. We find that including future PVDIS pseudodata could yield important constraints on the value of $\sin^{2}{θ_{\rm W}}$ at low $Q^2$ and on the high-$x$ behavior of the strange quark and $d/u$ PDF ratio. The strong correlation between $\sin^{2}{θ_{\rm W}}$ and the $x$ dependence of the PDFs demonstrates the necessity for simultaneous analysis of QCD and electroweak quantities to ensure an unbiased determination of the weak mixing angle from PVDIS data.

Our direct-drive-relevant experiments on the low-coherence Kunwu laser facility identify two-plasmon decay (TPD) as the primary source of hot electrons, and demonstrate for the first time that broadband laser pulses enhance TPD. Using particle-in-cell simulations, we attribute this TPD enhancement and the consequent hot electron production to stochastic intensity spikes inherent in broadband laser fields, robust in both weakly- and strongly-driven regimes. These findings suggest that mitigating hot electron generation requires suppressing these intensity spikes.

Nearly thirty years ago, Baier, Dokshitzer, Mueller, Peigné, Schiff, and Zakharov (BDMPS-Z) introduced a formalism to calculate the fully differential probability for a high-energy quark or gluon to radiate inside a finite-volume QCD plasma. We report on the first, complete numerical solution to the BDMPS-Z equations for in-medium QCD splittings. Our numerical routines are precise across phase-space, enabling a determination of the in-medium splitting functions that is significantly beyond the state-of-the-art, including finite-energy effects, subleading-color contributions, and a realistic model for parton-medium interactions. We quantify the uncertainties associated with standard approximations in the literature, revealing substantial deviations across phase-space. This work opens a path toward more precise calculations of jet observables and for powerful new constraints of medium parameters from high-energy heavy-ion collider data.

We perform a systematic study of a new phenomenon of neutrino spin and spin-flavor oscillations induced by transverse matter currents, based on the developed quantum treatment of the phenomenon. Both standard and nonstandard interactions of neutrinos with the external medium are taken into account. As an example, the oscillations in question are considered under the conditions of a binary neutron star merger model.

We study the symmetry structure of four-dimensional axiverse effective field theories with multiple axions coupled to abelian gauge sectors, including their extensions to broad classes of N=1 models. We identify the invertible and non-invertible generalized symmetries, and discuss the associated symmetry-breaking mechanisms together with the resulting hierarchies of energy scales. In particular, we discuss the quantum-gravitational breaking of non-invertible axion shift symmetries predicted by the existence of wormholes and by the corresponding recently proposed Imaginary Distance Bound. In N=1 axiverses, these wormhole-based arguments imply that towers of BPS EFT instantons play a distinguished role and generate infinitely many superpotential terms.

Symmetry-protected low-scale seesaw models can account for the observed neutrino flavour oscillations without fine-tuning, while yielding collider-accessible signatures through pseudo-Dirac heavy neutral leptons (HNLs). Seesaw frameworks generically predict lepton number (LN) violation, which provides a powerful discovery channel. In symmetry-protected realisations, however, the amplitudes for LN violation are strongly suppressed by destructive interference between the contributions of the two quasi-degenerate HNLs within the usual QFT plane-wave treatment. We demonstrate that damped heavy neutrino-antineutrino oscillations significantly alleviate this suppression. We compare the sensitivities to pseudo-Dirac HNLs in both LN-blind and LN-violating channels at the LHC and future hadron colliders such as the FCC-$hh$ and the S$pp$C. We find that, although searches for LN violation outperform their LN-blind counterparts, small mass splittings in the pseudo-Dirac HNL pair can drastically reduce the sensitivities in these channels. We further show that combining LN-blind and LN-violating searches can distinguish a pseudo-Dirac HNL pair from the double-Majorana limit in the intermediate regime where LN violation is observable but not yet saturated.

We consider non-logarithmic heavy-quark mass effects in the factorization and resummation of the Energy-Energy-Correlation (EEC) function, in the two-jet limit. We define a new, "partial" event fraction, restricted to the two-jet region and excluding the forward region, whose calculation at first order requires to consider real emission diagrams only, in $D=4$ space-time dimensions (no need to consider virtual diagrams or take $D \ne 4$). In order to determine explicitly the next-to-leading order coefficient function and the remainder function (both entering the standard resummation formula), we evaluate numerically the EEC spectrum at first-order in $α_S$, finding good agreement with previous calculations. To have a smooth massless limit, a new, improved factorization scheme is proposed, in which the coefficient function also depends on the correlation angle $χ$.

The discovery of neutrino masses strongly motivates extensions of the Standard Model containing heavy neutral leptons and additional gauge interactions. We investigate the prospects for probing these states at the proposed Forward Physics Facility (FPF) of the 100 TeV Future Circular Collider (FCC-hh) within a broad class of anomaly-free chiral $U(1)$ gauge extensions. These models predict a new neutral gauge boson, $Z'$, together with right-handed neutrinos responsible for generating light neutrino masses through the seesaw mechanism. We study long-lived particle signatures arising from both heavy neutrinos and the $Z'$ boson produced in the far-forward region. In particular, we analyze heavy neutrino production from meson decays, visible decays of long-lived $Z'$ bosons produced through meson decays and proton bremsstrahlung, long-lived $Z'$ bosons decaying into heavy-neutrino pairs, and prompt $Z'$ decays yielding long-lived heavy neutrinos. The expected event rates are evaluated for the proposed FPF detector configurations, taking into account realistic detector geometry, decay probabilities, and visible final states. We derive projected sensitivities to the heavy neutrino mass and active-sterile mixing as well as to the $Z'$ mass and gauge coupling for several representative $U(1)$ charge assignments. Our results demonstrate that the FPF at FCC-hh can substantially extend the discovery reach for light long-lived heavy neutrinos and light $Z'$ bosons beyond existing and proposed experiments, providing a powerful and complementary probe of neutrino-mass models and hidden gauge sectors. https://github.com/SouvikPhD/RHN-Detection-with-FASER-2-

Achieving a luminosity of $\gtrsim 10^{34} cm^{-2} s^{-1}$ in a $10 \text{ } TeV$ Muon Collider, given the short lifetime of a muon, requires reducing the 6D emittance of the muon beam through a process known as ionization cooling. In the final stage of this cooling process, the transverse emittance must be reduced to $22 \text{ } μm$, typically by allowing longitudinal emittance growth up to downstream acceptance limits. While the current International Muon Collider Collaboration designs involve $40 \text{ } T$ solenoids to reach the transverse emittance target, such high-field solenoids come with several challenges, including mechanical stress management, quench protection, and potential limitations in relying on High Temperature Superconductor technology. Designed as an alternative to using such solenoids while simultaneously reaching target transverse emittance, the previously proposed wedge-based, reverse emittance-exchange cooling scheme requires excellent dispersion suppression. In this study, we design and simulate a dispersion suppressor channel for the wedge-based final cooling design that reduces dispersion in the target direction to a target value of $D_x \sim 0.001 \text{ } m$.

