HEP Phenomenology·hep-ph

Thu·Jul 30, 2026Thursday·July 30, 2026

34 papers—15 primary·19 cross-listed

01
SET-ANUBIS: a modular pipeline for ANUBIS long-lived particle sensitivity studies
Sofie Nordahl Erner · Anna Mullin · Théo Reymermier · Paul Swallow · Oleg Brandt for the ANUBIS Collaboration
SET-ANUBIS (Simulation, accEptance and sensiTivity studies framework for ANUBIS) is an open-source Python framework for end-to-end studies of long-lived particle signatures in the proposed ANUBIS detector. Starting from a Universal FeynRules Output model or user-supplied rates, it exposes model parameters and particle content, evaluates decay widths, branching ratios and lifetimes, prepares or runs event generation through Pythia8 or MadGraph, ingests HepMC event records, models the ATLAS cavern and ANUBIS tracking stations, and applies a configurable sequence of geometric, kinematic and isolation requirements. The implementation follows a ports-and-adapters architecture so that physics-domain logic remains separate from external generators, persistent storage and visualisation. A scan-aware SQLite catalogue and content-addressed store preserve cards, metadata and compact selection-ready event bundles while avoiding duplicate artefacts. Release v1.0.0 introduces a deterministic reproducibility suite with five independent scenarios (R1--R5) covering model access, branching-ratio interpolation, Pythia command generation, MadGraph card generation and the complete selection chain on a compact HepMC2 sample. The final scenario produces machine-readable JSON and a standalone HTML selection trace that records cumulative cutflows and event-level pass/fail transitions. Optional scientific dashboards provide event, geometry, campaign and provenance inspection without changing the physics results. The framework, documentation and reference inputs are distributed under the GNU GPL version 3 or later and are intended to support auditable ANUBIS sensitivity studies and direct comparison of alternative long-lived particle models.
hep-phhep-ex1 citation
02
Probing Neutrino Flavor Composition with the Glashow Resonance at Tau Air-Shower Neutrino Telescopes
Tianyi Ding🇺🇸 · Qinrui Liu🇨🇦
The flavor composition of high-energy astrophysical neutrinos encodes information about their production and propagation. The Glashow resonance, $ν ˉ_{e} + e^{-} \to W^{-}$ , provides a unique way to distinguish antineutrinos from neutrinos and thereby extends the reach of flavor composition studies. Proposed tau air-shower neutrino telescopes target Earth-skimming and mountain-skimming $ν_{τ}$ above a PeV, but through the decay $W^{-} \to ν ˉ_{τ} + τ^{-}$ they are also sensitive to $ν ˉ_{e}$ . These experiments can therefore measure the ratio of $ν ˉ_{e}$ to $ν_{τ} + ν ˉ_{τ}$ fluxes. We evaluate this prospect with explicit simulations and project sensitivities for TAMBO and TRINITY, assuming 10 years of operation. We find that mountain-skimming geometries yield substantially higher $ν ˉ_{e}$ acceptance than Earth-skimming ones due to the shorter path length in rock. For standard astrophysical source scenarios, our projections show that differentiating $pp$ and $p γ$ production, including their muon-damped scenarios, is challenging with a standalone measurement by tau air-shower experiments in their currently designed configurations, though optimistically the flux ratio can be constrained to $≲$ 2 at 1 $σ$ . A $ν ˉ_{e}$ -rich flux, as expected from neutron-decay sources or from certain new physics models, would stand out from the standard pion-production scenarios and can otherwise be constrained.
hep-phastro-ph.HE1 citation
03
A multi-axion model of inflation and dark matter
Marcos A.G. Garcia🇲🇽 · Hansel Gordillo-Ruiz🇲🇽 · Raul Henriquez-Ortiz🇸🇻 · Saul Ramos-Sanchez🇲🇽
Models with extra dimensions include a tower of massive states that unavoidably contribute to cosmological dynamics. In particular, after compactification, a higher-dimensional axion gives rise to a set of states whose dynamics at early times exhibit the properties of inflation and, at late times, those of dynamical dark matter. Interestingly, natural choices of parameters imply that the inflationary trajectory in field space is approximately geodesic, meaning that inflation is effectively driven by a single inflaton corresponding to the heaviest state. In this scenario, all inflationary observables, including the emerging spectral distortions, are consistent with current observational constraints, and exact numerical solutions of the equations of motion show that reheating can consistently proceed down to temperatures of a few MeV. Furthermore, all states lighter than the inflaton only come to dominate the energy density of the Universe during the matter-dominated era, thus behaving as dark matter at late times. These states undergo a cascade of decays into radiation, while maintaining a sufficient dark-matter abundance to account for the observed relic density. The lightest dark-matter candidate remains stable on timescales far exceeding the age of the Universe, thereby satisfying even the most conservative observational constraints.
hep-phastro-ph.COhep-th0 citations
04
An Equilibrating Parton Shower for Jet Quenching and Medium Response
Ismail Soudi🇩🇪 · Adam Takacs🇩🇪
In the weak-coupling approach, thermalization of the quark-gluon plasma and the evolution of jet-like perturbations in the medium can be described by the same underlying QCD effective kinetic theory (EKT). In this work, we show how the EKT reduces to the standard energy-loss and angular-broadening evolution of jet-quenching in the high-energy regime, while providing a consistent description near the thermal scales. Building on this, we derive a parton shower directly from EKT that reproduces the full linearized Boltzmann equation, combining elastic and inelastic collisions to capture both hard-parton energy loss and thermal equilibration on an equal footing. This shower lets us extend EKT to inhomogeneous perturbations, connecting jet evolution to the medium's hydrodynamic response, including wakes, Mach cones, and multi-particle correlations.
