Mon·Dec 1, 2025Monday·December 1, 2025

1. 01*

   $\text{history}$ in the making: A tool for NNLO cross sections

   Lukas Simon🇫🇷 · Sven Yannick Klein🇩🇪

   In these proceedings, we report on our progress in developing the $\text{history}$ framework, which aims to implement the fully-local Nested Soft-Collinear infrared subtraction scheme for the automated phase-space integration of color-singlet production processes in hadronic collisions at NNLO accuracy. We validate our implementation for quark-antiquark-initiated processes and demonstrate a first application of the tool by predicting a novel observable for the inclusive process $pp\to ZH+X$, which may offer sensitivity to potential effects of new physics.

   hep-ph0 citations
2. 02*

   Saturation effects in exclusive vector meson production in DIS

   Oscar Garcia-Montero🇩🇪 · Yannik Hoffmann🇩🇪 · Sören Schlichting🇩🇪

   We investigate saturation effects in exclusive vector meson production in deep inelastic scattering (DIS), where we model fluctuations within the target protons as localized color-charge hotspots. Based on the Color Glass Condensate (CGC) framework and the dipole picture for vector meson production, we examine the dependencies of coherent and incoherent scattering cross sections on the momentum transfer. We draw conclusions on the effectiveness of our hot spot model and the strength of the suppression of the scattering cross sections caused by saturation effects. We find that saturation has mild effects in the given energy and charge-density ranges, but can also show that suppression becomes more prominent as the color-charge density inside the proton increases.

   hep-phnucl-th1 citation
3. 03*

   Complexity Growth in Flavor-Dependent Systems

   Wen-Bin Chang🇨🇳 · Xun Chen🇨🇳 · Defu Hou🇨🇳

   In this work, we investigate holographic complexity growth in a flavor-dependent Einstein-Maxwell-Dilaton (EMD) model, where the parameters are determined through machine learning algorithms fitted to lattice QCD equation of state (EoS) and baryon number susceptibility data. Within the Complexity=Action (CA) conjecture, we introduce a probe string into the bulk geometry and evaluate the time derivative of its Nambu-Goto (NG) action on the Wheeler-DeWitt (WDW) patch as the holographic dual of complexity growth. Our analysis explores the dependence of complexity growth on string velocity, chemical potential, temperature, and the number of flavors. Results show maximum complexity growth for stationary strings, decreasing with string velocity. At zero chemical potential, complexity growth is largest in the pure gluon system and reduces with the addition of quark flavors. Increasing temperature and chemical potential consistently enhance complexity growth. Furthermore, complexity growth exhibits multi-valued behavior in regions corresponding to first-order transitions and single-valued behavior in crossover regimes, indicating that complexity can serve as a probe for phase transitions.

   hep-ph2 citations
4. 04*

   On the double counting subtraction at NLO${}^{\star }$ of the high-energy factorization approach

   A. Chernyshev🇷🇺 · V. Saleev🇷🇺

   We suggest improvements for double counting subtraction scheme, which is needed for the consistent treatment of real corrections in the high-energy limit, and apply it to the single photon production at the NLO${}^{\star }$ approximation of the high-energy factorization approach. The presented improvements allow us to avoid the oversubtraction problem.

   hep-phPoS(2026)·0 citations
5. 05*

   Pion generalized parton distributions at zero skewness

   Fernando Chandra🇮🇩 · Parada T. P. Hutauruk🇰🇷 · Terry Mart🇮🇩

   In this paper, we systematically study the generalized parton distributions (GPDs) of the pion Goldstone Boson at zero skewness ($\xi =0$) in the framework of the covariant Nambu--Jona-Lasinio model with the help of the proper time regularization scheme to cure the divergence simultaneously to simulate the confinement. To this end, we evaluate the generalized form factors and parton distribution functions derived, respectively, from the first Mellin moments and the forward limit pion GPDs, in comparison to existing experimental data, recent lattice QCD simulations, and JAM global QCD analyses. We find that the pion parton distribution functions derived from the pion GPDs have excellent agreement with the experimental data and JAM analysis at renormalization scale ${\mu }^2=$ 4 and 27 GeV${}^2$. In addition, our results for the pion generalized form factors involving the scalar, vector, and tensor dressed form factors are consistent with recent lattice data and existing data. We then compute the charge radii for those dressed generalized form factors, and we obtain $r_S^{\pi }=$ 0.56 fm, $r_V^{\pi }=$ 0.63 fm, and $r_T^{\pi }=$ 0.83 fm for the pion scalar, vector, and tensor form factors, respectively.

   hep-phModern Physics Letters A 41 (30n31), 2642…·3 citations
6. 06*

   Holographic description of the kaon gravitational form factor

   Zhibo Liu🇯🇵 · Akira Watanabe🇯🇵

   We compute the kaon gravitational form factor (GFF) using a bottom-up holographic QCD approach that incorporates SU(3) flavor symmetry breaking through the strange quark mass. We present the resulting Q^2 dependence of the kaon GFF and compare it with that of the pion. In the high-energy limit, the kaon GFF exhibits a 1/Q^2 falloff, in agreement with perturbative QCD. Furthermore, we extract the gravitational radius of the kaon and find it to be almost the same as that of the pion, with a slightly smaller value.

