Wed·Mar 18, 2026Wednesday·March 18, 2026

1. 01*

   Differentiable Multi-scale Effective Field Theory Likelihoods for Beyond the Standard Model Phenomenology

   Aleks Smolkovič🇸🇮 · Peter Stangl🇩🇪

   Probing heavy new physics beyond the Standard Model (SM) increasingly relies on global effective field theory (EFT) likelihoods. We introduce differentiable, multi-scale EFT likelihoods that combine renormalization-group evolution, matching, observable predictions, and experimental constraints in a single differentiable framework. This enables modern gradient-based frequentist and Bayesian inference in large parameter spaces. We demonstrate these capabilities in two 374-parameter SMEFT analyses, making basis-independent, fully multi-scale global EFT analyses feasible in practice.

   hep-phhep-exhep-lat6 citations
2. 02*

   Probing keV mass QCD axions with the SACLA X-ray free electron laser

   Charles Heaton🇬🇧 · Jack W. D. Halliday🇬🇧 · Taito Osaka🇯🇵 · Ichiro Inoue🇯🇵 · Sifei Zhang🇨🇳 · Ahmed Alsulami🇬🇧 · Joshua T. Y. Chu🇬🇧 · Mila Fitzgerald🇬🇧 · Takaki Hatsui🇯🇵 · Motoaki Nakatsutsumi🇩🇪 · Haruki Nishino🇯🇵 · Atsushi O. Tokiyasu🇯🇵 and 3 other authors

   Axions are hypothetical particles, proposed to account for the invariance of CP symmetry in quantum chromodynamics. While axions and axion-like-particles are well-motivated by string theory and beyond-Standard-Model extensions, they have remained elusive to experimental searches even after significant effort over many decades. Building on a recent development using an X-ray free electron laser to search for cosmologically favoured axions of mass $m_a\lesssim 0.01$ eV, we extend previous bounds on the ALP-photon coupling, $g_{a\gamma \gamma }$, by over an order of magnitude. We exploit the Bormann effect of Laue crystals in a light-shining-through-wall experiment, with broad sensitivity to $m_a\lesssim$ 22 eV. Moreover for $m_a\in$ (3460, 3480) eV our sensitivity reaches down to the QCD axion coupling prediction, providing the most stringent laboratory constraints in this mass range.

   hep-phastro-ph.IMhep-exphysics.atom-ph+11 citation
3. 03*

   Twin-peaked gravitational wave signal from a dark sector phase transition

   Rishav Roshan🇬🇧 · Indrajit Saha🇮🇳

   We compute the gravitational wave spectrum from a dark sector phase transition driven by spontaneous $\text{ZDW}$ breaking. If the transition is second-order, the only source of gravitational waves is the annihilation of domain walls (biased by quantum gravity). However, if the transition is first-order, this yields a twin-peaked signal from both the transition itself and the biased domain wall annihilation. Both scenarios originate when a scalar singlet odd under the $\text{ZDW}$ obtains a non-zero vacuum expectation value. An additional $\text{ZDM}$ odd scalar doublet strengthens the transition and produces fermionic dark matter via freeze-in, matching observed dark matter relic density.

   hep-phastro-ph.CO4 citations
4. 04*

   Spontaneous CP violation in the D_5-symmetric four-Higgs-doublet models

   Dong-Ping Fu🇨🇳 · Michihisa Takeuchi🇨🇳

   We constructed a four-Higgs-doublet model (4HDM) invariant under D_5 symmetry and investigated its complete neutral vacuum structure in detail. Assuming explicit CP conservation in the scalar potential, we examined whether CP symmetry can be spontaneously broken. We provided a complete list of all possible real and complex vacua, along with the constraints on the potential parameters required for each vacuum solution to exist. We also discussed the positive-definiteness conditions that the Hessian must satisfy for each vacuum to be a local minimum of the potential. The results show that, after spontaneous symmetry breaking, some complex vacua lead to spontaneous CP violation in the potential, whereas the remaining complex vacua still preserve CP conservation. Among these CP-violating complex vacua, one can be regarded as the most general form. Furthermore, we discussed the relationship between real and complex vacua.

   hep-phCPC(2026)·2 citations
5. 05*

   Probing compressed triplet scalars with ISR jets and soft leptons at the LHC

   Atri Dey🇸🇪 · Tathagata Ghosh🇮🇳 · Biswarup Mukhopadhyaya🇮🇳 · Agnivo Sarkar🇮🇳

   The Type-II seesaw model predicts doubly and singly charged scalars along with neutral Higgs states originating from an $SU(2)$ triplet. Current LHC searches by the ATLAS and CMS collaborations constrain these particles mainly under the assumption that the doubly charged scalar decays dominantly into same-sign dileptons or dibosons. However, when moderate mass splittings exist among the triplet scalars, cascade decays can dominate, suppressing these conventional search channels and leaving sizeable regions of parameter space weakly constrained. We study this compressed region characterized by $1\text{GeV}\lesssim \Delta M\lesssim 30\text{GeV}$ and triplet vev $v_t\sim 10^{-7}-10^{-3}$ GeV. In this scenario, charged scalars predominantly undergo cascade decays, while neutral scalars decay invisibly into neutrinos, leading to final states with soft leptons and missing transverse energy. We propose a dedicated search strategy at the 14 TeV LHC exploiting a hard initial-state radiation jet to boost the scalar system. Using a cut-and-count analysis, we show that discovery-level sensitivity can be achieved in this previously unexplored region with an integrated luminosity of $3000{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$. Our results signify the importance of dedicated searches targeting cascade-dominated and compressed mass spectrum for beyond the standard model scenarios with an $SU(2)$ multiplet.

   hep-ph0 citations
6. 06*

   Polarization-dependent mass modifications of $\varphi$ meson with finite momentum in nuclear matter