In this work, we explore the bilinear R-parity violating Supersymmetry model's parameter space by performing a Markov Chain Monte Carlo scan with neutrino oscillation data, Higgs mass and its coupling strengths, and flavor observables such as $B$-hadron decay branching ratios. From the allowed parameter space, we analyze the decay patterns of wino-like lighter charginos and lightest neutralinos and demonstrate how the branching ratios to different neutrino and charged lepton flavors depend on the neutrino mass hierarchy. Furthermore, we investigate the impact of current LHC bounds and projected future sensitivities from trilepton resonance searches on the allowed parameter space. We show that considering the branching ratio $\mathrm{Br}(\widetildeχ_1^{\pm} \to Zl^\pm; l= e,μ,τ) \sim$23\%, obtained at the best-fit point, the wino-like mass degenerate $\widetildeχ_1^{\pm}/\widetildeχ_1^0$ are excluded upto 565 GeV from LHC Run-II data. The projected exclusion reach with a similar branching ratio at High-Luminosity LHC (HL-LHC) is around 950 GeV. For a simplified scenario where $\widetildeχ_1^{\pm} / \widetildeχ_1^0$ decays via a $Z$ boson with branching ratios of 1\%, 50\%, and 100\%, wino masses can be excluded up to approximately $600~\mathrm{GeV}$, $1185~\mathrm{GeV}$, and $1350~\mathrm{GeV}$ respectively. Our analysis shows that the HL-LHC can probe a significant portion of the 1$σ$ allowed parameter space by neutrino oscillation measurements and other experimental constraints.

This work develops a phase-based formulation of relativistic wave dynamics, demonstrating that the Klein--Gordon equation emerges naturally from the foundational assumption of intrinsic phase periodicity in material fields. Mapping the phase directly onto the classical action, we postulate that localized excitations possess an invariant rest-frame oscillation governed by a proper frequency $ω_0$. This physical condition establishes an operational mass-frequency relation, $m = \hbar ω_0 / c^2$, without requiring rest energy as an independent, axiomatic input. We show that the Klein--Gordon equation arises as the minimal local, linear, Lorentz-invariant field equation compatible with this internal phase structure. Within this framework, mass acts as an intrinsic frequency scale governing wave propagation, and relativistic kinematics is fully recovered as a structural consequence of phase coherence. This approach provides a unified wave-mechanical interpretation where particle dynamics maps onto the group velocity of dispersive wave packets, offering an intuitive account of free propagation, dispersion, and tunneling across potential barriers.

We present the mixed QCD-electroweak corrections to Higgs boson pair production in the quark-antiquark channel. The virtual amplitudes are computed fully analytically using the method of differential equations. We determine the integration constants by matching our expressions to the large mass expansion limit of the canonical integrals. We implement the results in the POWHEG-BOX framework for phenomenological studies. The corrections are found to have a significant impact on the shapes of differential cross sections, reaching up to +10% for the invariant mass distribution of the Higgs boson pair near the production threshold. This channel has not been considered before in calculations of the next-to-leading order electroweak corrections to Higgs boson pair production.

From cosmology to quantum matter, metastable states often decay through the nucleation and growth of competing domains, with false vacuum decay providing the paradigmatic example of this process. Here we demonstrate a distinct regime in which domain growth outpaces nucleation by orders of magnitude and is controlled by local resonance conditions. Using a programmable quantum annealer with more than 4000 qubits, we realize a two-dimensional quantum Ising model whose metastable spin-polarized state encodes a false vacuum. At a specific value of the longitudinal field, single-spin flips at the boundary of a seeded bubble become resonant, enabling kinetically constrained expansion. Combining experiment with tensor-network simulations and stochastic circuit modeling, we observe nearly ballistic growth of true-vacuum domains with sub-ballistic interface broadening, consistent with Kardar--Parisi--Zhang universality. Our results establish a growth-dominated regime of false vacuum decay and show how large-scale quantum simulation can access nonequilibrium metastable dynamics relevant to quantum field theory, cosmology, and strongly correlated matter.

We study tree-level Yang--Mills wavefunctions in four-dimensional de Sitter space using their discontinuities. Cosmological cuts factorize gluon discontinuities into lower-point wavefunctions glued by cut propagators and transverse projectors. For ray-like trees and one-loop $n$-gons, the maximal cuts take a particularly simple form: a scalar $φ^3$ discontinuity dressed by an ordered Yang--Mills numerator built from local gluing maps. We then use these cuts as reconstruction data for the four-, five-, and six-gluon wavefunctions in momentum space. The result separates into a cut-detectable part obtained from lower-point gluing and a cut-invisible completion fixed by current conservation and the flat-space limit. Through six points, the terms without longitudinal propagators follow the pole structure of color-ordered scalar $φ^3+φ^4$ wavefunctions, dressed by local Yang--Mills numerators. Longitudinal propagators collapse part of this scalar structure into contact-type contributions, with the first internal-line corrections appearing at six points. The reconstructed expressions agree with direct momentum-space Feynman-rule computations and give concrete low-point data for an all-$n$ organization of spinning de Sitter wavefunctions.

We investigate the prospects for probing heavy Majorana neutrinos in the type-I seesaw framework at the 14 TeV LHC. In this scenario, the light-heavy neutrino mixing enables the production of heavy neutrinos in association with charged leptons, followed by decays into dilepton plus dijet final states. We perform a detector-level cut-based analysis of both same-sign (SS) and opposite-sign (OS) dilepton channels and investigate the sensitivity as a function of the ratio $R_{ll}$ of SS to OS events. We derive projected constraints on the light-heavy neutrino mixing as a function of the heavy-neutrino mass. For $R_{ll} \simeq 1$, the sensitivity at $140~\rm{fb}^{-1}$ improves upon current LHC bounds by about one order of magnitude for $M_N \simeq 60-80~\rm{GeV}$, with a further order of magnitude improvement expected at the HL-LHC with $3~\rm{ab}^{-1}$. The sensitivity decreases substantially for smaller $R_{ll}$. We show that, for $50~\text{GeV} \lesssim M_N \lesssim 100~\text{GeV}$, the collider reach is strongly correlated with $R_{ll}$ and the associated CP asymmetry, providing additional motivation for future measurements of $R_{ll}$ and heavy-neutrino oscillations at colliders.

A search for long-lived particles decaying into muons is performed using proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 13.6 TeV, collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC in 2022 and 2023, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 62.4 fb$^{-1}$. The data were collected using dedicated dimuon triggers with low transverse momentum thresholds, recorded with a high-rate data scouting trigger stream. This data stream retains a reduced amount of information at the high-level trigger, to explore otherwise inaccessible phase space at low multimuon invariant mass and nonzero displacement from the primary interaction vertex. No significant excess of events above the standard model prediction is found. Upper limits on branching fractions at 95% confidence level are set for a wide range of mass and lifetime hypotheses in several beyond the standard model frameworks, where the Higgs boson decays into long-lived dark photons or into dark partons that produce showers containing long-lived particles, or where a long-lived scalar resonance is produced from the decay of a b hadron. The resulting constraints improve and extend existing ones in large regions of the parameter space.