   hep-phPoS(2026)·0 citations
7. 07*

   Fragmentation Functions:Modifications and new Applications

   A.K.Likhoded🇷🇺 · V.A.Petrov🇷🇺 · V.D.Samoylenko🇷🇺

   We present a heavy quark fragmentation mechanism based on a modified version of the standard model of quark fragmentation, taking into account peculiarities of the Regge trajectories of quarkonia containing heavy quarks. The modified model describes the experimental data more satisfactorily both for meson and baryon production.

   hep-ph0 citations
8. 08*

   Event shapes and Inclusive Hadron Spectra at FCC-ee energies

   Philip Mathew🇨🇭 · Ritu Aggarwal🇮🇳 · Manjit Kaur🇮🇳

   We analyze hadronic final states of $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ annihilation through event shape observables, Thrust and C-parameter, and inclusive hadron spectra at the planned center-of-mass (c.m.) energies of the Future Circular Electron-Positron Collider (FCC-ee). Collision data is produced using Monte Carlo event generation in PYTHIA at 91.2, 160, 240, and 365 GeV. Distortions of event shapes due to initial-state photon radiation and background decays of Z pairs, W pairs, top-quark pairs, and Higgs bosons are investigated. An extraction of the strong coupling ${\alpha }_{\text{s}}$ is performed by fitting event shape distributions to perturbative QCD predictions at next-to-next-to-leading-order (NNLO) accuracy, and the sources of systematic uncertainties at high c.m. energies are discussed. Soft gluon dynamics is examined through charged particle multiplicities and momentum distributions, and energy evolution of mean values is compared with prior experimental results. The inferences from this phenomenological study provide a reference to QCD studies at future high-energy $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ colliders.

   hep-phPRD(2026)·1 citation
9. 09*

   Constraining the Inert Doublet Model at the LHC

   Jayita Lahiri🇩🇪 · Tania Robens🇭🇷 · Krzysztof Rolbiecki🇵🇱

   In this work, we analyze experimental exclusion bounds that have been derived within a specific new physics realization, the two Higgs-doublet model with a pseudoscalar singlet (2HDMa), and their application to a different model, the Inert Doublet Model (IDM), that features the same final state. In this context, we discuss the sensitivity of the ATLAS search for the 2HDMa in final states with leptons and missing energy. We demonstrate that, with cuts optimized for a specific model topology, other new physics scenarios with larger rates might yet escape detection. We also give an update on constraints from vector boson fusion production of the Standard Model-like scalar and subsequent invisible decay from full Run 2 data on the parameter space of the IDM, with a special emphasis on the off-shell region, as well as a search that specifically concentrates on soft lepton final states.

   hep-ph5 citations
10. 10*

    Light Vector Dark Matter via a Magnetic Dipole Portal: Bridging Direct Detection and Fixed-Target Searches

    Avik Banerjee🇮🇳 · Riccardo Catena🇸🇪 · Taylor R. Gray🇸🇪

    We present a model featuring sub-GeV vector dark matter by augmenting the Standard Model with a new non-Abelian dark $SU(2{)}_D$, spontaneously broken by the vacuum expectation values of a scalar doublet and a triplet. Interactions between the dark and visible sectors arise through a dimension-5 non-Abelian \textit{avatar} of kinetic mixing portal, inducing effective magnetic dipole couplings of the dark matter, with the photon and Z boson. The resulting spectrum of the dark gauge bosons naturally exhibits an inverse mass hierarchy between the dark matter and the $Z^{\prime }$, leading to interesting phenomenology at fixed-target experiments such as LDMX through dark off-shell bremsstrahlung, dark Higgs-strahlung, invisible vector meson decay, and visible decays. We compute the thermal relic abundance across sub-GeV dark matter masses, with regions of freeze-out proceeding via annihilation into dark sector states or direct annihilation into Standard Model states. Bounds from a broad set of laboratory probes, along with cosmological and astrophysical observations, are incorporated in our analysis. Among them, the most restrictive bounds originate from direct detection experiments, Big Bang Nucleosynthesis, collider searches, and the CMB. Our results demonstrate that a sizeable region of parameter space remains consistent with the observed relic abundance and current experimental constraints, and that fixed-target searches should be considered in tandem with direct detection and cosmological probes for an effective and comprehensive search strategy, especially in the off-shell regime.

    hep-phhep-thJHEP(2026)·3 citations
11. 11*

    Analytical Soft Functions for Heavy-Quark Final States at Hadron Colliders

    Ze Long Liu🇨🇳 · Pier Francesco Monni🇨🇭

    We present the first computation of the complete two-loop, fully-differential soft function describing the production of a heavy-quark pair in association with a color-singlet system at hadron colliders. This result constitutes one of the most complex soft functions known to date and it is obtained in closed analytic form for generic multi-dimensional kinematics. This allows us to obtain novel analytic results for the transverse-momentum-dependent and threshold soft functions in this class of processes. We further obtain a decomposition of the soft function into dipole and tripole color correlators, thereby supplying essential building blocks for processes involving a heavy-quark pair produced together with additional light jets at both hadron and lepton colliders. These results represent a key ingredient for advancing precision predictions for heavy-quark physics at the LHC.