   Ahmad Jafar Arifi🇯🇵 · Philipp Gubler🇯🇵 · Kazuo Tsushima🇧🇷

   We investigate the in-medium properties of the $\varphi$ meson with finite momentum, going beyond the commonly studied case at rest. In a nuclear medium, Lorentz invariance is broken, leading to distinct longitudinal and transverse polarization modes that evolve differently with density and momentum. Within an effective Lagrangian approach, we calculate the polarization-dependent mass shifts and width modifications of the $\varphi$ meson arising from $K\bar{K}$ loops and mean-field interactions. The divergent loop integrals are regulated using two different schemes: a covariant form factor and dimensional regularization. Our results show that the mass shift of the transverse polarization is independent of the $\varphi$-meson momentum, whereas that of the longitudinal polarization decreases quadratically with momentum. This difference originates from the coupling of the longitudinal mode to the vector mean field and derivative-type interactions in the self-energy. These effects have direct implications for experimental observables, especially for upcoming measurements at J-PARC, and provide a new prediction for experiments studying hadron dynamics in dense matter.

   hep-phnucl-thPRD(2026)·2 citations
7. 07*

   Light baryon static properties in dispersive approach

   Shuge Zeng🇨🇳 · Hsiang-nan Li🇹🇼 · Fanrong Xu🇨🇳

   We extend our dispersive analyses on meson static properties to those of light baryons. The formalism treats the dispersion relation, which a baryonic correlation function obeys, as an inverse problem, solve for the involved spectral density with available operator-product-expansion (OPE) inputs directly, and extract baryon static properties from the spectral density. We observe that the simultaneous implementation of the chiral-even and chiral-odd dispersive constraints unambiguously determines baryon masses and pole residues. A common set of quark and gluon condensates, which appear in OPE factorization and are universal, is found to accommodate the masses of a $\rho$ meson, a proton and a $\Delta (1232)$ baryon. The advantage of our approach over the conventional handling of QCD sum rules is advocated. This work encourages broad applications of our nonperturbative analytical method to baryon systems.

   hep-phPRD(2026)·1 citation
8. 08*

   Probing the equivalence of chiral LCSRs in $D\to \pi e{\nu }_e$ decays and extraction of $|V_{cd}|$

   Xiu-Fen Wang🇨🇳 · Hai-Jiang Tian🇨🇳 · Yin-Long Yang🇨🇳 · Long Zeng🇨🇳 · Hai-Bing Fu🇨🇳

   In the paper, we have carried out research on the $D\to \pi$ decay process. We employ two different currents to study the $D\to \pi$ transition form factors (TFFs) by using the light-cone sum rule within the framework of chiral current approach. Firstly, we follow the right-handed and left-handed currents for the correlators to present the expression of the vector form factors upto next-leading-order and leading-order accuracy, respectively. Here the twist-2 and twist-3 light-cone distribution amplitudes are constructed by the light-cone harmonic oscillator model. After exploring the TFFs into the whole physical $q^2$-region with the simplified $z$-series expansion, we obtain the branching fractions $\mathcal{B}(D^0\to {\pi }^{-}{e}^{+}{\nu }_e{)}_{\text{I}}=0.31_{-0.05}^{+0.05}$, $\mathcal{B}(D^{+}\to {\pi }^0{e}^{+}{\nu }_e{)}_{\text{I}}=0.39_{-0.06}^{+0.06}$, $\mathcal{B}(D^0\to {\pi }^{-}{e}^{+}{\nu }_e{)}_{\text{II}}=0.27_{-0.03}^{+0.05}$, $\mathcal{B}(D^{+}\to {\pi }^0{e}^{+}{\nu }_e{)}_{\text{II}}=0.34_{-0.04}^{+0.06}$, and extract the CKM matrix element $|V_{cd}{|}_{\text{I}}=(0.21_{-0.02}^{+0.02})\times 10^{-2}$ as well as $|V_{cd}{|}_{\text{II}}=(0.23_{-0.02}^{+0.02})\times 10^{-2}$. To verify the credibility of our calculations, these results are further compared with existing findings in the literature, showing good agreement within uncertainties.

   hep-phNPA(2026)·0 citations
9. 09*

   Investigation of the $D^0\to K_S^0{\pi }^0\eta ,K_S^0{\pi }^0{\pi }^0$ decays

   Wei Liang🇨🇳 · Chu-Wen Xiao🇨🇳 · Guo-Mei Gan🇨🇳 · Shi-Qi Zhou🇨🇳

   Inspired by the invariant mass distributions for the decays $D^0\to K_S^0{\pi }^0\eta$ and $D^0\to K_S^0{\pi }^0{\pi }^0$ reported by the BESIII Collaboration, we investigate these processes with an unified final state interaction formalism by incorporating both the $S$-wave pseudoscalar meson-pseudoscalar meson interactions within a chiral unitary approach and the $P$-wave contribution from the intermediate resonance ${\bar{K}}^{\ast }(892)$. By performing a combined fit to the invariant mass spectra and taking into account the coherence between the $S$- and $P$-waves, our results are in agreement with the experimental data. For the decay $D^0\to K_S^0{\pi }^0\eta$, the structure near 1.0 GeV in the ${\pi }^0\eta$ invariant mass distribution corresponds to the signal of the $a_0(980)$, which is dynamically generated from the $S$-wave interactions. In the case of $D^0\to K_S^0{\pi }^0{\pi }^0$, the near-threshold enhancement in the ${\pi }^0{\pi }^0$ mass distribution arises from the combined contributions of the $f_0(500)$ and the intermediate ${\bar{K}}^{\ast }(892)$, while the cusp-like structure around 1 GeV${}^2$ is associated with the $f_0(980)$.

   hep-phPRD(2026)·0 citations
10. 10*

    Puzzles in charmed baryon semileptonic decays with $SU(3{)}_F$ flavor symmetry and lattice inputs