A codimension-one Carrollian CFT on null infinity has been proposed as the putative dual description of asymptotically flat spacetimes and has so far been successful in describing the massless S-matrices in one higher dimension. In this work, we investigate the current proposal of Carrollian holography to include the massive fields in the bulk. We discover a broader class of correlation functions in two-dimensional Carrollian CFTs and show that they encode massive scattering amplitudes in three-dimensional Minkowski spacetime. We also construct a bulk-to-boundary propagator that generalizes the one already existing for massless fields.

We report on an improved microwave detection protocol for dark matter candidates such as the axion and the dark photon. We employ a superconducting transmon qubit dispersively coupled to a double-cavity system, enabling quantum non-demolition measurements of the photon occupation in a relatively short-lived storage cavity. To reduce the experimental cycle time and enhance sensitivity for axion and dark-photon searches, we operate this detector in a regime of increased qubit-cavity coupling, resulting in Stark shifts of 4.6 MHz. In this regime, conventional control pulses suffer from strong frequency-detuning sensitivity and photon-number-dependent errors. We address this limitation by implementing frequency-detuning-robust $π/2$ pulses (obtained by machine-learning optimization) that preserve high-fidelity qubit control over a bandwidth of approximately 20 MHz. We experimentally validate this protocol and demonstrate single-photon detection performance comparable to previous implementations, despite significantly reduced qubit coherence times and storage-cavity lifetimes. Using parity-based measurement sequences combined with a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) analysis, we achieve background rates on the order of $\mathcal{O}(20)$ Hz. In the absence of a magnetic field, we derive exclusion limits on the dark photon model for dark matter, reaching a sensitivity to the kinetic mixing angle of $ε_{95\%} \sim 1\times10^{-14}$ at 5.051 GHz. These results establish machine-learning robust control as a key enabler for faster, more scalable microwave quantum sensors for dark-matter searches.

Light dark photons can be produced in stellar systems and thus contribute to the stellar cooling rate. The additional cooling changes the evolution of the star and has an impact on various observable properties such as radius, photon luminosity or the emitted neutrino fluxes. This has been exploited before to derive limits based on observations of the Sun, horizontal branch stars and red giants. Given the wealth of astrophysical data collected in the last decade and the improvements in modeling stellar evolution it is interesting to investigate whether other stellar systems offer a complementary avenue towards testing dark photons. In this work, we study the effect on an alternative class of stars. We focus on the impact of dark photon induced cooling on red dwarfs, i.e. the lowest mass stars on the Hydrogen main sequence. Running simulations of the evolution of red dwarfs with dark photon cooling we determine the impact on the mass-radius relation. Combining our simulations with precise determination of mass and radius derived from observations of eclipsing binaries that have recently become available, we derive competitive limits which outperform the solar ones in a significant part of the parameter space.

We calculate the decay constants of the lowest-lying $B_c$ mesons in the spin-parity channels $J^P = 0^-,\,0^+,\,1^-,\,1^+$, commonly referred to as the $B_c,\, B_{c0}^*,\, B_c^*,\, B_{c1}$ mesons, respectively. Within the framework of QCD sum rules, we consider the decay constants associated with both the (axial-)vector and (axial-)tensor interpolating currents. The decay constants with (axial-)vector currents have already been studied in the literature. We refine previous QCD sum rule results by including higher-order power corrections and performing a comprehensive uncertainty analysis. Furthermore, we provide the first determination of the (axial-)tensor decay constants of the $B_c^*$ and $B_{c1}$ mesons. These new results will not only improve theoretical predictions for purely leptonic $B_c$ decays, but also strengthen unitarity constraints on $b \to c$ form factors, thereby improving the precision of predictions for $\bar{B} \to D^{(*)} \ell \barν$ decays and the determination of \(|V_{cb}|\).

We study neutrino mixing in a background with spacetime torsion within the quantum-field-theoretic formulation of flavor oscillations. Working in the Einstein--Cartan framework and neglecting curvature, we quantize Dirac fields in constant and linearly time-dependent axial-torsion backgrounds. A constant spatial torsion component lifts the degeneracy between the two spin orientations through spin-dependent effective masses and energies. In quantum field theory this splitting modifies not only the oscillation frequencies but also the amplitudes, because the Bogoliubov coefficients entering the flavor operators depend on spin. The effect is largest at low momentum when the torsion scale is comparable to the neutrino masses, while a dominant torsion term suppresses the relative mass splittings and can inhibit flavor conversion. We also discuss the induced spin dependence of the Dirac $CP$ asymmetry and of the condensate densities in the flavor vacuum. The results identify nonrelativistic neutrinos as the natural regime in which the difference between the field-theoretic and quantum-mechanical descriptions is most pronounced.

We derive quark Reggeization in QCD at leading logarithmic accuracy within the eikonal Wilson-line (shockwave) approach. An interpolating operator for the Reggeized quark is identified in terms of semi-infinite Wilson lines, and its nonlinear rapidity renormalization-group evolution is derived using the background-field method. In the dilute limit, after projecting onto operators of definite signature, the positive-signature channel reproduces the characteristic power-law scaling dictated by the one-loop quark Regge trajectory, whereas the negative-signature channel exhibits mixing between Reggeized quark and gluon exchanges. In the large-$N_c$ limit, this mixing disappears, and Regge-pole behaviour emerges without the need for signature projection, recovering the expected degeneracy by signature. This paves the way to a systematic all-order analysis of high-energy QCD amplitudes with $t$-channel quark quantum-number exchange in terms of eikonal Wilson lines.

We establish a direct connection between Onsager symmetry, duality defects, and quantum integrability in the XXZ spin chain at roots of unity, $Δ=(q+q^{-1})/2$ with $q^N=\pm1$. Using a non-Abelian algebra of transfer matrices governed by an unbalanced version of the Yang--Baxter/RLL relation, we construct an explicit lattice realization of the Onsager algebra and its duality automorphism. The duality is represented by a matrix product operator related to the transfer matrices of the $τ_2$ model. We show that this operator obeys $\mathbb{Z}_N$ Tambara--Yamagami fusion rules and therefore realizes on the lattice the topological defect lines of the free compactified boson conformal field theory. Our results identify non-Abelian integrability as a natural framework for the emergence of the Onsager symmetry and categorical dualities in lattice models.

