Papers

We study the subleading resolved $Q_1^q$-$Q_{7\gamma}$ contribution to the inclusive decay $\bar{B}\to X_s\gamma$ at next-to-leading order (NLO) in $\alpha_s$. We present a formulation of the factorisation theorem which is valid beyond the leading order (LO). On this basis, we explicitly demonstrate the cancellation of all $1/\varepsilon$ singularities between the hard, hard-collinear, anti-hard-collinear and soft contributions. For this purpose, a central result of this work is the computation of the $u$-integrated massless two-loop anti-hard-collinear jet function, which determines the structure of the $1/\varepsilon$ singularities. In addition, we compute the hard function at the required order, combine our results with the hard-collinear jet function known from the literature, and employ the shape function whose renormalisation was determined in our previous work. There, we showed, for inclusive as well as for exclusive modes, that certain contributions to these multi-light-cone soft functions are physically irrelevant and can be consistently omitted; the explicit cancellation of the corresponding divergences provides a non-trivial confirmation of this statement. Overall, our findings constitute a non-trivial consistency check of the factorisation framework for this subleading resolved contribution at NLO and provide the basis for a full phenomenological analysis.

The $248$ keV nuclear-recoil candidate reported by LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) motivates an inelastic dark matter (DM) interpretation, in which scattering converts the DM particle into a slightly heavier state. We provide a comprehensive study of this interpretation in an anomaly-free model of gauged baryon number, where a new vector boson, $Z_B$, mediates interactions between DM and quarks. Breaking the baryonic gauge symmetry generates the new particle masses and a small splitting between two DM states, while a residual symmetry keeps the lighter state stable. We identify regions compatible with the LZ candidate, the observed DM abundance, and current ATLAS and CMS dijet constraints. Within the scanned domain, these regions span DM masses $m_\chi\simeq0.19$-$4.5$ TeV, mediator masses $M_{Z_B}\simeq0.05$-$5.0$ TeV, and gauge couplings $g_B\simeq0.004$-$0.74$, with correlated values of these parameters. A representative thermal solution has $m_\chi=1$ TeV, $M_{Z_B}=1.44$ TeV, $g_B\simeq0.228$, and a mass splitting of $300$ keV. A small electroweak mixing allows the heavier DM state to decay rapidly, suppressing unwanted signals from its surviving population. This interpretation can be tested through complementary measurements: additional LZ and XENONnT data can establish whether the high-energy recoil signal persists, ATLAS and CMS Run-3 dijet searches can probe the mediator mass and coupling, and a dedicated IceCube analysis of four-quark final states can test DM capture and annihilation in the Sun. Together, these measurements can test complementary parts of the surviving region and assess whether the LZ candidate is consistent with this interpretation.

We study the disappearing-track signature of a spin-1 minimal dark matter candidate transforming in the real five-dimensional representation of $SU(2)_L$ with vanishing hypercharge. Radiative electroweak corrections induce a compressed mass spectrum among the multiplet components, allowing the singly charged state $V^\pm$ to attain a macroscopic lifetime and decay via $V^\pm \to V^0 \pi^\pm$ inside tracking detectors. We recast the ATLAS search for disappearing tracks with the full Run-2 dataset of $137\text{ fb}^{-1}$, originally targeted at long-lived charginos, computing the tracklet reconstruction probability analytically from the published efficiency so that the full lifetime range is covered. The procedure reproduces the ATLAS limits for pure winos within $6\%$ in mass. The Run-2 data exclude quintuplet masses up to $1080\text{ GeV}$ for proper decay lengths $c\tau \simeq 250\text{ mm}$, and $M_V < 630\text{ GeV}$ for a mass splitting of $166\text{ MeV}$. For the radiative mass splitting predicted by the model with a small Higgs-portal coupling, masses between $120\text{ GeV}$ and $240\text{--}300\text{ GeV}$ are excluded. With $3\text{ ab}^{-1}$ and a Run-2-like analysis, the sensitivity would extend to $1750\text{ GeV}$ for vanishing background and to $1530\text{ GeV}$ for a linear extrapolation of the instrumental background.

