Mon·May 25, 2026Monday·May 25, 2026

1. 01*

   Sterile Neutrino Mixing Parameters from Solar-Neutrino Coherent Scattering

   Kevin J. Kelly🇺🇸 · Nityasa Mishra🇺🇸 · Louis E. Strigari🇺🇸

   Recently, dark matter direct-detection experiments have begun their exploration of the ``neutrino fog,'' providing the first hints of detection of solar neutrinos scattering elastically with the nuclei in the detector. In this work, we investigate how such observations can be used to uniquely explore sterile-neutrino parameter space, specifically through mixing with ${\nu }_{\mu }$ and ${\nu }_{\tau }$. While it is challenging to constrain these parameters with current observations -- PandaX, XENONnT, and LZ -- we demonstrate how future measurements (with modest improvements to exposure and systematic uncertainties) can provide useful, complementary information in the search for sterile neutrinos. With an ideal, next-generation direct-detection facility ($\sim 3000$ ton-yr), we can probe parameter space previously unexplored by other methods, including long-baseline and atmospheric searches for this class of new physics.

   hep-ph2 citations
2. 02*

   Finite-Size Effects on the Critical End Point of Magnetized Quark Matter in the Nonlocal PNJL Model

   G. Lugones🇧🇷 · S.A. Ferraris🇦🇷 · A.G. Grunfeld🇦🇷

   We investigate finite-size effects in the $T$-$\mu$ phase diagram of magnetized quark matter within the framework of a nonlocal extension of the Polyakov--Nambu--Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model. Finite-size corrections are incorporated through the multiple reflection expansion (MRE) formalism, which describes a spherical quark droplet of radius $R$ and modifies the density of states by including surface and curvature contributions. We consider two-flavor quark matter at finite temperature and chemical potential in the presence of a uniform magnetic field with strengths ranging from $eB=0$ to $1$ GeV${}^2$, and droplet radii from $R=3$ fm to the bulk limit. The nonlocal PNJL (nlPNJL) model naturally reproduces both magnetic catalysis at low temperatures and inverse magnetic catalysis near the chiral transition, in agreement with lattice QCD results. We analyze the chiral condensate, the traced Polyakov loop, the normalized quark condensate, and the corresponding susceptibilities. We find that finite-size effects do not modify the overall structure of the phase diagram, and that the coincidence of the chiral restoration and deconfinement transitions persists for all magnetic field strengths and system sizes explored, within the present implementation in which finite-size corrections are restricted to the fermionic sector. However, the critical end point (CEP) is notably shifted as a function of both the magnetic field strength and the system size: it moves toward higher chemical potentials and lower temperatures as the system size decreases, an effect that is significantly amplified by strong magnetic fields. Our results have potential implications for the physics of phase conversion in compact stars and for the interpretation of relativistic heavy-ion collision experiments.

   hep-phUniverse(2026)·0 citations
3. 03*

   Quark orbital angular momentum as a chiral magnetic effect

   June-Young Kim🇰🇷 · Ho-Yeon Won🇫🇷 · Christian Weiss🇺🇸

   The flavor-nonsinglet ($u-d$) quark angular momentum (AM) in the proton is computed based on the effective spin-flavor dynamics emerging from chiral symmetry breaking by QCD instantons. The QCD AM operators are converted to effective spin-flavor operators expressing instanton-induced chiral interactions. A large negative orbital AM $L_{u-d}$ arises as a ``chiral magnetic effect'' of the interaction of the quarks with the chiral mean field in the proton in the large-$N_c$ limit. It cancels part of the large positive spin AM $S_{u-d}$ and reduces the total AM $J_{u-d}=L_{u-d}+S_{u-d}$, in agreement with lattice QCD calculations.

   hep-ph0 citations
4. 04*

   Zee models with a non-invertible $Z_M$ symmetry

   Huiji Jin🇨🇳 · Takaaki Nomura🇨🇳 · Hiroshi Okada🇨🇳

   We investigate Zee models by incorporating a non-invertible $Z_M$ symmetry. The models are systematically classified based on their symmetry assignments, which dictate structures for the Yukawa couplings and the neutrino mass matrix. By evaluating the consistency of these mass structures with current experimental data, we identify the viable model candidates. Focusing on a representative benchmark model based on the non-invertible $Z_7$ symmetry, we perform a detailed numerical analysis. Our results yield characteristic predictions for neutrino observables and charged lepton flavor violating processes within the allowed parameter space.