By using the gauge-gravity duality, we study the holographic fermionic correlation functions in strongly coupled anisotropic plasmas. Starting from the isotropic black AdS background, we revisit the prescription for computing the retarded Green\textquoteright s function of a probe Dirac fermion and then generalize the formulas with respect to the anisotropic geometries. The method is applied to three distinct holographic models that capture different physical origins of anisotropy: axion-induced, magnetic-field-induced and unquenched-flavor-induced. Numerical results for the holographic correlation functions reveal direction-dependent corrections, negative dips in the imaginary part signalling vacuum instabilities (axion and magnetic field), Landau levels in the fermionic dispersion (magnetic field), and a momentum-independent pseudogap indicating an incoherent metallic phase (flavors). Our results complement and go beyond the hard thermal loop approximation, providing non-perturbative insights into fermionic excitations in strongly coupled anisotropic plasmas relevant for heavy-ion collisions and certain condensed matter systems.

High-redshift quasars provide a direct probe of the origin and environment of the earliest supermassive black holes. We use their angular auto-correlation function at $z\simeq 6$ to test scenarios in which supermassive primordial black holes (SMPBHs) are associated with the observed quasar population. The evolved PBH correlation functions, for both Poisson fluctuations and initial PBH clustering, are projected over the quasar redshift window and compared with the measured angular correlation function using Markov chain Monte Carlo inference. It is observed that for the Poisson model, the posterior favors a small abundance, $f_{\rm PBH}\sim 10^{-3}$, and a supermassive effective mass scale, $m_{\rm PBH}\sim 10^{12}M_\odot$, interpreted here as a scale controlling quasar host-halo formation and clustering, and for the initially clustered model, the data prefer an effective clustering amplitude $ξ_{\rm eff}\simeq 2.1$ and a top-hat boundary scale $r_{\rm cl}\simeq 76\,{\rm Mpc}$, corresponding to weak relative contraction of PBH pairs in comoving coordinates.

We study hidden-charm-strange tetraquark candidates with the exotic quantum number $J^{PC}=0^{--}$ to test whether SU(3)-flavor breaking acts as a universal mass shift or as a structural probe of a fixed color-octet current basis. Using $[\bar c c]_{8_c}\otimes[\bar s s]_{8_c}$-type and $[\bar c s]_{8_c}\otimes[\bar s c]_{8_c}$-type color-octet currents within QCD sum rules, we keep the strange-quark mass and strange condensates explicitly in the operator product expansion through dimension eight so that the strange-sector response can be traced at fixed color and Dirac structure. The hidden-charm-strange system is treated as the primary phenomenological target, while the hidden-bottom-strange sector serves as a stability benchmark. The strange-sector spectrum remains ordered, but the induced charm-sector shifts are grouped rather than uniform, with relatively small shifts for the $[\bar c c]_{8_c}\otimes[\bar s s]_{8_c}$ configurations and substantially larger shifts for the $[\bar c s]_{8_c}\otimes[\bar s c]_{8_c}$ ones. The $[\bar c s]_{8_c}\otimes[\bar s c]_{8_c}$ solutions are shifted toward the $D_s^*\bar D_{s1}$ threshold region, with one overlapping this region within uncertainties and another showing the largest positive SU(3)-breaking shift. Taken together, these features indicate that hidden strangeness can serve as a useful discriminator of internal current structure in the exotic $0^{--}$ sector.

Understanding the fundamental nature of dark matter (DM) is one of the most significant scientific challenges of our time. A compelling hypothesis is that DM consists of a new, yet-to-be-discovered particle. Among the leading candidates are weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs) and axion-like particles (ALPs), both of which can be investigated using observations with the SKA telescopes. In this chapter, we review the search for particle DM through radio observations, summarizing the current state-of-the-art and presenting forecasts for the SKA-Low and SKA-Mid telescopes in the AA4 baseline design. Radio searches for WIMPs focus on detecting synchrotron radiation originating from the products of DM annihilation using continuum observations. Competitive constraints on sub-TeV WIMPs have already been derived using SKA precursors looking at dwarf galaxies, galaxy clusters, and the Large Magellanic Cloud. We discuss how the superior continuum sensitivity of the SKA telescopes will allow us to progressively close in on the WIMP parameter space. The ALP signal arises from its decay or conversion into photon(s), which typically consists of a nearly monochromatic signature, and from rotation of polarization angles of photons interacting with ALPs. We demonstrate how the spectral resolution, line sensitivity, and polarimetry of the SKA AA4 telescopes can be leveraged to constrain the ALP-photon coupling.

While dark sectors with new confining gauge symmetries are compelling candidates for resolving the dark matter mystery, discerning the underlying dark gauge group structure remains a significant phenomenological challenge. In this work, we systematically investigate the distinct radiation patterns of dark quarks and gluons by developing a novel Monte Carlo parton shower simulation framework applicable to arbitrary gauge groups. To handle generalized color topologies and the momentum recoil scheme, our algorithm constructs color dipoles using a group-theoretic tagging procedure. Furthermore, our simulation framework employs an exact three-body phase-space parameterization by analytically solving the cubic kinematic equation for each branching. This enables capturing full mass effects for both dark quarks and dark gluons, naturally yielding precise boundaries including mass-induced gaps and dead-cone thresholds. To decode these complex emission topologies, we utilize the Lund Jet Plane representation alongside a dedicated Neural Sorter Mamba Network. We demonstrate that our framework can successfully disentangle the perturbative footprints of different gauge symmetries. Finally, we show that our discrimination power remains robust against the unknown non-perturbative details of dark hadronization by maintaining high classification efficiencies even under stringent infrared $k_T$ cutoffs, and we explicitly quantify the impact of massive dark gauge bosons on the classification sensitivity.

We construct a discrete realization of two-dimensional Carroll dilaton gravity based on a BF-type gauge structure with holonomy variables on lattice links. The bulk theory remains topological, while the physical dynamics is encoded in boundary degrees of freedom. Imposing admissible boundary conditions, we derive the asymptotic symmetry structure directly at the lattice level. The least restrictive conditions yield an affine extension of the Carroll algebra, while additional constraints reduce the symmetry to a conformal sector governed by a discrete Virasoro-type algebra. In the continuum limit, the lattice symmetry structure reproduces the expected affine Carroll algebra together with its conformal reduction. The construction therefore provides the ultra-relativistic counterpart of discrete Jackiw-Teitelboim(JT) gravity.

In this work we construct an accurate description of Deep-Inelastic Scattering (DIS) at third order in perturbative QCD that is valid at all energy scales. We do so by assembling massless and massive results in a variable flavour number scheme, performing a careful power counting of the various contributions. We also propose an improved approximation for the massive neutral-current DIS coefficient function at order $α_s^3$, whose construction is validated against lower order results. These results are instrumental for state-of-the-art next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order fits of parton distribution functions.

In this work, we approach for the first time the task to perform a shell-model calculation of the matrix element for the neutrinoless double-beta decay, within a fully-consistent framework where the expressions of the nuclear Hamiltonian and of the decay operators have been derived through chiral perturbation theory. More precisely, the effective shell-model Hamiltonian and all transition operators have been constructed by way of the many-body perturbation theory, and then employed to calculate both spectroscopic properties of the nuclei involved in the decays under our consideration - namely 48Ca, 76Ge, and 82Se -, as well as the nuclear matrix elements of the electromagnetic and neutrinoless double-beta decays. We also present a study of the convergence properties of the calculated matrix elements in order to provide the elements for an estimate of the theoretical uncertainty.

