We revisit the problem of the equations of motion of a system of $N$ self-interacting massive particles (without spins) in the first post-Minkowskian (1PM) approximation of general relativity. We write the equations of motion, gravitational field, and associated conserved integrals of the motion in a form suitable for comparison with recently published post-Newtonian (PN) results at the 4PN order. We show that the Lagrangian associated with the equations of motion in harmonic coordinates is a generalized one, and we compute all the terms linear in $G$ up to 5PN order. We discuss the Hamiltonian in the frame of the center of mass and exhibit a canonical transformation connecting it to previous results directly obtained with the Hamiltonian formalism of general relativity. Finally we recover the known result for the gravitational scattering angle of two particles at the 1PM order.

For the first time the antineutrino spectrum formed as a result of neutron and tritium decays during the epoch of primordial nucleosynthesis is calculated. This spectrum is a nonthermal increase in addition to the standard cosmic neutrino background ($\mathrm{C}\nu \mathrm{B}$) whose thermal spectrum was formed before the beginning of primordial nucleosynthesis. For energy larger than ${10}^{-2}\mathrm{eV}$ the calculated nonthermal antineutrino flux exceeds the $\mathrm{C}\nu \mathrm{B}$ spectrum and there are no other comparable sources of antineutrino in this range. The observations of these antineutrinos will allow us to look directly at the very early Universe and nonequilibrium processes taken place before, during, and some time after primordial nucleosynthesis.

According to a conjecture recently put forward in [1], the scalar potential $V$ of any consistent theory of quantum gravity satisfies a bound $|\nabla V|/V\ge \mathcal{O}(1)$. This forbids de Sitter solutions and supports quintessence models of cosmic acceleration. Here, we point out that in the simplest models incorporating the standard model in addition to quintessence, with the two sectors decoupled as suggested by observations, the proposed bound is violated by 50 orders of magnitude. However, a very specific coupling between quintessence and just the Higgs sector may still be allowed and consistent with the conjecture.

The Wess-Zumino consistency condition allows more exotic forms of anomalies than those we usually encounter. For example, in two-dimensional conformal field theories in the curved background with spacetime-dependent coupling constant ${\lambda }^i(x)$, a $U(1)$ current could possess anomalous divergence of the form $D^{\mu }{J}_{\mu }=\tilde{c}R+{\chi }_{ij}{\partial }^{\mu }{\lambda }^i{\partial }_{\mu }{\lambda }_j+{\tilde{\chi }}_{ij}{\epsilon }^{\mu \nu }{\partial }_{\mu }{\lambda }^i{\partial }_{\nu }{\lambda }^j+\cdots$. Another example is the $CP$ odd Pontryagin density in four-dimensional Weyl anomaly. We could, however, argue that they are impossible in conformal field theories because they cannot correspond to any (unregularized) conformally invariant correlation functions. We find that this no-go argument may be a red herring. We show that some of these “impossible anomalies” avoid the no-go argument because they are not primary operators, and the others circumvent it because they are realized as semilocal terms as is the case with the conformally invariant Green-Schwartz mechanism and in the higher dimensional analogue of Liouville or linear dilaton theory.

We develop, discuss, and compare several inference techniques to constrain theory parameters in collider experiments. By harnessing the latent-space structure of particle physics processes, we extract extra information from the simulator. This augmented data can be used to train neural networks that precisely estimate the likelihood ratio. The new methods scale well to many observables and high-dimensional parameter spaces, do not require any approximations of the parton shower and detector response, and can be evaluated in microseconds. Using weak-boson-fusion Higgs production as an example process, we compare the performance of several techniques. The best results are found for likelihood ratio estimators trained with extra information about the score, the gradient of the log likelihood function with respect to the theory parameters. The score also provides sufficient statistics that contain all the information needed for inference in the neighborhood of the Standard Model. These methods enable us to put significantly stronger bounds on effective dimension-six operators than the traditional approach based on histograms. They also outperform generic machine learning methods that do not make use of the particle physics structure, demonstrating their potential to substantially improve the new physics reach of the Large Hadron Collider legacy results.

