CyberSec Research

We present a comprehensive model independent analysis of all breaking patterns resulting from $\Delta(96)\rtimes H_{CP}$ in the tri-direct CP approach of the minimal seesaw model with two right-handed neutrinos. The three generations of left-handed lepton doublets are assumed to transform as the irreducible triplet $\bm{3_{0}}$ of $\Delta(96)$, and the two right-handed neutrinos are assigned to singlets. In the case that both flavon fields $\phi_{\text{atm}}$ and $\phi_{\text{sol}}$ transform as triplet $\bm{\bar{3}_{0}}$, only one phenomenologically viable lepton mixing pattern is obtained for normal ordering neutrino masses. The lepton mixing matrix is predicted to be TM1 pattern, with neutrino masses, mixing angles, and CP violation phases depending on only three real input parameters. When $\phi_{\text{sol}}$ is assigned to the $\bm{\bar{3}_{1}}$ representation, an additional real parameter $x$ must be included. Then we find 42 independent phenomenologically interesting mixing patterns, and the corresponding predictions for lepton mixing parameters and neutrino masses are obtained. Furthermore, we perform a detailed numerical analysis for five example breaking patterns with some benchmark values of $x$. The absolute values of the first columns of PMNS matrix are fixed to be $\left(\sqrt{\frac{2}{3}},\frac{1}{\sqrt{6}},\frac{1}{\sqrt{6}}\right)^{T}$, $\frac{1}{5}\left(\sqrt{17},2,2\right)^{T}$, $\frac{1}{\sqrt{38}}\left(5,2,3\right)^{T}$, $\frac{1}{\sqrt{57}}\left(\sqrt{37},\sqrt{10},\sqrt{10}\right)^{T}$ and $\frac{1}{3}\left(\sqrt{6},1,\sqrt{2}\right)^{T}$, respectively.

The hydrodynamic attractors paradigm aims to explain fast applicability of hydrodynamics at ultrarelativistic nuclear collisions at RHIC and LHC in terms of the emergence of a universal behaviour across different initial states. The attractors observed in theoretical models are first driven by a rapid expansion of matter, which later gives way to the decay of exponentially damped transient excitations into the viscous fluid regime. Recently a theoretical proposal was made how to realize hydrodynamic attractors in cold atomic gases focusing on the decay of transients and opening prospects for a future experimental realization in table top experiments. Motivated by this, in the present paper we show how the far-from-equilibrium, expansion-driven part of the hydrodynamic attractor emerges in a model of a nearly-unitary Fermi gas dynamics under full theoretical control.

Holography and entropy bounds suggest that the ultraviolet (UV) and infrared (IR) cutoffs of gravitational effective theories are related to one another as a form of UV/IR mixing. Motivated by this, we derive a bound on the allowed scalar field range in theories with cosmic horizons. We show how this bound challenges several inflationary scenarios, such as $\alpha$-attractors and modular-invariant inflation. Besides, we find a relation between the number of extra spatial dimensions and the tensor-to-scalar ratio.

This study investigates the color-charge dependence of parton energy loss in the quark-gluon plasma (QGP) medium and the associated relative modifications of quark and gluon jet fractions compared to vacuum, using jet axis decorrelation observables. Recent CMS jet axis decorrelation measurements in PbPb collisions at 5.02 TeV are interpreted using Pythia simulations with varied quark/gluon jet compositions and emulated color-charge dependent energy loss. A template-fit procedure is employed to estimate the limits on gluon jet fractions in the published CMS data and average shift in jet momentum due to quenching for quark- and gluon-initiated jets traversing the QGP. The extracted gluon jet fractions and the estimated quark and gluon energy losses based on this study of jet axis decorrelations are found to be consistent with other model calculations based on inclusive observables. This work illustrates the use of jet substructure measurements for providing constraints on the color-charge dependence of parton energy loss and offers valuable insights for jet quenching models.