hep-phhep-thnucl-th2 citations
05
A HEFT Perspective on the Type-II Seesaw Model and the Complete Basis of Lepton-Number-Violating Operators
Zizhou Ge🇨🇳 · Huayang Song🇰🇷 · Xia Wan🇨🇳
We perform the complete tree-level matching of the type-II seesaw model onto the Higgs effective field theory (HEFT) through $O (p^{4})$ in the chiral expansion. Employing a nonlinear field representation and the primary-HEFT power-counting scheme, we retain the dependence on the independent heavy-scalar masses, the neutral-scalar mixing angle, and the triplet vacuum expectation value without introducing additional expansions in these parameters. To systematically describe lepton-number violation, we construct a complete and nonredundant basis of LNV HEFT operators through $O (p^{4})$ , including their full flavor multiplicities, using a complex dressed spurion that encodes the $B - L$ charge and custodial orientation of the LNV insertion. The basis is independently validated by Hilbert-series counting. We then compare our matching results with those for the corresponding real-triplet extension and with a previously proposed broken-phase effective field theory. These comparisons identify the effects of the additional CP-odd and doubly charged scalar states and show that the overlapping broken-phase results are recovered after the appropriate parameter expansion, while HEFT retains the unexpanded nonlinear electroweak structure. We further discuss representative implications for Higgs and electroweak precision observables, vector-boson scattering, multi-Higgs production, anomalous gauge couplings, top-quark processes, neutrinoless double-beta decay, charged-lepton flavor violation, and same-sign dilepton production.
hep-ph0 citations
06
Expansion by Regions Derivation from the Mellin Transform
Andres Poldaru
We derive the method of expansion by regions from the Mellin transform for integrals involving polynomials with positive coefficients. This method is widely used to obtain asymptotic expansions of Feynman integrals.
hep-ph0 citations
07
Particle Production via Rippled Bubble Walls
Ryusuke Jinno🇯🇵 · Shota Nakagawa🇨🇳 · Yuichiro Nakai🇨🇳 · Yaoduo Wang🇨🇳
We investigate non-thermal particle production during first-order phase transitions in the presence of ultra-relativistic thick bubble walls with non-trivial internal structure. Extending the framework of bubble-expansion particle production, we consider bubble walls containing multiple ripples and study how such spatial modulations affect the production of heavy particles coupled to the order parameter field. By modeling an oscillatory thick-wall profile, we derive the transition probability for particle splitting processes in the wall background, and identify a new contribution associated with momentum transfer from the wall microstructure. In addition to the conventional channel, we find an enhanced production mode arising from resonant momentum exchange with the ripples. For sufficiently large numbers of ripples, the new contribution can dominate the production rate and significantly increase the abundance of particles much heavier than the phase-transition scale. Our results demonstrate that the internal structure of expanding bubble walls can play an important role in particle production and should be taken into account when assessing the cosmological implications of strongly first-order phase transitions.
hep-phastro-ph.COhep-th0 citations
08
An Exact Geometric Framework for Flavor Mixing and CP Violation in the Standard Model
Chilong Lin🇰🇷
Flavor mixing and CP violation in the Standard Model are conventionally parameterized by Euler angles that entangle the physical contributions of the up- and down-type quark sectors, obscuring the origin of CP violation itself. We present a non-perturbative geometric framework that resolves this entanglement through the commutativity condition $[M_{R}^{2}, M_{I}^{2}] = 0$ for the Hermitian components of the mass-squared matrices, reducing the 18 real degrees of freedom of a general $3 \times 3$ Yukawa matrix to five independent parameters and yielding an exact Cartesian-like parameterization. Explicit diagonalization directly gives fermion masses, CKM matrix elements, and the CP phase $δ$ in closed form, cleanly separating the distinct physical contributions of the up- and down-type sectors. Mapping flavor space onto a two-dimensional vector geometry, we derive the Jarlskog invariant $J$ in exact closed form and show that CP violation is governed by a discrete topological selection rule ( $η_{relative} \in {0, \pm 1}$ ) together with the vector cross-product $v_{u} \times v_{d} = x y^{'} - x^{'} y$ . Across all 36 $S_{3} \times S_{3}$ flavor topologies, this yields an exact $18/18$ classification into CP-violating ( $J \neq = 0$ ) and CP-conserving ( $J \equiv 0$ ) cases, associated with two distinct CP-suppression mechanisms: geometric alignment through a vanishing vector cross-product and algebraic cancellation of imaginary contributions under permutation. At tree level, fitting to experimental CKM elements yields agreement at the $O (1 0^{- 2})$ level, establishing this framework as a transparent analytical baseline for future non-commutative flavor extensions.
