Papers

Within finite-temperature effective potential framework, we study the effects of PBHs on vacuum decay, the associated gravitational wave spectrum, and the baryon asymmetry. For the PBHs considered, the Hawking temperatures are below the ambient temperature, and their dominant effect is taken to be the gravitational distortion of the Higgs field configuration. Relative to flat spacetime, the PBH background reduces the vacuum decay exponent, enhances the gravitational wave peak amplitude, and shifts the peak frequency downward. For PBH masses of roughly $10^{11}~{\rm g}-10^{13}~{\rm g}$, the sphaleron energy is reduced, while the small PBH abundance renders the associated washout negligible. Additionally, over roughly the same mass range, PBH-emitted BSM particle decays generate a baryon asymmetry too small to spoil the agreement between the baryon abundances inferred from BBN and CMB.

We present a deconvolution-based framework for testing scale-dependent departures of the late-time matter power spectrum from a fiducial cosmological model using $3\times2$pt measurements. We introduce a free-form scale-dependent modulation $A(k)$ of the fiducial nonlinear matter power spectrum and construct the linear response of binned galaxy-clustering, galaxy-galaxy-lensing, and cosmic-shear spectra to the discretized modulation $A(k)$. The response is evaluated with full-sky, beyond-Limber kernels including density, redshift-space-distortion, gravitational-shear, and intrinsic-alignment contributions. We reconstruct $A(k)$ using a regularized modified Richardson-Lucy algorithm, with weak diffusion in $\ln k$ and selection of the minimum-$\chi^2$ solution along the iteration history. Using Rubin/LSST Year 10-like synthetic data, we find that oscillatory modulations with amplitudes $\gtrsim1\%$ can be recovered over $0.1\lesssim k\lesssim0.5\,{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$, provided the oscillation frequency $f\lesssim10$ on $\log_{10}[k/(0.2\,{\rm Mpc}^{-1})]$. We further introduce a posterior-weighted consistency statistic calibrated with posterior-predictive null mocks, thereby accounting for cosmological and nuisance-parameter uncertainties without relying on Wilks' theorem. The null case is consistent with $A(k)=1$, while a $1\%$ oscillatory modulation is detected at $\sim 2.6\sigma$. These results demonstrate the potential of regularized deconvolution as a model-independent consistency test of the matter power spectrum in future $3\times2$pt surveys.

The matter power spectrum is one of the primary statistical descriptors of the large-scale distribution of matter in the Universe and provides a powerful probe of cosmic structure formation. Measurements of cosmic microwave background (CMB) lensing offer an integrated view of the matter distribution over a wide range of redshifts, enabling the reconstruction of the underlying matter power spectrum. In this work, we reconstruct the reference linear matter power spectrum $ P_\text{lin}(k,0)$ from the baseline joint CMB lensing measurements of Planck PR4, ACT DR6, and SPT-3G using a covariance-weighted modified Richardson-Lucy(MRL) deconvolution algorithm. The reconstructed spectrum is found to be consistent with the fiducial linear prediction on large scales, while exhibiting a systematic enhancement for $k \gtrsim 0.1\,{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$, where nonlinear gravitational evolution becomes important. To investigate this behavior, we introduce a scale-dependent correction factor, $A(k)$, defined through $P(k)=A(k)\,P_{\rm nl}(k),$ where $P_{\rm nl}(k)$ is the fiducial nonlinear matter power spectrum obtained from 2LPT simulations. The reconstructed correction factor remains consistent with unity within $2\sigma$ confidence over the reconstructed range, indicating that the observed enhancement is well explained by the standard nonlinear evolution of the matter power spectrum. In addition, the reconstruction shows agreement with the fiducial BAO template around the BAO feature at $k\sim(0.04-0.06)\ {\rm Mpc}^{-1}$, indicating that some BAO-scale information survives the lensing projection.

