As Einstein’s equations for binary compact object inspiral have only been approximately or intermittently solved by analytic or numerical methods, the models used to infer parameters of gravitational wave (GW) sources are subject to waveform modeling uncertainty. Using a simple scenario, we illustrate these differences then introduce a very efficient technique to marginalize over waveform uncertainties, relative to a prespecified sequence of waveform models. Being based on RIFT, a very efficient parameter inference engine, our technique can directly account for any available models, including very accurate but computationally costly waveforms. Our evidence- and likelihood-based method works robustly on a point-by-point basis, enabling accurate marginalization for models with strongly disjoint posteriors while simultaneously increasing the reusability and efficiency of our intermediate calculations.

In the Bogomol’nyi-Prasad-Sommerfield (BPS) limit of Einstein-Yang-Mills-Higgs theory, we construct numerically a non-Abelian wormhole supported by a phantom field. The probe limit is the Yang-Mills-Higgs field in the background of Ellis wormhole when the gravity is switched off. The wormhole solutions possess the Yang-Mills-Higgs hair in the presence of gravity; thus a branch of hairy wormhole solutions emerge from the Ellis wormhole when the gravitational coupling constant increases. We find that the masses of the wormholes and the scalar charge of the phantom field increase monotonically when the gravitational coupling constant increases. The wormhole spacetime possesses a double-throat configuration when the gravitational strength exceeds a critical value. Surprisingly, the wormholes satisfy the null energy condition at large gravitational strength. We also briefly discuss the redshift factor.

We perform numerical simulations of the approach to spacetime singularities. The simulations are done with sufficient resolution to resolve the small scale features (known as spikes) that form in this process. We find an analytical formula for the shape of the spikes and show that the spikes in the simulations are well described by this formula.

In this paper, we analytically study the critical exponents and universal amplitudes of the thermodynamic curvatures, such as the intrinsic and extrinsic curvature at the critical point of the small-large black hole phase transition for the charged AdS black holes. At the critical point, it is found that the normalized intrinsic curvature $R_N$ and extrinsic curvature $K_N$ has critical exponents 2 and 1, respectively. Based on them, the universal amplitudes $R_N{t}^2$ and $K_{N}t$ are calculated with the temperature parameter $t=T/T_c-1$, where $T_c$ is the critical value of the temperature. Near the critical point, we find that the critical amplitude of $R_N{t}^2$ and $K_{N}t$ is $-\frac{1}{2}$ when $t\to 0^{+}$, whereas $R_N{t}^2\approx -\frac{1}{8}$ and $K_{N}t\approx -\frac{1}{4}$ in the limit $t\to 0^{-}$. These results not only hold for the four-dimensional charged AdS black hole but also for the higher dimensional cases. Therefore, such universal properties will cast new insight into the thermodynamic geometries and black hole phase transitions.

Recently, a toy model was introduced to demonstrate that screening mechanisms in alternative theories of gravitation can hide additional effects. In this model a scalar field is charged under a $U(1)$ symmetry. In sufficiently compact objects the scalar field spontaneously grows, i.e., the object scalarizes, spontaneously breaking the $U(1)$ symmetry. Exactly as in the $U(1)$ Higgs mechanism this leads to the emergence of a mass for the gauge field. The aim of this paper is to provide an example of the physical consequences if we consider this toy model as a prototype of Weak Equivalence Principle (WEP) violations. We model neutron stars with a dipolar magnetic field to compare the magnetic field behavior of stars in Einstein-Maxwell theory on the one hand and in scalar-tensor theory with the, so-called, gravitational Higgs mechanism on the other hand.

The one-point probability distribution function (PDF) is a powerful summary statistic for non-Gaussian cosmological fields, such as the weak lensing (WL) convergence reconstructed from galaxy shapes or cosmic microwave background (CMB) maps. Thus far, no analytic model has been developed that successfully describes the high-convergence tail of the WL convergence PDF for small smoothing scales from first principles. Here, we present a halo-model formalism to compute the WL convergence PDF, building upon our previous results for the thermal Sunyaev-Zel’dovich field. Furthermore, we extend our formalism to analytically compute the covariance matrix of the convergence PDF. Comparisons to numerical simulations generally confirm the validity of our formalism in the non-Gaussian, positive tail of the WL convergence PDF, but also reveal the convergence PDF’s strong sensitivity to small-scale systematic effects in the simulations (e.g., due to finite resolution). Finally, we present a simple Fisher forecast for a Rubin-Observatory-like survey, based on our new analytic model. Considering the $\{A_s,{\mathrm{\Omega }}_m,\mathrm{\Sigma }{m}_{\nu }\}$ parameter space and assuming a Planck CMB prior on $A_s$ only, we forecast a marginalized constraint $\sigma (\mathrm{\Sigma }{m}_{\nu })\approx 0.08\mathrm{eV}$ from the WL convergence PDF alone, even after marginalizing over parameters describing the halo concentration-mass relation. This error bar on the neutrino mass sum is comparable to the minimum value allowed in the normal hierarchy, illustrating the strong constraining power of the WL convergence PDF. We make our code publicly available at https://github.com/leanderthiele/hmpdf.