hep-phhep-th1 citation
09
Automated NRQCD and NRQED simulations of quarkonium and leptonium production with P-wave states and physical-mass effects
Luca Maxia🇫🇷 · Hua-Sheng Shao🇫🇷 · Lukas Simon🇫🇷
We present the $MadSONS$ module, which extends the $\texttt{MadGraph5_aMC@NLO}$ framework by providing a fully automated solution for the simulation of arbitrary tree-level production processes involving non-relativistic bound states. More specifically, we focus on the production of quarkonia and leptonia in non-relativistic QCD and QED, respectively. This work constitutes the next step in the programme initiated in arXiv:2510.26773, where the colour and spin projectors required for S-wave states were first incorporated into $\texttt{MadGraph5_aMC@NLO}$ . In the present development, we implement the remaining projectors associated with orbital and total angular momentum, thereby enabling the event generation of processes involving P-wave states. The derivatives required for the orbital-angular-momentum projection are evaluated using dual numbers. In addition, we implement a momentum-reshuffling procedure that accounts for physical bound-state mass effects in the phase space. The resulting framework applies to a wide range of collider environments while remaining compatible with standard multi-purpose Monte Carlo event generators for parton showering and hadronisation. As a first phenomenological application, we revisit $J / ψ + ψ (2 S)$ production at the LHC and obtain an improved description of the LHCb data.
hep-phhep-ex1 citation
10
Characterisation at the HL-LHC of Long-lived Heavy Neutrinos in Gauge Extensions of the Standard Model
Aram Fatah🇸🇪 · Stefano Moretti🇬🇧 · Antons Nikolajevs🇸🇪
We show how signals of heavy neutrinos with displaced decays can be detected at the Large Hadron Collider in two theoretical setups, both exploiting extended gauge sectors as portals to such new physics, the Left-Right Symmetric Model and $U (1)_{B - L}$ . Further, owing to the reduced contamination from backgrounds away from the interaction point, we illustrate how the properties of the heavy neutrinos (mass, width and quantum numbers) can neatly be accessed at the High-Luminosity upgrade of the CERN machine.
hep-ph0 citations
11
Constraining $α$ -cluster compactness in $^{16} O$ and $^{20} Ne$ at TeV energies using azimuthal anisotropy
Aswathy Menon Kavumpadikkal Radhakrishnan🇮🇳 · Suraj Prasad🇮🇳 · Neelkamal Mallick🇮🇳 · Raghunath Sahoo🇮🇳 · Gergely Gábor Barnaföldi🇭🇺
Anisotropic flow in ultra-relativistic light-ion collisions is sensitive to the initial geometry of the colliding nuclei. We investigate whether elliptic flow measurements can constrain the parameters of the proposed $α$ -clustered nuclear density distributions of $^{16}$ O and $^{20}$ Ne at LHC energies. Using the hybrid framework IP-Glasma+MUSIC+iSS+UrQMD, we simulate OO and Ne--Ne collisions at $s_{NN} = 5.36$ TeV for the Woods--Saxon and $α$ -clustered configurations with varying cluster compactness. The elliptic flow coefficient $v_{2} {2, ∣Δ η ∣ > 1}$ is calculated in the kinematic acceptances of ALICE, CMS, and ATLAS detectors and is compared with the Run~3 OO and Ne--Ne experimental measurements. It is observed that the final-state elliptic flow is significantly sensitive to the nuclear geometry, especially in OO collisions, where different configurations lead to distinct centrality dependencies and peak positions of $v_{2}$ . By performing a systematic variation of the cluster size and inter-cluster separation in $^{16}$ O and $^{20}$ Ne nuclei, this work attempts to identify the cluster parameter range that provides the best agreement with the experimental data. These results show that the flow observables in TeV-energy light-ion collisions can be used to optimize the nuclear structure parameters of light nuclei.
hep-phhep-exhep-thnucl-ex+10 citations
12
Imaging non-hydrodynamic modes with jet wakes
Aleksi Kurkela🇳🇴 · Ian Moult🇺🇸 · Alexander Soloviev🇸🇮 · Urs Achim Wiedemann🇨🇭
While studies of ultra-relativistic heavy-ion collisions have established that the quark--gluon plasma exhibits hydrodynamic behavior, direct signatures of non-hydrodynamic modes have remained elusive, and no observable is known to be exclusively sensitive to them. Here, we show that the angular structure of the jet wake provides such a probe. In the long-wavelength limit, hydrodynamics contributes only to the lowest angular moments of the detector image of the jet wake, while higher moments directly encode microscopic non-equilibrium dynamics. The jet wake thus serves as a spectroscopic probe of the medium's non-hydrodynamic sector. We develop a general kinetic-theory framework relating the angular moments of the late-time energy flux generated by a jet to the relaxation spectrum of the collision operator. In all models considered, non-hydrodynamic modes leave distinct imprints on the higher angular moments. Our results motivate precision measurements of the higher angular moments of the negative jet wake.
hep-phnucl-th1 citation
13
Revising Indirect Dark Matter Constraints with Updated Astrophysical $J$ -Factor Priors
Giacomo D'Amico🇪🇸
Indirect searches for particle dark matter with gamma-ray experiments have produced a large number of constraints on the annihilation cross section (or decay lifetime) over a wide range of dark matter masses. These constraints depend critically on the assumed astrophysical $J$ factor and its uncertainty, which encodes the dark matter distribution in the target and represents the dominant source of systematic uncertainty. As improved observational data and dynamical modeling are expected to revise current $J$ -factor determinations, many published limits risk becoming obsolete unless the full experimental analyses are repeated. In this work we present a general and statistically consistent framework for updating published dark matter limits when revised $J$ -factor estimates become available, without requiring access to the full experimental likelihood. We derive an analytical expression that quantifies the impact of astrophysical uncertainties on dark matter limits, treating both Gaussian and log-normal priors on the $J$ factor. The formalism is validated through toy Monte Carlo simulations, including dedicated studies of its numerical stability under successive reinterpretations, and demonstrate their accuracy by reproducing published limits. Lastly, we further show that the formalism naturally extends to the combination of multiple targets through a simple numerical procedure, allowing limits to be combined and updated using only publicly available information. The proposed method is intended as a complementary reinterpretation tool for situations in which a complete experimental reanalysis is impractical, offering a practical means to preserve and extend the scientific relevance of published dark matter constraints across present and future experiments.