We systematically analyze the full angular distribution in $D\to P_1{P}_2{l}^{+}{l}^{-}$ decays, where $P_{1,2}=\pi$, $K$, $l=e$, $\mu$. We identify several null tests of the standard model (SM). Notably, the angular coefficients $I_{5,6,7}$, driven by the leptons’ axial-vector coupling $C_{10}^{(\prime )}$, vanish by means of a superior Glashow-Iliopoulos-Maiani (GIM) cancellation and are protected by parity invariance below the weak scale. $CP$-odd observables related to the angular coefficients $I_{5,6,8,9}$ allow us to measure $CP$ asymmetries without $D$ tagging. The corresponding observables $A_{5,6,8,9}$ constitute null tests of the SM. Lepton universality in $|\mathrm{\Delta }c|=|\mathrm{\Delta }u|=1$ transitions can be tested by comparing $D\to P_1{P}_2{\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$ to $D\to P_1{P}_2{e}^{+}{e}^{-}$ decays. Data for $P_1{P}_2={\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{-}$ and $K^{+}{K}^{-}$ on muon modes are available from LHCb and on electron modes from BESIII. Corresponding ratios of dimuon to dielectron branching fractions are at least about an order of magnitude away from probing the SM. In the future electron and muon measurements should be made available for the same cuts as corresponding ratios $R_{P_1{P}_2}^D$ provide null tests of $e\text{−}\mu$ universality. We work out beyond-SM signals model-independently and in SM extensions with leptoquarks.

We use $26\times {10}^6$ galaxies from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Year 1 shape catalogs over $1321{\mathrm{deg}}^2$ of the sky to produce the most significant measurement of cosmic shear in a galaxy survey to date. We constrain cosmological parameters in both the flat $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ and the $w\mathrm{CDM}$ models, while also varying the neutrino mass density. These results are shown to be robust using two independent shape catalogs, two independent photo-$z$ calibration methods, and two independent analysis pipelines in a blind analysis. We find a 3.5% fractional uncertainty on ${\sigma }_8({\mathrm{\Omega }}_m/0.3{)}^{0.5}=0.782_{-0.027}^{+0.027}$ at 68% C.L., which is a factor of 2.5 improvement over the fractional constraining power of our DES Science Verification results. In $w\mathrm{CDM}$, we find a 4.8% fractional uncertainty on ${\sigma }_8({\mathrm{\Omega }}_m/0.3{)}^{0.5}=0.777_{-0.038}^{+0.036}$ and a dark energy equation-of-state $w=-0.95_{-0.39}^{+0.33}$. We find results that are consistent with previous cosmic shear constraints in ${\sigma }_8$—${\mathrm{\Omega }}_m$, and we see no evidence for disagreement of our weak lensing data with data from the cosmic microwave background. Finally, we find no evidence preferring a $w\mathrm{CDM}$ model allowing $w\ne -1$. We expect further significant improvements with subsequent years of DES data, which will more than triple the sky coverage of our shape catalogs and double the effective integrated exposure time per galaxy.