Extremely weak long-range forces may lead to apparent violations of the Equivalence Principle. The final MICROSCOPE result, leading at 95 % c.l. to $|\delta| < 4.5 \times 10^{-15}$ or $6.5 \times 10^{-15}$ for a positive or negative E\"otv\"os parameter $\delta$, requires taking into account the spin of the mediator, and the sign of $\Delta (Q/A_r)_{\rm{Ti-Pt}}$ ($Q$ denoting the new charge involved). A coupling to $B-L$ or $B$ should verify $|g_{B-L}|<1.1 \times 10^{-25}$ or $|g_{B}| < 8 \times 10^{-25}$, for a spin-1 mediator of mass $m < 10^{-14}$ eV$/c^2$, with slightly different limits of $1.3 \times 10^{-25}$ or $\,6.6 \times 10^{-25}$ in the spin-0 case. The limits increase with $m$, in a way which depends on the density distribution within the Earth. This involves an hyperbolic form factor, expressed through a bilateral Laplace transform as $\Phi(x=mR)= \langle\,\sinh mr/mr \,\rangle$, related by analytic continuation to the Earth form factor $\Phi(ix)= \langle \,\sin mr/mr \,\rangle $. It may be expressed as $\Phi(x) = \frac{3}{x^2}\, (\cosh x - \frac{\sinh x}{x}) \times\, \bar\rho(x)/\rho_0\,$, where $\bar\rho(x)$ is an effective density, decreasing from the average $\rho_0$ at $m=0$ down to the density at the periphery. We give general integral or multishell expressions of $\Phi(x)$, evaluating it, and $\bar\rho(x)$, in a simplified 5-shell model. $\Phi(x)$ may be expanded as $\, \sum \frac{x^{2n}}{(2n+1)!} \frac{\langle \,r^{2n}\,\rangle}{R^{2n}} \simeq 1 + .0827\ x^2 + .00271 \ x^4 + 4.78 \times 10^{-5}\,x^6 + 5.26\times 10^{-7}\, x^8 +\ ... \ $, absolutely convergent for all $x$ and potentially useful up to $x\approx 5$. The coupling limits increase at large $x$ like $mR \ e^{mz/2}/\sqrt{1+mr}$ ($z=r-R$ being the satellite altitude), getting multiplied by $\simeq 1.9,\ 34$, or $1.2\times 10^9$, for $m = 10^{-13},\ 10^{-12}$ or $10^{-11}$ eV$/c^2$, respectively.

We investigate the impact of the CP-violating $\theta$ term on isospin symmetry breaking in quark matter and compact star properties using a two-flavor Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (NJL) model. By incorporating the $\theta$ parameter through the Kobayashi-Maskawa-'t Hooft (KMT) determinant interaction, we derive the thermodynamic potential and gap equations under finite temperature, baryon chemical potential, and isospin chemical potential. At zero temperature and baryon density, $\theta$ suppresses conventional chiral ($\sigma$) and pion ($\pi$) condensates while promoting pseudo-scalar ($\eta$) and scalar-isovector ($\delta$) condensates, thereby reducing the critical isospin chemical potential $\mu_I^{\text{crit}}$ for spontaneous symmetry breaking. For $\theta=\pi$, a first-order phase transition emerges at $\mu_I^{\text{crit}} = 0.021$ GeV, accompanied by CP symmetry restoration. Extending the investigation to finite temperature and baryon chemical potential reveals that these $\theta$-term-induced effects persist. Axion effects (modeled via $\theta\equiv a/f_a$) stiffen the equation of state (EOS) of non-strange quark stars, increasing their maximum mass and radii, in agreement with multimessenger constraints from pulsar observations and gravitational wave events. These results establish $\theta$ as a critical parameter modulating both the Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD) phase structure and compact star observables.