The cosmic imbalance of particles over antiparticles may be inherited by the dark matter in a certain class of asymmetric dark matter models. In this article, we thoroughly investigate the signatures of the minimal realization of this idea. In this model a new (stable) inert Higgs, $H'$, plays the role of the mediator that facilitates the asymmetry transfer from the visible to the dark sector. It also constitutes a small dark matter sub-component, while the dominant component stems from a singlet scalar asymmetry. A combination of phenomenological and cosmological constraints requires this new inert Higgs doublet to be quite light $46\,{\rm GeV}<m_{H'}< 580\,{\rm GeV}$ and its spectrum rather compressed, $\Delta M = m_{H^\pm}-m_{H_0} \lesssim 1\,{\rm GeV}$ and $\delta m = m_{A_0}-m_{H_0}\lesssim 5\,{\rm MeV}$. Therefore its charged component can be relatively long-lived on collider length-scales. By recasting searches for compressed Higgsinos at the LHC, we derive new limits on this particle and show that, while at present most of the parameter space for this state is still unconstrained, large and key regions of parameter space will be tested at the HL-LHC by a combination of searches for disappearing charged tracks and displaced soft tracks. Quite remarkably, the lifetime of the charged component of the doublet can be correlated with the dark matter interaction rate at direct detection experiments and we show that the next generation of direct detection experiments has a unique sensitivity to the parameter space in the model. The fact that a small neutral mass splitting is a prediction of the asymmetric setup makes it an interesting candidate to account for the high energy nuclear recoil event recently reported by the LZ experiment. More generally, our detailed phenomenological study holds for any dark matter model involving an inert Higgs doublet with mass below 580 GeV.

The Roy equations for the $S$ and $P$ waves are solved for pion masses below the physical value in the region between threshold and $s_A=0.84\GeV^2$. The analysis is based on the assumption that the phenomenological input above $s_A$ can be used essentially unchanged. Moreover, for $M_\pi \le M_{\pi,\mathrm{phys}}$, the chiral perturbation theory predictions for the two $S$-wave scattering lengths provide a very reliable additional input to the Roy equations. The outcome is an accurate description of the $S$ and $P$ partial waves as the light-quark masses decrease towards the chiral limit. As a test of the approach, we evaluate the first few threshold parameters of the $S$, $P$, and $D$ waves via Wanders' sum rules and find excellent agreement with chiral perturbation theory across the entire range $0 \le M_\pi \le M_{\pi,\mathrm{phys}}$. We further solve the Roy equations for pion masses above the physical value (up to $240\MeV$) and show that the resulting solutions agree well with existing lattice data at $M_\pi=239\MeV$. The present work paves the way for analyses of lattice data that fully incorporate the constraints of analyticity, unitarity, and crossing symmetry, and provides the basis for an accurate study of the dependence of the $\sigma$ and $\rho$ resonances on the light-quark masses, both of which will be addressed in future work.

Global monopoles can carry electric charge even when the scalar field that forms them is neutral. We show that a CP-odd operator in the Goldstone effective theory, typically discarded as a total derivative, gives them an electric charge $Q=-Cn$, with $C$ its Wilson coefficient and $n$ the winding number. This is a Witten effect on a global defect, generated by a mixed $\theta$-term between electromagnetism and a composite connection built from the Goldstone fields. The same group theory condition that allows the operator also guarantees the existence of monopoles. We also give a fermionic UV completion and determine the coefficient by matching the Goldstone-Wilczek current.

Relevant IceCube recent data for astrophysical neutrinos are analyzed. Similarly to cosmic rays and proton-proton LHC collisions, the corresponding spectra are satisfactorily described, for the entire interval of measured energies, through q-Gaussians. This fact reinforces the already available evidence that nonadditive entropies (either of the $S_q$ class or of the $S_{delta}$ one, or even alternative ones) appear to play a crucial role in systems such as black holes and related cosmological phenomena (e.g., dark energy). The IceCube data yield sensibly high values for the momenta-distribution nonadditive index (q \simeq 1.6), in contrast with the cosmic rays values (q \simeq 1.2) and the LHC values (q \simeq 1.1). This fact neatly indicates very-long-ranged space-time correlations. The detailed associated physical mechanisms remain, at the present stage, as an instigating open issue.