   hep-ph0 citations
5. 05*

   Yukawa-Screened Bose-Star Condensation

   Jiajun Chen🇨🇳

   We study Bose-star formation in a Yukawa-Schrödinger-Poisson (YSP) system. A finite interaction range suppresses the infrared kinetic relaxation responsible for Bose-star condensation, modifying both the equilibrium Bose-star structure and the condensation timescale. We derive a screened kinetic condensation formula in which the ordinary gravitational Coulomb logarithm is replaced by a finite Yukawa transport logarithm. Static YSP solutions show that Yukawa screening broadens the Bose-star density profile relative to the ordinary Newtonian soliton. Fully dynamical pseudospectral simulations with homogeneous and isotropic initial conditions demonstrate that Yukawa screening systematically delays Bose-star condensation, in good agreement with the screened kinetic prediction after fitting a single overall normalization parameter.

   hep-phcond-mat.quant-gasPRD(2026)·1 citation
6. 06*

   Enhanced Stellar Production of Weakly Interacting Slim Particles from Non-Thermal Nuclear Cascades

   Víctor Fonoll🇪🇸 · Maurizio Giannotti🇪🇸 · Giuseppe Lucente🇺🇸

   Weakly interacting slim particles (WISPs) can be produced in stars through the conversion of non-thermal photons generated in nuclear reactions. Previous studies have generally treated these sources only at the level of their primary injection lines. We show that this picture is incomplete: repeated Compton scatterings redistribute the injected photons into a broad low-energy spectrum, while associated positrons can thermalize and annihilate into a 511~keV line. Together, these effects define a generic non-thermal photon reservoir and thus a broadly applicable source term for any photon-coupled WISP. We develop a general framework for this mechanism and illustrate its impact with the example of dark-photon production in the solar pp chain. Our results show that non-thermal stellar WISP production can be substantially underestimated if Compton reprocessing and positron annihilation are neglected.

   hep-phastro-ph.HEastro-ph.SRnucl-th0 citations
7. 07*

   Addressing Standard Model Tensions via X17 Vector Boson

   Raoul Serao🇮🇹 · Aniello Quaranta🇮🇹 · Antonio Capolupo🇮🇹

   We investigate the effects of introducing a new vector boson on existing discrepancies within the Standard Model. Our analysis highlights the potential of this particle to alleviate these tensions while serving as a portal to the dark sector. This scenario provides a promising avenue for exploring extensions beyond the Standard Model and motivates further experimental and theoretical studies.

   hep-phhep-th0 citations
8. 08*

   Infrared behavior of the photon yield in nonlinear Compton scattering

   Antonino Di Piazza🇺🇸 · Giulio Audagnotto🇺🇸

   Nonlinear Compton scattering is the process of emission of a single photon by a charge driven by an intense laser field. Here, we study the infrared behavior of the photon yield emitted via nonlinear Compton scattering. We first consider the idealized case of an electron in the presence of a plane wave and derive an analytical expression of the total yield in the form of a double integral over the laser phase. As it is known, the total yield is finite in the experimentally common case of a plane-wave laser field without a DC component whereas it diverges logarithmically in the complementary case of so-called unipolar fields. The divergence is found here to correspond to the longer-and-longer formation lengths of emitted photons with lower-and-lower frequency. Interestingly, we also find that the corrections to the Volkov states stemming from the fact that the field is unipolar cancel out in the computation of the probability of nonlinear Compton scattering, which is in agreement with the fact that in the classical limit the expression of the photon yield is independent on whether the plane wave is unipolar or not. Then, we pass to the more realistic case of an electron in a tightly-focused laser beam by assuming that the electron is ultrarelativistic. In this case we determine analytically the classical angular distribution of the yield of photons with an energy larger than a fixed value $\hslash {\omega }_m$ as a double integral over the electron's trajectory. After obtaining also the corresponding quantum expression of the angular distribution of the photon yield within the quasiclassical approximation, we determine analytically the leading-order quantum correction, which scales as $\hslash {\omega }_m/\epsilon$, where $\epsilon$ is the initial electron energy.