We analyze the high-momentum tails of nucleon distributions in nuclei using the operator product expansion (OPE) and Pionless effective field theory. The OPE factorizes the distributions into Wilson coefficients, determined from two-nucleon scattering, and local-operator matrix elements (LOMEs). Because the leading ${{}^1S_0}$ and ${{}^3S_1}$ Wilson coefficients are nearly degenerate in the single-nucleon distribution, we construct the OPE of the two-nucleon momentum distribution, which separates the two contributions into distinct spin-isospin channels. From variational Monte Carlo two-nucleon distributions of \isotope[3]{He}, \isotope[4]{He}, \isotope[6]{Li}, and \isotope[12]{C}, we extract the LOMEs and accurately reconstruct the single-nucleon distributions at large momenta. In potentials without explicit non-nucleon degrees of freedom such as AV18, the Wilson coefficients of the single- and two-nucleon OPEs are proportional, yielding approximate relations between the two distributions.

A scalar field, which oscillates coherently over the space and decays through production of daughter particles, plays an important role in cosmology. It was recently shown that the parametric-resonance and Feynman-diagrammatic approaches give the same decay rate for a Bosonic daughter particle at a large time duration. We study how the parametric-resonance result approaches to this asymptotic value, by numerically following the time evolution of the phase density of the daughter particle. We see a difference among different instability bands in the narrow-resonance regime. The lowest-order instability band approaches to the Feynman-diagrammatic result in tens of scalar oscillation periods, while the high-order instability bands approach dependently also on a coupling between the scalar and daughter particles. This would infer that the total decay width, to which the lowest-order instability band contributes most dominantly in the perturbation theory, approaches to the Feynman-diagrammatic result also independently of the coupling. To confirm it, we consider a simpler and analytically solvable quantum mechanical model: Rabi models. In the Bosonic Rabi model, the parametric-resonance and Feynman-diagrammatic results agree with each other for all the time. On the other hand, in the Fermionic Rabi model, they disagree at a large time duration. This difference would be attributed to Bose enhancement vs Pauli blocking.

Motivated by renewed interest in the light-cone distributions of $P$-wave quarkonia, we investigate the leading-twist distribution amplitudes of these states within the basis light-front quantization (BLFQ) formalism. While our extracted distributions exhibit macroscopic shapes consistent with expectations from the non-relativistic limit, we find that relativistic effects introduce critical structural features. Most notably, we observe novel “W"-shaped structures in the distribution amplitudes of the axial vector mesons, which arise from relativistically induced $S/D$ partial waves and cannot be explained by non-relativistic dynamics. These findings provide essential non-perturbative inputs for analyzing hard exclusive processes and highlight the importance of relativistic frameworks for understanding heavy quarkonium production and structure at modern high-energy colliders.

In this work, we systematically investigate top-quark flavor-changing neutral-current decays, charged-lepton flavor-violating processes, and coherent $\mu-e$ conversion in the CP-conserving generational three-Higgs-doublet model (G3HDM), including the relevant tree-level and one-loop contributions. The 4839-point sample passes conservative sufficient vacuum-stability conditions, necessary perturbative-unitarity preselection cuts, Higgs-mass and signal-strength constraints, electroweak precision data, the UTfit 2025 neutral-meson-mixing ranges, $\overline{B}\to X_s\gamma$, and $B_s\to\mu^+\mu^-$. In the scanned region, $\mathrm{Br}(t\to c h_1)\leq 1.04\times10^{-5}$ and $\mathrm{Br}(h_1\to\mu\tau)\leq 4.83\times10^{-4}$, while the maximal conversion rates are $\mathrm{CR}(\mu\mathrm{Al}\to e\mathrm{Al})\approx 4.95\times10^{-15}$ and $\mathrm{CR}(\mu\mathrm{Au}\to e\mathrm{Au})\approx 1.05\times10^{-14}$. The dominant collider signals are mainly driven by tree-level flavor-changing neutral-Higgs couplings, which determine the relative strengths of these processes and induce the pronounced enhancement of $t\to c h_1$ and $h_1\to\mu\tau$. Meanwhile, the upper range of the predicted $\mu-e$ conversion rate in aluminum lies within the sensitivity reach of next-generation $\mu-e$ conversion experiments.