    Chao-Qiang Geng🇨🇳 · Chia-Wei Liu🇨🇳 · Sheng-Lin Liu🇨🇳

    Recent measurements of charmed-baryon semileptonic decays signal large tensions between experiment and theory, including $SU(3{)}_F$ analyses and lattice-quantum chromodynamics simulations. Possible sources of the discrepancy include the experimental normalization mode ${\Xi }_c^0\to {\Xi }^{-}{\pi }^{+}$. Using lattice-QCD inputs in an $SU(3{)}_F$ analysis including first-order symmetry breaking, we predict $\mathcal{B}({\Xi }_c^{+}\to {\Sigma }^0{\ell }^{+}{\nu }_{\ell })/\mathcal{B}({\Xi }_c^{+}\to {\Xi }^0{\ell }^{+}{\nu }_{\ell })=(2.6\pm 0.3)\%,$ and $\mathcal{B}({\Xi }_c^{+}\to \Lambda {\ell }^{+}{\nu }_{\ell })/\mathcal{B}({\Xi }_c^{+}\to {\Xi }^0{\ell }^{+}{\nu }_{\ell })=(1.1\pm 0.1)\%,$ with ${\ell }^{+}=(e^{+},{\mu }^{+})$. These ratios provide normalization-independent tests and may help clarify the origin of the present tension.

    hep-phhep-exhep-latPRD(2026)·1 citation
11. 11*

    Effect of gravity on Neutrino Oscillations in $\kappa$-deformed space-time

    Harsha Sreekumar · E. Harikumar🇮🇳

    In this study, we analyse how quantisation of space-time affects propagating fermions in the presence of gravity. Effect of gravity is incorporated using spin connection which consists of universal torsion-free Levi-Civita connection and the Contortion tensor. This leads to the appearance of a four-fermion interaction term in the Lagrangian and because of non-commutativity of space-time, the deformation of the interaction term is found to depend on the background metric through tetrads. Further, we incorporate this interaction term to see the effect of gravitational interactions of neutrinos with the background matter in non-commutative space-time and study its effect on neutrino oscillation probabilities.

    hep-phhep-th1 citation
12. 12*

    A Common Origin for Diverse Neutrino Mass Matrix Textures

    Manash Dey🇮🇳 · Pralay Chakraborty🇮🇳 · Dipshikha Das🇮🇳 · Subhankar Roy🇮🇳

    We plan to decipher the common origin of neutrino mass textures within a $\Delta (27)$ based framework, in association with Type-I+II seesaw mechanism. Motivated by the diversity of texture structures used in phenomenological analyses, we examine how a single framework can reproduce them without additional assumptions. We show that the interplay between vacuum alignments, model parameters, and specific Yukawa choices naturally yields several well established neutrino mass textures in the literature. Our goal is to demonstrate that a minimal $\Delta (27)$ framework can unify these viable textures within a common theoretical origin.

    hep-phEPL(2026)·0 citations
13. 13*

    Finite size effects on critical correlations in momentum space

    Athanasios Brofas🇬🇷 · Fotios K. Diakonos🇬🇷

    The search for the QCD critical end point (CEP) is a major objective of contemporary heavy-ion physics, motivating the study of fluctuation observables that are sensitive to critical dynamics. In particular, baryon-number fluctuations provide a natural probe because the net-baryon density can serve as an effective order parameter in the vicinity of the CEP. Near criticality, long-range correlations and power-law scaling are expected to emerge in the real-space two-point function of the baryon density, yet the finite size and finite lifetime of the fireball created in heavy-ion collisions impose intrinsic cutoffs that regulate the growth of the correlation length. These finite-size constraints significantly modify the observable structure of fluctuations, especially in momentum space, where experiments perform measurements. In this work we present a theoretical analysis of the momentum-space two-point correlation function for a system of finite spatial extent. We show that finite size effects lead to an effective scaling exponent which coincides with that of the infinitely extended system only in a prescribed scaling region within the experimentally accessible momentum range.

    hep-phhep-exnucl-exnucl-th1 citation
14. 14*

    Role of $\Xi (1690)$ in the $J/\psi \to {\Xi }^0\bar{\Lambda }{K}^0$ reaction

    Wen-Tao Lyu🇨🇳 · Lian-Rong Dai🇨🇳 · Eulogio Oset🇪🇸

    Motivated by the recent BESIII measurements of the $J/\psi \to {\Xi }^0\bar{\Lambda }{K}_S^0+c.c.$ process, we investigate this reaction by considering the contributions from the $\Xi (1690)$, $\Lambda (1890)$ and $\Lambda (1830)$ resonances. The $\Xi (1690)$ state is dynamically generated from the $S$-wave pseudoscalar meson-octet baryon interactions within the chiral unitary approach. Our theoretical model provides a good description of the $\bar{\Lambda }{K}^0$, ${\Xi }^0{K}^0$, and $\bar{\Lambda }{\Xi }^0$ invariant mass distributions. The results indicate that the $\Xi (1690)$ resonance, which was neglected in the experimental analysis by BESIII, plays a crucial role in this process. Furthermore, we evaluate the theoretical uncertainties of our model using the parametric bootstrap method. Future high-precision measurements of this process will further help to elucidate the properties of the $\Xi (1690)$, $\Lambda (1890)$ and $\Lambda (1830)$ states.