We present cosmological results from a combined analysis of galaxy clustering and weak gravitational lensing, using $1321{\mathrm{deg}}^2$ of griz imaging data from the first year of the Dark Energy Survey (DES Y1). We combine three two-point functions: (i) the cosmic shear correlation function of 26 million source galaxies in four redshift bins, (ii) the galaxy angular autocorrelation function of 650,000 luminous red galaxies in five redshift bins, and (iii) the galaxy-shear cross-correlation of luminous red galaxy positions and source galaxy shears. To demonstrate the robustness of these results, we use independent pairs of galaxy shape, photometric-redshift estimation and validation, and likelihood analysis pipelines. To prevent confirmation bias, the bulk of the analysis was carried out while “blind” to the true results; we describe an extensive suite of systematics checks performed and passed during this blinded phase. The data are modeled in flat $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ and $w\mathrm{CDM}$ cosmologies, marginalizing over 20 nuisance parameters, varying 6 (for $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$) or 7 (for $w\mathrm{CDM}$) cosmological parameters including the neutrino mass density and including the $457\times 457$ element analytic covariance matrix. We find consistent cosmological results from these three two-point functions and from their combination obtain $S_8\equiv {\sigma }_8({\mathrm{\Omega }}_m/0.3{)}^{0.5}=0.773_{-0.020}^{+0.026}$ and ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_m=0.267_{-0.017}^{+0.030}$ for $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$; for $w\mathrm{CDM}$, we find $S_8=0.782_{-0.024}^{+0.036}$, ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_m=0.284_{-0.030}^{+0.033}$, and $w=-0.82_{-0.20}^{+0.21}$ at 68% C.L. The precision of these DES Y1 constraints rivals that from the Planck cosmic microwave background measurements, allowing a comparison of structure in the very early and late Universe on equal terms. Although the DES Y1 best-fit values for $S_8$ and ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_m$ are lower than the central values from Planck for both $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ and $w\mathrm{CDM}$, the Bayes factor indicates that the DES Y1 and Planck data sets are consistent with each other in the context of $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$. Combining DES Y1 with Planck, baryonic acoustic oscillation measurements from SDSS, 6dF, and BOSS and type Ia supernovae from the Joint Lightcurve Analysis data set, we derive very tight constraints on cosmological parameters: $S_8=0.802\pm 0.012$ and ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_m=0.298\pm 0.007$ in $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ and $w=-1.00_{-0.04}^{+0.05}$ in $w\mathrm{CDM}$. Upcoming Dark Energy Survey analyses will provide more stringent tests of the $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ model and extensions such as a time-varying equation of state of dark energy or modified gravity.

We measure the clustering of DES year 1 galaxies that are intended to be combined with weak lensing samples in order to produce precise cosmological constraints from the joint analysis of large-scale structure and lensing correlations. Two-point correlation functions are measured for a sample of $6.6\times {10}^5$ luminous red galaxies selected using the redMaGiC algorithm over an area of 1321 square degrees, in the redshift range $0.15<z<0.9$, split into five tomographic redshift bins. The sample has a mean redshift uncertainty of ${\sigma }_z/(1+z)=0.017$. We quantify and correct spurious correlations induced by spatially variable survey properties, testing their impact on the clustering measurements and covariance. We demonstrate the sample’s robustness by testing for stellar contamination, for potential biases that could arise from the systematic correction, and for the consistency between the two-point auto- and cross-correlation functions. We show that the corrections we apply have a significant impact on the resultant measurement of cosmological parameters, but that the results are robust against arbitrary choices in the correction method. We find the linear galaxy bias in each redshift bin in a fiducial cosmology to be $b({\sigma }_8/0.81){|}_{z=0.24}=1.40\pm 0.07$, $b({\sigma }_8/0.81){|}_{z=0.38}=1.60\pm 0.05$, $b({\sigma }_8/0.81){|}_{z=0.53}=1.60\pm 0.04$ for galaxies with luminosities $L/L_{*}>0.5$, $b({\sigma }_8/0.81){|}_{z=0.68}=1.93\pm 0.04$ for $L/L_{*}>1$ and $b({\sigma }_8/0.81){|}_{z=0.83}=1.98\pm 0.07$ for $L/L_{*}>1.5$, broadly consistent with expectations for the redshift and luminosity dependence of the bias of red galaxies. We show these measurements to be consistent with the linear bias obtained from tangential shear measurements.

We present galaxy-galaxy lensing measurements from 1321 sq. deg. of the Dark Energy Survey (DES) Year 1 (Y1) data. The lens sample consists of a selection of 660,000 red galaxies with high-precision photometric redshifts, known as redMaGiC, split into five tomographic bins in the redshift range $0.15<z<0.9$. We use two different source samples, obtained from the Metacalibration (26 million galaxies) and im3shape (18 million galaxies) shear estimation codes, which are split into four photometric redshift bins in the range $0.2<z<1.3$. We perform extensive testing of potential systematic effects that can bias the galaxy-galaxy lensing signal, including those from shear estimation, photometric redshifts, and observational properties. Covariances are obtained from jackknife subsamples of the data and validated with a suite of log-normal simulations. We use the shear-ratio geometric test to obtain independent constraints on the mean of the source redshift distributions, providing validation of those obtained from other photo-$z$ studies with the same data. We find consistency between the galaxy bias estimates obtained from our galaxy-galaxy lensing measurements and from galaxy clustering, therefore showing the galaxy-matter cross-correlation coefficient $r$ to be consistent with one, measured over the scales used for the cosmological analysis. The results in this work present one of the three two-point correlation functions, along with galaxy clustering and cosmic shear, used in the DES cosmological analysis of Y1 data, and hence the methodology and the systematics tests presented here provide a critical input for that study as well as for future cosmological analyses in DES and other photometric galaxy surveys.