We perform a quantitative analysis of the $B^{0}$ meson spectroscopic parameters in a hot and dense medium. Within the framework of QCD two-point sum rules, we calculate the mass and decay constant of the $B^{0}$ meson with the help of the perturbative spectral density and nonperturbative contributions up to mass dimension five as functions of temperature $T$ and baryon chemical potential $\mu_B$. For various fixed values of the baryon chemical potential, our numerical results indicate that both the mass and decay constant of the $B^{0}$ meson initially increase with temperature, reach a maximum, and then gradually decrease before eventually vanishing at sufficiently high temperatures. The corresponding vanishing points are found to be in the temperature intervals $(0.182-0.273)~\mathrm{GeV}$ and $(0.118-0.173)~\mathrm{GeV}$, for the mass and decay constant, respectively. Moreover, these temperatures move toward lower values as the baryon chemical potential increases. On the other hand, for various fixed temperatures, both the mass and decay constant exhibit a slight initial increase with increasing baryon chemical potential, followed by a subsequent decrease, eventually vanishing at sufficiently high chemical potentials. The vanishing points for the decay constant is determined to be in baryon chemical potential interval $(0.23-0.83)~\mathrm{GeV}$. For the mass, the decrease at $T=0$ is much weaker than at finite temperatures; excluding this case, the vanishing points for the mass are determined to be in baryon chemical potential interval $(0.38-1.43)~\mathrm{GeV}$ for different fixed temperatures. It is further observed that the baryon chemical potential values corresponding to the vanishing of both the mass and decay constant move to lower values as the temperature increases. In the $T \to 0$ and $\mu_B \to 0$ limit ...

We investigate the near-threshold structure of the exotic tetraquark candidates $\chi_{c1}(3872)$ and $T_{cc}^+(3875)$ using the effective-range expansion (ERE) and resonance compositeness relations. From the experimental masses and widths, we extract scattering lengths, effective ranges, and molecular compositeness coefficients within a two-channel framework, with uncertainties propagated through $N=50000$ Monte Carlo samples. We find large negative scattering lengths, $a=-8.49^{+0.93}_{-1.05}$ fm for $\chi_{c1}(3872)$ and $a=-14.57^{+1.70}_{-1.66}$ fm for $T_{cc}^+$, and dominant molecular components $X_2>0.95$. The results are robust against variations of compositeness, experimental correlations, and the loop-function subtraction constant. An explicit ERE+CDD-pole analysis finds no physically reasonable bare-state contribution consistent with the observed poles and a natural background. Our results provide strong evidence for predominantly molecular structures of both states and demonstrate the robustness of the ERE approach to near-threshold exotic hadrons.

The 2026 LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) high energy nuclear recoil search reports one event at $248\pm23_{\rm stat}\pm23_{\rm sys}~\mathrm{keV}$ and finds the elastic isovector interaction $\mathcal L_6^v$ locally favored at about $3.3\sigma$ in the heavy dark matter regime. We examine whether this recoil scale can arise from resolved nuclear response within the elastic interaction and compare its spectral, target, and annual modulation behavior with endothermic dark sector excitation. Covariant matching correlates four Galilean operators, removes the longitudinal spin response algebraically, and fixes interference between density and orbital spin orbit amplitudes. The GCN and JJ55 xenon shell model calculations give a second natural xenon cancellation at $211$ and $214~\mathrm{keV}$. In the heavy mass regime, its position changes by less than $0.01~\mathrm{keV}$ from a dark matter mass of $200~\mathrm{GeV}$ to the asymptotic limit. A curvature weighted isotope centroid reproduces the position and residual depth of the natural xenon minimum. Direct $^{40}$Ar calculations shift the nuclear feature to about $350$ and $425~\mathrm{keV}$, whereas endothermic excitation follows reduced mass scaling set by the dark state splitting. At a dark matter mass of $1~\mathrm{TeV}$, the endothermic Ar to Xe scale ratio is $1.082$, compared with $1.63$ to $2.01$ for the nuclear calculations. Elastic scattering gives a few percent annual modulation in the adopted halo model, while endothermic solutions near the maximum laboratory halo speed show much larger seasonal variation. These scaling and timing behaviors provide tests of a target-dependent nuclear cancellation against an excitation energy set by dark sector kinematics.