    hep-phEPJC(2026)·6 citations
15. 15*

    Spin entanglement signatures of proton from a light-front Hamiltonian

    Chen Qian🇨🇳 · Siqi Xu🇨🇳 · Yang-Guang Yang🇨🇳 · Xingbo Zhao🇨🇳

    Quantum entanglement provides a quantitative probe of the internal structure of hadrons and offers a sensitive means to study the quantum correlation in the hadron wave functions. For baryons, the spin state of the three valence quarks forms a tripartite qubit system, whose entanglement structure can be characterized by the four classes of three-qubit states. In this work, we compare the proton spin entanglement obtained from Basis Light-Front Quantization (BLFQ) with that from a quark-diquark model. By analyzing both bipartite and tripartite entanglement, we find that the quark-diquark model yields a substantially more entangled spin state than the BLFQ wave function in the valence Fock sector. This difference mainly originates from the larger W-type and Bell-type entanglement in the quark-diquark model. Within BLFQ, larger stronger coupling constant and smaller quark mass drive the spin correlation among the valence quarks towards an effective quark-diquark configuration with an active $d$ quark and a correlated $uu$ pair.

    hep-phquant-ph1 citation
16. 16*

    On the survival of strong nuggets in the early Universe

    Haoyang Qi🇨🇳 · Wen-Li Yuan🇨🇳 · Yudong Luo🇨🇳 · Chao Chen🇨🇳 · Shi Pi🇨🇳 · Renxin Xu🇨🇳

    Strong nuggets with a baryon number of $A\sim 10^{10-30}$ could be able to survive from the cosmic separation of the QCD phases, provided the transition from strange quark matter to strangeon matter is accounted for, thereby evading evaporation in the early Universe. Such strangeon nuggets may serve as a dark matter candidate within particle standard model. We formulate the corresponding phase transition of cosmic strange matter, establishing a parameter space which reasonably accommodates observational constraints on the dark-to-luminous matter ratio and the mass-radius relation, as well as tidal deformability of compact objects.

    hep-phastro-ph.CO2 citations
17. 17*

    Light baryon spectra and Regge trajectories from anomalous holographic hard wall models

    Rafael A. Costa-Silva🇧🇷 · Henrique Boschi-Filho🇧🇷

    In this work we propose anomalous versions of the holographic hard wall (HW) model to describe the spectra of light baryons of spin 1/2 and 3/2, and obtain their Regge trajectories. The anomalous contributions to the dimensions of the baryonic operators of logarithm form come from a semiclassical analysis of the AdS/CFT correspondence and were used recently for glueballs and light unflavoured mesons. Inspired by these results, we first propose an anomalous dimension of the form ${\Delta }_{anom.}=a\ln L+b$, where $a$ and $b$ are phenomenological constants to be adjusted numerically to better fit the experimental data of the PDG, and $L$ is the angular momentum of each baryonic state. Second, we discuss the case where the anomalous dimension also depends on the spin $S$ as ${\Delta }_{anom.}=a\ln (L+S+1/2)+b$, and fix the parameters $a$ and $b$ targeting PDG data. These two models, called AHW${}_1$ and AHW${}_2$, give better results for light baryon masses $(M)$ in comparison with the original HW model and show approximately linear Regge trajectories $(M^2\times L)$. We also consider a third anomalous HW model in which the dimension of the baryonic operator increases as ${\Delta }_{Lin.}=a{L}^c+b$, where $a$, $b$, and $c$ are constants adjusted to fit the light baryonic masses of PDG. Apart from compatible masses with PDG data, this case produces Regge trajectories that are asymptotically linear.

    hep-phhep-th0 citations
18. 18*

    Prospects for precision CE$\nu$NS measurements with electron-capture neutrinos and lithium-based bolometers

    Giovanni Benato🇮🇹 · Francesca M. Pofi🇮🇹 · Andrei Puiu🇮🇹 · Christoph A. Ternes🇮🇹

    We evaluate the feasibility of high-precision coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering measurements exploiting mono-energetic neutrinos produced by electron-capture (EC) decays of intense radioactive sources, such as ${}^{51}$Cr or ${}^{37}$Ar. To fully exploit the high neutrino flux achievable with EC sources, and accounting for the low energy of EC neutrinos, we evaluate the sensitivity of a compact array of bolometric detectors with absorbers based on light elements, such as lithium, oxygen and fluorine. With 1 kg of LiF detectors, source activities of $\sim 10^{17}$ Bq, and assuming an energy threshold of 20 eV, we expect to achieve a $\sim 3\%$ precision on the determination of the neutrino flux with 90 days of measurement. Such a measurement would represent a test of the gallium neutrino anomaly, and could disentangle nuclear effects on gallium from the misevaluation of the EC source activity or short-baseline neutrino oscillations.

    hep-phhep-ex1 citation
19. 19*

    Two-loop Six-point Planar Massless Feynman Integrals to Higher $ϵ$ Orders

    Yuanche Liu🇨🇳 · Antonela Matijašić🇩🇪 · Tiziano Peraro🇮🇹 · Yingxuan Xu🇩🇪 · Zihua Yang🇮🇹 · Yang Zhang🇨🇳

    In this work, we calculate two-loop six-point planar massless Feynman integrals at higher orders in the dimensional regulator $ϵ$, corresponding to higher transcendental weights. In previous works, these integrals were calculated up to weight four for the purpose of two-loop gauge theory amplitudes. Using modern rational reconstruction methods, we identify the complete alphabet with $269$ letters relevant to all weights, derive the analytic canonical differential equation and obtain the symbols up to weight six. As a proof of concept, using a new method with Chebyshev pseudospectral transport, we show that the corresponding pure basis can be efficiently evaluated up to weight six, i.e., to $\mathcal{O}({ϵ}^2)$ in a physical scattering region. The results of this work can be applied to future three-loop amplitudes and provide new data for the formal study of symbols and cluster algebras.

    hep-phhep-thJHEP(2026)·7 citations
20. 20*

    New benchmarks for direct detection of freeze-in dark matter in vector portal models