    hep-phnucl-thPRL(2026)·5 citations
12. 12*

    Quark mixing from muon collider neutrinos

    David Marzocca🇮🇹 · Francesco Montagno🇪🇸 · Manuel Morales-Alvarado🇮🇹 · Andrea Wulzer🇪🇸

    A high energy muon collider naturally produces a collimated beam of neutrinos for a fixed-target experiment at a dedicated far-forward facility. The high intensity and energy of the beam makes it ideally suited for astonishingly precise measurements of neutrino scattering on nucleons in the deeply inelastic regime, enabling the determination of the Cabibbo--Kobayashi--Maskawa~(CKM) quark mixing matrix. We assess the floor to the attainable sensitivity set by irreducible sources of uncertainties from the imperfect knowledge of the parton distribution (PDF) and fragmentation functions, showing that a strong improvement is possible well above current standards. As a by-product, our analysis also outlines extraordinary perspectives for a combined determination of the PDF. The results demonstrate the potential of a parasitic neutrino experiment at the muon collider, motivating detailed future studies.

    hep-phhep-exJHEP(2026)·6 citations
13. 13*

    Intrinsic $k_T$ and soft gluons in Monte Carlo event generators

    Louis Moureaux🇩🇪 · Aleksandra Lelek🇧🇪 · Francesco Hautmann🇬🇧 · Laurent Favart🇧🇪

    Experimental measurements of the transverse momentum of Drell-Yan lepton pairs are sensitive to non-perturbative physics associated with the intrinsic parton transverse momentum $k_T$. We discuss recent determinations of intrinsic $k_T$ in the context of transverse momentum dependent (TMD) parton branching calculations and collinear parton-shower Monte Carlo generators. We illustrate the influence of the soft-gluon resolution scale and the non-perturbative Sudakov region on the intrinsic $k_T$ extraction. We emphasize the relevance of the correct treatment of correlated uncertainties between different transverse momentum bins in TMD fits and present an application to the determination of the intrinsic $k_T$ in the forward rapidity region.

    hep-phPoS(2026)·2 citations
14. 14*

    Sensitivity of the FCC-ee to the decay of a dark photon into a ${\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$ pair

    Giacomo Polesello🇮🇹

    The production of a dark photon $A^{\prime }$ at the proposed CERN FCC-ee collider is investigated. The study addresses the associated production $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to \gamma A^{\prime }$ followed by the decay $A^{\prime }\to {\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$. The 95% CL sensitivity on the mixing between the photon and the dark photon is evaluated in the $m_{A^{\prime }}$ mass range 0.4-360 GeV, based on a parametrised simulation of the IDEA detector. The study is performed both for prompt and long-lived decays of the $A^{\prime }$.

    hep-phhep-ex3 citations
15. 15*

    Vector-field spontaneous baryogenesis with Lorentz invariance violation

    Mattia Dubbini🇮🇹 · Orlando Luongo🇮🇹 · Aniello Quaranta🇮🇹

    We extend spontaneous baryogenesis by considering the spontaneous breaking of $U(1{)}_B$ through a complex vector field. This field interacts with baryons and leptons via a vector-current coupling and, by construction, acquires a nonzero vacuum expectation value. Accordingly, the theory also exhibits a spontaneous violation of Lorentz invariance, effectively realizing a Bumblebee model. In this picture, the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone boson arising from spontaneous breaking of the $U(1{)}_B$ global symmetry is the global phase of the Bumblebee vector and, in the broken phase, it results minimally coupled with the baryonic current, guaranteeing the violation of the baryon number. Consequently, we assume that the pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone, arising from spontaneous breaking of $U(1{)}_B$, plays the role of the inflaton, leading to baryogenesis across the entire inflationary stage, up to when the inflaton decays into baryon-antilepton and antibaryon-lepton pairs through a CP-violating interaction that also violates the Lorentz symmetry. Afterwards, we address the issue of flavor oscillations among baryon and lepton fields, including the oscillation probability in the calculation of the baryon asymmetry. Remarkably, our framework predicts a non-null mixing factor even for massless fermions. This mixing acts on the spatial momenta rather than on the masses of the produced fermions, allowing larger values of the coupling constant even guaranteeing the production of light fermions. The net baryon asymmetry results accordingly modified, and may also reproduce the experimental data for allowed values of the coupling constant.