The positronium ion ($\mathrm{Ps}^-$), a coulombic three-body bound state of two electrons and a positron, predominantly decays via electron-positron annihilation into electromagnetic final states. While its radiative decay channels have been extensively studied, much less attention has been given to weak processes in this system. In this work, we investigate the rare decay $\mathrm{Ps}^- \to e^- ν_μ\barν_μ$, obtained by replacing the photon in $\mathrm{Ps}^- \to e^- γ$ with a virtual $Z$ boson. Treating the three-body process as an effective two-body transition, $\mathrm{Ps}^- \to e^- Z^*\left(\to ν_μ\barν_μ\right)$, we compute the decay rate by explicitly evaluating all spin configurations of the initial bound state and final particles. The result agrees with that obtained using the standard spin-summation formalism of quantum field theory. We find that the branching ratio is comparable to that of the weak decay of ortho-positronium, $\mathrm{o\text{-}Ps} \to γν\barν$.

We propose a relativistic quantum battery model consisting of an accelerated Unruh-DeWitt detector coupled to a massless scalar field in a de Sitter and anti-de Sitter spacetimes. The maximal amount of quantum extractable work, defined as the ergotropy, is used to probe Unruh-Hawking thermality induced by acceleration and spacetime curvature. Using the open quantum system approach, we study the dynamics of the ergotropy with respect to the Kubo-Martin-Schwinger temperature, spacetime boundary conditions, and dimensionality. It has been found that the asymptotic value of quantum work extraction is determined solely by the acceleration and curvature. The steady behavior in the two spacetimes can be unified to witness the global thermality which is independent of boundary conditions and dimensionality. From a local perspective, we investigate how the ergotropy evolves through different pathways as the battery gradually reaches the same thermal equilibrium state characterized by a certain KMS temperature. In dS spacetime, the evolution at large acceleration exhibits pronounced oscillations and differs from the fast thermal relaxation observed at low acceleration. Varying the boundary condition in AdS spacetime can improve the energy storage of the moving battery. When the dimension of AdS spacetime is increased, vacuum fluctuations can modestly amplify the ergotropy in the initial stage and facilitate the rapid thermalization. From the perspective of energy transfer, the relativistic quantum battery helps explore the thermal vacuum in curved spacetimes.

We regard the weak isospin of the Higgs doublet as a qubit and classify the entanglement measures for the Higgs scattering in the Standard Model Effective Field Theories (SMEFT) and their Ultra-Violet complete models. We consider Higgs scattering in the unbroken phase for electroweak symmetry. Treating the final state as a momentum-isospin bipartite system, we obtain von Neumann and linear entropies to quantify momentum-isospin correlation. From the momentum reduced state, we calculate the concurrence, which measures the entanglement between the two isospins. Both quantities are set by the isospin singlet and triplet scattering amplitudes, and hence by the Wilson coefficients of the dimension-6 and dimension-8 Higgs operators. We find that the von Neumann entropy grows as a function of the total energy in SMEFT as compared to the SM case, but it undergoes a cancellation in the medium energy below the cut-off scale due to the interference effects between the dimension-4 and dimension-8 operators, in particular, when the effective interactions stem dominantly from a massive graviton. Assuming the dominance of dimension-8 operators, we find the conditions for entanglement suppression in the forward or backward scatterings or across all the kinematics. We also show the correlations between the entanglement suppression and the positivity bounds in the forward limit.

Could the closest stellar or substellar object to the Sun be not an ordinary star at parsec distance, but a hidden-brane companion at hundreds or thousands of astronomical units? We do not perform a new Solar-System dynamics analysis; instead we construct a phenomenological mass-distance map using an illustrative ephemeris tidal envelope calibrated to Planet-Nine-like constraints. A smooth dark matter halo cannot supply such an object: the local density contains only a sub-Pluto mass within 1000 AU. A nearby hidden-brane companion must therefore be a structured, gravitationally bound object rather than a typical halo draw. The illustrative envelope still allows Earth to sub-Saturn masses at 300-1000 AU, rising to Jovian mass near 2000 AU. In a simple QCD-scaled hidden sector with a confinement scale about ten times larger than ordinary QCD, the minimum hidden stellar mass overlaps the upper part of this window, providing a benchmark for a genuine hidden-sector star: bright in dark photons, electromagnetically dark to us, and visible only through gravity. We also derive an Earth-based source-strength proxy for brane-to-brane channels and show that, along the ephemeris envelope, it grows as the square of the companion distance: the largest received source scale comes from the most massive companion still allowed, not the nearest one. A probe sent to the companion's gravitational projection would reduce the ordinary source-receiver separation by two to three orders of magnitude relative to Earth-based operation. This is not a detection forecast; the excitation of KK modes, the compact-direction brane-to-brane transfer factor, and the detector response remain model-dependent.

We present a late-time magnetogenesis mechanism in which a coupled axion-dilaton system sources a dark $U(1)$ gauge field. The dilaton's exponential coupling drives tachyonic amplification by reshaping the instability band, while the axion controls the helicity structure of the field. Together, they amplify both gauge helicities and produce a moderately chiral dark magnetic field without fine-tuning in either scalar sector. The field is generated in the dark sector, thus the mechanism avoids plasma-conductivity suppression in the visible sector, while the model remains robust across a broad range of scalar-masses and couplings. Numerical evolution from $z=10^5$ to matter-radiation equality, combined with a parameter search over the axion mass, dilaton initial conditions, and dilaton coupling, shows that astrophysically relevant amplification persists across fuzzy-dark-matter and ultralight-axion regimes. A benchmark case yields $B\approx0.9 ~\mathrm{nG}$ on $λ_0\sim1 \mathrm{Mpc}$, with kinetic mixing transferring the field to the visible sector over a broad range of mixing parameters.

We show that every local scalar effective field theory admits a new kind of duality to an infinite class of local scalar field theories with distinct Lagrangians. The duality map takes the form of a field-dependent diffeomorphism, and cannot be obtained via purely local field redefinitions, nevertheless the dual theory has an identical $S$-matrix. The subset of interactions that maintain second-order equations of motion is non-trivially mapped into themselves under this transformation. We show how to couple generic scalar field theories to gravity in a way that preserves the duality. Crucially, this requires working in the Einstein-Cartan formalism, with the vielbein and spin connection treated as independent variables. When coupling to massless gravity, the duality is interpreted as a local field redefinition in which the vielbein transforms while the spin connection is held fixed; consequently, a torsion-free configuration is generically mapped to a dual configuration with non-zero torsion. We specify the general family of first-order gravitational theories that map into themselves under the duality. In the weak gravitational field limit, these reduce to scalar theories kinetically mixed with the graviton, which themselves form a family closed under the duality.

