Recently, there has been renewed interest in limiting the interaction between dark matter particles and known particles. I propose a new way to set upper limits on the coupling of ions or electrons to dark matter particles of arbitrary mass, based on Faraday’s Law in a spinning conductor.

We give a concise argument that supersymmetric anti–de Sitter type IIA DeWolfe-Giryavets-Kachru-Taylor flux vacua on general Calabi-Yau’s have, interpreted holographically, integer conformal dimensions for low-lying scalar primaries in the dual conformal field theory. These integers are independent of any compactification details, such as the background fluxes or triple intersection numbers of the compact manifold. For the Kähler moduli and dilaton, there is one operator with $\mathrm{\Delta }=10$ and $h_{-}^{1,1}$ operators with $\mathrm{\Delta }=6$, whereas the corresponding axions have $\mathrm{\Delta }=11$ and $\mathrm{\Delta }=5$. For the complex structure moduli, the $h^{2,1}$ saxions have $\mathrm{\Delta }=2$, and the axions $\mathrm{\Delta }=3$. We give a tentative discussion of the origin of these integers and effects that would modify these results.

This paper points out the importance of the quantum nature of the gravitational interaction with matter in a linearized theory of quantum gravity induced entanglement of masses. We will show how the quantum interaction entangles the steady states of a closed system (eigenstates) of two test masses placed in the harmonic traps, and how such a quantum matter-matter interaction emerges from an underlying quantum gravitational field. We will rely upon quantum perturbation theory highlighting the critical assumptions for generating a quantum matter-matter interaction and showing that a classical gravitational field does not render such an entanglement. We will consider two distinct examples: one where the two harmonic oscillators are static, and the other where the harmonic oscillators are nonstatic. In both cases it is the quantum nature of the gravitons interacting with the harmonic oscillators that are responsible for creating an entangled state with the ground and the excited states of harmonic oscillators as the Schmidt basis. We will compute the concurrence as a criterion for the above entanglement and compare the two ways of entangling the two harmonic oscillators.

Vacuum fluctuations can obscure the detection signal of the measurement of the smallest quantum objects like single particles seemingly implying a fundamental limit to measurement accuracy. However, as we show relativistic invariance implies the disappearance of fluctuations for the spacelike spectrum of an observable at zero temperature. This complete absence of noise can be harnessed to perform noiseless measurement of single particles, as we illustrate for electrons or photons. We outline a general scheme to illustrate the noiseless measurement involving the spacelike spectrum of observables based on the self-interference of counterpropagating paths of a single particle in a triangular Sagnac interferometer.

We propose to develop the Kalb-Ramond theory in four-dimensional spacetime at the level of a classical field theory by following the same formal development steps as in Maxwell theory of standard electrodynamics. Solutions of Kalb-Ramond theory in the presence of static sources in various curved spacetimes are then analyzed. A question that we address here is that of a possible Kalb-Ramond polarization in curved spacetimes, like one can encounter a dielectric polarization in ordinary Maxwell electrodynamics in certain types of spacetimes.

I show that quantum corrections due to a massive particle generates a nonlocal term in the gravitational effective action which is of zeroth order in the derivative expansion, much like the cosmological constant. It carries a fixed coefficient which is very much larger than the cosmological constant and which cannot be fine-tuned. The interaction is active at scales above the particle’s mass. This is of the form $m^4(\frac{1}{\square }R{)}_x“⟨x|\log (\square +m^2)|y⟩”(\frac{1}{\square }R{)}_y$, and I discuss the meaning of $“⟨x|\log (\square +m^2)|y⟩”$ and other aspects of its interpretation.