hep-phastro-ph.COastro-ph.HEastro-ph.IMPRD(2026)·0 citations
14
Outcomes of Grand Unified Symmetry Breaking
Harish Hemming🇺🇸 · Tanmay Vachaspati🇺🇸 · Anja Wachowitz🇺🇸
We numerically study the outcome of symmetry breaking motivated by Grand Unified models. Our results show the formation of biased domain walls for a range of parameters together with magnetic monopoles. The interactions of walls and monopoles leads to novel processes such as the absorption of monopoles on walls, production of monopoles when domain walls annihilate, collapse of walls with magnetic charge that can, with gravity taken into account, produce magnetically charged black holes, and production of a stochastic gravitational wave background from biased domain walls. Our findings open new avenues for probing the grand unification epoch by cosmological observables.
hep-phastro-ph.COhep-th0 citations
15
Anomalies in Hadronic $B \to V V$ Decays
Bhubanjyoti Bhattacharya🇺🇸 · Marianne Bouchard🇨🇦 · Alexandre Jean🇨🇦 · David London🇨🇦 · Ipsita Ray🇨🇦
Recently, a fit of charmless $B \to P P$ decays ( $B \in {B^{0}, B^{+}, B_{s}^{0}}$ , $P \in {π, K, η, η^{'}}$ ) to the latest data was performed under the assumption of flavour SU(3) symmetry [SU(3) $_{F}$ ]. It was found that there is a $4.1 σ$ disagreement with the SU(3) $_{F}$ limit of the Standard Model [ $S M_{SU (3)_{F}}$ ]. In this paper, we extend this analysis to charmless $B \to V V$ decays ( $V \in {ρ, K^{*}, ϕ, ω}$ ). The fit examining $B \to ρ K^{*}$ decays, assuming only isospin symmetry, is found to be acceptable. When we fit to $B \to V V$ decays with $V \in {ρ, K^{*}}$ within SU(3) $_{F}$ , we find a $5.2 σ$ discrepancy with SM $_{S U (3)_{F}}$ . Finally, when $B \to V V$ decays with $V \in {ρ, K^{*}, ϕ, ω}$ are considered, the discrepancy grows to $> 7 σ$ . The theoretical input in this analysis is modest, so our results are quite rigorous, group theoretically, and hold almost exactly in the SU(3) $_{F}$ limit. Although it seems unlikely that the introduction of $\sim 30$ % SU(3) $_{F}$ -breaking effects can account for this discrepancy, this must be verified.
hep-phhep-ex2 citations
16
The gauge invariance of non-perturbative vertex prescriptions
M.E. Carrington🇨🇦 · A.R. Frey🇨🇦 · B.A. Meggison
We study the gauge invariance of different continuum methods to include non-perturbative effects in gauge theories. We work with three dimensional quantum electrodynamics and implement vertices using two different methods: a set of coupled Schwinger-Dyson (SD) integral equations, and the self-consistent equations obtained from the 3-particle irreducible (3PI) effective action. We work in Landau gauge and assess the extent to which results are gauge invariant by checking how well the Ward identity is satisfied. Our results show that there is a fairly significant violation of the Ward identity at large coupling, although the 3PI effective theory is slightly better than the SD vertex. We also compare the results of both calculations with the commonly used Ball-Chiu ansatz and show that the agreement of the ansatz with both non-perturbative vertices is fairly good at small coupling but deviates more significantly at large coupling. We compare results for the two point functions of the theory and discuss the possible implications for phase transitions.
↳ hep-thhep-ph0 citations
17
Dark Matter Deficient Galaxies as Probes of Dark Matter
Oem Trivedi🇺🇸 · Abraham Loeb🇺🇸
Dark matter deficient galaxies provide a direct way to test whether baryons and dark matter can become sufficiently separated during galaxy evolution. We formulate a Dark Matter-Baryon Separability condition based on the relative incorporation efficiencies of the two components, requiring the final dark matter to baryon ratio to fall below an observationally defined threshold. Applied to high speed collisions, this condition constrains dark matter baryon momentum transfer cross section, interacting dark matter fraction and the efficiency of gravitational recapture. The same framework gives us bounds on the abundance and cooling time of dissipative dark matter, and on the integrated escape rate of ultralight fuzzy dark matter from shallow or tidally disturbed potentials. These results show how dark matter deficient galaxies can complement cosmological and laboratory probes by constraining late time dark matter interactions, dissipation and halo stability.