    David Cerdeño🇪🇸 · Patrick Foldenauer🇪🇸 · Rafael López Noé🇪🇸 · Óscar Zapata🇨🇴

    We investigate the freeze-in of MeV-scale fermionic dark matter (DM) that couples to the Standard Model via a new vector mediator to assess the potential that future direct detection experiments have to observe new physics in either the DM or neutrino sectors. We study the minimal kinetic mixing dark photon of a secluded $U(1{)}_D$ as well as gauge bosons of the anomaly-free $U(1{)}_{L_i-L_j}$, with $i,j=e,\mu ,\tau$, and $U(1{)}_{B-L}$ gauge extensions, exploring the impact of low reheating temperatures on the DM production rates. For the ultralight dark photon scenario, we show that current experimental constraints from electron recoil data in DAMIC-M and PandaX-4T can be avoided if the DM fermion is only a subcomponent (smaller than 40%) of the total cold DM and that future detectors can be sensitive to a DM fraction below 1% for masses above 1 MeV. For a massive dark photon, there are allowed regions of the parameter space with masses in the range 50 MeV $\lesssim m_{\mathrm{DM}}\lesssim$ 500 MeV that can be within the reach of direct detection experiments through nuclear recoils if freeze-in occurred at a low reheating temperature. Finally, the case of $U(1{)}_{L_i-L_j}$ and $U(1{)}_{B-L}$ is particularly interesting since the discovery of new physics can come from either the DM or the neutrino sector, which features new interactions. We find that freeze-in at low reheating temperatures can reproduce the observed abundance in large parts of the parameter space up to gauge couplings of $g_X\sim 10^{-2}$ for MeV DM. Most notably, direct detection experiments will be sensitive to considerable parts of this parameter space in nuclear recoils for 50 MeV $\lesssim m_{\mathrm{DM}}\lesssim$ 500 MeV. Additionally, the enhanced signal from solar neutrino coherent scattering is observable in these scenarios, which can serve as a further handle to identify the underlying particle physics model.

    hep-phastro-ph.CO0 citations
21. 21*

    Higher-point Energy Correlators: Factorization in the Back-to-Back Limit & Non-perturbative Effects

    Ankita Budhraja🇳🇱 · Isabelle Pels🇳🇱 · Wouter J. Waalewijn🇳🇱

    N-point energy correlators are powerful observables for studying strong interactions, with applications ranging from extractions of the strong coupling ${\alpha }_s$ to probes of jet modification in heavy-ion collisions and determination of the top-quark mass. Their practical use has, however, been limited by the complicated phase space for large N. Using a recently introduced parametrization that simplifies this structure, we study projected N-point correlators in two regimes: factorization in the back-to-back limit and leading non-perturbative effects in the collinear limit. While results in the back-to-back regime were previously limited to the energy-energy correlator, our approach allows us to derive the factorization theorem for arbitrary N. We compute the new ingredient, a one-loop jet function, needed for the next-to-next-to-leading-logarithmic resummation, which enables future ${\alpha }_s$ extractions with complementary systematics. We further determine the analytic structure of leading non-perturbative power corrections for arbitrary N, including their dependence on the center-of-mass energy Q, the value of N, and the angular scale $x$. We present the first results for non-integer N<1, finding that the classical scaling in $x$ acquires an N-dependent modification, and that a new non-perturbative matrix element ${\tilde{\Omega }}^{[N]}$ appears. In a certain approximation, ${\tilde{\Omega }}^{[N]}$ can be related to the standard parameter ${\Omega }_1$ relevant for N>1. Our analytic predictions are tested against the hadronization model in Pythia, finding good agreement. The results presented in this paper demonstrate the significant advancements enabled through our new parametrization of energy correlators.

    hep-phhep-exnucl-thJHEP(2026)·5 citations
22. 22*

    Is the Turner Window Open? Seeking Closure with Resonant Absorption of Galactic Axions in NaI Dark Matter Detectors

    W. C. Haxton🇺🇸 · Xing Liu🇺🇸 · Anupam Ray🇨🇦 · Evan Rule🇺🇸

    Motivated by the DAMA/LIBRA annual modulation signal, the dark matter community has invested heavily in ultra-clean underground NaI detectors to search for light WIMPs. We point out a new target of opportunity for these detectors -- axions produced by the carbon-burning stars within our galaxy. These stars synthesize large quantities of ${}^{23}$Na, keeping it at temperatures $\sim 10^9$K for periods up to tens of thousands of years. Under these conditions, ${}^{23}$Na radiates 440 keV axions through repeated photo-excitation and axio-deexcitation of its first excited state. Upon reaching a NaI detector, the process is reversed: the axion is resonantly absorbed, producing a 440 keV deexcitation photon. NaI thus serves as both $\gamma$ source and $\gamma$ detector. We find that existing NaI detectors can probe axion-nucleon couplings $|g_{aNN}^{\mathrm{eff}{}^{23}\mathrm{Na}}|\approx g_{app}\sim 10^{-6}$--$10^{-2}$, including QCD axions with $m_a\gtrsim 10$ eV. While there are several astrophysical constraints on axions with these couplings, our re-examination of these bounds shows that substantial gaps remain, providing strong motivation for the proposed searches.

    hep-phastro-ph.HEhep-exnucl-ex+12 citations
23. 23*

    Quasi-pole quintessential inflation in metric-affine gravity

    Konstantinos Dimopoulos🇬🇧 · Christian Dioguardi🇪🇪 · Ioannis D. Gialamas🇪🇪 · Antonio Racioppi🇪🇪

    We study quintessential inflation in the framework of metric-affine gravity. It is well known that non-minimal couplings with the Holst invariant can generate a quasi-pole inflationary behaviour resulting in a Starobinsky-like phenomenology. The same quasi-pole behaviour can also be used in order to "flatten" the scalar potential in the Dark Energy era providing a successful framework for quintessential inflation. Agreement with all the observational constraints, reduces the predicted scalar spectral index to a narrow window: $0.966\lesssim n_s\lesssim 0.967$, making the model highly testable and falsifiable.