We consider a model of inflation in which the inflaton field is a rolling axion with a potential which is flat enough to support an intermediate phase of USR inflation. Because of the Chern-Simons interaction, one polarization of the gauge field experiences the tachyonic growth during the first slow-roll stage, inducing large corrections in curvature perturbations via the inverse decay effect. A non-trivial feature of our setup is that once the system enters the USR phase, the instability parameter falls off rapidly, terminating the gauge field production efficiently. Consequently, the power spectrum involves two separate peaks, the first peak is induced by the gauge field particles production while the second peak is due to standard USR mechanism. We show that the power spectrum at the intermediate scales develops strong scale-dependence $\propto k^m$ with the index $m >4$. Calculating the bispectrum, we demonstrate that non-Gaussianities with non-trivial shapes and multiple peaks are generated in this setup.

Probing the nature of dark matter (DM) remains an outstanding problem in modern cosmology. The 21 cm signal, as a sensitive tracer of neutral hydrogen during cosmic dawn, provides a unique means to investigate DM nature during this critical epoch. Annihilation and decay of DM particles, as well as Hawking radiation of primordial black holes (PBHs), can modify the thermal and ionization histories of the early universe, leaving distinctive imprints on the 21 cm power spectrum. Therefore, the redshifted 21 cm power spectrum serves as a powerful tool to investigate such DM processes. In this work, we systematically assess the potential of the upcoming Square Kilometre Array (SKA) to constrain DM and PBH parameters using the 21 cm power spectrum. Assuming $10,000$ hours of integration time, the SKA is projected to reach sensitivities of $\langle\sigma v\rangle \leq 10^{-28}\,{\rm cm}^{3}\,{\rm s}^{-1}$ and $\tau\geq 10^{28}\,{\rm seconds}$, for $10\,{\rm GeV}$ DM particles. It can also probe PBHs with masses of $10^{16}\,\mathrm{g}$ and abundances $f_{\mathrm{PBH}} \leq 10^{-6}$. These results indicate that the SKA could place constraints on DM annihilation, decay, and PBH Hawking radiation that are up to two to three orders of magnitude stronger than current limits. Furthermore, the SKA is expected to exceed existing bounds on sub-GeV DM and to probe Hawking radiation from PBHs with masses above $10^{17}\,{\rm g}$, which are otherwise inaccessible by conventional cosmological probes. Overall, the SKA holds great promise for advancing our understanding of both DM particles and PBHs, potentially offering new insights into the fundamental nature of DM.

A fast-rolling axion can transfer its kinetic energy to a gauge field via the Chern-Simons coupling, leading to copious production of gauge quanta, which can act as a source of gravitational waves (GWs) with potentially observable amplitudes. In this work, we investigate GW production in a spectator axion model when strong backreaction is taken into account. We find that decreasing the decay constant of the axion enhances GW production. Since the initial value of the axion is larger than its quantum fluctuations, such a condition imposes a lower bound on the axion dacay constant, which sets an upper bound on the amplitude of the energy spectrum of GWs. As a result, the amplitude of the predicted GW energy spectrum is lower than $10^{-10}$ in the nHz to mHz frequency range.

In this work we provide a massless perturbative framework for the two dimensional non-linear sigma model (NLSM), that allows the computation of the perturbative series attached to the operator condensates in the operator product expansion (OPE). It is based on a limit of the quartic linear sigma model (LSM) and is manifestly $O(N)$ symmetric. We show, at next-to-leading order in the $1/N$ expansion, how this framework reproduces the perturbative contribution to the two-point function, as well as its first exponentially small correction due to the condensate of the Lagrangian operator, in full agreement with the exact non-perturbative large $N$ solution. We also show that, in the full LSM, the physics at the natural UV cutoff indeed decouples from the NLSM in the IR, in the weak-coupling limit. In particular, we show that the perturbative framework for the LSM at the cutoff scale is connected to the one in the NLSM. The structure of power divergences in the LSM regularization also reveals that the first renormalon on the positive Borel axis of the NLSM perturbative self-energy is an UV renormalon, which cancels against the ambiguity in the condensate.