↳ gr-qcastro-ph.GAhep-phhep-thPhys.Dark Univ.(2026)·0 citations
18
Qubit-qubit-qutrit quantum correlations in $H \to f f ˉ V$
Michał Banacki · Misaki Ohta🇵🇱 · Abhyoudai S. Shaleena🇵🇱 · Paweł Caban🇵🇱 · Michał Eckstein🇵🇱 · Kazuki Sakurai🇵🇱 · Michael Spannowsky🇬🇧 · Paweł Horodecki🇵🇱
We perform an extensive analysis of the quantum correlations carried by the qubit-qubit-qutrit pure state arising in the decay of a massive scalar into a fermion-antifermion pair and a massive gauge boson, $H \to f f ˉ V$ , specialising to the Higgs boson decay $h \to τ^{-} τ^{+} Z$ . Working with the exact tree-level spin state and its systematic expansion around the massless-fermion limit, we obtain analytic control over the entire phase space: the bipartite entanglement measures, the genuine $2 \otimes 2 \otimes 3$ entanglement structure (the Miyake classification), as well as the Bell-inequality violations and the non-stabiliserness (magic) are all mapped and reproduced by compact formulas. The bipartite measures exhibit a monogamy-like trade-off between the fermion pair and the fermion-boson pairs. The state is genuinely $2 \otimes 2 \otimes 3$ entangled over almost the entire phase space, most strongly in the collinear regions. We derive, for the first time, semi-analytical expressions for the tight $4 \times 4 \times 2$ Bell inequalities of the $2 \otimes 2 \otimes 3$ system, generalising the optimisation previously available only for three qubits, and find that the local-hidden-variable bound is violated over the entire phase space, reaching within a few per cent of the quantum bound at the upper endpoint of the di-tau mass spectrum. We further extend the stabiliser Rényi entropy and the non-local magic to systems with unequal local dimensions, and show that the near-endpoint state carries almost exactly one bit of non-local magic, which peaks at $lo g_{2} \frac{27}{7} ≃ 1.95$ in the collinear regions. The differential decay rate concentrates precisely in the most nonclassical region of the phase space.
↳ quant-phhep-exhep-ph4 citations
19
Gravitational Waves from Multiple Cosmic Superstrings and the Overshoot Problem
Luca Brunelli🇮🇹 · Michele Cicoli🇮🇹 · Muhammad Hassan🇮🇹 · Seyed Ehsan Qoreishi🇮🇹 · Francisco Gil Pedro🇮🇹
Post inflationary string cosmology can feature an initial population of multiple species of cosmic superstrings whose tension is controlled by a modulus rolling over a steep potential toward a late-time minimum. We perform a full analysis of the associated dynamical system, finding that overshooting the minimum is prevented by the friction of a radiation background of gravitational waves produced from the early decay of effective strings arising from NS5- and D3-branes wrapped around internal cycles. On the other hand, fundamental strings survive longer and decay when the modulus is oscillating around the minimum and they have about $1/3$ of the total energy density. The spectrum of gravitational waves generated by the decays of these multiple cosmic superstrings, even if diluted by a late epoch of modulus domination, can still result in a high-frequency, multi-peaked signal, offering an observational signature of generic features of string theory.
↳ hep-thastro-ph.COgr-qchep-ph0 citations
20
Neural quantum states for non-Abelian lattice gauge theories with dynamical fermions
Gabriel Rouxinol🇩🇪 · Julian Bender🇺🇸 · Michele Grossi🇨🇭 · Patrick Emonts🇩🇪 · Jad C. Halimeh🇩🇪
Determining the ground state of non-Abelian lattice gauge theories coupled to dynamical fermions is key to understanding confinement and the phase structure of gauge--matter systems. We present a variational Monte Carlo framework for the ground state of the untruncated fully-continuous SU $(2)$ lattice gauge theory coupled to dynamical staggered fermions on an $L \times L$ square lattice. We work in the magnetic basis with a neural-network representation of the gauge wavefunction. The fermions are described by a gauge-covariant Gaussian fermionic correction built on a fixed Néel reference state where, for each sampled gauge configuration $U$ , the correction is generated by a Hermitian operator. This operator is constructed from short Wilson lines and the eigenvectors of the mass--hopping Hamiltonian, with number of variational parameters polynomial in the system size. This Gaussian structure also gives analytical expressions for all fermionic contributions to the energy and related observables in terms of the fermion occupation matrix. The results are validated against strong-coupling perturbation theory, where they recover the expected effective antiferromagnetic spin Hamiltonian. Using this framework, we map a coarse ground state phase diagram in the plane of independent electric and magnetic couplings $(g^{2}, λ)$ and show that a hysteresis analysis can identify the existence of phase transitions. Restoring the physical relation $λ = 4/ g^{2}$ , we characterize how increasing the system size and changing the electric coupling $g^{2}$ move the state away from the reference Néel state, for lattice sizes $L = 4, 6, 8$ . More broadly, the method offers a sign-problem-free variational framework for continuous non-Abelian gauge groups with dynamical matter that should extend to other matter content and higher-dimensional lattices.
↳ hep-latcond-mat.quant-gascond-mat.str-elhep-ph+11 citation
21
Quantum Phase Diagram of the $2 + 1$ D Untruncated SU $(2)$ Lattice Gauge Theory with Dynamical Fermions
Gabriel Rouxinol🇩🇪 · Julian Bender🇺🇸 · Patrick Emonts🇩🇪 · Michele Grossi🇨🇭 · Jad C. Halimeh🇩🇪
Non-Abelian gauge theories with dynamical matter govern the strong interaction and a broad class of strongly correlated quantum systems, yet their ground-state properties remain difficult to obtain from first principles. Using a continuous-group variational Monte Carlo approach that retains the full SU $(2)$ gauge field without truncation, we determine the ground-state behavior of the SU $(2)$ lattice gauge theory with staggered fermions on an $L \times L$ square lattice. Treating the magnetic and electric couplings $λ$ and $g^{2}$ independently, we find a magnetic-flux transition at $λ^{*} = - 0.040 \pm 0.005$ , with no resolvable drift of the transition point as the electric coupling is varied. Along the physical coupling line $λ = 4/ g^{2}$ , for $L = 4, 6, 8$ , we uncover a gauge-matter delocalization crossover from a flux-disordered regime at strong electric coupling to an ordered unity-flux regime at weak coupling. The chiral condensate, a gauge-invariant Wilson-line meson correlator, and the local color density consistently reveal the emergence of coherent gauge-assisted matter dynamics. Together, these results provide a unified physical picture of how magnetic-flux ordering and fermionic coherence develop in an untruncated non-Abelian lattice gauge theory.