Unless the tensor to scalar ratio is small enough, the non-adiabatic mode associated with the ultralight bosons may be dangerously comparable with the adiabatic spectrum of curvature inhomogeneities. We point out here that this statement depends on the timeline of the post-inflationary expansion rate. Provided the decelerated evolution is slower than radiation for a sufficiently long period, the relative weight of the non-adiabatic and adiabatic components does not conflict with the direct constraints coming from the large-scale observations. Conversely the presence of ultralight bosons excludes the presence of long stages expanding faster than radiation. The synthesis of the light nuclei and the spectrum of the relic gravitons at high frequencies set the relevant constraints on the duration of the decelerated stages, on the delayed dominance of radiation and on the mass range of the ultralight scalars.

The LZ 248 keV recoil candidate admits an interpretation in terms of pseudo-Dirac dark matter with a mixing-suppressed inelastic $Z$ interaction. In the MSSM, the Higgsino limit conflicts with the adopted solar-neutrino bound, while a gaugino realization requires an unprotected mass degeneracy. We realize such spectra in the MRSSM, where an $R$-symmetric Dirac bino produces the required $Z$ transition and wino coannihilation supplies the observed relic abundance. We impose the Higgs and gauge coupling relations of $N=2$ supersymmetry at a high scale and evolve them to low energy. With the remaining model parameters held fixed, we obtain spectra spanning roughly 300-850 GeV that satisfy the adopted constraints and have a small diagonal axial current. If anomaly mediation dominates the Majorana splitting, its local scale is tens of MeV for splittings of a few hundred keV. A five-dimensional warped construction generates this scale through Goldberger-Wise stabilization and a loop correction to the no-scale Kähler potential. The spectra remain testable through elastic scattering, solar neutrinos and long-lived charged states.

Foundation models have recently gained significant attention in fields such as high energy physics (HEP). The tokenizers that convert detector data into discrete inputs for such models, however, are comparatively unexplored. This paper addresses this gap by learning discrete and compressed tokenized representations of HEP datasets. We demonstrate the approach on four modalities covering two different simulated detectors that vary in complexity. Treating tokenization as a rate-distortion problem, a systematic hyperparameter scan yields four design rules for tokenizing HEP data that hold across all set-based modalities studied. The cost of tokenization is evaluated on tasks including jet $p_T$ regression, particle flow reconstruction, and flavor tagging. We find that tokenization preserves much of the information needed for these tasks at compression factors of approximately 4-11$\times$ while keeping the jet $p_T$ resolution below 1%. We also present heptokens, an open-source library for tokenizing HEP data.

Extending the weak-coupling expansion of the pressure of a cold and dense ultrarelativistic electron gas to next-to-next-to-next-to-leading order (N3LO) in the gauge coupling has remained an open problem since the classic N2LO result of Freedman and McLerran, published in 1977. Here, we present the full N3LO pressure, the first thermodynamic quantity determined to this order in a physical gauge theory. The pressure exhibits good perturbative convergence and weak renormalization-scale dependence even at sizable couplings, while a Bayesian analysis of missing higher-order contributions indicates uncertainties that can exceed those inferred from scale variation alone.