We investigate di-Higgs production at the (HL-)LHC and possible high-energy future $e^+e^-$ colliders within the real Higgs singlet extension of the Standard Model (SM), the RxSM. This model has two CP-even Higgs bosons, $h$ and $H$, for which we assume $m_h\sim 125 \text{ GeV} < m_H$. We analyse the effect of one-loop corrections to the two trilinear scalar couplings relevant for di-Higgs production, $\lambda_{hhh}$ and $\lambda_{hhH}$, by performing an extensive parameter scan within the RxSM. We find that the one-loop corrections have a strong impact on the total production cross-sections, as well as on the differential cross-sections with respect to the invariant di-Higgs mass, $m_{hh}$. We evaluate the sensitivity of the HL-LHC and a high-energy $e^+e^-$ collider with $\sqrt{s} = 1 \text{ TeV}$, the ILC1000, to probe BSM physics effects in these processes. We demonstrate that the RxSM can be distinguished from the SM for large parts of the sampled parameter space. The resonant $H$ structure in the $m_{hh}$ distribution, on the other hand, can be observed only if the corresponding couplings, in particular $\lambda_{hhH}$, are sufficiently large. Here the ILC1000 yields a substantially better sensitivity than the HL-LHC.

We investigate a grand unification (GUT) inspired version of the minimal supersymmetric standard model (MSSM) based on a left-right symmetric $4$-$2$-$2$ gauge group, incorporating Yukawa coupling unification and current phenomenological constraints. Utilizing a split soft supersymmetry-breaking (SSB) parameter space motivated by flavor symmetries, we analyze the implications of recent results from ATLAS, CMS, LHCb, and dark matter direct detection experiments. Our numerical scans, conducted with SARAH and SPheno, identify viable low-energy regions consistent with third-generation Yukawa unification, the observed Higgs boson mass, dark matter relic density, and flavor observables such as $B \to X_s \gamma$, $B_s \to \mu^+ \mu^-$ and $B_u \to \tau \nu_{\tau}$ . Our findings suggest that while current bounds severely constrain much of the MSSM-like parameter space, substantial regions remain experimentally viable and testable in the ongoing LHC run and next-generation dark matter experiments.

Various weak processes at the hadronic scale have been utilized to search for new physics at high energy scale, which can be described by the QCD chiral Lagrangian matched from the low-energy effective theory (LEFT). Utilizing the chiral symmetry $SU(2)_L\times SU(2)_R \to SU(2)_V$ at the quark and hadronic levels, we make a comprehensive comparison of various matching methods, including the external source method, conventional spurion method, and our systematic spurion method. Although different methods show agreements for dimension-6 LEFT operator matching, we find that for higher-dimensional operators, the external source method is quite limited or inapplicable, the conventional spurion methods needs to introduce more and more spurions, while our spurion method does not need to introduce any new spurions than the ones in the dimension-6 matching. Using minimal set of spurions, we thus establish an one-to-one correspondence between the LEFT and chiral operators, with several examples, such as derivative operators at dimensions 7 and 8 with a single bilinear, four-quark operators at the dimension-9 level with two quark bilinears, which can be applied to the study of neutrino/electron scatterings and neutrinoless double beta decay.

Within the heavy pentaquark chiral perturbation theory, we calculate the chiral corrections for $J^P=\frac{3}{2}^-$ octet hidden-charm pentaquark masses up to next-to-leading order. Taking the LHCb-reported $P_{\psi}^N(4440)$ and $P_{\psi s}^{\Lambda}(4459)$ (with $J^P=\frac{3}{2}^-$) as inputs, we predict the other two octet hidden-charm pentaquark states $P_{\psi s}^{\Sigma}(4483)$ and $P_{\psi ss}^{N}(4490)$ with $J^P=\frac{3}{2}^-$. The results provide theoretical guidance for the further search of $P_{\psi s}^{\Sigma}$ and $P_{\psi ss}^{N}$ in experiments.