We study the aspects of quasilocal energy associated with a 2-surface $\mathrm{\Sigma }$ bounding a spacelike domain $\mathrm{\Omega }$ of a physical ($3+1$)-dimensional spacetime in the regime of gravity coupled to a gauge field. The Wang-Yau quasilocal energy together with an additional term arising due to the coupling of gravity to a gauge field constitutes the total energy ($\mathcal{QLE}$) contained within the membrane $\mathrm{\Sigma }=\partial \mathrm{\Omega }$. We specialize in the Kerr-Newman family of spacetimes which contains a U(1) gauge field coupled to gravity and an outer horizon. Through explicit calculations, we show that the total energy satisfies a weaker version of a Bekenstein-type inequality $\mathcal{QLE}>\frac{Q^2}{2R}$ for large spherical membranes, $Q$ is the charge, and $R$ is the radius of the membrane. Turning off the angular momentum (Reissner Nordström) yields $\mathcal{QLE}>\frac{Q^2}{2R}$ for all constant radii membranes containing the horizon, and in such a case the charge factor appearing in the right-hand side exactly equals that of Bekenstein’s inequality. Moreover, we show that the total quasilocal energy monotonically decays from $2M_{\mathrm{irr}}+V_Q$ ($M_{\mathrm{irr}}$ is the irreducible mass, and $V_Q$ is the electric potential energy) at the outer horizon to $M$ ($M$ is the Arnowitt-Deser-Misner mass) at the spacelike infinity under the assumption of a small angular momentum of the black hole.

We analyze the existing rotation-curve data of the Milky Way and M31 galaxies that extend to very large distances and low accelerations. We find a systematic downward trend in the weak acceleration (large distances) segment of the radial acceleration. A similar downward trend has been noticed in the $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ EAGLE simulation [Phys. Rev. D 96, 124016 (2017).], while the deviation from the generic MOND prediction would need to be ascribed to an external field effect, or possibly a post facto selected acceleration function $\mu (x)$.

We present a successful realization of supersymmetric $\mu$-hybrid inflation model based on a gauged $U(1{)}_{B–L}$ extension of the minimal supersymmetric standard model, with the soft supersymmetry breaking terms are playing an important role. Successful nonthermal leptogenesis with gravitino dark matter yields a reheat temperature in the range $2\times {10}^7\lesssim T_R\lesssim 5\times {10}^9\mathrm{GeV}$. This corresponds to the predictions $2\times {10}^{-18}\lesssim r\lesssim 4\times {10}^{-13}$ for the tensor to scalar ratio, and $-2\times {10}^{-6}\lesssim d{n}_s/d\ln k\lesssim -5\times {10}^{-11}$ for the running of the scalar spectral index. The $B–L$ breaking scale is estimated as $6\times {10}^{14}\lesssim M/\mathrm{GeV}\lesssim {10}^{16}$, calculated at the central value of the scalar spectral index, $n_s=0.9655$, reported by Planck 2018. Finally, in a grand unified theory setup the dimensionless string tension parameter associated with the metastable strings is in the range ${10}^{-9}\lesssim G{\mu }_{\mathrm{cs}}\lesssim {10}^{-6}$ corresponding to a stochastic gravitational wave background lying within the $2\sigma$ bound of the recent NANOGrav 12.5-yr data.

We numerically study the primordial black hole (PBH) formation by an isocurvature perturbation of a massless scalar field on super Hubble scales in the radiation-dominated Universe. As a first step we perform simulations of spherically symmetric configurations. For the initial condition, we employ the spatial gradient expansion and provide the general form of the growing mode solutions valid up through the second order in this expansion. The initial scalar field profile is assumed to be Gaussian with a characteristic comoving wave number $k$; $\sim \exp (-k^2{R}^2)$, where $R$ is the radial coordinate. We find that a PBH is formed for a sufficiently large amplitude of the scalar field profile. Nevertheless, we find that the late time behavior of the gravitational collapse is dominated by the dynamics of the fluid but not by the scalar field, which is analogous to the PBH formation from an adiabatic perturbation in the radiation-dominated Universe.

We present high signal-to-noise measurements of three-point shear correlations and the third moment of the mass aperture statistic using the first 3 years of data from the Dark Energy Survey. We additionally obtain the first measurements of the configuration and scale dependence of the four three-point shear correlations which carry cosmological information. With the third-order mass aperture statistic, we present tomographic measurements over angular scales of 4 to 60 arcminutes with a combined statistical significance of $15.0\sigma$. Using the tomographic information and measuring also the second-order mass aperture, we additionally obtain a skewness parameter and its redshift evolution. We find that the amplitudes and scale-dependence of these shear 3pt functions are in qualitative agreement with measurements in a mock galaxy catalog based on N-body simulations, indicating promise for including them in future cosmological analyses. We validate our measurements by showing that B-modes, parity-violating contributions and PSF modeling uncertainties are negligible, and determine that the measured signals are likely to be of astrophysical and gravitational origin.