   hep-ph0 citations
9. 09*

   Semileptonic decay of ${\Lambda }_b^0\to {\Lambda }_c(2860{)}^{+}/{\Lambda }_c(2625{)}^{+}{\ell }^{-}{\overline{\nu }}_{\ell }$ within QCD light-cone sum rules

   Hui-Hui Duan🇨🇳 · Jia-Bao Feng🇨🇳 · Feng-Mei Liu🇨🇳 · Qin Chang🇨🇳

   In this work, we calculate the transition form factors for the weak decays ${\Lambda }_b^0\to {\Lambda }_c(2860{)}^{+}$ and ${\Lambda }_b^0\to {\Lambda }_c(2625{)}^{+}$ using QCD light-cone sum rules, and compute the branching fractions of the corresponding semileptonic decays ${\Lambda }_b^0\to {\Lambda }_c(2860{)}^{+}{\ell }^{-}{\bar{\nu }}_{\ell }$ and ${\Lambda }_b^0\to {\Lambda }_c(2625{)}^{+}{\ell }^{-}{\bar{\nu }}_{\ell }$. Our predicted branching fraction for ${\Lambda }_b^0\to {\Lambda }_c(2625{)}^{+}{\ell }^{-}{\bar{\nu }}_{\ell }$ is consistent with experimental data and other theoretical predictions, validating the reliability of our method. On this basis, we also present the branching fraction of ${\Lambda }_b^0\to {\Lambda }_c(2860{)}^{+}{\ell }^{-}{\bar{\nu }}_{\ell }$. These results may serve as a theoretical reference for future experimental measurements of this decay channel.

   hep-ph0 citations
10. 10*

    Correlated $b\to s$ and $s\to d$ Rare Semileptonic Transitions in the Standard Model Effective Field Theory

    Nilakshi Das🇮🇳 · Rusa Mandal🇮🇳 · Praveen S Patil🇮🇳

    The persistent anomalies observed in $b\to s({\ell }^{+}{\ell }^{-},\nu \bar{\nu })$ transitions continue to provide strong motivation for exploring possible extensions of the Standard Model (SM). Motivated by these discrepancies, we present a comprehensive analysis of semileptonic flavor changing neutral current processes within the Standard Model Effective Field Theory (SMEFT), encompassing both $b\to s({\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-},\nu \bar{\nu })$ and $s\to d({\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-},\nu \bar{\nu })$ transitions. We perform a combined fit to $b\to s({\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-},\nu \bar{\nu })$ observables, allowing the relevant dimension-six Wilson coefficients to be complex. We find that the four-fermion operators involving left-handed quark and lepton doublets provide the preferred description of the current $b\to s$ data, while the electroweak operator modifying the $Z$-boson couplings also plays an important role in improving the fit. We show that flavor-universal SMEFT couplings lead to strongly enhanced rare semileptonic kaon decay branching ratios, in conflict with current experimental bounds and thus motivating the implementation of Minimal Flavor Violation. In particular, we demonstrate that flavor-symmetric frameworks based on $U(3{)}^5$ and $U(2{)}^5$ naturally restore the required CKM hierarchies and bring the predicted kaon observables into agreement with present data. We further analyze the differential distributions with respect to the dineutrino invariant mass squared $q^2$, as well as the reconstructed variable $q_{\mathrm{rec}}^2$, in $B\to K^{(\ast )}\nu \bar{\nu }$ decays, demonstrating their sensitivity to different new physics operators. In addition, we investigate the impact of complex Wilson coefficients on $\mathcal{C}\mathcal{P}$ asymmetries in $B\to K^{(\ast )}{\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$ decays and find that percent-level effects can arise in specific $q^2$ regions.

    hep-phhep-ex1 citation
11. 11*

    Charged long-lived particles in the GMSB scenario at the Future Circular Collider (FCC-ee)

    Soumyaa Vashishtha🇩🇪 · Maximilian Emanuel Goblirsch-Kolb🇩🇪 · Isabell Melzer-Pellmann🇩🇪