We present a halo-independent framework for sub-GeV dark matter (DM) direct detection using quantum sensors with sub-eV energy thresholds. Such detectors enable access to low DM velocities and may be sensitive to departures from the Standard Halo Model that are challenging to probe with conventional direct DM detection experiments. The method expresses the DM scattering event rate in terms of a detector and particle model-dependent response function, and a universal halo function common to all experiments to be determined from data. This allows the local DM velocity distribution to be constrained. As representative implementations, we consider TES (Al) and MKID (TiN)-like sensors and show that their differing material responses probe complementary regimes of the DM velocity distribution. Applying the framework to mock data derived from several benchmark local halo models, we demonstrate how the assumed halo function could be reconstructed. This framework demonstrates the potential of quantum sensors as a new avenue for mapping the local DM velocity distribution.

Coherent quarkonium production at the Electron--Ion Collider can image the average small-$x$ gluon radius of nuclei, providing a reaction mechanism complementary to parity-violating electron scattering. We develop a calibrated radius-sum-rule framework that connects this gluonic radius to neutron skins and quantify the leading limitations from finite-dipole saturation, nuclear opacity, and instrumental resolution. The central result is that coherent $\Jpsi$ production contains sufficient shape information for a competitive neutron-skin program, but its precision is not limited by luminosity alone. It is instead controlled by the calibration of the nuclear small-$x$ gluon density, while the cleaner $\Ups$ channel remains statistically limited at early EIC luminosities. This framework identifies what an EIC neutron-skin measurement can robustly add to symmetry-energy studies and which theoretical and experimental controls are required before such a measurement can be interpreted as precision nuclear-structure information.

Ten years ago, in a paper \cite{60}, a brief historical survey of the research activity in the Sector ``Supersymmetry'' at the Bogoliubov Laboratory of Theoretical Physics (BLTP) for more than 50 years of its existence has been given. Here, in commemoration of the 70th jubilee of Joint Institute for Nuclear Research, we review some recent sound advancements in this area. Specifically, we consider the issues of constructing the superfield quantum effective actions in $6D, {\cal N}=(1,0)$ supersymmetry and off-shell unconstrained superfield formulations of ${\cal N}=2$ higher spins. In both cases, the harmonic superspace approach plays the decisive role.

Microquasars, binary systems featuring relativistic jets, have emerged as sources for particle acceleration beyond PeV energies. We present a study of the broadband $γ$-ray emission from one of the most prominent Galactic microquasars GRS 1915+105 based on data accumulated by LHAASO and Fermi-LAT over 4 and 17 years, respectively. A joint analysis of LHAASO-WCDA and LHAASO-KM2A data reveals extended $γ$-ray emission whose centroid appears significantly shifted, by ~ 0.13°, from the binary system and its jets. The spectral energy distribution is well described by a curved spectrum with progressive steepening that can be described by a log-parabola function with no evidence for a sharp cutoff, consistent with parent particles reaching multi-PeV energies and an extreme acceleration efficiency approaching the limit set by the available potential drop across the source. Several features, most notably the shift of the emission and single-power-law spectrum down to GeV band, favor radiation by cosmic rays accelerated in the source interacting with the dense ambient medium. Our spectral modeling implies that at least a few percent of the jet mechanical power is transferred to protons, whose maximum energy reaches beyond 5 PeV. These results strengthen the case for microquasars as exceptionally efficient accelerators in our Galaxy.

Scalar non-standard interaction (SNSI) of neutrinos contributes as modifications to the neutrino mass matrix in the oscillation Hamiltonian and can induce a small active-sterile mass splitting due to the matter effect induced by the relic neutrino background via a Majorana-type interaction. This framework leads to pseudo-Dirac behavior of neutrinos, introducing rich phenomenology in neutrino oscillations, particularly for high-energy astrophysical neutrinos. We show that these hyperfine active-sterile splittings imprint themselves in two complementary ways on high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux, namely, in modifying the flavor composition and energy distribution. In this work, we perform both flavor and spectral analyses of the high-energy astrophysical neutrino flux to probe SNSI. We confront the predicted flavor ratios with current IceCube measurements and with the projected reach of next-generation detectors such as IceCube-Gen2. For the spectral analysis, we use the diffuse-flux ESTES (tracks) and cascade data sets, together with point-source spectral shape analysis based on a recent catalog of neutrino-bright sources. The regions excluded by the combined flavor and spectral analyses are translated into limits on the underlying SNSI parameters, namely, Yukawa couplings and scalar mass, providing new sensitivities on the SNSI parameter space for ultra-light mediators.

We investigate ultrarelativistic freeze-out (UFO) in the context of generic reheating scenarios. While the standard WIMP dark matter paradigm has been extensively studied, UFO has so far only been analyzed within the specific reheating channel $φ\rightarrow f\bar{f}$. Unlike in the standard WIMP mechanism, where dark matter can only be diluted after freeze-out at $T_\mathrm{FO} \sim m_χ/\mathcal{O}(10)$, UFO dark matter can undergo freeze-in like phases following the initial freeze-out, driven by the non-trivial temperature evolution. The exact temperature evolution then needs to be accounted for, as a change in the temperature scaling can modify the IR/UV nature of UFO, impacting the relic abundance. We first generalize UFO to an arbitrary temperature profile $T \sim a^{-ξ}$, making explicit the UV and IR regimes for a thermally averaged cross section $\langle σv \rangle \sim T^n / Λ^{n+2}$. Then, as a concrete example, we consider the minimal scenario in which gravitational particle production at the onset of reheating sources an initial radiation abundance, and show that this early hot bath changes the UFO parameter space. We refer to this effect as GUFO. Specializing to $n = 2$, we find that matter-like reheating ($V \sim φ^2$) accommodates dark matter masses up to $10^7~\mathrm{GeV}$ for $Λ\lesssim 10^9~\mathrm{GeV}$ as thermalization becomes less stringent, while radiation-like reheating ($V \sim φ^4$) is compatible with GUFO across all reheating channels only if gravitational processes are taken into account.

Spikes are steep enhancements in the dark matter (DM) distribution around a heavy compact object. If the compact object is primordial, and the bulk of the DM is also composed of (lighter) primordial compact objects, for instance asteroid-mass primordial black holes (PBHs), the phenomenology of spike formation is highly non-trivial. In fact, lighter PBHs have negligible angular momentum at formation with respect to the massive central object and would therefore be captured unless enough torque is exerted from either small-scale or large-scale matter fluctuations. In this paper, we present the first comprehensive assessment of this scenario. We define the mechanisms and the initial conditions that allow light PBHs to avoid capture. We then quantify the different types of torque and follow the corresponding angular momentum evolution with a combination of analytical prescriptions and numerical simulations. We find that in the innermost region no mechanism studied here is capable of providing enough torque; the resulting inner core is expected to be significantly less dense than in particle scenarios, potentially leading to interesting phenomenology.