A difference in the electron mass at recombination from today’s measured value has been shown to relieve the Hubble constant tension. In this article we propose a simple mechanism that would allow for such a mass difference. Similar in form to the Higgs field, we consider a Yukawa coupling between the symmetron scalar field and the electron. However, the symmetron’s vacuum expectation value depends on its environment’s matter density which, in principle, would allow its contribution towards the electron mass to differ between recombination and today. We detail the coupling and discuss possible observables.

Ground-based gravitational-wave interferometers could directly probe the existence of ultralight dark matter [$\mathcal{O}({10}^{-14}–{10}^{-11})\mathrm{eV}/c^2$] that couples to standard model particles in the detectors. Recently, many techniques have been developed to extract a variety of potential dark-matter signals from noisy gravitational-wave data; however, little effort has gone into ways to distinguish between types of dark matter that could directly interact with the interferometers. In this work, we employ the Wiener filter to follow-up candidate dark-matter interaction signals. The filter captures the stochastic nature of these signals and, in simulations, successfully identifies which type of dark matter interacts with the interferometers. The power of this method to distinguish between different types of dark matter comes from different coupling mechanisms that result in different power spectra, as well as different correlations between detectors spread across the Earth. We apply the Wiener filter to outliers that remained in the LIGO/Virgo/KAGRA search for dark photons in data from the most recent observing (O3) [R. Abbott et al. (LIGO Scientific, Virgo, KAGRA Collaborations), Phys. Rev. D 105, 063030 (2022)] and show that they are consistent with noise disturbances. Our proof-of-concept analysis demonstrates that the Wiener filter can be a powerful technique to confirm or deny the presence of dark-matter interaction signals in gravitational-wave data and distinguish between scalar and vector dark-matter interactions.

Transforming a $\mu$ to a $\tau$, then the $\tau$ to to an $e$, results in $\mu \to e$. In an effective field theory (EFT) framework, we explore the sensitivity of $\mu \to e$ observables to products of $(\mu \to \tau )\times (\tau \to e)$ interactions and show that the exceptional sensitivity of upcoming $\mu \leftrightarrow e$ experiments could allow us to probe parameter space beyond the reach of upcoming $\tau \leftrightarrow l$ searches in Higgs, $\tau$, and $B$ decays. We describe the $\tau \leftrightarrow l$ interactions as dimension six operators in the SM EFT, identify pairs of them giving interesting contributions to $\mu \leftrightarrow e$ processes, and obtain the anomalous dimensions mixing those pairs into dimension eight $\mu \to e$ operators. We find that $\mu \to e$ processes are sensitive to $\tau$ flavor-changing $B$ decays at rates comparable to current $B$ anomalies, but lepton flavour violating operators cannot reduce B rates—as appropriate in many current $B$ anomalies—because they do not interfere with the SM.

Study of polarized proton-proton elastic scattering in the Coulomb-nuclear interference region allows one to measure the forward hadronic single spin-flip amplitude including its phase. However, in a precision experimental data analysis, a phase-shift correction ${\delta }_C$ due to the long distance Coulomb interaction should be taken into account. For unpolarized scattering, ${\delta }_C$ is commonly considered as well established. Here, we evaluate the Coulomb phase shifts for the forward elastic proton-proton single spin-flip electromagnetic and hadronic amplitudes. Only a small discrepancy between the spin-flip and nonflip phases was found which can be neglected in the high-energy forward elastic $pp$ studies involving transverse spin. Nonetheless, the effective alteration of the hadronic spin-flip amplitude by the long-distance electromagnetic corrections can be essential for interpretation of the experimental results.

The values of the masses of the particles involved in the decay of $T_{cc}^{+}\to D^{*+}{D}^0\to {\pi }^{+}{D}^0{D}^0$ suggest that due to the final state interactions in the transition vertex $T_{cc}^{+}\to D^{*+}{D}^0$ there may be triangle logarithmic singularities. We discuss their possible role and show that the tree approximation for calculating the decay widths $T_{cc}^{+}\to (D^{*+}{D}^0+D^{*0}{D}^{+})\to {\pi }^{+}{D}^0{D}^0$, ${\pi }^0{D}^0{D}^{+}$, $\gamma D^0{D}^{+}$ is quite sufficient at the current level of measurement accuracy.