The study of two-body charmed anti-charmed baryonic $\overline B\to {\bf B}_c \overline {\bf B}_c$ decays using the topological amplitude approach is revisited. We include the $b\to u\bar u q$ contributions, in addition to the $b\to c\bar c q$ contributions, to these decays. The topological decomposition of $\overline B\to {\bf B}_c(\bf {\bar 3_f}) \overline {\bf B}_c(\bf { 3_f})$, ${\bf B}_c(\bf 6_f) \overline {\bf B}_c(\bf { 3_f})$, ${\bf B}_c(\bf {\bar 3_f}) \overline {\bf B}_c(\bf {\bar 6_f})$ and ${\bf B}_c(\bf 6_f) \overline {\bf B}_c(\bf {\bar 6_f})$ decay amplitudes are updated accordingly. Although the $b\to u\bar u q$ contributions are Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa (CKM) suppressed in $\Delta S=-1$ transitions, their effects are significantly amplified in $\Delta S=0$ transitions, as the relative size of the CKM factors in $b\to u\bar u q$ and $b\to c\bar c q$ contributions in $\Delta S=0$ transitions is enlarged by $\lambda^{-2}$, roughly a factor of 20, from the one in $\Delta S=-1$ transitions. Present data in $\overline B\to {\bf B}_c(\bf {\bar 3_f}) \overline {\bf B}_c(\bf { 3_f})$ decay rates allow or even slightly prefer non-negligible $b\to u\bar u q$ contributions. These $b\to u\bar u q$ contributions can allow much larger rates for $B^-\to \Xi_c^0 \bar \Xi_c^{-}$, $\overline B{}_s^0\to \Lambda_c^+ \bar \Xi_c^{-}$ and $\overline B{}^0\to \Xi_c^+ \bar \Xi_c^{-}$ decays than those only have $b\to c\bar c d$ contributions. Several modes containing only $b\to u\bar u q$ contributions in $\overline B\to {\bf B}_c(\bf 6_f) \overline {\bf B}_c(\bf { 3_f})$, ${\bf B}_c(\bf {\bar 3_f}) \overline {\bf B}_c(\bf {\bar 6_f})$ decays are also identified. Measuring these decays will be interesting and useful in clarifying the role of $b\to u\bar u q$ contributions in two-body charmed anti-charmed baryonic $\overline B$ decays.

The gradient flow provides a gauge- and O(4)-invariant ultraviolet regulator for QCD. This opens new opportunities for combining non-perturbative lattice calculations with perturbative results, in particular in the context of an operator-product expansion (OPE). We review the concepts behind this and argue that, within the operator basis of a given OPE, the flow-time dependence of the conversion between flowed and regular Wilson coefficients is exact at each perturbative order. Recent applications to parton distribution functions, heavy-meson observables, quark masses, and gradient-flow definitions of the strong coupling are discussed. Finally, the perturbative formulation of the Ricci flow in quantum gravity and its application to the study of non-Gaussian fixed points is reviewed.

We study a scalar field nonminimally coupled to metric-affine gravity within actions linear in the affine curvature and containing all independent parity-even and parity-odd terms quadratic in torsion and nonmetricity, including mixed contractions. We also include Nieh-Yan-like derivative couplings between the scalar-field derivative and the four torsion and nonmetricity vectors. We derive the connection, metric, and scalar-field equations and, since the connection equation is algebraic, eliminate the independent connection on the generic nondegenerate branch to obtain an equivalent metric scalar-tensor theory in which the non-Riemannian interactions are encoded in an effective kinetic function. We classify several sectors and find that the pure quadratic nonmetricity and pure quadratic torsion sectors separately leave the Einstein-frame kinetic function unchanged relative to the simplest metric-affine scalar-tensor model, whereas their simultaneous presence, the derivative couplings, and generic mixed torsion-nonmetricity interactions can modify it. In the derivative-coupling sector, projective consistency imposes a relation among the couplings. We then consider polynomial coupling functions and study the resulting canonical field redefinition and Einstein-frame potentials. In particular, we illustrate how derivative and mixed torsion–nonmetricity couplings reshape quadratic and quartic potentials in canonical-field space, and show that a quadratic Jordan-frame potential can be mapped, for a suitable choice of derivative and nonminimal couplings, into a natural-inflation potential after canonical normalization. Finally, we separately impose the cosmological principle, determine the reduced combinations of quadratic couplings and the scalar field hypermomentum, and obtain the corresponding modified cosmological equations in the simplest sectors.