Contemporary large-scale structure analyses center around the galaxy power spectrum, modeled with one-loop perturbation theory. This description naturally breaks down at large wavenumbers, prohibiting the extraction of cosmological information from small-scale clustering. In this work, we present a complete model for the redshift-space galaxy power spectrum up to two-loop order, derived in the framework of the Effective Field Theory of Large Scale Structure. This accounts for a wide variety of effects, including fifth-order galaxy bias, redshift-space distortions, small-scale non-linearities, spatial non-locality, long-wavelength bulk flows, coordinate distortions, and stochasticity, involving a total of 49 free coefficients. Our model additionally encodes all deterministic contributions to the one-loop bispectrum and trispectrum (as well as the tree-level quadspectrum and pentaspectrum), which depend on many of the same parameters. We implement the model numerically, using the vegas algorithm to precompute the loop integrals; this allows the full likelihood to be evaluated in milliseconds. The approach is validated using power spectra measured from high-resolution simulations, considering both dark matter and realistic galaxy samples. The extension to two-loop order greatly increases the range of scales over which the power spectrum can be modeled, with $k_{\rm max}$ rising from $0.2h\,\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$ to $0.34h\,\mathrm{Mpc}^{-1}$ for a luminous red galaxy sample at $z=0.5$. Much of the additional information is absorbed by the numerous fifth-order biases and counterterms; for this reason, constraints on $\sigma_8$ are not significantly enhanced by the inclusion of two-loop terms. Future work will assess the full implications of the two-loop model for cosmological parameter inference, both alone and in combination with higher-order statistics.

In the present work, we investigate the long-distance contributions to light hadrons and radiative decays of $\eta_c$, where the long-distance contribution is phenomenologically described by the meson loops. Our estimations indicate that the branching fractions of $\eta_c \to \mathcal{VV},\ \mathcal{V}=(\rho,\omega, \phi)$ can be roughly reproduced in the range $1.4<\alpha <1.6$. While the parameter range for $\eta_c \to \gamma \mathcal{V}$ is determined by the similarity of $\eta_c \to \gamma \mathcal{V}/\mathcal{VV}$ and $\chi_{c1} \to \gamma \mathcal{V}/\mathcal{VV}$. In this parameter range, our estimations indicate that the branching fractions for the processes $\eta_c \to \gamma \rho^0$ and $\eta_c \to \gamma \omega$ are of order $10^{-4}$, while the one for the process $\eta_c \to \gamma \phi$ is of order $10^{-5}$. The estimations in the present work are expected to be accessible by future experiments at BESIII and Belle II.

A novel physics-informed neural networks (PINNs) based approach for solving functional renormalization group flow equations is presented. We investigate the finite temperature phase transition in $O(N)$ models without relying on the large-$N$ approximation, which was used in earlier attempts with similar methods. We argue that these previous solutions cannot easily be generalized for more complex symmetries, and hence our approach can provide new insight. Our technique relies on a series of ansätze that combines the small- and large-field approximation schemes with a neural network, leading to a highly accurate approximation over the entire field range. We compare the PINNs approach with traditional grid-based Runge-Kutta results and show that the network can successfully learn the temperature, field, and scale dependencies of the effective potential in the local potential approximation.

We investigate the anomaly-induced transport properties of a holographic superconductor exhibiting spontaneous symmetry breaking. The holographic model incorporates vector and axial gauge fields, an additional non-anomalous $U(1)$ symmetry, and a charged scalar field that drives the phase transition. Working in the probe limit, we numerically construct the superconducting background under two alternative scalar field quantizations, corresponding to operators with scaling dimensions $\Delta=1$ and $\Delta=3$ (denoted as the $O_1$ and $O_2$ theories, respectively). Using Kubo formulae, we compute the chiral magnetic conductivities and examine their response to the scalar condensate. Our findings demonstrate that spontaneous symmetry breaking allows anomaly-induced transport to extend beyond anomalous currents, significantly impacting the non-anomalous sector as well. Remarkably, this effect appears in both theories, indicating that the influence on the non-anomalous sector is independent of the chosen quantization. The comparison of our numerical results with the analytical limits for $O_i \to 0$ and $O_i \to \infty$ $(i=1,2)$ reveals consistent behavior across both theories.