Experiments using proton beams at high luminosity colliders and fixed target facilities provide impressive sensitivity to new light weakly coupled degrees of freedom. With these experiments in mind, we revisit the production of dark vectors and scalars via proton bremsstrahlung, making use of a model that describes the underlying nucleon scattering cross section in the forward direction due to Pomeron exchange. We compare the resulting distributions and rates with those obtained via variants of the Fermi-Weizsacker-Williams approximation, and provide production rate distributions for a range of beam energies, including those relevant for the proposed Forward Physics Facility at the High Luminosity LHC.

We study the effects of identical leptons in the final state of the $B^{+}\to {\ell }^{+}{\ell }^{-}{\ell }^{+}{\overline{\nu }}_{\ell }$ decay. The amplitude of the process is described by the same form factors as the amplitude of the $B\to \ell \ell {\ell }^{\prime }{\overline{\nu }}_{\ell }^{\prime }$ decay for nonidentical leptons in the final state. However, the differential distributions are strongly different, as the $B^{+}\to {\ell }^{+}{\ell }^{-}{\ell }^{+}{\overline{\nu }}_{\ell }$ amplitude contains both the direct ($M_a$) and exchange ($M_b$) diagrams. We calculate a number of the differential distributions. In particular, we propose an interesting observable that can be readily measured experimentally: the differential distribution over the invariant mass of the pair of leptons of the same charge, ${\ell }^{+}{\ell }^{+}$. The good news is that the interference between $M_a$ and $M_b$, $d{\mathcal{B}}_{ab}$ is found to be at the level of less than 1% in all considered differential distributions and therefore can be neglected in the full kinematical region of this decay.

We present the effects of nonlinear corrections to the single differential cross section $d\sigma /d{Q}^2$ and the reduced cross section ${\sigma }_r(x,Q^2)$ for the neutral current $e^{-}p$ scattering at the leading order and the next-to-leading order (NLO) approximations in perturbative quantum chromodynamics. Technically, based on the double Laplace transform method, we first derive the effects of the nonlinear corrections to the proton structure functions $F_2(x,Q^2)$ and $F_L(x,Q^2)$ and consequently obtain the corresponding single differential and reduced cross sections. Our results clearly indicate the consistency of the nonlinear behavior of the quark and gluon distributions at low $x$ values. Our numerical results (obtained in a range of the virtuality $8.5<Q^2<5000{\mathrm{GeV}}^2$ and the Bjorken scale ${10}^{-5}<x<1$) show that the effects of these nonlinear corrections to the proton structure functions are more noticeable at $x<0.001$ and, to some extent, control the incremental trend of these functions at low $x$ values. Moreover, a comparison of our numerical results of the single differential and reduced cross sections at the NLO approximations with those of H1 Collaboration data shows that the nonlinear corrections increase the accuracy of calculations rather than the linear calculations at low to moderate $Q^2$ values for low $x$ values.

The measurement of the cross section for the production of a $Z$ boson, decaying to dielectrons or dimuons, in association with at least one bottom quark jet is performed with proton-proton collision data at $\sqrt{s}=13\mathrm{TeV}$. The data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of $137{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$, collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC during 2016–2018. The integrated cross sections for $Z+\ge 1b\text{jet}$ and $Z+\ge 2b\text{jets}$ are reported for the electron, muon, and combined channels. The fiducial cross sections in the combined channel are $6.52\pm 0.04(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.40(\mathrm{syst})\pm 0.14(\mathrm{theo})\mathrm{pb}$ for $Z+\ge 1b\text{jet}$ and $0.65\pm 0.03(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.07(\mathrm{syst})\pm 0.02(\mathrm{theo})\mathrm{pb}$ for $Z+\ge 2b\text{jets}$. The differential cross section distributions are measured as functions of various kinematic observables that are useful for precision tests of perturbative quantum chromodynamics predictions. The ratios of integrated and differential cross sections for $Z+\ge 2b\text{jets}$ and $Z+\ge 1b\text{jet}$ processes are also determined. The value of the integrated cross section ratio measured in the combined channel is $0.100\pm 0.005(\mathrm{stat})\pm 0.007(\mathrm{syst})\pm 0.003(\mathrm{theo})$. All measurements are compared with predictions from various event generators.