    hep-phastro-ph.COgr-qcJCAP(2026)·0 citations
16. 16*

    The Art of Counting: a reappraisal of the HEFT expansion

    Ilaria Brivio🇮🇹 · Ramona Gröber🇮🇹 · Konstantin Schmid🇮🇹

    We revisit the power counting of the Higgs Effective Field Theory (HEFT) from first principles, by requiring that predictions for physical observables follow a series expansion in small, dimensionless quantities. Depending on whether HEFT is formulated in terms of a unique low-energy scale $v$ or in terms of two scales $v<f$, this approach identifies two viable power counting rules that can accommodate any operator normalization choice. We provide quantitative prescriptions for the consistent truncation of HEFT operators, amplitudes and observable contributions and we illustrate our arguments with a number of examples.

    hep-phJHEP(2026)·19 citations
17. 17*

    Higgs pair production in gluon fusion to higher orders in Higgs Effective Field Theory

    Ilaria Brivio🇮🇹 · Ramona Gröber🇮🇹 · Konstantin Schmid🇮🇹

    Higgs pair production offers the opportunity to probe correlations among the couplings of one or two Higgs bosons to fermions and gauge bosons. In this context, it serves as a powerful test of the underlying Effective Field Theory (EFT) framework. In particular, while such couplings remain correlated in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT) at dimension six, they can become fully de-correlated in Higgs Effective Field Theory (HEFT) already at leading order in the EFT expansion. In this work, we study Higgs pair production via gluon fusion within the HEFT framework. We demonstrate that adopting a consistent power counting in combination with next-to-leading order (NLO) diagrams necessitates the inclusion of higher-dimensional operators beyond the leading ones. We analyze their phenomenological impact and re-assess critically the kinematic benchmark scenarios commonly used in experimental non-resonant di-Higgs searches in light of these additional contributions.

    hep-phJHEP(2026)·13 citations
18. 18*

    SU($N_c$) confinement and color $N_c$-ality

    V. Tomas Mari Surkau🇫🇷 · Urko Reinosa🇫🇷

    In a recent work, we have argued that the net quark number gained by a bath of quarks and gluons upon bringing an external static quark probe, while being equal to $1$ in the high temperature, deconfined phase, is equal to $0$ or $3$ in the low temperature, confined phase, depending on the value of the quark chemical potential. This establishes a clear-cut connection between the confinement of a medium as probed by order parameters such as the Polyakov loop, and the ability of that same medium to screen the quark probe into states with the same net quark content as mesons or baryons. In this work, we extend these findings to the SU($N_c$) color group, consider color probes in various (fundamental and non-fundamental) representations, and conjecture a rationale of how these results could be recovered from a purely thermodynamic argument that shortcuts the use of the Euclidean functional framework, while emphasizing the role of color $N_c$-ality as a proxy for center symmetry within the Minkowskian framework.

    hep-phhep-thPRD(2026)·1 citation
19. 19*

    IRC-safe jet flavour at leading power

    Terry Generet🇬🇧

    We derive the leading power quark mass effects in cross sections involving flavour modulo-2 jets at next-to-next-to-leading order (NNLO) in QCD. Including these leading power terms recovers, up to power corrections, the infrared-collinear-safe massive-quark cross section from the infrared-collinear-unsafe massless-quark one. The method is applicable to all common jet algorithms and significantly more practical than computing fully massive cross sections. We explicitly demonstrate the approach for flavoured jets produced in lepton collisions, inclusive $b$-jet production at the LHC and the associated production of a $b$-jet and a $Z$-boson at the LHC. Through NNLO, we do not observe any breakdown of perturbative convergence resulting from the presence of logarithms of the quark mass, though such effects might become significant at higher orders. The most important feature of our approach is that it does not require any changes to the definition of the jet or its flavour, nor does it modify the definition of the cross section. Consequently, the predictions can be compared to measurements performed using standard jet clustering algorithms, provided that jet flavour is assigned according to the flavour modulo-2 scheme or an unfolding to this scheme is performed, without the need for experimental collaborations to adapt their analyses to some new, infrared-collinear-safe definition of jet flavour, as would be the case for most - if not all - solutions presented in the literature thus far. We further demonstrate that power corrections in the quark mass, which are typically neglected in the literature, can be significant.

    hep-phJHEP(2026)·3 citations
20. 20*

    New Particles at the Z-Pole: Tera-Z factories as discovery and precision machines

    Marco Drewes🇧🇪 · Juraj Klarić🇭🇷 · Yuan-Zhen Li🇨🇳

    Several proposed future lepton colliders are capable of producing trillions of Z-bosons, including FCC-ee, CEPC, LEP3 and LEP-Z. Such Tera-Z factories can discover new elementary particles with couplings to the Z-boson that are orders of magnitude smaller than current bounds. For couplings near the currently excluded parameter regions, they could produce sufficiently large samples to study the new particles' properties in detail, thereby serving as both a discovery and precision machine in one. Using simple analytic estimates, we quantify the dependence of the expected event yield in long-lived particle searches on the number of produced Z-bosons and on the detector dimensions. From this, we derive estimates for both the discovery reach and the measurement precision attainable at such facilities. While the precision of such estimates of course falls short of proper simulations, the analytic approach is suitable for a quick assessment of the sensitivity for a given design. We illustrate this with two examples, heavy neutral leptons and axion-like particles. Under optimistic assumptions, these could be produced in the millions and billions, respectively, effectively turning future lepton colliders into exotics factories.