We build a BCFW-like recursion for cosmological correlators using the orthogonal Grassmannian. The key step is a bridge transformation that leaves all the Grassmannian constraints intact. The recursion relations are purely algebraic and avoid the spectral or radial integrals that usually appear in curved space. At four points for gluon, the bridge produces poles only in the two factorization channels. The total-energy singularity emerges from the three-point building blocks, and the shifted-energy singularity shows up only once the two channels in recursion are combined. The same bridge carries over to the $\mathcal{N} = 2$ super-Grassmannian, where a scalar correlator with gauge-field exchange acts as a seed and the gluon correlator follows by supersymmetric relation. We then show that the stripped four-gluon correlator is the canonical form of a rectangle, with two ordinary factorization edges, two cosmological energy edges, and supersymmetry supplying the edge that closes it off. Factorization and cosmological energy singularities end up on the same geometric footing, inside a single positive geometry.

Modular flavour symmetries provide a possible organizing principle for the Standard Model Yukawa sector, by replacing generic couplings with a potentially small number of modular forms controlled by a single complex modulus. We study the extreme limit of this idea: \acp{OPM}, in which each charged-fermion mass matrix is fixed by a single modular invariant contraction. We develop a systematic method to construct such models, showing that the \ac{OPM} requirement is already highly constraining at the level of possible fermion hierarchies. In a concrete realization, the charged-lepton and down-quark sectors are controlled by the common modulus, leading to exact mass relations at the flavour scale, \[ m_s^5 = 2\sqrt{2}\,m_d^3m_b^2, \qquad m_μ^3 = \sqrt{2}\,m_e m_τ^2, \qquad m_s^2m_τ= \sqrt{2}\,m_e m_b^2. \] We show that, once renormalization-group evolution and selective supersymmetric threshold effects are included, these high-scale relations can be made compatible with low-energy charged-fermion data. Our results provide a working proof of principle for \acp{OPM} and point towards a possible route to the flavour puzzle through highly

We derive an obstruction to FRW daughter cosmologies from static, asymptotically flat regular black holes. The trapped region of such a parent is Kantowski--Sachs rather than FRW, so the daughter must be introduced as a separate matched region. For closed daughters, the angular Darmois condition is controlled by the Misner--Sharp mass: asymptotic flatness and finite ADM mass force the induced density to decay as $A^{-3}$, while the $k=+1$ curvature term scales as $A^{-2}$. The minimal closed branch is therefore bounded rather than indefinitely expanding. Flat and open daughters avoid this boundedness mechanism, but the general flat/open FRW completeness theorem prevents non-static curvature-regular, ANEC-consistent flat/open daughters from being geodesically complete. For Bardeen, the parent source does not naturally supply the late-time support needed for an unbounded closed daughter. A viable FRW daughter therefore requires additional structure, such as modified asymptotics, nonminimal matching, non-FRW evolution, or an additional stress-energy component.

We study cosmological gravitational particle production (CGPP) of dark matter in two-field inflationary backgrounds with both flat and curved field-space geometries. As a concrete realization of broader multifield mechanisms, we adopt a Starobinsky+quadratic potential and construct benchmark scenarios that interpolate between the flat field-space limit and the sidetracked attractor on a hyperbolic field space, and we compute the production spectrum of a gravitationally coupled spectator scalar for both minimal ($ξ= 0$) and conformal ($ξ= 1/6$) coupling to the Ricci scalar. We show that negative field-space curvature can strongly enhance the post-inflationary oscillations of the Ricci scalar, leading to an enhancement of up to an order of magnitude in the CGPP number density relative to the flat field-space limit, particularly for minimal coupling. For the sidetracked attractor, this enhanced production competes with a reduced inflationary energy scale, leading to a nontrivial dependence of the relic abundance on model parameters. We derive the relic abundance as a function of spectator mass and reheating temperature, and identify the viable parameter space for each benchmark. The conformal case $ξ= 1/6$, whose scalar mode equation is structurally analogous to that of a massive Dirac fermion, is much less constrained by isocurvature and provides a minimal scenario for purely gravitational dark matter production in multifield inflation.

We explicitly show how moduli stabilization is realized geometrically in M-theory compactified on $T^4/\mathbb{Z}_2\, \times\, $K3, by using the Gibbons-Hawking approximation of the K3 metric. By relating this compactification to certain microstate geometries, we present the explicit solutions in which fully backreacted fluxes on certain four-cycles stabilize three of the $T^4/\mathbb{Z}_2$ compactification moduli. The minimal tadpole contribution of these fluxes is linear in the number of stabilized moduli, and we argue that this linear relation holds for more general fluxes. We also construct a one-parameter family of supersymmetric eleven-dimensional solutions that break Lorentz invariance and the warped-product structure of the compactification. These solutions are a continuous deformation of the warped-product Lorentz-invariant compactification, to which they reduce when the moduli reach their stabilized values. Away from the Lorentz-invariant locus, the fluxes are no longer self-dual in the internal space, and include fields that do not exist in the corresponding EFT. Remarkably, although these fluxes still stabilize a modulus, it is not the $T^4/\mathbb{Z}_2$ modulus that appears stabilized in the Lorentz-invariant solution, but rather a nontrivial combination of the $T^4$ volume and K3 shape moduli. The existence of these solutions suggests that the EFT description of moduli stabilization can be misleading and does not reflect the moduli-stabilization dynamics of the full eleven-dimensional theory. Our results extend straightforwardly to Type IIB String Theory compactified on orientifolds of $T^2 \times K3$.

Dark matter may emerge as a composite state of a dark sector which confines in a strongly first-order phase transition (PT). To avoid structure formation constraints on warm dark matter, the dark PT must occur above the keV scale. We investigate the cosmological signatures of this scenario, focusing on a keV- to MeV-scale PT. The stochastic nature of bubble nucleation sources curvature perturbations that can be constrained by various cosmological observations. Composite dark matter inherits the isocurvature perturbations generated during the PT and sources large-scale curvature perturbations. In contrast to a PT that reheats into dark radiation, the slower redshifting of dark matter enhances the infrared tail of the curvature perturbation upon horizon entry. The PT-induced perturbations compete with the suppression of the matter power spectrum due to the free-streaming of composite dark matter. We place limits on the PT strength and temperature from cosmic microwave background anisotropies, the Lyman-$α$ forest, and other probes of the small-scale matter power spectrum. In a minimal scenario where the relic density is determined by the PT parameters, this provides a concrete example of a dark matter model that is testable via measurements of cosmological perturbations -- even in the absence of a sizable nongravitational coupling to the visible sector.