↳ hep-latcond-mat.quant-gascond-mat.str-elhep-ph+11 citation
22
CasimirRFM: A Mathematica package for Riemann-flat compactifications with Casimir energies
Bruno Valeixo Bento🇪🇸
CasimirRFM is a Mathematica package for the study of compactifications on Riemann-flat manifolds and the computation of one-loop Casimir energies in higher-dimensional field theories and supergravity. It implements an efficient numerical evaluation of lattice sums using Ewald summation, and computes both lower-dimensional Casimir potentials and local higher-dimensional Casimir energy densities, allowing for general massless spectra and twisted boundary conditions. The package provides tools for constructing and analysing the finite groups defining these manifolds, determining invariant metrics and cohomology bases, identifying compatible spin structures, and computing moduli-space metrics. Moreover, it evaluates the traces of holonomy elements in the graviton, $p$ -form, spinor, and Rarita-Schwinger representations. We describe the mathematical formulation and numerical implementation of the package, and illustrate its use through a compactification of Type IIB supergravity on $T^{6} / Z_{8}$ , including the computation of the Casimir potential and the visualization of localised Casimir-brane contributions.
↳ hep-thgr-qchep-ph0 citations
23
A Periodically Interacting Dark Sector: Signatures and Constraints from CMB and Cosmic Expansion Data
Marco Antonio Cardoso Alvarez🇧🇷 · Micol Benetti🇮🇹 · Leila Graef🇧🇷 · Robert Brandenberger🇨🇦
We introduce a novel cosmological model that provides an effective description of the back-reaction of super-Hubble fluctuations on the cosmological background, a generic effect expected to arise in any cosmological scenario without requiring additional ingredients. At the phenomenological level, it can be interpreted as an interacting dark sector scenario in which the sign of the energy transfer changes periodically over time. We constrain the model using CMB, BAO, and Type Ia supernova data. We find that a significant amplitude of the oscillatory interaction is allowed by the data, although there is no statistically significant preference for this model over $Λ$ CDM.
↳ astro-ph.COgr-qchep-phhep-th0 citations
24
First Search for Quirks at the LHC with FASER
FASER Collaboration
We present the first LHC search for quirks, particles with Standard Model and a QCD-like infracolor (IC) interactions. The analysis uses data collected in 2022--2024 by FASER, with a $186 fb^{- 1}$ integrated luminosity of proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy $s = 13.6 TeV$ . Scintillator charge and timing information are used to search for slow pairs of quirks with no QCD color and electric charge $\pm 1$ . No events are seen in this nearly background-free search, resulting in the first exclusion of quirks with masses above the weak scale for IC confinement scales in the broad range of $300 eV < Λ < 100 keV$ .
↳ hep-exhep-ph0 citations
25
Nucleon spectra and wave functions from holographic models with dual Einstein-dilaton and Starobinsky-dilaton gravities
Adão S. da Silva Junior🇧🇷 · Juan M. Z. Pretel🇧🇷 · Henrique Boschi-Filho🇧🇷
We study the nucleon spectra in two holographic set-ups: Einstein-dilaton and Starobinsky-dilaton gravity models. The Einstein-dilaton holographic model, also known as improved holographic QCD, have been proposed some time ago to describe confinement and glueball spectra. Recently, it has been applied to the case of mesons and nucleons. In this work, we reconsider the Einstein-dilaton holographic model to discuss the nucleon spectra introducing new parameters that allow us to improve the comparison with experimental data. Then, we extend this idea to the context of Starobinsky-dilaton gravity defining another improved holographic model. We use this new holographic model to reanalyse the nucleon spectra and also compare them with soft-wall model and experimental data.
↳ hep-thgr-qchep-ph0 citations
26
Phantom-divide crossing and suppressed structure growth in kinetically braided dark energy with momentum exchange
Masroor C. Pookkillath🇹🇭 · Shinji Tsujikawa🇯🇵
We construct a linearly stable scalar-field model that realizes both an upward crossing of the dark-energy equation of state, from $w_{DE} < - 1$ to $w_{DE} > - 1$ , and weakened gravitational clustering in the cold dark matter (CDM) sector. An exponential potential breaks shift symmetry and drives the background from a stable phantom phase toward the nonphantom regime, while a pure momentum-transfer interaction increases the dynamical inertia of CDM without altering its background dilution law. We derive the background and linear perturbation equations and establish the no-ghost and Laplacian-stability conditions. For perturbations deep inside the Hubble radius, where the quasi-static approximation applies, the effective gravitational coupling for CDM can fall below Newton's constant, suppressing late-time growth and small-scale matter power, while the baryonic coupling remains enhanced by Galileon braiding. A modified CLASS calculation, including the scalar-field perturbation and the full Boltzmann hierarchies, reveals signatures of transient braiding around radiation--matter equality. For the representative stable solutions studied here, these signatures include an enhancement of matter power toward the lowest wavenumbers probed numerically and a reduction of CMB temperature power over the multipole range $2 \leq ℓ \leq 30$ . We also find small shifts in the acoustic scale and the position of the first temperature peak. These results motivate a full likelihood analysis of the model.