    ↳ gr-qcastro-ph.COhep-ph4 citations
24. 24*

    Baryon fluctuation signatures of the onset of deconfinement

    Marek Gazdzicki🇵🇱 · Mark Gorenstein🇺🇦 · Anar Rustamov🇩🇪

    An anomalous collision-energy dependence of proton number fluctuations is predicted as a consequence of the onset of deconfinement in heavy-ion collisions at the center of mass energy of the nucleon pair of about 10 GeV. The effect arises from changes in the effective degrees of freedom between confined and deconfined matter. This may provide a natural explanation of the recent beam-energy-scan results on proton number fluctuations at the BNL RHIC and offers a consistent interpretation of data from the CERN SPS and RHIC experiments in terms of the onset of deconfinement.

    ↳ nucl-thhep-phnucl-ex1 citation
25. 25*

    Exploring memory-burdened primordial black holes with ultra-high-energy cosmic-rays

    Antonio Ambrosone🇮🇹 · Marco Chianese🇮🇹 · Carmelo Evoli🇮🇹

    Quantum backreaction effects may quench Hawking evaporation through a ``memory burden'', allowing primordial black holes (PBHs) with formation masses well below $10^{15}\mathrm{g}$ to survive to the present and contribute to the dark matter. We show that ultra-high-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) provide a powerful and previously unexplored probe of this scenario. We compute the proton and neutron emission from memory-burdened PBHs, including the Galactic-halo contribution and the extragalactic proton component, and confront it with the Pierre Auger Observatory proton spectrum and its EeV neutron limits from the Galactic plane. This yields new constraints on the PBH dark-matter fraction as a function of the PBH formation mass and the evaporation-suppression parameter $k$. For $k\gtrsim 3$ the non-observation of ultra-high-energy protons leads to bounds competitive with those from UHE gamma rays, while neutron limits remain comparable to high-energy neutrino constraints. Our results highlights the key role of multi-messenger astronomy in constraining beyond-the-standard-model scenarios.

    ↳ astro-ph.HEhep-phPRD(2026)·6 citations
26. 26*

    Gravitational-Wave Propagation Through the Axiverse

    Leah Jenks🇺🇸 · Marc Kamionkowski🇺🇸

    We study the effects of oscillating, ultralight scalar and pseudoscalar fields on the propagation of gravitational waves (GWs). We consider two potential couplings of the (pseudo)scalars to gravity; a parity-even Gauss-Bonnet coupling, and parity-odd Chern-Simons coupling. We find several effects at both the population and individual GW event level, characterized by oscillatory features controlled by the (pseudo)scalar mass. In the parity-even case, this feature can be seen in the observed GW redshift and speed distributions, as well as in the dispersion relation and phase of individual events. We use the observation of the GW170817 multimessenger binary neutron star event to place constraints on the parity-even scalar-graviton coupling. In the parity-odd case, the effects are birefringent, but we find an overall washout of polarization at the population level. Oscillatory features can be seen in the observed GW amplitude and inclination distributions. Finally, we find that continuous, monochromatic GW sources are a promising target to observe these effects. The presence of a (pseudo)scalar field imprints a modulation of the GW waveform in the time domain, which can potentially be observed with space-based detectors such as LISA.

    ↳ astro-ph.COgr-qchep-ph1 citation
27. 27*

    Scaled transverse-momentum spectra as a probe of collective dynamics in heavy-ion collisions

    Thiago S. Domingues🇧🇷 · Matthew Luzum🇧🇷

    We investigate a scaling property of transverse-momentum spectra in ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions obtained by removing the global scales of multiplicity and mean transverse momentum. The resulting dimensionless observable isolates the intrinsic shape of the spectrum and reveals an approximate universality across collision centralities, systems, and energies. Hydrodynamic simulations reproduce this scaling on an event-by-event basis, indicating that it may originate from the collective dynamics of the quark-gluon plasma. Using Gaussian-process emulators trained on the JETSCAPE hybrid model, we perform a Bayesian analysis incorporating the scaled spectra as observables. The results demonstrate that the spectral shape provides independent constraints on key properties of the medium, including pre-equilibrium dynamics and initial-state granularity, while exposing tensions with parameter regions preferred by traditional $p_T$-integrated observables. We further explore an analogous scaling of transverse-mass spectra and observe a comparable universality across centralities and hadron species. These results suggest that scaled spectra provide a powerful new probe of collective dynamics and offer complementary constraints for the quantitative characterization of QCD matter created in heavy-ion collisions.

    ↳ nucl-thhep-phhep-th1 citation
28. 28*

    Cosmological prospects for multiband detection of intermediate-mass binary black holes with Taiji and ground-based detectors

    Yue-Yan Dong🇺🇸 · Ji-Yu Song🇺🇸 · Jing-Fei Zhang🇺🇸 · Xin Zhang🇺🇸

    Intermediate-mass black holes (IMBHs) bridge the gap between stellar-mass and supermassive black holes, but remain challenging to detect electromagnetically. Gravitational-wave observations provide a direct means of detecting IMBHs and their mergers. We simulate the gravitational-wave signals of IMBH binaries under different population models and assess their detectability with the space-based detector Taiji alone and in a multiband network combining Taiji with third-generation ground-based detectors. Taiji performs well in detecting high-mass IMBH binaries, while ground-based detectors compensate for its reduced sensitivity to lower-mass systems. Their combination expands the accessible parameter space and improves the constraints on cosmological parameters. In particular, multiband observations improve the constraint accuracy on $H_0$ by $36.5\%$ and $31.0\%$ compared with Taiji and ET2CE alone, respectively. We further examine the dependence of parameter accuracy on the number of simulated events, finding that improvements are most pronounced for small samples and gradually saturate as the number of events increases. We conclude that multiband observations enhance the detectability of IMBH binaries and reinforce their role as probes of precision cosmology.