    Long-lived particles have emerged as a compelling signature of physics beyond the standard model, offering unique discovery opportunities at current and future colliders. We present an analysis of charged long-lived particles leading to signatures with kinked tracks and displaced vertices. Our study is motivated by the gauge mediated supersymmetry breaking model (GMSB) within the minimal supersymmetric standard model scenario, in which the lightest supersymmetric particle is a gravitino and the next-to-lightest supersymmetric particle is the stau, the superpartner of the tau lepton. The stau is predicted to be long-lived due to the small coupling between it and the gravitino. This work presents a phenomenological study of such long-lived staus with lifetimes between 20~cm and 20~m and explores their discovery prospects at the Future Circular Collider (FCC-ee), a proposed $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ collider. The results highlight the sensitivity to the GMSB model.

    hep-phhep-ex0 citations
12. 12*

    A Stochastic Approach for Determining the Quark Confinement Potential of Charmonia

    Ahmet Bingul🇹🇷 · Altug Ozpineci🇹🇷

    In this study, a non-relativistic potential model is used to calculate the mass spectrum and decay properties of low lying charmonium states. A stochastic framework is proposed to extract the possible analytical form of the confinement part of the interaction potential between quarks. Based on this approach, it is found that the confinement function deviates slightly from a linear form at large distances. The results obtained are compared with other theoretical predictions and current PDG values.

    hep-ph0 citations
13. 13*

    Production of Leptophilic Bosons in Ultradegenerate Relativistic Matter

    Damiano F. G. Fiorillo🇮🇹 · Alessandro Lella🇮🇹 · Georg G. Raffelt🇩🇪 · Nudzeim Selimovic🇮🇹 · Edoardo Vitagliano🇮🇹

    Neutron stars (NSs) are powerful factories for new particles with masses up to the 100 keV range. These compact stars contain significant populations of charged particles, notably protons, electrons and muons. We calculate the emission rates for new scalar, vector, and pseudoscalar bosons that predominantly couple to electrons and muons. For vector bosons, the in-medium renormalization of the effective couplings strongly modifies the emission rates, e.g., purely muon-philic vectors are predominantly emitted by ultra-relativistic electrons. We focus on bremsstrahlung in electromagnetic lepton-lepton or lepton-proton collisions in the ultradegenerate limit. When protons are superconducting, the scalar and vector energy loss rates scale as $T^4$, the pseudoscalar one as $T^6$, to be compared with $T^8$ for neutrino losses by the modified Urca process. For normal-conducting protons, the screening of transverse photons implies instead scalings with a power reduced by $1/3$ and thus $T^{11/3}$ for scalars and vectors, and $T^{17/3}$ for pseudoscalars. As the NS cools, such new particle losses would become important at late times, when surface photon emission begins to take over, which itself scales roughly as $T^2$ in terms of the internal temperature. Our results can be used to constrain the leptophilic coupling strengths through observed NS cooling ages.

    hep-phastro-ph.HE3 citations
14. 14*

    Oscillating Imprints of Dark Matter in Mesons Decays

    Prisco Lo Chiatto🇩🇪 · Babette Döbrich🇩🇪 · Gilad Perez🇮🇱

    We study scenarios in which ultralight dark matter (ULDM) causes oscillations of the Cabibbo--Kobayashi--Maskawa (CKM) matrix elements, considering two frameworks. The first, previously proposed in the literature, employs the Nelson--Barr mechanism to solve the strong CP problem and the CKM phase is identified with a pseudo-Nambu--Goldstone boson. The second, inspired by Froggatt--Nielsen flavor models, relies on quadratic couplings of the ULDM to the Standard Model while naturally suppressing linear couplings. On the experimental side, we outline a strategy to search for such oscillations at flavor factories using meson decays, focusing on the NA62 experiment as the most promising candidate for discovery thanks to its large kaon statistics. We show that the sensitivity of lifetime-based observables is parametrically degraded when the total particle flux is not known exactly, leading to a substantial loss of sensitivity compared to naive estimates. We therefore advocate alternative observables based on direct counting of events, which retain the expected $1/\sqrt{N}$ scaling and provide a robust probe of oscillating CKM elements. Our results highlight flavor experiments as a novel probe of ULDM through time-dependent signatures.