We develop a field-redefinition-invariant description of hadronic amplitudes outside the WZW sector at $\mathcal{O}(1/f_a)$, including general flavour-conserving and flavour-changing quark couplings. Starting from the most general CP-conserving Lagrangian for ALP interactions with the QCD sector, we identify invariant Wilson coefficient combinations and match them onto the $U(3)$ chiral theory. Using LSZ reduction, we choose fields for which ALP–meson mixing vanishes at this order; amplitudes then depend only on direct invariant couplings, while the anomalous gluonic interaction remains encoded in the $U(1)_A$ sector. For the baryon octet, we derive the general vector and axial couplings and identify, to our knowledge for the first time, an independent invariant ALP–baryon interaction from a second topological singlet structure in the $U(3)$ baryon Lagrangian. We constrain flavour-changing couplings with rare hyperon decays and show in an explicit ultraviolet model that running and matching can generate them from flavour-diagonal high-scale couplings. Finally, we estimate baryon–antibaryon widths and find that, in a gluophilic benchmark, their sum can exceed individual exclusive mesonic widths for $2~\text{GeV} \le m_a \le 3~\text{GeV}$.

We present the new release of nuclear parton distribution functions (nPDFs) from the nCTEQ collaboration: nCTEQ26. In this global analysis, we combine our recent, more selective studies of different experimental measurements and extend them to determine a modern set of nPDFs based on the largest selection of data considered to date. This selection includes neutral- and charged-current deep-inelastic scattering (DIS), fixed-target Drell-Yan, and a large variety of collider data from RHIC and LHC Runs I and II. On the theoretical side, we match this considerably extended kinematic range with a new nPDF parametrization that combines a flexible functional form of the x-dependence with a quadratic logarithmic nuclear A-dependence as well as target-mass and deuteron corrections for the reliable inclusion of high-x DIS data. Following our previous successful work, we partially employ a data-driven approach that allows us to not only include open heavy-quark data, but also quarkonium data. In addition, we establish the consistency of this approach by comparing it to an alternative fit based on perturbative predictions of open heavy-quark data alone. We determine the uncertainties of our nCTEQ26 nPDFs with a Hessian error analysis, test their reliability by comparing our nPDFs to other, similar recent analyses, and make predictions for current and future experimental measurements that have not been included in the analysis.

We investigate holographic Krylov complexity in bottom-up holographic QCD models describing the confined phase, using the recently proposed correspondence between the growth rate of Krylov complexity and the proper radial momentum of probes, such as particles and strings, falling in the bulk spacetime. As representative confining backgrounds, we consider two horizonless geometries, namely the dilaton-deformed AdS-soliton and the deformed thermal-AdS spacetime, both arising as solutions of an Einstein-dilaton gravity system. We find that the Krylov complexity associated with a massive particle exhibits qualitatively distinct behavior in these two backgrounds when analyzed in the Einstein frame. In the deformed AdS-soliton geometry, the complexity undergoes periodic oscillations, with both the oscillation period and amplitude depending on the parameters of the model. In contrast, in the deformed thermal-AdS geometry, the complexity grows exponentially at late times and does not display oscillatory behavior. We then investigate string dynamics in the string frame and find that the Krylov complexity exhibits oscillatory behavior in both confining backgrounds. This behavior is traced to the emergence of an additional turning point in the deep infrared of the string-frame geometry. Motivated by this observation, we further analyze massive-particle dynamics in the string frame, where we find qualitatively similar behavior in the two confining backgrounds. Our results demonstrate that the Krylov complexity of confined holographic systems depends sensitively on the choice of probe and frame, while also revealing a closer correspondence between the two confining geometries in the string-frame description.