    ↳ astro-ph.COgr-qchep-ph4 citations
29. 29*

    Sensitivity of neutron star observables to microscopic nuclear parameters of realistic equations of state

    Nikolas Cruz-Camacho🇺🇸 · Carlos Conde-Ocazionez🇺🇸 · Veronica Dexheimer🇺🇸 · Jacquelyn Noronha-Hostler🇺🇸 · Nicolás Yunes🇺🇸

    The equation of state of matter at supranuclear densities governs the astrophysical observables of neutron stars. A realistic, though complex, description is provided by the Chiral-Mean-Field model, which depends on many microscopic nuclear-physics parameters. We present a Fisher-information-inspired analysis of the sensitivity of neutron-star observables to the parameters of the Chiral-Mean-Field model at $\beta$-equilibrium using SLy as a crust. We then compute neutron-star sequences and extract masses, radii, compactnesses, and tidal deformabilities. From the logarithmic derivatives of these observables with respect to each nuclear parameter, we construct a dimensionless, Fisher-inspired sensitivity matrix and perform a principal-component analysis to identify the effective combinations of nuclear parameters that most strongly affect neutron-star observables. Although the ranking depends mildly on the observable, the three most important nuclear parameters are the vacuum value of the dilaton field ${\chi }_0$ (which sets the overall scale of the scalar potential and trace-anomaly contribution), the scalar singlet strength $g_1^X$ (which controls the overall scalar attraction through the baryon effective masses), and the $k_0$ quadratic scalar term (which governs the curvature of the scalar potential). This framework provides a reproducible, data-driven approach to quantify parameter sensitivities in dense-matter models and to guide future Bayesian inference of nuclear information from multi-messenger astrophysical observations.

    ↳ nucl-thastro-ph.HEgr-qchep-ph3 citations
30. 30*

    Lattice QCD at finite temperature and density

    Heng-Tong Ding🇨🇳

    I review recent lattice results on strongly interacting matter under extreme conditions, with emphasis on the finite-temperature QCD transition at ${\mu }_B=0$, its approach toward the chiral limit and the fate of the $U_A(1)$ anomaly, as well as recent constraints on the QCD phase boundary and the possible critical endpoint at ${\mu }_B>0$. I also discuss selected advances in lattice methods and in QCD thermodynamics under external conditions, in particular strong magnetic fields, isospin chemical potential, rotation, acceleration, and quark spin polarization.

    ↳ hep-lathep-phhep-thnucl-ex+1PoS(2026)·5 citations
31. 31*

    Lattice QCD study of the $K^{\ast }(892)$ resonance at the physical point

    Qu-Zhi Li🇨🇳 · Chuan Liu🇨🇳 · Liuming Liu🇨🇳 · Peng Sun🇨🇳 · Jia-Jun Wu🇨🇳 · Zhiguang Xiao🇨🇳 · Han-Qing Zheng🇨🇳

    We present a lattice QCD study of the $K^{\ast }(892)$ resonance using eight $N_f=2+1$ Wilson-Clover ensembles with three lattice spacings and six pion masses ranging from 135 to 320 MeV. For each ensemble, a large number of finite volume energy levels in the $P$-wave $K\pi$ channel are determined. The energy dependence of the scattering phase shift is then obtained from Lüscher's finite-volume method. To systematically assess parametrization dependence, the amplitude is described using three different models, which yield consistent results. The resulting phase shifts show a clear resonant behavior for all ensembles, and the corresponding $K^{\ast }(892)$ resonance pole is identified on the second Riemann sheet in the complex energy plane. The pole positions are extrapolated to the physical pion mass and the continuum limit, yielding a $K^{\ast }(892)$ resonance located at $\sqrt{s_0}=[883(22)-i20(13)]\mathrm{MeV}$, which is in excellent agreement with the experimental value. This study provides a first-principles QCD determination of the $K^{\ast }(892)$ mass and width with controlled systematic uncertainties.

    ↳ hep-lathep-ph0 citations
32. 32*

    A symplectic geometric origin of universal quartic modified dispersion relations

    Sanjib Dey🇮🇳 · Mir Faizal🇨🇦

    We show that quartic modifications of relativistic dispersion relations arise generically from deformation-quantized phase spaces under minimal kinematical assumptions relevant to quantum gravity. When the kinematics admits an integral symplectic structure, a compatible almost-complex structure, and a gauge-invariant two-form sector, the leading Planck-scale correction is controlled by a single geometric length scale. We establish this result through three independent approaches: Fedosov-Berezin quantization, spectral geometry, and a topos-theoretic formulation, all of which yield the same quartic correction and clarify the origin of its apparent universality.

    ↳ math-phhep-phhep-thmath.MPPLB(2026)·0 citations
33. 33*

    Observational Constraints on WIMP Mini-Spikes Around Stellar-Mass Primordial Black Holes with 17 Years of Fermi-LAT Data

    Ana Vitória de Almeida Martinheira Braga · Murillo Gregorio Grefener da Silva · Aion Viana🇧🇷

    The quest to identify the true nature of dark matter remains one of the most pressing challenges in modern physics. We present a novel approach to probe the Weakly Interacting Massive Particle (WIMP) paradigm by analyzing density enhancements, or ``mini-spikes,'' around stellar-mass black holes (sBHs) using 17 years of data from the \textit{Fermi} Large Area Telescope. Motivated by the anomalous orbital decay observed in the black hole low-mass X-ray binaries A0620--00 and XTE J1118+480, we model these systems under the hypothesis of adiabatic spike formation around primordial black holes, incorporating the effects of tidal disruption in the Galactic disk. Finding no statistically significant gamma-ray excess at either location ($TS<1$), we derive 95\% C.L. upper limits on the WIMP annihilation cross section. Our results exclude the canonical thermal relic cross section ($3\times 10^{-26}{\text{cm}}^3{\text{s}}^{-1}$) across the 10~GeV to 10~TeV mass range for $b\bar{b}$ and $W^{+}{W}^{-}$ channels, and up to $\sim$6~TeV for the ${\tau }^{+}{\tau }^{-}$ channel. Recasting these results into a Galactic discovery reach, we demonstrate that \textit{Fermi}-LAT is sensitive to $10M_{\odot }$ mini-spikes even at distances surpassing the Galactic Center, provided the WIMP mass is below 1~TeV. These findings establish a significant tension between the dynamical friction interpretation of orbital decay in these systems and the WIMP hypothesis, providing robust observational constraints on the coexistence of primordial black holes and annihilating dark matter.