    hep-phhep-ex0 citations
15. 15*

    Neutron Star Bounds on Muonic Fifth Forces from Picometer to Kilometer Scales

    Damiano F. G. Fiorillo🇮🇹 · Alessandro Lella🇮🇹 · Georg G. Raffelt🇩🇪 · Nudzeim Selimovic🇮🇹 · Edoardo Vitagliano🇮🇹

    Experimental searches for fifth forces coupled to muons are fundamentally limited by the scarcity of muons in ordinary matter, whereas neutron stars contain abundant muon populations. We show that these compact objects therefore provide superior sensitivity across a broad range of mediator masses. Neutron-star cooling implies limits of $g_{\varphi \mu }\lesssim 10^{-12}$ and $g_{V\mu }\lesssim 3\times 10^{-13}$ on scalar and vector bosons with masses $m_X\lesssim 100$ keV, whereas SN 1987A cooling implies only $g\lesssim 3\times 10^{-9}$. Moreover, hydrostatic equilibrium requires any long-range muonic force to be sufficiently weak, surpassing cooling bounds for $m_X\lesssim 10^{-5}$ eV. Together, these observables provide the most stringent probes of muonic interactions over distance scales ranging from picometers to kilometers.

    hep-phastro-ph.HE5 citations
16. 16*

    Finite-volume analysis of the $H$-dibaryon including left-hand-cut effects

    Arkaitz Rodas🇺🇸 · Lin Qiu🇺🇸 · César Fernández-Ramírez🇪🇸 · Vincent Mathieu🇪🇸 · Glòria Montaña🇪🇸 · Alessandro Pilloni🇮🇹 · Adam P. Szczepaniak🇺🇸

    We implement the finite-volume $N/D$ representation to study two-baryon interactions from lattice QCD data. We include the left-hand cut induced by one-pion exchange in this formalism, and study the $H$-dibaryon at the SU(3)${}_{\text{F}}$-symmetric point, with a pion mass around $417$ MeV. The $N/D$ formalism is then compared to the Lüscher quantization condition, used to describe the same system via effective-range expansions. The results show a mild but statistically significant effect produced by the inclusion of the left-hand cut, especially on the binding energy of the $H$-dibaryon.

    ↳ hep-lathep-ph3 citations
17. 17*

    Cuspidal Singularities in Collapsing Domain Walls

    Jose J. Blanco-Pillado🇪🇸 · Matthew Elley🇪🇸 · Francesc Ferrer🇺🇸 · Alberto García Martín-Caro🇪🇸 · Daniel Jiménez-Aguilar🇺🇸 · Oriol Pujolàs🇪🇸 · Juan S. Valbuena-Bermúdez🇪🇸

    Domain wall networks have attracted renewed interest, particularly in relation to the dynamics of network collapse. Accurately describing this process is challenging and typically requires large scale numerical simulations. Here we adopt a complementary approach by studying the collapse of individual closed domain walls, extending previous thin wall analyses and comparing them with adaptive mesh refinement field theory simulations. Firstly, we show that collapsing domain walls generically develop worldvolume singularities of two types: cuspidal edge singularities, consisting of one dimensional singular edges that propagate along the wall surface at the speed of light for a finite time, and cuspidal vertex singularities, which are spike like and instantaneous events where the wall moves momentarily at the speed of light. Both types of features arise generically from smooth initial conditions, and their formation and evolution follow the universal patterns of singularity theory. We show that these structures are captured both by the Nambu-Goto equations and by an eikonal like approximation valid in the relativistic regime. Furthermore, we demonstrate that the same singular structures are reproduced qualitatively in full field theory simulations, establishing that they are not artifacts of the thin wall approximation but robust features of realistic domain wall dynamics. Naturally, such focusing effects in the field theory simulations result in localized regions of high energy density. We briefly discuss possible phenomenological implications.