We revisit single-inclusive gluon production in the dilute–dilute limit of the Color Glass Condensate and show that $k_\perp$-factorization is only the zeroth order of a systematic gradient expansion in the transverse positions of the two colliding sources, organized in powers of $1/(Q_sR)$, with $Q_s$ the saturation scale and $R$ the size over which the sources vary. Collecting terms order by order builds a ladder of scalar and tensor structures from the local distributions and their transverse derivatives, yielding an extended $k_\perp$-factorized formula that retains the spatial dependence of the sources and, through kinetic moments of the spectrum, the energy-momentum tensor. Repeating the expansion from a real-time computation of the classical Glasma fields in the future light cone reproduces the momentum-space result in the eikonal limit, but additionally retains coherent interference between amplitude and conjugate. This adds terms to the ladder (flow responses, chromo-electric–magnetic interference, and a longitudinal energy flux) further suppressed by powers of the large outgoing momentum $|\pp|\gg Q_s$. The hierarchy thus reveals momentum-space anisotropies present in the initial state before any hydrodynamic evolution, which leading $k_\perp$-factorization misses by construction. Since each order is a local operator on the same unintegrated distributions, these corrections can be added directly to existing saturation-based initial-state models, giving a dynamically generated initial momentum anisotropy and a more faithful early-time energy-momentum tensor without abandoning the tractable factorized form. Set by gradients of the transverse density profiles, they grow towards more dilute, fluctuation-dominated systems, e.g. light-ion collisions. Phenomenological consequences will be developed in a companion paper.

We present an EOS-driven extension of the NSCool thermal evolution code that enables complete tabulated equations of state to be treated within a single composition-based input structure. The generalized NEW interface includes additional baryonic fractions, a bosonic composition variable, the hadronic volume fraction, and quark fractions, allowing nucleonic, hyperonic, resonant-baryonic and hybrid hadron-quark configurations to be handled within the same workflow. The neutrino sector is extended accordingly, including updated nucleonic modified Urca and bremsstrahlung rates, additional baryonic direct Urca channels, hyperonic processes, baryonic pair breaking and formation and quark direct Urca, modified Urca, bremsstrahlung and PBF contributions. In mixed phases, emissivities and the corresponding core heat capacity contributions are evaluated from phase-local quantities and combined using the hadronic volume fraction. The implementation is validated against the original NSCool calculation for a controlled nucleonic benchmark and demonstrated with representative hadronic and quark-containing EOSs. These calculations are intended as software validation tests of the generalized workflow rather than as observational fits or statistical EOS inference.

We find a quantum-geometric Meissner response in magnetized two-flavor color-superconducting (2SC) quark matter. Landau quantization quenches the transverse quasiparticle dispersion, suppressing the conventional Fermi-surface contribution and giving rise to a Meissner response governed by the quantum geometry of the Landau levels. In the strong-field regime, the response becomes dominated by the quantum metric of the lowest Landau level (LLL), and the leading scaling of the transverse Meissner mass is consequently set by the pairing gap, in contrast to the chemical potential scaling of conventional color superconductors. This unconventional scaling has a topological origin, as the LLL quantum metric is constrained by its Chern number. The reduced transverse Meissner mass provides potential implications for kHz quasi-periodic oscillations in magnetars.

The nuclear recoil event at approximately 248 keV reported by the LUX-ZEPLIN collaboration motivates an investigation of endothermic dark matter scattering. We study this within the General Next-to-Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model (GNMSSM), with Higgsino-dominated neutralino DM undergoing the $Z$-mediated transition $\widetilde{\chi}_1^0N\to\widetilde{\chi}_2^0N$. In the conventional thermal Higgsino limit of the MSSM, the observed relic abundance selects a mass near 1.1 TeV, while a neutralino splitting of a few hundred keV typically requires gaugino masses of order $10^7$ GeV. In the GNMSSM, Higgsino-Singlino mixing introduces an additional contribution to the splitting that can cancel the gaugino-induced contribution, allowing sub-MeV splitting with multi-TeV gauginos. This mixing also modifies the inelastic scattering coupling and annihilation rates, while coannihilation with sleptons provides freedom in obtaining the observed relic abundance. We present six benchmark points with DM masses of 0.6-1.1 TeV, neutralino splittings of 333-350 keV, and gaugino masses of 2-5 TeV. These points reproduce the observed relic abundance and satisfy direct-detection, Higgs, flavor, and collider constraints. Within the Standard Halo Model and extended-likelihood analysis, all six points yield $\Delta\chi^2<1$ relative to the best fit. Our results show how the GNMSSM can accommodate the LZ high-recoil event without an ultraheavy gaugino sector. A quantitative assessment of solar-capture and neutrino-telescope constraints remains necessary for establishing viability.