In this paper, we address double parton scattering (DPS) in pA collisions. Within the Light-Front approach, we formally derive the two contributions to the nuclear double parton distribution (DPD), namely: DPS1, involving two partons from the same nucleon, and DPS2, where the two partons belong to different parent nucleons. We then generalize the sum rule for hadron DPDs to the nuclear case and analytically show how all contributions combine to give the expected results. In addition partial sum rules for the DPDs related to DPS1 and DPS2 mechanisms are discussed for the first time. The deuteron system is considered for the first calculation of the nuclear DPD by using a realistic wave function obtained from the very refined nucleon-nucleon AV18 potential, embedded in a rigorous Poincar\'e covariant formalism. Results are used to test sum rules and properly verify that DPS1 contribution compares with the DPS2 one, although smaller. We also introduce EMC-like ratios involving nuclear and free DPDs to address the potential role of DPS in understanding in depth the EMC effect.

The momentum-dependent interaction (MDI) model, which has been widely used in microscopic transport models for heavy-ion collisions (HICs), is extended to include three different momentum-dependent terms and three zero-range density-dependent terms, dubbed as MDI3Y model. Compared to the MDI model, the single-nucleon potential in the MDI3Y model exhibits more flexible momentum-dependent behaviors. Furthermore, the inclusion of three zero-range density-dependent interactions follows the idea of Fermi momentum expansion, allowing more flexible variation for the largely uncertain high-density behaviors of nuclear matter equation of state (EOS), especially the symmetry energy. Moreover, we also obtain the corresponding Skyrme-like energy density functional through density matrix expansion of the finite-range exchange interactions. Based on the MDI3Y model, we construct four interactions with the same symmetry energy slope parameter $L=35$ MeV but different momentum dependence of $U_{\mathrm{sym}}$, by fitting the empirical nucleon optical potential, the empirical properties of symmetric nuclear matter, the microscopic calculations of pure neutron matter EOS and the astrophysical constraints on neutron stars. In addition, two interactions with $L=55$ and $75$ MeV are also constructed for comparison. Using these MDI3Y interactions, we study the properties of nuclear matter and neutron stars. These MDI3Y interactions, especially those with non-monotonic momentum dependence of $U_{\mathrm{sym}}$, will be potentially useful in transport model analyses of HICs data to extract nuclear matter EOS and the isospin splitting of nucleon effective masses.

Cosmological production of scalar, non-minimally coupled dark matter depends on the specifics of the inflationary model under consideration. We analyze both Starobinsky inflation and a quadratic potential, solve the full background dynamics, study pair production during inflation and reheating, and find that the observed dark matter abundance can be explained solely by this mechanism, regardless of the inflationary model. Qualitative differences between the two cases only appear for dark matter masses close to the inflationary scale. In addition, we identify a large region in parameter space in which cosmological production of dark matter is mostly independent of the chosen inflationary potential, highlighting the robustness of this dark matter production mechanism and its independence of the unknown particular details of inflation. In the region of masses lower than the scale of inflation, and sufficiently away from the conformal limit, the total comoving number density of produced particles becomes a function of the coupling to the geometry alone. This allows us to provide an approximated analytic expression for fitting the resulting abundance.

In earlier companion papers, we showed that non-singular primordial black holes (PBHs) could account for all the dark matter (DM) over a significantly wider mass range compared to Schwarzschild PBHs. Those studies, mostly based on phenomenological metrics, are now extended by considering the quantum-corrected space-time recently proposed by Zhang, Lewandowski, Ma and Yang (ZLMY), derived from an effective canonical (loop) quantum gravity approach explicitly enforcing general covariance. Unlike the BHs considered earlier, ZLMY BHs are free from Cauchy horizons, and are hotter than their Schwarzschild counterparts. We show that this higher temperature boosts the evaporation spectra of ZLMY PBHs, tightening limits on their abundance relative to Schwarzschild PBHs and shrinking the asteroid mass window where they can constitute all the DM, a result which reverses the earlier trend, but rests on firmer theoretical ground. While stressing the potential key role of quantum gravity effects in addressing the singularity and DM problems, our study shows that working within a consistent theoretical framework can strongly affect observational predictions.