↳ astro-ph.COgr-qchep-phhep-th2 citations
27
A Bound on the Dynamical Love Number
Alex Kehagias🇬🇷 · Antonio Riotto🇨🇭
The tidal deformability of a compact object is encoded in a single function of frequency, the retarded Green's function relating the induced multipole to the applied tide. Causality, reality, passivity, and the high-frequency conditions required for a positive-measure dispersion representation allow this response to be rescaled into a holomorphic self-map of the upper complex frequency half-plane. Using the Schwarz--Pick theorem, already employed to derive the quantum chaos bound in black hole physics, we provide a bound on the rate of the tidal response with respect to the frequency. For a neutron star the dynamical Love number is bounded in terms of the static one and of the frequency of the first internal mode, with the single-mode ( $f$ -mode) model saturating the bound. For a black hole, the bound gives information on the dissipative tidal-heating coefficient.
↳ gr-qchep-phhep-th1 citation
28
Paleodetectors for neutrino signals from diverse Galactic stellar collapses
Mahiro Yamasaki · Ken'ichiro Nakazato🇯🇵
The detectability of neutrinos from past Galactic core collapse supernovae (SNe) is investigated in terms of nuclear recoil tracks in ancient minerals, known as paleodetectors. To account for the diversity of core-collapse outcomes, variations in neutron star (NS) masses as well as failed SNe leading to black hole (BH) formation are taken into account. The role of the nuclear equation of state (EOS) is also considered, as it determines NS radii and maximum masses. The enhancement of sensitivity is quantified for models with larger neutrino emission. This emission reflects the gravitational energy released during core collapse and is larger for more compact remnants in the NS-forming case and for EOS with larger maximum masses in the BH-forming case. Furthermore, motivated by the hypothesis that nearby SN activity may have contributed to the snowball Earth events, the sensitivity to SNe occuring in a burst-like manner is also investigated. The results indicate that burst-like SN activity involving several tens of events at a distance of 10 pc would be within the reach of paleodetectors.
↳ astro-ph.HEastro-ph.GAhep-phPRD(2026)·0 citations
29
Critical net-proton number fluctuations with hydrodynamics
Rui-zhe Zhao🇨🇳 · Shi Yin🇩🇪 · Shanjin Wu🇨🇳 · Lipei Du🇺🇸 · Xiaofeng Luo🇨🇳 · Wei-jie Fu🇨🇳
We compute the net-proton number fluctuations and their ratios $C_{2} / C_{1}$ , $C_{3} / C_{2}$ and $C_{4} / C_{2}$ on the hydrodynamic freeze-out hypersurface of particlization at nine collision energies, $s_{NN} = 7.7 - 200$ GeV, based on the fluctuations obtained from the functional renormalization group (fRG) approach, where both the regular and the critical fluctuations arising from the critical end point (CEP) are included. The transverse momentum and rapidity acceptance windows as same as the experimental measurements, the isospin randomization for the proton number fluctuations, and the global baryon conservation effect are implemented in the calculations. The results are also compared with the baseline results without critical fluctuations. It is found that for the low-order cumulants, e.g., $C_{2} / C_{1}$ the difference between the critical and non-critical results is small, while the difference increases with the increasing order of cumulants in the region of low collision energy. A non-monotonic dependence on the collision energy is observed in $C_{4} / C_{2}$ with critical fluctuations, which is absent in the results without critical fluctuations.
↳ nucl-thhep-phnucl-ex3 citations
30
Static Quark-Antiquark Interactions Under Rotation
Heng-Tong Ding🇨🇳 · Olaf Kaczmarek🇩🇪 · Ran Luo🇨🇳 · Hai-Tao Shu🇨🇳
We study static quark--antiquark interactions in rotating SU(3) gluodynamics using quenched lattice simulations at imaginary angular velocity. At zero temperature, we extract the static potential from Wilson loops for quark--antiquark pairs aligned with the rotation axis, for transverse pairs with one source on the rotation axis, and for symmetric transverse pairs across the rotation axis. Within the present accuracy, no significant rotation dependence or anisotropy is observed in the zero-temperature potential. At finite temperature, imaginary rotation suppresses the color-averaged free energies obtained from Polyakov-loop correlators in both longitudinal and transverse geometries. Axial-diagonal comparisons are used to identify a bulk region where open-boundary artifacts are reduced. In this region, the large-distance longitudinal free-energy shift is well described by $Δ F_{z} (R_{x y}) = A R_{x y}^{2} + B$ . The transverse channels exhibit the same qualitative suppression, while their distance dependence additionally reflects the radial arrangement of the static sources and is compatible with a radial single-source free-energy shift in the bulk region. For the finite-temperature observables studied above $T_{c}$ , the response weakens as the temperature is increased. These results provide lattice evidence for a position- and geometry-dependent response of bare static-source free energies to imaginary rotation in a gluonic medium.
