We present a measurement of the angular baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) scale from the completed Dark Energy Survey (DES) dataset excluding the area of overlap with the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). We follow the same methodology and validation process as in the DES Y6 BAO analysis. We interpret the impact of this measurement in the context of the statistical preference for “$w_0{w}_a$ cold dark matter (CDM) over $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ when combined with DES Y5 Type Ia supernovae (SN), Planck CMB, and DESI BAO. Based on our previous work, using the full Y6 DES BAO sample, in combination with SN, CMB and DESI data release 1 (DR1) BAO, added $0.3\sigma$ in this preference (from $3.7\sigma$ to $4.0\sigma$), but this ignored possible correlations between datasets. Using our new DESI-independent DES BAO likelihood instead, we find a smaller increase in the statistical preference for $w_0{w}_a\mathrm{CDM}$, from $3.7\sigma$ to $3.8\sigma$ when using DESI DR1 BAO, and from $4.0\sigma$ to $4.1\sigma$ when updating to the more recent DESI data release 2 (DR2) BAO. These significances reduce to $3.1\sigma$ when using the new calibrated DES SN-Dovekie. Alongside this work, we publicly release baofit_wtheta, the BAO fitting code for the angular correlation function used in the DES Y6 BAO analysis.

Gravitational lensing magnification alters the observed spatial distribution of galaxies and must be accounted for to prevent biases in cosmological probes of the large-scale structure. We investigate its effects on the Dark Energy Survey year 6 galaxy clustering and galaxy-galaxy lensing analyses using the fiducial lens (position tracer) sample maglim++. The combination of these two probes is referred to as the $2\times 2\mathrm{pt}$ analysis, while the full $3\times 2\mathrm{pt}$ analysis additionally includes cosmic shear. Magnification bias is parametrized by a coefficient that describes the response of the number of selected objects per unlensed area element to a change in the lensing convergence. We quantify this coefficient using the balrog synthetic source injection catalog to account for the complexity of the selection function and compare these results with simplified estimates. The resulting values of the magnification coefficients for each redshift bin are $[3.16\pm 0.08,2.76\pm 0.21,4.09\pm 0.15,4.42\pm 0.16,4.90\pm 0.29,4.83\pm 0.25]$. Relative to year 3, this analysis provides more precise and accurate magnification bias estimates through a larger balrog area and reweighting to better match the data properties. The cosmological results are robust when tested against various magnification parameter prior choices and also when adding cross-clustering between lens redshift bins. Neglecting magnification, however, introduces significant systematic shifts: relative to the fiducial analysis with Gaussian priors centered on the balrog-derived estimates, we observe shifts of $1.37\sigma$ in $S_8$ and $-0.84\sigma$ in ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_m$ when fitting $2\times 2\mathrm{pt}$ (which are reduced to $-0.61\sigma$ in $S_8$ and $-0.71\sigma$ in ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_m$ for $3\times 2\mathrm{pt}$). This agrees with findings from simulated data, demonstrating that magnification must be modeled to avoid biases. Freeing the magnification bias in lens bin 2 leads to unphysical negative values, further justifying its exclusion from the fiducial year 6 analysis.

The equation of state (EOS) of cold dense matter remains one of the central open problems in nuclear astrophysics. Its inference is complicated by the lack of ab initio theoretical control above about twice nuclear saturation density, where the EOS must be extrapolated. Parametric schemes such as piecewise polytropes (PP) are computationally efficient but impose restrictive functional forms, while nonparametric approaches such as Gaussian processes (GP) offer greater flexibility at the cost of larger prior volumes. In this work, we extend our hybrid EOS framework by replacing the high-density polytropic extension with a Gaussian process representation of the squared sound speed, anchored at low densities by the SLy crust EOS and a nuclear meta-model constrained by $\chi \mathrm{EFT}$ and laboratory measurements. Using a hierarchical Bayesian analysis, we jointly constrain the EOS and the neutron star mass distribution with multimessenger data, including NICER radius measurements, GW170817 and GW190425 tidal deformabilities, $2M_{\odot }$ pulsars, and neutron skin experiments. We explore four scenarios defined by the choice of high-density extrapolation (PP vs GP) and hot spot geometry in the NICER modeling of PSR $\mathrm{J}0030+0451$ ($\mathrm{ST}+\mathrm{PDT}$ vs PDT-U). We find that GP extrapolations generally yield softer EOS posteriors with broader uncertainty bands. Hot spot geometry assumptions also play an important role, leading to systematic shifts in the inferred mass-radius relations. Bayesian evidence strongly favors the $\mathrm{ST}+\mathrm{PDT}$ geometry over PDT-U across both extrapolation schemes, while the GP extension is consistently preferred over PP, with substantial support. Taken together, these results underscore the importance of both observational modeling choices and EOS extrapolation strategies in shaping neutron star EOS inferences, and demonstrate that a GP-based extension provides a robust framework for quantifying systematic uncertainties in high-density matter.