Parity-violating electron scattering off nuclei both serves as a low-energy precision probe to test electroweak interactions and allows one to access neutron distributions inside nuclei. It has implications for strong interactions in dense neutron-rich environments, also providing constraints for the properties of matter in neutron stars. Precision measurements are available for $^{48}$Ca and $^{208}$Pb by the CREX and PREX collaborations, respectively, and their interpretation requires advanced nuclear-structure calculations to draw firm conclusions. We perform the first ab initio calculations of the parity-violating asymmetry $A_\text{PV}$ based on nuclear forces from chiral effective field theory, fully including corrections due to Coulomb distortion effects. Based on these results, we critically reexamine correlation analyses employed to infer weak radii and quantify the resulting tensions between ab initio and experimental results. We find that ab initio calculations prefer values of $A_\text{PV}$ slightly smaller and larger than observed for $^{48}$Ca and $^{208}$Pb, respectively, with a global significance of $1.9σ$. Using theoretically consistent inputs for charge and weak densities, we infer from the experimental $A_\text{PV}$ a neutron skin of $^{208}$Pb of $R_n-R_p = 0.187(25)(18)$ fm, substantially smaller than that reported by PREX II.

We investigate the conditions under which black hole fragmentation, the splitting of a black hole horizon into multiple smaller ones, may occur. The simplest realization is that of a single black hole horizon splitting into two, giving rise to the eponymous pants topology. In classical general relativity, the Bekenstein-Hawking area law forbids such processes for Schwarzschild black holes. For spinning Kerr black holes, purely kinematic analyses impose constraints that prevent fragmentation, even in regimes where entropy considerations might allow it, except possibly in near-extremal cases. We then hunt for scenarios where black holes can wear pants: from the well-known Gregory-Laflamme instability in higher dimensions, to the potential effect of superradiant instabilities in non-axisymmetric radiation trapping, to finally gravitational models that modify the relations between entropy and/or horizon radius and the black hole mass in four dimensions. In all such cases, emission of small fragments can be entropically favored, however its occurrence still depends on the kinematic configuration of the initial state. Our analysis clarifies the theoretical landscape where black holes may fragment, which is particularly relevant for primordial black holes and catastrophic events such as black hole mergers.

The type IIB matrix model is expected to give a nonperturbative formulation of superstring theory. Its covariant derivative interpretation provides a method to describe curved spacetimes in the model. There, matrices are identified with certain covariant derivatives which can be viewed as infinite-size matrices. Here, by using the Berezin-Toeplitz quantization, we develop a method to regularize these matrices as finite-size ones, which is needed to calculate quantum effects in the interpretation or in particular to apply the interpretation to the results of numerical simulations. As examples, we examine the cases of $T^{2n}$ and $S^2$ in detail.

We study dark-sector deformations of holographic anisotropic \(p\)-wave superfluids in hyperscaling-violating black-brane backgrounds. In the visible \(SU(2)\) sector, \(b(u)\) fixes the chemical potential and charge density, while \(ω(u)\) condenses and selects a boundary direction, producing anisotropic strip entanglement. The visible critical chemical potential, radial profiles, condensate branch, and strip-entanglement difference vary with dimension and hyperscaling-violating exponents. We then add hidden gauge sectors and hidden dark-scalar portals. Hidden-current mixing gives a solvable example, whereas isotropic dark sources cancel in the strip difference. For the kinetic dark-scalar portal, \(Z_{\rm dm}(Φ)\) deforms the Yang--Mills operator; hence \(b_0(u)\), \(ω_1(u)\), and the order-\(ε^2\) anisotropic stress are computed in the same deformed problem. The critical shift depends on the hyperscaling-violating background and can change sign. The main result is a strip susceptibility at vanishing portal strength. It is negative in the \(D=4\) and \(D=5\) backgrounds, so the portal weakly suppresses visible strip anisotropy. This has a holographic RG interpretation: the normalizable dark scalar is weighted toward the IR horizon, while narrow strips probe the UV near-boundary RT region. Thus, the portal decouples in the UV and the susceptibility vanishes quadratically with strip width; wider strips reach deeper into the bulk and recover the IR dark-sector effects.

High-throughput scientific facilities such as the Large Hadron Collider depend on real-time event filtering (\textit{triggering}) under tight constraints on bandwidth, latency, and storage. In practice, trigger menus are largely static and hand-tuned and can become suboptimal as detector conditions, pileup, and background composition drift over time. We cast online threshold tuning as a sequential decision-making problem: a reinforcement learning agent ingests streaming summaries of recent rates and signal-sensitive features and updates trigger thresholds to maximize signal efficiency while tracking a target background rate within a tolerance band. We adapt Group-Filtered Policy Optimization (GFPO) to streaming control and introduce two variants (GFPO-F, GFPO-FR) that enforce background rate feasibility during training. On a benchmark that emulates realistic collider operation, we study two representative triggers: a total transverse energy ($H_{T}$) trigger sensitive to pileup variation, and an anomaly-detection (AD) trigger based on reconstruction loss for rare or non-standard signatures. On Monte Carlo streams, our agent increases the fraction of in-tolerance time intervals by 48\% ($H_T$) and 28\% (AD), with a cumulative gain of up to 2\% in signal efficiency on those in-tolerance intervals. Transferring from simulation to \emph{real} collision data (CMS Run 283408), the same agent, without fine-tuning, achieves a 56\% ($H_T$) and 28\% (AD) in-tolerance improvement over baselines, with further signal-efficiency gain on both triggers. To our knowledge, this is the \emph{first} demonstration of RL-based trigger control on real Large Hadron Collider collision data. Code is available at https://github.com/Zixind/GFPO\_LHC.

We study the broken-symmetry phase of the Lipkin-Meshkov-Glick (LMG) model, whose two lowest states form a near-degenerate parity doublet split by tunnelling. We show that the same instanton action S_inst that sets the doublet splitting also controls how much parity information a static J_z magnetisation readout can extract. Although J_z measures magnetisation rather than parity - and so distinguishes the two wells easily while remaining almost blind to their relative sign - WKB barrier arguments together with exact diagonalisation show that the spectral gap, the total-variation distance, and the nonlinear distinguishability measures (Jensen-Shannon divergence and Chernoff information) share a single instanton exponent, rather than the doubled exponent a naive small-deviation expansion in the lobes would suggest. Exact diagonalisation up to N = 4500 supports a common leading exponent for all four quantities, with fitted values within a few percent of the WKB instanton value in the largest reliable windows. The same coupling acts strongly inside the doublet: its off-diagonal element grows as |J_01| -> N m_*/2, so the bath can disturb the parity label far more strongly than it can read it from a frozen histogram. We call this separation the static parity horizon - a benchmark for the idealised static J_z channel, not a universal bound on time-resolved monitoring. Restoring the full monitored dynamics, continuous-monitoring simulations (1.48 million full-LMG trajectories with matched QND controls across 77 independent settings) show that a time-resolved homodyne record extracts parity information hidden from the single-shot histogram, over a finite window of system sizes organised by the ratio xi = omega_01/Gamma_01 of coherent doublet rotation to measurement-induced dephasing, and closing again under strong measurement.