↳ hep-lathep-phhep-th1 citation
31
Spectroscopic basis for short-range three-nucleon forces
Josep Solà Cava · Arseniy A. Filin🇩🇪 · Sven Heihoff🇩🇪 · Henri Paul Huesmann🇩🇪 · Evgeny Epelbaum🇩🇪
We introduce a spectroscopic basis for the subleading contact three-nucleon forces, which allows one to classify these interactions according to the total angular momentum and parity quantum numbers in a transparent way. Using this new basis, we explore the sensitivity of nucleon-deuteron observables to the three-nucleon short-range interactions. The low dimensionality of the variable-parameter space in the spectroscopic basis allows us to build a simple nucleon-deuteron scattering emulator using radial basis function interpolation. We perform exploratory fits of the subleading contact three-nucleon interactions and demonstrate that 9 of 13 low-energy constants can be reliably determined from elastic nucleon-deuteron scattering data.
↳ nucl-thhep-phnucl-ex0 citations
32
Perturbing Gravitational Atoms: Negative Love, Resonant Tides and Shifted Resonances
Mateja Bošković🇩🇪 · Nikola Savić🇫🇷
The superradiant instability of rotating black holes can generate a significant overdensity of bosonic matter around them, together forming a gravitational atom. This mechanism allows one to probe a large part of the parameter space of scalars, axions and vectors that lies beyond the reach of traditional detection strategies. Modelling the dynamics of these systems in binaries is, however, subtle, due to the competing nature of the different perturbations. In this work, we provide a consistent scheme to treat these perturbations, including both the minimal set of internal ones (relativistic corrections and self-gravity) and the external tidal field. Within the worldline effective field theory framework, we then calculate the Love numbers of gravitational atoms, for the first time also for the most interesting case of spinning clouds. Certain spinning states are found to have \textit{negative} (static) Love numbers, with a magnitude parametrically enhanced relative to the scaling for the non-spinning states -- in phenomenologically relevant scenarios by a factor $O (1 0^{2} - 1 0^{3})$ . Finally, we consider the binary evolution in the early inspiral, assessing the impact of the competing perturbations on \textit{shifted resonances}, which for dense clouds can alter the nature of some of the hyperfine and fine transitions (sinking instead of floating). This dynamical picture allows us to identify at which stages the permanent multipoles are the strongest indicators of new light bosons, and at which the induced ones take over, while keeping track of both types of finite-size effects even during the resonance. More broadly, our results demonstrate that gravitational atoms are a useful toy model for studying the theoretical aspects of tidal response in gravitational-wave physics.
↳ gr-qchep-phhep-th0 citations
33
Quadratic Axion Couplings in String Theory
Naman Agarwal🇨🇦 · Andrew R. Frey🇨🇦 · Ratul Mahanta🇨🇳 · Evan McDonough🇨🇦
Axions and axion-like particles are a compelling candidate for physics beyond the standard model. While many axion searches are focused on the linear coupling to photons $θ F F ~$ , the possibility of a quadratic coupling to the electromagnetic kinetic term, $θ^{2} F^{2}$ , leads to novel phenomenology and new opportunities for testing axion-like particles. In this work we propose mechanisms for generating this coupling in string theory, which can be broadly classified as classical, perturbative, and non-perturbative. In benchmark examples, we find that both perturbative and non-perturbative quantum contributions such as instantons lead to couplings that are suppressed, $g ≪ 1$ in units of $1/ f^{2}$ where $f$ is axion decay constant, though easily larger than analogous coupling of the QCD axion that is generated through loops of charged pions. These analyses suggest that quadratic axion couplings to gauge fields are ubiquitous in string theory, and should be taken seriously as a probe of the string theory axiverse, both of string theory candidates for dynamical axions, such as dark matter or dark energy, and for spectroscopy of the string theory axiverse.
↳ hep-thastro-ph.COgr-qchep-ph0 citations
34
Non-Minimally Coupled Chain Inflation at High Scales
Miguel Barroso Varela · Orfeu Bertolami🇵🇹 · Katherine Freese🇺🇸 · Evangelos Sfakianakis🇺🇸
Chain inflation offers an alternative to standard slow-roll dynamics, with accelerated expansion proceeding through a sequence of rapid quantum tunneling events between metastable vacua. At the high energy scales relevant for the early Universe, scalar fields are generically expected to couple non-minimally to gravity via operators like $ξ R ϕ^{2}$ , allowed by symmetry and required as counterterms for interacting theories in curved spacetime. We study the dynamical and observational consequences of this coupling for chain inflation. We find the modifications to the model for arbitrary $ξ$ and focus on interesting phenomenology for $ξ = O (10)$ . We show that, in the Einstein frame, the non-minimal coupling induces a field-dependent amplification of the Euclidean bounce action, thus modifying the tunneling rate across the chain. We develop an analytic framework connecting this modified tunneling dynamics to the scalar spectral index, its running, the primordial curvature power spectrum, and the stochastic gravitational wave background from bubble collisions. As one consequence, the non-minimal coupling breaks the rigid relation between the scalar tilt and inflationary scale that drives the minimally coupled pure tilted cosine model to very low energies ( $V_{*}^{1/4} ≲ 3 GeV$ , where $V_{*}$ is the value of the inflationary potential when the CMB-relevant modes exit the horizon), allowing for viable high-scale chain inflation with $V_{*}^{1/4} \sim 1 0^{11} GeV$ . Furthermore, non-minimally coupled chain inflation at high scales produces a peaked stochastic gravitational wave signal in the dHz-kHz bands, accessible to upcoming interferometers such as the Einstein Telescope and Cosmic Explorer. Finally, the model predicts a distinct running of the spectral index that will be testable by the Simons Observatory, making it a prime target for multi-messenger cosmology.
↳ astro-ph.COgr-qchep-phhep-th0 citations

Affiliations

first authorsco-authorsvia INSPIRE