    hep-phhep-exEPJC(2026)·8 citations
21. 21*

    Gravitational Waves from Confining Dark Sectors with Self-Consistent Effective Potentials

    Rachel Houtz🇺🇸 · Martha Ulloa🇺🇸 · Mia West🇺🇸

    In this work, we present a self-consistent prediction for the gravitational wave signal arising from confinement-induced phase transitions in hidden non-Abelian SU(N) gauge theories with F light flavors. To do this, we impose perturbativity and unitarity constraints on the thermal effective potential to identify the portion of parameter space that admits a reliable effective field theory description. We also include the Polyakov-loop-improved finite-temperature potential for both N=3 and N=4, where N is the number of dark colors, using an approximate computation of the mediating effects. We compute the resulting gravitational wave spectrum and delineate the regions of parameter space that remain phenomenologically viable after imposing theoretical consistency conditions. We find that these constraints make uncovering a stochastic background gravitational wave signal in this scenario more challenging, even for proposed future detectors.

    hep-phJHEP(2026)·6 citations
22. 22*

    Quark-Lepton Unification Signatures

    Jon Butterworth🇬🇧 · Hridoy Debnath🇺🇸 · Pavel Fileviez Perez🇺🇸 · Peng Wang🇬🇧

    We investigate the collider signatures of the minimal framework for quark-lepton unification at a scale not far from the electroweak symmetry breaking scale. This theory predicts a rich spectrum of new fields, including one vector leptoquark, two scalar leptoquarks, a color-octet scalar, and an additional Higgs doublet. Neutrino masses are generated via the inverse seesaw mechanism, facilitating viable matter unification at the low scale. We find that this theory predicts that in many cases the dominant leptoquark decays are to the third generation Standard Model quarks and leptons. We identify key experimental signatures at the Large Hadron Collider, evaluate and discuss the limits from current measurements, and outline potential strategies for probing this theory in the near future.

    hep-phhep-exhep-thPRD(2026)·3 citations
23. 23*

    Cosmology of Gravi-Axions

    Stephon Alexander🇺🇸 · Gregory Gabadadze🇺🇸 · Leah Jenks🇺🇸 · Nicolás Yunes🇺🇸

    We show how a mass term for gravitational axions (''gravi-axions'') with a Chern-Simons coupling to gravity can naturally arise due to non-perturbative contributions from Euclidean wormholes, breaking the continuous shift symmetry of the standard theory. The induced mass can be generated in a cosmologically relevant range to be the dark matter or dark energy of the universe for a reasonable and well-motivated range of the symmetry breaking scale. Upon generating the gravi-axion mass term, we discuss the cosmology of the theory. We find that the gravi-axion can be produced to be the dominant dark matter component via misalignment or gravitational particle production, and that in a different regime, the gravi-axion can act as dynamical dark energy. We discuss gravi-axion decay into gravitons as a potential observational window for this theory. Finally, we find that, for late-time, astrophysical compact objects, cosmologically relevant gravi-axions behave as minimally-coupled, massive scalar fields.

    hep-phastro-ph.COgr-qchep-thPRD(2026)·5 citations
24. 24*

    Three-loop corrections to $gg\to ZH$ in the large top quark mass limit

    Joshua Davies🇬🇧 · Dominik Grau🇩🇪 · Kay Schönwald🇨🇭 · Matthias Steinhauser🇩🇪 · Daniel Stremmer🇩🇪

    We compute three-loop virtual corrections to the associated production of a Higgs boson with a $Z$ boson in the large-$m_t$ limit. We describe in detail the application of the asymptotic expansion and provide, for all form factors, analytic results for the first three terms in the $1/m_t$ expansion. We also provide numerical routines implemented in the C++ library ggxy.

    hep-phJHEP(2026)·3 citations
25. 25*

    NuclearConfectionery: Multi-stage Simulation Framework for Modeling Relativistic Heavy-ion Collisions

    Kevin P. Pala🇧🇷 · Surkhab Kaur Virk · Dekrayat Almaalol🇺🇸 · Isabella Danhoni🇺🇸 · Nanxi Yao🇺🇸 · Isaac Long · Willian Serenone🇺🇸 · Jordi Salinas San Martín🇺🇸 · Alayna A. Yared · Christopher Plumberg🇺🇸 · Fernando Gardim🇧🇷 · Jacquelyn Noronha-Hostler🇺🇸

    We present the NuclearConfectionery, a modular framework for simulating the full dynamical evolution of relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Its core hydrodynamic module, CCAKE 2.0, represents a major advance over previous SPH-based relativistic hydrodynamic codes. CCAKE 2.0 simultaneously evolves energy-momentum and multiple conserved charges (B, S, Q) with a four-dimensional equation of state, and can be run in either Cartesian or hyperbolic coordinates, enabling consistent simulations from the RHIC Beam Energy Scan to LHC energies. We have implemented a particlization module that supports global BSQ charge conservation on the freeze-out surface; the resulting hadron ensemble is then propagated through a hadronic transport afterburner. A source term is included in the equations of motion to couple jets to the fluid, allowing simultaneous bulk and hard-probe evolution or, alternatively, for stopped baryons at low beam energies. The framework offers flexible choices of equations of motion (Israel-Stewart, DNMR, ADNH) and transport coefficients, along with GPU-ready performance via Kokkos/Cabana, offline equation of state inversion for 4D tables, and containerized portability. We validate the code with semi-analytical benchmarks (including BSQ Gubser and Landau-Khalatnikov solutions) and extensive convergence studies. The NuclearConfectionery provides a user-friendly, high-performance, open-source tool for event-by-event simulations across collision energies, offering flexibility to study QCD matter at both vanishing and finite densities.