The Bose-Einstein condensate dark matter model, where dark matter can be thought of as a nonrelativistic, Newtonian gravitational condensate, has recently attracted a great deal of interest. In the present study, we explore the possibility that the dark matter could exist in the form of a self-bound quantum droplet formed by ultradilute quantum Bose mixtures under the action of Lee-Huang-Yang corrections at zero temperature. To this end, we derive an extended equation of state by using the nonrelativistic self-consistent Hartree-Fock-Bogoliubov theory and the hydrodynamic approach. The solutions of the obtained equations of state show that the key parameters of the dark matter halos such as the density, mass, and radius are sensitive to the interspecies interaction and to the quantum fluctuation strength. The stability and the dynamical evolution of the droplet Galactic halos are analyzed by considering small perturbations of the quantum hydrodynamical equations. In order to increase the reliability of our predictions we compare them with some observed data for the Galactic rotation curves.

We investigate the thermal impact of dark matter (DM) capture and annihilation on neutron stars (NSs) in the Galactic Center (GC). Accounting for both kinetic energy deposition and internal annihilation, we systematically evaluate the influence of various DM density profiles, ranging from cored to cuspy distributions, on the late-time thermal evolution of NSs. For NSs older than $\sim {10}^7\mathrm{yr}$, the surface temperature approaches an equilibrium value $T_{\mathrm{s}}^{\mathrm{eq}}\sim {10}^4–{10}^6\mathrm{K}$, depending on the stellar location and the ambient DM density. In the presence of a density spike, enhanced heating shifts the emission toward ultraviolet (UV) and soft x-ray bands; however, strong interstellar extinction and large hydrogen column densities significantly suppress the observable flux density. We further provide an estimate of the cumulative infrared surface brightness from the NS population in the GC. The predicted flux density from an individual NS remains below $\sim 0.1\mathrm{nJy}$, while the integrated emission yields an average surface brightness $I_{\nu }\lesssim {10}^{-9}\mathrm{Jy}{\mathrm{arcsec}}^{-2}$, corresponding to a signal-to-noise ratio well below current detection thresholds. Our results indicate that thermal signatures from DM-heated NSs in the GC remain below the sensitivity limits of current instruments, although nearby systems with lower extinction may provide more promising targets for detection.

During the propagation of cosmic rays in the Solar System, the Sun will block those particles and form a shadow whose position and depth are very important probes of the magnetic fields in the Sun’s corona, in the interplanetary space, and the Earth’s vicinity. In this work, we carry out Monte Carlo studies of the Sun shadow, with a novel approach to take into account daily variations of the coronal and interplanetary magnetic field models. This treatment is suitable for studies of short-term variations of the Sun shadow, which become detectable by the Large High Altitude Air Shower Observatory (LHAASO) experiment. Two different coronal magnetic field models, the potential field source surface (PFSS) and current sheet source surface (CSSS) models, with observational time-varying photospheric magnetic fields as boundary conditions, are studied in this work. The interplanetary magnetic fields are then derived using the Parker spiral model based on the coronal ones. Furthermore, both the coronal and interplanetary magnetic field strengths are corrected using the Parker Solar Probe measurements. We compare the simulation results with the daily observations of the Sun shadow by LHAASO in 2021 and find that the CSSS model generally shows better consistency of the displacement of the Sun shadow than the PFSS model.

The Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC) is the biggest satellite galaxy of the Milky Way and provides a unique laboratory for high-energy astrophysics and dark matter physics. In this work, we develop an end-to-end numerical description of the cosmic-ray (CR) transport and of the associated nonthermal emission in the LMC, extending the public dragon and hermes codes. Within this framework, we compute the diffuse synchrotron radiation of CR electrons in the LMC, and compare the predictions with observed low-frequency radio maps. Because electron diffusion imprints a characteristic morphology on the radio signal, these comparisons enable us to infer the effective average of the LMC diffusion coefficient. We find $D_0=3–6\times {10}^{28}{\mathrm{cm}}^2/\mathrm{s}$ at 1 GeV, which is comparable to, but slightly larger than, values typically obtained for the Milky Way. More generally, this work provides a scalable tool for interpreting nonthermal signals in nearby galaxies and constraining their CR transport.

When strongly supercooled cosmological first-order phase transitions (FOPTs) are sufficiently slow, superhorizon inhomogeneities can be generated. We compute these superhorizon curvature perturbations by employing a gauge-invariant, multifluid formalism. By resolving the gauge ambiguities inherent in conventional separate-universe simulations, we demonstrate that primordial black holes are unlikely to be produced by these superhorizon inhomogeneities. We also derive a fitting formula for the resulting curvature perturbations and discuss potential observational constraints on FOPTs imposed by limits on primordial curvature perturbations and associated scalar-induced gravitational waves.

Models describing dark matter as a novel particle often predict that its annihilation or decay into Standard Model particles could produce a detectable neutrino flux in regions of high dark matter density, such as the Galactic Center. In this work, we search for these neutrinos using $\sim 9\mathrm{years}$ of IceCube-DeepCore data with an event selection optimized for energies between 15 to 200 GeV. We considered several annihilation and decay channels and dark matter masses ranging from 15 GeV up to 8 TeV. No significant deviation from the background expectation from atmospheric neutrinos and muons was found. The most significant result was found for a dark matter mass of 201.6 GeV annihilating into a pair of $b\overline{b}$ quarks assuming the Navarro–Frenk–White halo profile with a post-trial significance of $1.08\sigma$. We present upper limits on the thermally averaged annihilation cross section of the order of ${10}^{-24}{\mathrm{cm}}^3{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$, as well as lower limits on the dark matter decay lifetime up to ${10}^{26}\mathrm{s}$ for dark matter masses between 5 GeV up to 8 TeV. These results strengthen the current IceCube limits on dark matter masses above 20 GeV and provide an order of magnitude improvement at lower masses. In addition, they represent the strongest constraints from any neutrino telescope on GeV-scale dark matter and are among the world-leading limits for several dark matter scenarios.

Low-threshold dark matter detectors, in particular cryogenic detectors based on dielectric materials, are among the best tools for probing sub-GeV dark matter masses. In the coming years, detectors of this type will become sensitive to solar neutrino scattering. Previous work has shown that, for dark matter scattering at very low recoil energies, one must include collective excitations of the electrons in the solid. In this work, we have computed the collective excitations due to neutrino scattering on electrons and nuclei. We find the full electron-scattering response at leading order is captured by five structure factors and identify the leading component with the electron energy-loss function. Then, using silicon and germanium detectors as an example, we perform a dark matter sensitivity study and compute their respective neutrino floors—taking the electronic structure into account for all dark matter and neutrino scattering channels. Lastly, we show that these detectors are sensitive to unexplored scenarios of beyond-Standard Model neutrino physics, within the exposure required to reach the neutrino floor.

We present a new scenario of freeze-in, where the dark matter is produced exclusively via the annihilation of photons. We study fermionic and scalar dark matter models with a focus on cosmological histories with low reheat temperatures. Photonic freeze-in can be probed via direct detection, dark matter production in SN1987A, and via the production of new electromagnetically charged states at the LHC. We briefly discuss UV-complete models that can realize this scenario.