    ↳ astro-ph.HEastro-ph.COhep-ph2 citations
34. 34*

    Searches for the leptophilic Z' boson at the International Linear Collider and Linear Collider Facility

    Aleksander Filip Żarnecki🇵🇱

    Production of the leptophilic Z' boson at future colliders was proposed as one of the benchmark Beyond the Standard Model (BSM) scenarios for the Physics Briefing Book prepared for the 2026 update of the European Strategy for Particle Physics. Presented in this contributions are results on the sensitivity of the experiments at the International Linear Collider (ILC) and at the Linear Collider Facility (LCF) at CERN to the considered scenario. Studied as a function of the Z' boson mass is the expected signal in the di-muon decay channel, which is expected to have the highest sensitivity. Signal and background simulation in WHIZARD includes effects of multi-photon emission and initial state radiation (ISR), with proper matching between ISR and matrix element domains. Expected limits on the Z' couplings to SM leptons are presented for ILC and LCF running at 250 GeV and LCF running at 550 GeV.

    ↳ hep-exhep-phEur.Phys.J.Plus(2026)·0 citations
35. 35*

    Novel cluster-algebraic letters for 5- and 6-point QCD processes

    Rigers Aliaj🇩🇪 · Gabriele Dian🇩🇪 · Georgios Papathanasiou🇬🇷

    By breaking dual conformal invariance, we transform cluster-algebraic predictions for the alphabet of 9-point amplitudes in $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills theory to analogous predictions for 5- and 6-point processes in QCD. We start by obtaining, for the first time, candidate letters for 6-point processes with one massive external leg, and discover that they surprisingly also contain nested square roots. We confirm that our results essentially contain the alphabet of all 1-loop integrals with these kinematics, and in their massless limit also the recently computed alphabet of finite, planar 2-loop amplitudes for 6-point massless QCD processes. In the latter case, we additionally find 162 letters that may appear at higher loops. We similarly produce candidate letters for 5-point 2-mass processes, whose comparison with the literature reveals a nontrivial overlap that also includes new letters.

    ↳ hep-thhep-phJHEP(2026)·5 citations
36. 36*

    What Shape is the Inflationary Bispectrum?

    Oliver H. E. Philcox🇺🇸

    Non-linear interactions during inflation generate non-Gaussianities in the distribution of primordial curvature. In many theories, the physics is scale-invariant, such that the induced three-point function depends solely on a dimensionless shape function $S(x,y)\sim k^6{B}_{\zeta }(kx,ky,k)$. To confront such models with observations, one typically builds specialized estimators for each shape, then applies them to cosmic microwave background datasets at significant computational expense. In this Letter, we take a different approach, directly reconstructing $S(x,y)$ from observations using an efficient logarithmically-binned estimator in primordial-space (motivated by the modal program). Applying this to temperature and polarization maps from Planck, we obtain high-resolution shape measurements across the full $(x,y)$-plane, including squeezed limits. Our approach is close-to-optimal, highly interpretable, and preserves the information content on (optimally-analyzed) standard templates within $\approx 10\%$; moreover, we can use it to assess the scale-dependence of our constraints, finding that Planck is sensitive to $\approx 6$ $e$-folds of non-Gaussian evolution with a peak sensitivity around $0.1h{\mathrm{Mpc}}^{-1}$. Since we work directly in shape-space, data and theory can be compared in milliseconds. As an example, we perform a search for massive particle exchange using a suite of over $20000$ theoretical templates computed with exact bootstrap methods across a wide range of masses, spins, and sound-speeds; the spin-two analysis yields a maximum significance of $2.6\sigma$. Our approach can be used to probe a wide range of scale-invariant models in orders-of-magnitude less time than with direct estimators, facilitating new exploration of the inflationary paradigm.

    ↳ astro-ph.COgr-qchep-phhep-th9 citations
37. 37*

    False vacuum decay catalyzed by black hole in a heat bath

    Bowen Hu🇨🇳 · Kohei Kamada🇨🇳 · Andrey Shkerin🇨🇦

    We study false vacuum decay catalyzed by black holes. We consider a scalar field model with unstable potential in the background of a dilaton black hole in two dimensions. The model reproduces many features of the Schwarzschild black hole background in four dimensions, including the centrifugal barrier for linearized field perturbations. We study decays from the non-equilibrium state describing the evaporating black hole immersed in the thermal bath with a different temperature. We analytically construct the tunneling solution relevant at small field excitations and evaluate the decay suppression. We show how they reduce to those for the Hartle-Hawking (equilibrium) and Unruh states in the corresponding limits. For large field excitations the decay proceeds via stochastic activation; we find the relevant non-thermal sphaleron configuration in a certain region of parameters of the model and construct the semiclassical solution describing tunneling onto this sphaleron. Our results provide insights into the vacuum decay induced by small primordial black holes in the radiation-dominated era of the universe.

    ↳ hep-thgr-qchep-phJHEP(2026)·1 citation

* 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.