    ↳ nucl-thhep-phnucl-ex2 citations
26. 26*

    Speed of sound exceeding the conformal bound in dense QCD-like theories

    Etsuko Itou🇯🇵 · Kei Iida🇯🇵 · Kotaro Murakami🇯🇵 · Daiki Suenaga🇯🇵

    We investigated the phase structure and the equation of state (EoS) for dense two-color QCD at low temperatures using the lattice Monte Carlo simulations. A rich phase structure below the pseudo-critical temperature $T_c$ as a function of quark chemical potential has been revealed. In a high-density regime, we can see a superfluid phase, where the diquark condensate takes a non-zero expectation value. We have newly found that the speed of sound exceeds the conformal bound, which is the value of the relativistic free theory. This talk is based on Refs.~\cite{Iida:2022hyy, Iida:2024irv, Itou:2025vcy}.

    ↳ hep-lathep-phnucl-thEPJ Web Conf.(2026)·0 citations
27. 27*

    Collapse of Axion Domain Wall Induced by Helical Primordial Magnetic Fields

    Zizhuo Zhao🇨🇳 · Yuefeng Di🇨🇳 · Ligong Bian🇨🇳 · Jing Shu🇨🇳

    Stable domain wall (DW) must decay to avoid overclose the Universe. A commonly used solution is to slightly break the PQ symmetry by introducing a bias term in the potential. In this work, we propose an alternative, symmetry-preserving mechanism: coupling the axion field to a helical primordial magnetic field (PMF) via the Chern-Simons term. Using three-dimensional lattice simulations, we evolve the DW network and demonstrate that it can successfully drive DW decay. Our quantitative results further show that the correlation length of the PMF plays a crucial role in determining the decay rate of the DW network and the resulting axion and gravitational wave radiation.

    ↳ astro-ph.COhep-lathep-phhep-th0 citations
28. 28*

    Incorporating neutron star physics into gravitational wave inference with physics-informed priors using normalizing flows

    Thibeau Wouters🇳🇱 · Peter T. H. Pang🇳🇱 · Tim Dietrich🇩🇪 · Chris Van Den Broeck🇳🇱

    Bayesian inference, widely used in gravitational-wave parameter estimation, depends on the choice of priors, i.e., on our previously existing knowledge. However, to investigate neutron star mergers, priors are often chosen in an agnostic way, leaving valuable information from nuclear physics and independent observations of neutron stars unused. In this work, we propose to encode information on neutron star physics into physics-informed prior distributions constructed with normalizing flows. These priors take input from constraints on the nuclear equation of state and neutron star mass distributions. Applied to GW170817, GW190425, and GW230529, we highlight two contributions of the framework. First, we demonstrate its ability to provide source classification and to enable model selection of equation of state constraints for loud signals such as GW170817, directly from the gravitational-wave data. Second, we obtain narrower constraints on the source properties through these informed priors. As a result, these physics-informed priors consistently recover higher luminosity distances compared to agnostic priors. Our method provides a scalable way for classifying future ambiguous low-mass mergers observed through gravitational waves and for informing single-event gravitational-wave data analysis with neutron star physics.

    ↳ astro-ph.HEgr-qchep-phPRD(2026)·3 citations
29. 29*

    Scalar field effective potentials in de Sitter spacetime

    Lucas Vicente García-Consuegra🇬🇧 · Arttu Rajantie🇬🇧

    We investigate two different definitions of a scalar field effective potential in quantum field theory in de Sitter spacetime: the standard textbook definition, and the constraint effective potential proposed by O'Raifeartaigh et al. in 1986. While these definitions are equivalent in Minkowski spacetime, they differ significantly in de Sitter. We demonstrate this by computing them both explicitly at one-loop order in perturbation theory. It is well known that the perturbative expansion of the standard effective potential fails converge for light fields. In contrast, the constraint effective potential does not suffer from this infrared problem, and it can therefore be computed using perturbation theory. We discuss the physical interpretation of the two effective potentials. In particular, we provide evidence supporting an earlier conjecture that the constraint effective potential is the correct one to use in the stochastic Starobinsky-Yokoyama theory.