The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) collaboration has recently reported a single nuclear recoil event at a high recoil energy of about 250 keV. This has been interpreted as inelastic scattering of dark matter that is a supersymmetric Higgsino with a mass splitting between the neutral states of a few 100 keV. Such dark matter may be captured at high recoil in the Sun through scattering on heavy elements in it, and annihilate to $W^+W^-$ and $ZZ$, in turn giving rise to a neutrino flux detectable on Earth. Using measurements of atmospheric electron- and muon-neutrino fluxes by Super-Kamiokande and IceCube, we constrain thermal and non-thermal Higgsino dark matter, excluding inter-state mass splittings $\lesssim 557$ keV. This disfavors Higgsino-like interpretations of the LZ event for standard halo velocities.

Recently, the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) collaboration reported the observation of a single dark matter (DM)-nucleus scattering event at a nuclear recoil energy of $248\pm23_{\rm stat}\pm23_{\rm sys}$ keV, corresponding to an exposure of 2.84 tonne-year. The absence of events at lower nuclear recoil energies in the predicted spectrum is naturally explained if the underlying process is inelastic DM-nucleus scattering. Motivated by this, we investigate the singlet-doublet fermion DM model, in which the DM consists of two pseudo-Dirac states: the Majorana nature of the lighter state forbids tree level $Z$-mediated elastic scattering identically, while the same states enable inelastic DM-nucleus scattering via $Z$ exchange, with any residual elastic scattering proceeding only through a suppressed Higgs-mediated channel. We further extend the model with a $Z_2$-even scalar triplet, which is responsible both for generating the pseudo-Dirac splitting and for realizing Majorana neutrino masses via the Type-II seesaw mechanism.

The LZ experiment reported one anomalous event with nuclear recoil energy of 248 keV. Galactic halo dark matter (DM) cannot produce such a large energy unless heavier than 74 GeV, and heavy DM with spin-independent interactions would have produced unseen recoils at lower energy. Inelastic DM has been proposed as a way out. We consider, instead, an elastic collision of a dark sector particle with a momentum of at least 123~MeV and mass in the range 1-74 GeV as deuteron break-up in SNO disfavors sub-GeV masses. The absence of accompanying lower-energy recoils favours interactions whose rate grows with the momentum transfer, such as a pseudoscalar-pseudoscalar nucleon operator. This implies no leading-order signal in argon, an annual modulation below 1 %, and recoils in spinful light nuclei where inelastic halo DM gives nothing.

We extend the Standard Model with an $A_4 \times Z_4$ flavor symmetry and generalized CP (GCP) symmetry, realized through two flavon triplets that spontaneously break $A_4$ and generate the observed lepton mixing pattern. A new $A_4$-singlet flavon couples to one of these triplets through a complex quartic interaction that breaks GCP and fixes the reactor mixing angle; this same coupling biases the domain walls formed when that triplet breaks $A_4$. A global fit to oscillation data reproduces all mixing angles and mass splittings, predicting a maximal Dirac CP phase of $270^\circ$ and an effective Majorana mass near $15\text{ meV}$, testable by upcoming neutrinoless double-beta-decay ($0\nu\beta\beta$) experiments. The same coupling generates a stochastic gravitational-wave background peaking in the pulsar-timing-array and LISA bands, with peak frequency and amplitude predicted to scale as $\sin\theta_{13}$ and $\sin^{-4}\theta_{13}$, a falsifiable link between neutrino oscillation and gravitational-wave (GW) observations.