We present updated results from the NOvA experiment for ${\nu }_{\mu }\to {\nu }_{\mu }$ and ${\nu }_{\mu }\to {\nu }_e$ oscillations from an exposure of $8.85\times {10}^{20}$ protons on target, which represents an increase of 46% compared to our previous publication. The results utilize significant improvements in both the simulations and analysis of the data. A joint fit to the data for ${\nu }_{\mu }$ disappearance and ${\nu }_e$ appearance gives the best-fit point as normal mass hierarchy, $\mathrm{\Delta }{m}_{32}^2=2.44\times {10}^{-3}{\mathrm{eV}}^2/c^4$, ${\sin }^2{\theta }_{23}=0.56$, and ${\delta }_{\mathrm{CP}}=1.21\pi$. The 68.3% confidence intervals in the normal mass hierarchy are $\mathrm{\Delta }{m}_{32}^2\in [2.37,2.52]\times {10}^{-3}{\mathrm{eV}}^2/c^4$, ${\sin }^2{\theta }_{23}\in [0.43,0.51]\cup [0.52,0.60]$, and ${\delta }_{\mathrm{CP}}\in [0,0.12\pi ]\cup [0.91\pi ,2\pi ]$. The inverted mass hierarchy is disfavored at the 95% confidence level for all choices of the other oscillation parameters.

A number of recent experimental measurements suggest the possibility of a breakdown of lepton ($\ell$) universality in exclusive $b\to c\ell {\nu }_{\ell }$ semileptonic meson decays. We analyze the full differential decay rates for several such processes, and show how to extract combinations of the underlying helicity amplitudes that are completely independent of $m_{\ell }$. Ratios of these combinations for different $\ell$ (as well as some combinations for a single value of $\ell$) therefore equal unity in the standard model and provide stringent tests of lepton universality. Furthermore, the extractions assume the form of weighted integrals over the differential decay rates and therefore are useful even in situations where data in some regions of allowed phase space may be sparse.

There is growing evidence for deviation from the standard model predictions in the ratios between semitauonic and semileptonic $B$ decays, known as the $R(D^{(*)})$ puzzle. If the source of this nonuniversality is new physics, it is natural to assume that it also breaks $CP$ symmetry. In this paper we study the possibility of measuring $CP$ violation in semitauonic $B$ decays, exploiting interference between excited charm mesons. Given the current values of $R(D^{(*)})$, we find that our proposed $CP$-violation observable could be as large as about 10%. We discuss the experimental advantages of our method and propose carrying it out at Belle II and LHCb.

In this paper, we analyze the renormalization group (RG) flow of field theories with quenched disorder, in which the couplings vary randomly in space. We analyze both classical (Euclidean) disorder and quantum disorder, emphasizing general properties rather than specific cases. The RG flow of the disorder-averaged theories takes place in the space of their coupling constants and also in the space of distributions for the disordered couplings, and the two mix together. We write down a generalization of the Callan-Symanzik equation for the flow of disorder-averaged correlation functions. We find that local operators can mix with the response of the theory to local changes in the disorder distribution and that the generalized Callan-Symanzik equation mixes the disorder averages of several different correlation functions. For classical disorder, we show that this can lead to new types of anomalous dimensions and to logarithmic behavior at fixed points. For quantum disorder, we find that the RG flow always generates a rescaling of time relative to space, which at a fixed point generically leads to Lifshitz scaling. The dynamical scaling exponent $z$ behaves as an anomalous dimension (as in other nonrelativistic RG flows), and we compute it at leading order in perturbation theory in the disorder for a general theory. Our results agree with a previous perturbative computation by Boyanovsky and Cardy, and with a holographic disorder computation of Hartnoll and Santos. We also find in quantum disorder that local operators mix with nonlocal (in time) operators under the RG, and that there are critical exponents associated with the disorder distribution that have not previously been discussed. In large-$N$ theories, the disorder averages may be computed exactly, and we verify that they are consistent with the generalized Callan-Symanzik equations.