Anomaly detection, the identification of collision events that deviate from Standard Model expectations, is one of the most promising model-agnostic strategies for new-physics searches at the Large Hadron Collider. Searching for rare events in learned low-dimensional representations removes the need to commit to hand-crafted observables a priori, but sacrifices the immediate physical interpretation those observables provide. For anomaly detection to enter a discovery pipeline, flagged events must therefore be diagnosed locally, both to distinguish potential new physics from mismodeling or detector effects and to identify observables for targeted follow-up searches. We evaluate supervised and self-supervised neural embedding strategies on COLLIDE-2V, a 750-million-event dataset simulated under realistic High-Luminosity LHC conditions, using the reconstruction error of an autoencoder trained in the learned latent space as the anomaly score. Across the configurations and benchmark signals considered, supervised objectives, which exploit simulation process labels during training, generally outperform their self-supervised counterparts and, in their best configurations, improve on an autoencoder trained directly on kinematic features, raising the signal efficiency at 10% background acceptance on all held-out processes. We further introduce a local diagnostic pipeline that fits a Gaussian Mixture Model to the SM latent space, profiles each component through high-level observables without process labels, localizes the flagged events, and ranks observables by their local discriminating power. The ranking recovers the defining kinematics of the held-out processes, while correlating the anomaly score with the same observables quantifies how closely the score tracks them, revealing cases where the most discriminating observable is not the one the score follows most closely.

An important goal of high-energy physics is to better understand the spacetime structure of particle emitting sources created in heavy-ion collisions. For a fraction of a second a special form of matter, the so-called quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is created, which can be examined with the toolkit of femtoscopy. With the measurement of correlation functions it was determined that Lévy distributions describe the shape of QGP sources the most accurately, however, based on hydrodynamics Gaussian distributions are typically expected. In this article we showcase an exact solution of the equations of relativistic hydrodynamics, which aims to resolve this puzzle by providing Lévy distributions directly from hydrodynamics. A detailed analysis reveals whether the predictions of this solution are in accordance with observations.

Chiral gauge theories are a central focus of research in theoretical particle physics due to the parity symmetry breaking observed in the Standard Model. Left-Right Symmetric Models (LRM) explain the breaking of parity through a Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking Mechanism, predicting new $W_R$ and $Z_R$ gauge bosons. The absence of direct BSM physics detection at the LHC has driven research towards precision observables and Effective Field Theories (EFTs), particularly the SMEFT framework. Precision radiative calculations in chiral theories using dimensional regularization require a $D$-dimensional $\gamma_5$ prescription, such as the mathematically consistent Breitenlohner-Maison-'t Hooft-Veltman (BMHV) scheme. However, this scheme introduces gauge symmetry-breaking terms that obstruct Slavnov-Taylor identities. A primary objective of this thesis is to provide a pedagogical introduction to cancelling these spurious anomalies via algebraic renormalization, and to derive the one-loop symmetry-restoring finite counterterms required to renormalize the four-fermion operators of the $\nu$SMEFT. Furthermore, the thesis explores UV completions like LRMs embedded in other BSM theories like the Grand Unified Theories. This embedding implies that no discrete symmetries remain at the TeV scale and allows LRMs to be treated as EFTs with the minimal scalar content needed to perform the Spontaneous Symmetry Breaking Mechanism. The second main objective is to derive robust lower bounds on the masses of the new gauge bosons and the LR scale using collider observables. This analysis is performed for both the effective and traditional LRMs, ensuring that the results are independent of other parameters of the theory.

We explore the possibility of non-resonant flavoured leptogenesis in the framework of the aligned two-Higgs doublet model augmented with two right-handed neutrinos. Considering the lightest heavy neutrino mass between 10 TeV-100 TeV, we calculate the baryon asymmetry of the universe by solving fully flavoured coupled Boltzmann equations and find that the observed baryon asymmetry can be successfully generated for lightest heavy-neutrino masses in this range without relying on resonant enhancement. We compute the flavour-dependent CP asymmetries and washouts as well. Unlike conventional analyses based on only one Higgs doublet, in this framework, both Yukawa structures associated with the scalar doublets contribute to the CP asymmetry, and their combined effect plays an essential role in realizing the observed lepton asymmetry. We find that the flavoured lepton asymmetry survives if the washout in that direction is weak. The CP asymmetries in the other flavour directions suffer strong washout. The surviving flavour-dependent lepton asymmetry becomes the main contributor to the final baryon asymmetry. We perform a comprehensive numerical analysis to identify the allowed regions of the multi-dimensional parameter space compatible with neutrino oscillation data, perturbativity of the Yukawa couplings, charged-lepton flavour violation and the observed baryon asymmetry.