Weak sphaleron transitions turn a lepton asymmetry of the Standard Model plasma in the early Universe into a baryon asymmetry, conserving baryon-minus-lepton number $B-L$ and its individual flavored charges. A baryon asymmetry can thus also arise from flavored lepton asymmetries with vanishing $B-L$. Standard equilibrium calculations in the symmetric and broken phases are performed at constant temperature and hence neglect the fact that both the Higgs expectation value and the sphaleron rate vary as functions of temperature across the electroweak crossover. We derive a Boltzmann equation for the baryon number evolution across the crossover and calculate the freeze-out abundance including higher-order corrections to both the grand canonical partition function and the perturbative Higgs expectation value. This yields two sphaleron conversion factors: $C_\text{sph} = 0.3328(5)$ for $B-L$ and $\mathcal{F}_\text{sph} = 0.0279(19)$ for the flavored charges weighted by the charged-lepton Yukawa couplings.

We study the possibility of explaining the recently reported high-energy nuclear recoil event by the LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) collaboration within the framework of singlet-doublet scalar dark matter (DM). Considering DM to be the CP even mass eigenstate formed out of a scalar doublet and a real scalar singlet, both being odd under an unbroken $Z_2$ symmetry, we find the parameter space of the model consistent with correct relic abundance and direct-detection limits on elastic scattering rates. A large part of the parameter space can also lead to inelastic up-scattering of DM with a rate and recoil energy consistent with the recent LZ event. Depending upon the singlet-doublet mixing, the model allows a much wider range of currently allowed parameter space compared to the pure scalar doublet DM limit, which is disfavored due to non-observations of high-energy neutrinos from solar-captured DM annihilation by the IceCube experiment. Presence of $Z_2$-odd right-handed neutrinos also leads to other interesting phenomenology related to the origin of light neutrino masses and leptogenesis.

Short-lived hadron resonances serve as sensitive probes of the late-stage hadronic medium in heavy-ion collisions. Using the AMPT-HC model, we study ${\rm{K}}^{*}(892)$ production and its hadronic medium effects in Au+Au collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\rm{NN}}} = 3$ GeV, a region of high baryon density. We introduce a phenomenological direct-production mechanism for ${\rm K}^{*}$ by replacing a fraction of the final-state kaons produced in the ${\rm NN} \to {\rm NYK}$ and ${\rm MN} \to {\rm YK}$ channels with ${\rm K}^{*}$ resonances, with the substitution fraction controlled by a parameter $\alpha$ while conserving four-momentum. The direct ${\rm K}^{*}$ is produced early, at about 6 fm/$c$, with little centrality dependence, whereas resonance fusion via ${\rm K}+\pi\to{\rm K}^{*}$ occurs later, with the mean production time increasing from about 8 to 10 fm/$c$ toward central collisions. Consequently, direct ${\rm K}^{*}$ mesons suffer stronger daughter rescattering, leading to a pronounced decrease in reconstruction efficiency toward central collisions, while the ${\rm K}^{*}$ survival rate remains close to unity. Elastic scattering of the daughters also shifts the invariant mass away from the resonance peak, contributing to the background-like component. The ${\rm K}^{*}/{\rm K}$ centrality dependence reflects the competition between direct production and resonance fusion and is sensitive to $\alpha$. At 3 GeV, a moderate direct-production contribution may result in an increasing ${\rm K}^{*}/{\rm K}$ ratio toward central collisions, providing a testable prediction for future measurements.

The relationship between Regge factorization of amplitudes and the Collins-Soper-Sterman factorization of hadronic cross sections is explored. Seeking a unified description of rapidity divergences in high-energy scattering and transverse-momentum-dependent factorization, a connection emerges between the Collins-Soper kernel and the Regge trajectory. This provides a framework for bridging high-energy and low-transverse-momentum resummation and for future extensions of $k_T$-factorization beyond leading-logarithmic accuracy.

Rotating supersolids challenge the conventional notion of superfluid flow: quantized vortices coexist with crystalline order arising from the system's intrinsic density modulation. Drawing on concepts developed in the context of superfluid helium, this seemingly paradoxical state is often described phenomenologically in terms of a dual response, combining superfluid flow with rigid-body-like motion. Here we show that these apparently distinct behaviors emerge from a single microscopic velocity field, globally constrained by irrotationality. By applying a Helmholtz decomposition, we disentangle a divergence-free incompressible component, which carries vortex circulation, from a curl-free compressible component generated by the intrinsic density modulation. In absence of vortices, the response is entirely encoded in the compressible field: the droplets co-rotate with the external drive, while the interstitial fluid develops an oppositely directed counterflow that preserves vanishing circulation. Above the vortex nucleation threshold, the incompressible component carries the usual quantized circulation, whereas the compressible field counteracts the vortex-induced angular momentum, reducing the total jump with respect to an unmodulated condensate. Our results recast supersolid rotation in terms of a flow-counterflow response, providing a microscopic interpretation of the phenomenological rigid/superfluid partitioning.