Constraints on light sterile neutrinos and scalar nonstandard neutrino interactions are obtained from the first reactor antineutrino results reported by JUNO. The analysis is based on a spectral ${\chi }^2$ fit to the prompt-energy distribution corresponding to 59.1 days of data, including full three-flavor oscillations extended to a $3+1$ framework and effective scalar nonstandard neutrino interaction (NSI) contributions. The reactor flux is modeled using the Daya Bay measured spectrum, and systematic uncertainties are accounted for through a set of nuisance parameters describing reactor flux normalization, spectral shape, background normalization, and detector response. It is found that JUNO is already sensitive to light sterile neutrinos in the mass-splitting range ${10}^{-5}\lesssim \mathrm{\Delta }{m}_{41}^2/{\mathrm{eV}}^2\lesssim {10}^{-2}$, probing mixing amplitudes down to ${\sin }^{2}2{\theta }_{14}\sim \mathcal{O}({10}^{-1})$. In addition, a constraint on the scalar NSI parameter $|{\eta }_{ee}|\sim \mathcal{O}({10}^{-3})$ is obtained, with correlations with solar oscillation parameters. These results demonstrate the potential of JUNO to probe small deviations from the Standard Model resulting from new physics through precision measurements, with significant improvements expected as statistics and systematic control improve.

Within the framework of the extra-dimensional Randall-Sundrum setup, we investigate the freeze-in production of Standard Model (SM) gauge-singlet scalar, fermionic, and massive vector dark matter (DM). Assuming that both the DM and SM fields reside on the IR brane and interact solely through the graviton and radion portal, we demonstrate that the Planck-observed DM relic abundance can be achieved across a wide range of reheating temperatures, all while naturally addressing the hierarchy problem, satisfying constraints from collider and early Universe cosmology. We further show that the same setup can accommodate TeV-scale leptogenesis capable of generating the observed baryon asymmetry of the Universe. Interestingly, we find that current graviton searches at the Large Hadron Collider already impose strong constraints on the reheating temperature in this scenario, providing a complementarity between cosmological and collider probes.

The persistent null results at dark matter (DM) direct-detection experiments have pushed the popular weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) DM to tight corners. Generic WIMP models with direct-detection rates below the current upper limits often lead to a thermally overproduced relic abundance after freeze-out. To resolve this conundrum, we propose a novel scenario where DM has temperature-dependent couplings with the standard model (SM) bath. A scalar field having a large vacuum expectation value (VEV) at high temperatures generates sizeable DM-SM interactions, leading to efficient DM annihilations responsible for generating the desired thermal relic. At lower temperatures, the scalar field VEV settles down to a small value as a result of a phase transition which can generically be of first order, effectively leading to a suppressed DM-SM interaction rate at low temperature, consistent with null results at direct-detection experiments. The upper bound on thermal DM mass forces the first-order phase transition to occur at scales such that the corresponding gravitational wave signal remains within reach of future experiments such as the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna.

The search for new sources of $CP$ violation is a cornerstone of the beyond the Standard Model (BSM) phenomenology program at the LHC and beyond. We provide a comprehensive analysis of such searches at a range of future facilities with the aim of informing the currently unfolding future collider roadmap. Focusing on new sources of $CP$ violation specifically in the gauge-Higgs sector, we demonstrate the outstanding potential held by future electron-positron and proton-proton colliders to reveal and identify BSM physics with direct relevance for the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry. In particular, the future colliders will provide an order of magnitude improvement in sensitivity to anomalous $CP$-violating interactions induced by dimension-six effective field theory operators when compared to the high-luminosity LHC program.

We study the localization properties of the low-lying Dirac eigenmodes in QCD near the crossover temperature, using stout-smeared staggered fermions and Symanzik-improved gauge action on the lattice. On $N_{\mathrm{t}}=8$ lattices we find that localized low modes, absent at low temperature, appear at a temperature $T_{\mathrm{loc}}$ in the range $150\mathrm{MeV}\le T_{\mathrm{loc}}\le 160\mathrm{MeV}$, well within the chiral crossover range as determined from the chiral condensate and from the light-quark susceptibility. Since with our choice of lattice action neither the chiral transition region nor the renormalized mobility edges change significantly above $N_{\mathrm{t}}=8$, our conclusion that $T_{\mathrm{loc}}$ is in the chiral crossover region is expected to remain valid in the continuum limit.