    ↳ hep-thastro-ph.COgr-qchep-phPRD(2026)·4 citations
30. 30*

    Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter and the Tachyonic Trap During Inflation

    Yuma S. Furuta🇯🇵 · Mindaugas Karčiauskas🇱🇹 · Kazunori Kohri🇯🇵 · Alejandro Sáez🇪🇸

    We show that resonant processes during multi-field inflation can generate a large curvature perturbation on small scales. This perturbation naturally leads to the formation of primordial black holes that may constitute dark matter, as well as to the production of stochastic induced gravitational waves in the deci-Hz band. Such waves are within reach of future space-based interferometers such as LISA, DECIGO and BBO. In addition, primordial black hole binaries formed at late times produce merger gravitational waves that can be probed by the resonant cavity experiments in addition to DECIGO and BBO.

    ↳ astro-ph.COgr-qchep-phJCAP(2026)·4 citations
31. 31*

    Witten-O'Raifeartaigh potential revisited in the context of Warm Inflation

    Suratna Das🇮🇳 · Umang Kumar🇮🇳 · Swagat S. Mishra🇬🇧 · Varun Sahni🇮🇳

    Warm Inflation is a scenario in which the inflaton field dissipates its energy during inflation to maintain a subdominant constant radiation bath. Two of its remarkable features are (i) inflation can be realized even by very steep potentials and (ii) such a scenario doesn't call for a separate post-inflation reheating phase. We exploit the first feature to show that Warm Inflation can successfully take place on the very steep left wing of the Witten-O'Raifeartaigh potential while remaining in excellent agreement with current cosmological data (joint analysis of Planck, ACT and DESI). The Witten-O'Raifeartaigh potential has a flatter right wing as well, which opens up the possibility of dark energy when the field rolls along this wing. However in order to successfully realize quintessential inflation one needs to (i) normalize the two wings of the Witten-O'Raifeartaigh potential differently in order to bridge between the two extreme energy scales of inflation and dark energy, (ii) allow the quintessence field to be dissipative, which is consistent with the presence of a dissipative term in warm inflation. The dissipative dynamics of the quintessence field is needed in order to sustain slow-roll in the right wing. With these modifications, we demonstrate that the Witten-O'Raifeartaigh potential can give rise to a unified model of warm inflation (on the left wing) and transient dark energy (on the right wing).

    ↳ astro-ph.COgr-qchep-phhep-thPRD(2026)·6 citations
32. 32*

    Multimessenger search strategy for composite dark matter with white dwarf data and gravitational wave detectors

    Siyu Jiang🇨🇳 · Aidi Yang🇨🇳 · Fa Peng Huang🇨🇳

    The nature of dark matter (DM) remains one of the most challenges in modern physics. Composite or macroscopic DM present a compelling alternative to conventional particle DM, yet their terrestrial search is notoriously challenging due to low number density. This Letter presents a unified, multimessenger search strategy for composite DM, dramatically improving existing constraints and proposing a new detection method. We first perform a model independent update of astrophysical constraints from compact objects, utilizing systematic calculations and additional white dwarf data related to ignition and subsequent supernovae. Crucially, for the first time, we explore novel signals of composite DM in future gravitational wave detectors like LISA, TianQin, and Taiji, performing detailed signal to noise ratio and Fisher matrix analyses. We demonstrate that these detectors will possess the requisite sensitivity to probe untouched regions of the DM parameter space. Our results underscore the unique power of the multimessenger paradigm spanning stellar astrophysics and gravitational wave astronomy to explore this distinct and challenging frontier of DM physics. Our analyses extend broadly to a wide range of macroscopic or composite DM scenarios.

    ↳ astro-ph.HEhep-phPRD(2026)·5 citations
33. 33*

    Universal imprinting of short-range correlations in relativistic heavy-ion collisions

    Pei Li🇨🇳 · Kai-Jia Sun🇨🇳 · Bo Zhou🇨🇳 · Guo-Liang Ma🇨🇳

    Protons and neutrons within atomic nuclei undergo intense and fleeting encounters driven by the strong force at short distances. These interactions generate close-proximity pairs, a phenomenon known as short-range correlations (SRCs). While the properties of SRCs have been extensively studied in cold nuclear matter, their behavior under extremely hot and dense conditions remains largely unexplored. Here, we incorporate correlated nucleon configurations into relativistic heavy-ion collisions, using the quark-gluon plasma (QGP), a state of matter present microseconds after the Big Bang, as a sensitive diagnostic tool. We find that these correlations induce substantial modifications to event-by-event geometry, which are quantitatively identified through higher-order moments of the transverse profile. Most importantly, we find a surprising linear relation between QGP geometry fluctuations and the SRC scale factor spanning systems from deuteron to lead, which reflects the universal imprinting of SRCs in relativistic heavy-ion collisions. Our findings reveal the emergence of short-range structural effects across vastly different energy scales from low-energy electron scattering to high-energy nuclear collisions.