An ultra-slow-roll phase during inflation could potentially produce the right abundance of primordial black holes (PBHs) for them to form all of dark matter (DM). We consider such a scenario, carefully treating the transitions from slow to ultra slow roll inflation and back, using a parametrisation of the inflaton potential that can describe inflation from the time when CMB scales crossed out of the horizon until its end. A $\delta N$ analysis shows that this model can possess $O(1)$ non-Gaussianity. When computing the primordial black hole abundance, we keep the full non-linear relation between curvature perturbations and the density contrast and consider the non-Gaussianity to all orders. We find that $O(1)$ non-Gaussianity is sufficient to enhance the PBH abundance by orders of magnitude, leading to reduced gravitational wave (GW) signals for fixed PBH abundance. The signal to noise ratio is computed for future gravitational wave observatories. We find that, in spite of the reduced strength, the GW signal is well above the sensitivity of LISA if PBHs form a significant component of DM.

We investigate the properties of $\rho$, $\psi$, and $\Upsilon$ mesons within a holographic AdS/QCD framework, capturing both their vacuum phenomenology and in-medium dynamics. By reconstructing flavor-specific gauge kinetic functions within a model originally developed to study thermodynamic functions, we compute the vector-meson mass spectrum, the decay constants and the hadronic vacuum polarization contributions to the anomalous magnetic moment of the muon at zero temperature. Furthermore, we evaluate the thermal spectral functions to analyze mass shifts, resonance broadening, and the melting of vector bound states in a hot and dense medium. Finally, using the Kubo formula, we extract the electrical conductivity of the plasma as a function of temperature and chemical potential.

Interpreting the $248$~keV nuclear-recoil candidate reported by LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) as an endothermic transition needs two ingredients usually put in by hand: a stable dark state, and a coherent current that is purely off diagonal. Gauging baryon number supplies both. For the minimal dark charges $B(\chi_L)=-3/2$ and $B(\chi_R)=-9/2$, the scalars that generate the dark masses leave an exact residual parity $P=(-1)^{6B}$ stabilizing the lightest state, while the same Majorana masses make the vector current transition dominated as an identity rather than a choice. At $m_\chi=1$~TeV and $\delta=300$~keV the model is over-determined: the observed LZ interval, a leading-order relic estimate and the LHC dijet limit meet at the single perturbatively acceptable point $(M_{Z_B},g_B)\simeq(1.44~\mathrm{TeV},0.233)$. That point is allowed by currently existing searches but sits just below the trigger-level dijet boundary, so it is alive and not yet decided–and a re-run of that analysis on the Run-3 data at $\sqrt s=13.6$~TeV, already on tape, will exclude it or find it. Nor is the interpretation confined to that splitting: at $\delta=200$~keV, the same construction predicts a heavier mediator at comparable coupling, $M_{Z_B}\simeq2.4$-$3.0$~TeV with $g_B\simeq0.15$-$0.34$, a range the HL-LHC dijet program will probe.

We review a top-down fixed-point-extrapolation paradigm as a unified effective field theory framework for hadronic spectroscopy, dense baryonic matter, and compact star physics. By formulating our effective Lagrangian directly at renormalization group (RG) fixed points and introducing minimal symmetry breaking, we extrapolate the theory back to physical environments. In the vacuum, this framework naturally reproduces the heavy-light meson parity-doubling spectrum via light vector meson loops. In dense matter, the interplay between the chiral-invariant nucleon mass m0 and walking vector couplings reconciles gravitational-wave constraints with $2M_\odot$ massive neutron stars. Generalization to a quark-hadron hybrid approach further illuminates sequential deconfinement, core stability, and baryon number fluctuations, demonstrating how underlying RG fixed points dictate hadronic dynamics from vacuum to neutron star interiors.