We present the first systematic study of the radiative decays of charmed mesons using $2+1$-flavor clover fermion gauge ensembles generated by the CLQCD Collaboration. One of the ensembles is at the physical pion mass, and one has a fine lattice spacing $a\sim 0.05\mathrm{fm}$. We determine the coupling constants to be $g_{D^{*+}{D}^{+}\gamma }=-0.204(22){\mathrm{GeV}}^{-1}$, $g_{D^{*0}{D}^0\gamma }=1.73(37){\mathrm{GeV}}^{-1}$, and $g_{D_s^{*+}{D}_s^{+}\gamma }=-0.120(14){\mathrm{GeV}}^{-1}$, respectively. Compared with previous studies, our results demonstrate significant improvements in precision. In particular, we carefully estimate the systematic uncertainty arising from matrix element fits, momentum transfer extrapolations, and chiral and continuum limit extrapolations, which are included in the reported total uncertainties. These couplings yield the following predictions of decay widths: ${\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{D^{*+}\to D^{+}\gamma }=0.253(55)\mathrm{keV}$, ${\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{D^{*0}\to D^0\gamma }=18.2(7.8)\mathrm{keV}$, and ${\mathrm{\Gamma }}_{D_s^{*+}\to D_s^{+}\gamma }=0.094(22)\mathrm{keV}$. This work establishes first-principles results of the charmed meson radiative transitions and provides inputs for understanding the structure and properties of heavy-light mesons.

We construct two quantum error correction codes for pure SU(2) lattice gauge theory in the electric basis truncated at the electric flux $j_{\max }=1/2$, which are applicable on quasi-1D plaquette chains, 2D honeycomb and 3D triamond and hyperhoneycomb lattices. The first code converts Gauss’s law at each vertex into a stabilizer while the second only uses half of the vertices and is locally the carbon code. Both codes are able to correct single-qubit errors. The electric and magnetic terms in the SU(2) Hamiltonian are expressed in terms of logical gates in both codes. The logical-gate Hamiltonian in the first code exactly matches the spin Hamiltonian for gauge singlet states found in previous work.

We determine the zero eigenmode spectrum of minimally doubled fermions, namely in Karsten-Wilczek and Borici-Creutz formulations on the four-dimensional spacetime lattice. We employ background gauge fields with integer valued topological charges. The Atiyah-Singer Index Theorem is verified in the presence of two different background gauge fields, namely Smit-Vink [1] and cooled down MILC asqtad ensembles with $N_f=2+1$ dynamical flavors of quarks [2]. Using flavored mass terms [3,4], we find that the spectral flow of the eigenvalues detects the topology of the background gauge field. With the use of the modified chirality operator, we obtain chiralities of the zero eigenmodes and the fermionic topological charge.

In previous work, we determined the improvement coefficients $c_{\mathrm{V}}$ and $c_{\tilde{\mathrm{V}}}$ required for the massless $\mathrm{O}(a)$-improvement of the local and point-split discretizations of the nonsinglet vector current for $N_{\mathrm{f}}=3$ nonperturbatively $\mathrm{O}(a)$-improved Wilson fermions and the Lüscher-Weisz gauge action, using ensembles of large-volume configurations generated by the coordinated lattice simulations (CLS) initiative. A new estimate for the mass-dependent improvement coefficient ${\overline{b}}_{\mathrm{A}}^{\mathrm{eff}}$ has recently become available, differing from the one used in our earlier study, and on which our implementation via a massive axial Ward identity relied. Here, we update our analysis of the mass-independent vector improvement coefficients based on the new axial current improvement coefficient, and analyze additional ensembles with a different chiral trajectory in order to validate our results at two values of the bare coupling. We find that using the new estimate of ${\overline{b}}_{\mathrm{A}}^{\mathrm{eff}}$ improves the consistency between the two chiral trajectories, as well as with a previous determination of the improvement coefficients directly in the massless limit on small volumes.