In this paper, we propose a novel scenario which simultaneously explains $\mathcal{O}(10)M_{\odot }$ primordial black holes (PBHs) and dark matter in the minimally supersymmetric standard model. Gravitational waves (GWs) events detected by LIGO-Virgo collaboration suggest an existence of black holes as heavy as $\sim 30M_{\odot }$. In our scenario, as seeds of the PBHs, we make use of the baryon number perturbations which are induced by the special type of Affleck-Dine mechanism. Furthermore, the scenario does not suffer from the stringent constraints from CMB $\mu$-distortion due to the Silk damping and pulsar timing. We find the scenario can explain not only the current GWs events consistently, but also dark matter abundance by the nontopological solitons formed after Affleck-Dine mechanism, called Q-balls.

We construct a symplectic realization of the twisted Poisson structure on the phase space of an electric charge in the background of an arbitrary smooth magnetic monopole density in three dimensions. We use the extended phase space variables to study the classical and quantum dynamics of charged particles in arbitrary magnetic fields by constructing a suitable Hamiltonian that reproduces the Lorentz force law for the physical degrees of freedom. In the source-free case the auxiliary variables can be eliminated via Hamiltonian reduction, while for nonzero monopole densities they are necessary for a consistent formulation and are related to the extra degrees of freedom usually required in the Hamiltonian description of dissipative systems. We obtain new perspectives on the dynamics of dyons and motion in the field of a Dirac monopole, which can be formulated without Dirac strings. We compare our associative phase space formalism with the approach based on nonassociative quantum mechanics, reproducing extended versions of the characteristic translation group three-cocycles and minimal momentum space volumes, and prove that the two approaches are formally equivalent. We also comment on the implications of our symplectic realization in the dual framework of nongeometric string theory and double field theory.

Basic aspects of the Hamiltonian structure of the parity-violating Poincaré gauge theory are studied. We found all possible primary constraints, identified the corresponding critical parameters, and constructed the generic form of the canonical Hamiltonian. In addition to being important in their own right, these results offer dynamical information that is essential for a proper understanding of the particle spectrum of the theory, calculated in the weak field approximation around the Minkowski background.

We study the spectral properties of a highly occupied non-Abelian nonequilibrium plasma appearing ubiquitously in weak coupling descriptions of QCD matter. The spectral function of this far-from-equilibrium plasma is measured by employing linear response theory in classical-statistical real-time lattice Yang-Mills simulations. We establish the existence of transversely and longitudinally polarized quasiparticles and obtain their dispersion relations, effective mass, plasmon frequency, damping rate and further structures in the spectral and statistical functions. Our new method can be interpreted as a nonperturbative generalization of hard thermal loop (HTL) effective theory. We see indications that our results approach leading order HTL in the appropriate limit. The method can also be employed beyond the range of validity of HTL.

Truncating quantum field theories to a dominant mode offers a nonperturbative approach to their solution. We consider here the interaction of charged scalar matter with a single mode of the electromagnetic field. The implied breaking of explicit Lorentz invariance prompts us to compare instant-form quantization and front form, with the latter yielding significant simplifications when light-front zero modes are included. Using these field theory results we reassess the validity of existing first-quantized approaches to depletion effects in strong laser fields, and propose an alternative interpretation based on the dressing approach to QED and its infrared structure.

We consider the finite-volume spectra of QCD in the chiral limit of massless up and down quarks and massive strange quarks in the baryon number sectors $B=0$ and $B=1$ for different values of the isospin. Spontaneous symmetry breaking gives rise to rotor spectra, as the chiral order parameter precesses through the vacuum manifold. Baryons of different isospin influence the motion of the order parameter through nontrivial Berry phases and associated abstract monopole fields. Our investigation provides detailed insights into the dynamics of spontaneous chiral symmetry breaking in QCD on a torus. It also sheds new light on Berry phases in the context of quantum field theory. Interestingly, the Berry gauge field resulting from QCD solves a Yang-Mills-Chern-Simons equation of motion on the vacuum manifold $SU(2)=S^3$.