Energetic partons traversing the quark-gluon plasma in relativistic heavy-ion collisions induce a medium response that modifies the production of associated hadrons, whose chemical composition provides a sensitive probe of this response. We study jet-associated hadrochemistry using the coupled linear Boltzmann transport and hydrodynamics model with a hybrid hadronization scheme that combines Cooper–Frye particlization, quark coalescence and string fragmentation. For inclusive charged jets in $p+p$ and 0–10% central Pb+Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=5.02$~TeV, the calculated in-cone $K/\pi$ and $p/\pi$ ratios are enhanced in Pb+Pb relative to $p+p$ collisions, consistent with preliminary ALICE measurements, with coalescence between shower and thermal partons providing a substantial contribution. Extending the analysis to dijet events, we predict that both ratios are enhanced around the leading and subleading jets, more strongly around the subleading jet and more pronounced for larger radial size. After mixed-event acceptance correction and sideband background subtraction, the yields of associated pions, kaons and protons all become negative near $|\Delta\phi|\simeq\pi/2$, signaling a depletion caused by the diffusion wake. The $K/\pi$ and $p/\pi$ ratios of these deficits remain finite and exceed the $p+p$ values around the jet peaks, indicating that the missing hadrons originate from jet-excited medium. These results establish dijet hadrochemistry as an experimentally accessible tomographic probe of jet-induced medium excitation and the diffusion wake.

We examine the response of a two level Unruh-DeWitt (UD) detector interacting with the Kaluza-Klein (KK) mass modes of a bulk scalar field in extra dimensional models. Considering two of the promising extra dimensional models with distinct compactifications, such as large, flat extra dimensions in the Arkani Hamed, Dimopoulos & Dvali (ADD) framework and warped extra dimensions in the Randall-Sundrum (RS) scenario, we compute the profile function of the detector. We extend this computation to the 6 dimensional doubly compactified spacetime geometry. The profile function of the detector has been examined as a function of the energy gap of the detector, the compactification radius of the extra dimension, and the dimensionality of spacetime, requiring the chosen parameter space appropriately such that the gauge hierarchy problem is duly addressed. We find that the pattern of the profile function is dictated by the spacing of the KK mass spectrum and the resolution of the detector. For ADD model, the spacing between successive KK modes decreases with the increasing compactification radius, yielding a smoothly increasing continuum pattern in the profile function. Whereas for the RS warped geometry model, a tiny deviation in the radius of the extra dimension produces a large change in the same, resulting a sharp increment. The resolvability of the KK mode structure is sensitive to the underlying geometry of the spacetime, providing a qualitative distinction between flat and warped extra dimensional scenarios within the UD detector framework.

We investigate the mass spectra of the \(ncnc\bar{c}\), \(nnnn\bar{c}\), and \(nnnc\bar{c}\) pentaquark systems, where \(n\) denotes a light \(u\) or \(d\) quark, within a leading-order linear Regge approximation. The extension of the baryon intercept and inverse-slope additivity relations to these systems is implemented as a minimal cluster-additive ansatz for compact color-antitriplet diquarks, rather than assumed to be an exact QCD relation. By analyzing the corresponding trajectories in the \((J,M^2)\) plane, we first determine the allowed mass range of the ground-state \(ncnc\bar{c}\) pentaquark and extract the associated Regge parameters. Using these inputs, we estimate the mass intervals of the excited states of the \(ncnc\bar{c}\), \(nnnn\bar{c}\), and \(nnnc\bar{c}\) systems. We also obtain analytical mass-inequality relations. The resulting spectra exhibit a systematic ordering with increasing total spin and orbital excitation along the Regge trajectories. We further compare the predicted states with selected kinematically compatible meson–baryon thresholds as a qualitative guide to possible nearby channels. Our results provide a useful reference for future theoretical studies and may serve as a guide for experimental searches and spin-parity assignments of pentaquark candidates in the open- and hidden-charm sectors.