    ↳ hep-thastro-ph.COgr-qchep-ph1 citation
18. 18*

    Vacuum-Triggered Instability in Paired Superradiance

    Zhan Bai🇨🇳 · Ningqiang Song🇨🇳 · Min Chen🇨🇳 · Xiangyan An🇨🇳 · Baifei Shen🇨🇳 · Liangliang Ji🇨🇳 · Ruxin Li🇨🇳

    Paired superradiance (PSR) is a macro-coherent two-photon process capable of very large gain, making it promising for detecting ultra-weak signals induced by neutrinos or dark matter. A major goal has been to increase the system volume $V$ and density $n$, since the signal intensity scales as $(nV{)}^2$. We recast finite PSR as a parametric amplifier driven by the electromagnetic vacuum. The usual zero-field semiclassical initial condition is replaced by vacuum inputs fixed by the quantum two-point function. Combining this formulation with Maxwell--Bloch evolution and finite-length stability analysis, we find that PSR produces an irreducible vacuum background that can develop into macroscopic bursts once the gain-length product exceeds \(\Gamma L=\pi/2\) for a sufficient coherence time. These results, together with a closed-form formula for estimating the vacuum-seeded photon yield, establish a previously overlooked constraint for high-gain PSR, with direct implications for proposed neutrino and dark-matter studies.

    ↳ physics.opticshep-ph1 citation
19. 19*

    Quantum resource redistribution drives spectral splits in dense neutrino gases

    Michael Hite🇺🇸 · Pooja Siwach🇺🇸

    Whether a quantum many-body system can be efficiently simulated hinges not only on its size but also on how quantum resources are organized within it. We characterize the quantum resource landscape of collective neutrino oscillations using entanglement entropy, non-local magic, and matrix product state bond dimension. Using tensor network simulations of neutrinos in the two-flavor sector, we demonstrate that spectral splits--sharp energy-dependent flavor swaps--emerge precisely where entanglement entropy is maximized and non-local magic is minimized locally. This anticorrelation reveals that spectral splits arise not from generic resource growth but from a structured redistribution among flavor modes. The resource dynamics trace constrained arcs in the entanglement-magic phase space, bounded by entanglement spectrum normalization. These findings establish a direct, quantitative link between quantum resources governing computational complexity and astrophysical observables, informing the design of tensor network and quantum circuit simulations of dense neutrino environments.

    ↳ quant-phhep-ph3 citations
20. 20*

    Natural Metric-Affine Inflation: Reloaded

    D. Kraiko🇸🇪 · A. Racioppi🇪🇪

    We revisit natural inflation within the framework of metric-affine gravity, considering the impact of a periodic non-minimal coupling between the inflaton and the Nieh-Yan term. Such a term, alone, leads to linear inflation predictions in the strong coupling limit and cannot help to rescue the natural inflation scenario. However, once an analogous non-minimal coupling with the Ricci scalar is added, agreement with data can be easily achieved. Remarkably, the scenario remains viable even with a sub-Planckian periodicity scale and relatively small (order of one) non-minimal couplings.

    ↳ gr-qcastro-ph.COhep-ph3 citations
21. 21*

    Thermodynamics and transport in holographic QCD with Gauss-Bonnet corrections

    ChenWei Tong🇨🇳 · Jie Zhou🇨🇳 · YuanXu Wang🇨🇳 · Rong-Gen Cai🇨🇳 · Song He🇨🇳 · Li Li🇨🇳

    Thermodynamics and transport are investigated in a holographic QCD model that extends the Einstein--Maxwell--Dilaton framework by incorporating Gauss--Bonnet corrections. Model parameters are fixed using state-of-the-art lattice QCD thermodynamics. The analysis then examines the equation of state at zero and finite baryon chemical potential, the phase structure in the temperature and chemical potential plane, as well as the shear and bulk viscosity to entropy ratios, $\eta /s$ and $\zeta /s$, via the corresponding fluctuation equations. For a constant Gauss--Bonnet coupling, the model preserves a reasonable description of the equation of state and generates a temperature-dependent $\eta /s$, although the resulting profile remains monotonic near the crossover region, which does not satisfy the phenomenological expectation. When the Gauss--Bonnet coupling is allowed to depend on the dilaton, a non-monotonic $\eta /s$ and a peaked $\zeta /s$ are obtained while maintaining agreement with thermodynamic constraints. The resulting phase diagram contains a critical end point in a phenomenologically relevant region.

    ↳ hep-thgr-qchep-ph0 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.