    ↳ nucl-thhep-phnucl-ex5 citations
34. 34*

    Kinetic Mixing and the Phantom Illusion: Axion-Dilaton Quintessence in Light of DESI DR2

    Michael W. Toomey🇺🇸 · Ellie Hughes🇺🇸 · Mikhail M. Ivanov🇺🇸 · James M. Sullivan🇺🇸

    Recent results from DESI BAO analyses suggest that dark energy may not be a cosmological constant and is in fact dynamical. Furthermore, the data suggest that the equation of state may have been in the phantom regime in the distant past, recently undergoing a phantom crossing. In this work, we investigate whether this preference can be realized within a kinetically mixed axion-dilaton (KMIX) quintessence model, a string-motivated system in which an axion-like field couples exponentially to a dilaton-like (moduli) field. Crucially, KMIX can appear phantom in a standard Chevallier-Polarski-Linder (CPL) based analysis. To confront the model with data, we develop a fast pipeline based on normalizing flows that (i) learns a theory-informed prior on $(w_0,w_a)$ from KMIX realizations and (ii) provides an inverse mapping from CPL parameters back to the physical KMIX parameters. By importance-sampling pre-computed CPL chains using this framework, we effectively transform generic phenomenological constraints into direct, computationally efficient constraints on the underlying KMIX theory, avoiding the prohibitive cost of full parameter space exploration. Applied to Planck+DESI DR2 BAO measurements, our framework finds support for KMIX at $2.5\sigma$ compared to the base CPL fit at $3.1\sigma$, demonstrating that KMIX may account for the DESI preference without invoking true phantom behavior. When additionally including Type Ia supernovae data, we find that the preference remains above $3\sigma$ for Union3 and DES Y5, but drops to $2.1\sigma$ with Pantheon+. The latter, combined with the DESI full-shape power spectrum and bispectrum data, further reduces the preference to $1.7\sigma$. Ultimately, should the DESI deviation persist with future data, KMIX may offer a theoretically well-motivated explanation for the phantom-like signatures inferred from phenomenological fits.

    ↳ astro-ph.COhep-ph17 citations
35. 35*

    Bayesian inference on Calabi--Yau moduli spaces and the axiverse: experimental data meets string theory

    Mudit Jain🇬🇧 · Elijah Sheridan🇺🇸 · David J. E. Marsh🇬🇧 · Elli Heyes🇬🇧 · Keir K. Rogers🇬🇧 · Andreas Schachner🇩🇪

    We develop tools of Bayesian inference on the moduli space of Calabi--Yau (CY) manifolds. We sample from the invariant Weil--Petersson (WP) measure using Markov Chain Monte Carlo and normalising flows on \Kahler moduli space with dimension up to $h^{1,1}=30$, and present results on the spectrum of the CY volume and properties of divisors when the measure is restricted in physically meaningful ways. We furthermore present a theory-informed prior on axion masses and decay constants $(m_a,f_a)$ marginalised over the WP measure for all inequivalent CYs constructable from the Kreuzer--Skarke database with $h^{1,1}\le 5$. We then impose likelihoods based on axion physics. We demonstrate how detection of a relatively heavy QCD axion at small $h^{1,1}$, e.g. by ADMX, provides detailed information about CY geometry and topology. Finally, we compute a full forward model incorporating likelihoods from the cosmic microwave background and Lyman-alpha forest and find the maximum posterior probability region on the moduli space of a given CY favoured by a resolution of the tension in these data by an ultralight axion composing $\mathcal{O}(1\%)$ of the dark matter. This demonstration serves as a blueprint for future statistical analyses within string phenomenology.

    ↳ hep-thastro-ph.COhep-phPRD(2026)·9 citations
36. 36*

    A Bootstrap Study of Confinement in AdS

    Lorenzo Di Pietro🇮🇹 · Stefanos R. Kousvos🇮🇹 · Marco Meineri🇮🇹 · Alessandro Piazza🇮🇹 · Marco Serone🇮🇹 · Alessandro Vichi🇮🇹

    Yang-Mills theory in AdS${}_4$ with Dirichlet boundary conditions is expected to undergo a transition as the AdS radius varies, since the boundary data is incompatible with confinement in flat space. Various mechanisms have been proposed for the disappearance of the Dirichlet boundary condition. From the boundary viewpoint, the associated $3d$ CFT is a deformation of a generalised free theory of non-Abelian conserved currents, with the deformation governed by the bulk gauge coupling. We test these scenarios by deriving non-perturbative constraints from the numerical conformal bootstrap of the four-point function of non-Abelian conserved currents. We rule out the scenario in which the boundary current decouples. Bounds on the lightest scalar operators disfavour a bulk Higgs mechanism and instead point to a transition driven by a scalar singlet becoming marginal. We also obtain bounds on other scalar operators and on the current central charge, and we refine character-based techniques incorporating parity and charge-conjugation symmetry to determine the operator spectrum of the $3d$ Generalised Free Vector theory. These results may be of independent interest beyond Yang-Mills theory in AdS.

    ↳ hep-thhep-lathep-phJHEP(2026)·10 citations

* Reconstructed cohort: no mailing for this day survives in the archive. Papers are grouped by their submission times and arXiv's announcement cut-off, assuming announcement without delay; positions follow identifier order. Validated at ~91% exact-day agreement against the archived era.