The photonuclear response reflects nuclear structure and the dynamics of excitation and decay, with neutron-emission channels retaining information that can be obscured in inclusive dissociation yields. We calculate specified-side and mutual neutron-tagged Coulomb-dissociation cross sections in ultraperipheral $^{96}_{44}\mathrm{Ru}+{}^{96}_{44}\mathrm{Ru}$ and $^{96}_{40}\mathrm{Zr}+{}^{96}_{40}\mathrm{Zr}$ collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=200~\mathrm{GeV}$ using an impact-parameter-dependent equivalent-photon framework with photonuclear inputs from TALYS calculations and ENDF evaluations. Across the two input sets, the predicted Ru/Zr ratios span $1.54$-$1.71$ for exact $1n$ and $2.49$-$3.09$ for $1n1n$, while inclusive $Xn$ (at least one neutron) and $XnXn$ ratios remain near unity at $0.96$-$0.99$ and $1.05$-$1.10$, respectively. The one-neutron ratios lie well above the corresponding flux-only $Z^2$ and $Z^4$ charge-scaling references, reflecting differences in the low-energy one-neutron response that are amplified by mutual tagging. This topology hierarchy identifies neutron-tagged isobar ratios as sensitive probes of photonuclear response, revealing response differences hidden in inclusive dissociation. These calculations also provide neutron-emission inputs for neutron-tagged vector-meson photoproduction in isobar collisions.

A macroscopic method of the parton and hadron cascade model PACIAE combined with the coalescence model DCPC is employed to study the $\phi$-mesic nuclei in $pp$ collisions at $\sqrt{s}$ = 7 TeV for the first time in this work. Based on the final hadronic states of $pp$ collisions simulated by the PACIAE model, the $\phi$-mesic nuclei: $\mathrm{^3_{\phi} H}(\phi-pn)$, $\mathrm{^4_{\phi} H}(\phi-pnn)$, and $\mathrm{^4_{\phi} He}(\phi-ppn)$ are recombined by the DCPC model with constituents of protons, neutrons, and $\phi$ mesons. Their yields, transverse momentum spectra, and rapidity distributions are simulated separately. These theoretical predictions call for experimental confirmation.

We convert existing exclusion limits on the elastic spin-independent (SI) dark matter–proton cross sections into upper bounds on the event rate, subsequently applying them to constrain other effective operators for inelastic scattering of light dark matter in the GeV mass region. We focus on three representative scenarios including the isoscalar, proton-philic, and the proton-philic spin-dependent inelastic dark matter model, which are well-motivated in phenomenological studies of dark matter detection.

Quark-gluon plasma (QGP) is a conjectured state of matter wherein the quarks and gluons of QCD theory, usually confined within the nucleons in atomic nuclei, are deconfined under conditions of extremely high temperature and pressure. According to the current understanding of big-bang evolution, conditions compatible with QGP formation existed for a brief early period as the universe expanded and cooled. In that scenario present matter in the universe in some sense emerged from “freezeout” of the primordial QGP. This article describes the rise and fall of a community effort to create QGP in the laboratory and study its properties.

We calculate the spectrum of gravitational waves generated by a cosmological magnetic field with a narrow-band power spectrum. For a spectrum narrowly peaked at a comoving wavenumber $k_c$, we find that the gravitational wave signal peaks at $2k_c$ and has a sharp cutoff at this scale. We apply this result to an ultralight dark matter model of magnetogenesis operating around recombination, in which an axion-photon coupling generates a helical magnetic field by parametric resonance. We determine the conditions for the resulting gravitational waves to enter the frequency range of pulsar timing experiments. Although the required frequency can be reached for sufficiently large coupling, the corresponding amplitude is below the experimental sensitivity for physically allowed energy densities of the magnetic field. We generalize this conclusion to models of magnetogenesis operating at other epochs, estimating as $T \simeq 160 \mathrm{MeV}$ the temperature of a magnetogenesis process assumed to be the source of the stochastic gravitational wave background suggested by pulsar timing arrays. We place the lower bound $T \gtrsim 1$-$10 \mathrm{MeV}$ on such viable models.