New interactions of neutrinos can stop them from free streaming even after the weak interaction freeze-out. This results in a phase shift in the cosmic microwave background (CMB) acoustic peaks which can alleviate the Hubble tension. In addition, the perturbations in neutrinos do not decay away on horizon entry and contribute to metric perturbation enhancing the matter power spectrum. We demonstrate that this acoustic phase shift can be achieved using new interactions of standard left-handed neutrinos with dark matter without changing the number of effective relativistic degrees of freedom. Using Planck CMB and the WiggleZ galaxy survey $(k\le 0.12h{\mathrm{Mpc}}^{-1})$ data, we demonstrate that in this model the Hubble tension reduces to approximately $2.1\sigma$. Our model predicts potentially observable modifications of the CMB $B$ modes and the matter power spectrum that can be observed in future datasets.

We explore the cosmological implications at effective level of matter creation effects in a dissipative fluid for a Friedmann-Lemaitre-Robertson-Walker geometry; we also perform a statistical analysis for this kind of model. By considering an inhomogeneous ansatz for the particle production rate, which we obtain for a created matter of dark matter type, we can have a quintessence scenario or a future singularity known as a little rip; this is in dependence of the value of a constant parameter, $\eta$, which characterizes the matter production effects. The dimensionless age of this kind of universe is computed, showing that this number is greater than the standard cosmology value; this is typical of universes with the presence of dark energy. The inclusion of baryonic matter is studied. We implement the construction of the particle production rate for a dissipative fluid by considering two approaches for the expression of the bulk viscous pressure: we find that, in the Eckart model, we have a big rip singularity leading to a catastrophic matter production, and in the truncated version of the Israel-Stewart model this rate remains bounded, which leads to a quintessence scenario. For a nonadiabatic dissipative fluid, we obtain a positive temperature, and the cosmic expansion obeys the second law of thermodynamics.

We introduce an efficient framework for computing the distance between collider events using the tools of Linearized Optimal Transport (LOT). This preserves many of the advantages of the recently introduced Energy Mover’s Distance, which quantifies the work required to rearrange one event into another, while significantly reducing the computational cost. It also furnishes a Euclidean embedding amenable to simple machine learning algorithms and visualization techniques, which we demonstrate in a variety of jet tagging examples. The LOT approximation lowers the threshold for diverse applications of the theory of optimal transport to collider physics.

We consider a scalar field in a slice of Lorentzian five-dimensional AdS at arbitrary energies. We show that the presence of bulk interactions separates the behavior of the theory into two different regimes: Kaluza-Klein and continuum. We determine the transition scale between these regimes and show that UV-brane correlation functions are independent of IR-brane-localized operators for four-momenta beyond this transition scale. The same bulk interactions that induce the transition also give rise to cascade decays. We study these cascade decays for the case of a cubic self-interaction in the continuum regime. We find that the cascade decay progresses slowly towards the IR region and gives rise to soft spherical final states, in accordance with former results from both gravity and CFT. We identify a recursion relation between integrated squared amplitudes of different leg numbers and thus evaluate the total rate. We find that cascade decays in the continuum regime are exponentially suppressed. This feature completes the picture of the IR brane as an emergent sector as seen from the UV brane. We briefly discuss consistency with the holographic dual description of glueballs and some implications for dark sector models.

We describe a unique gravitational wave signature for a class of models with a vast hierarchy between the symmetry breaking scales. The unusual shape of the signal is a result of the overlapping contributions to the stochastic gravitational wave background from cosmic strings produced at a high scale and a cosmological phase transition at a low scale. We apply this idea to a simple model with gauged baryon and lepton numbers, in which the high-scale breaking of the lepton number is motivated by the seesaw mechanism for the neutrinos, whereas the low scale of baryon number breaking is required by the observed dark matter relic density. The novel signature can be searched for in upcoming gravitational wave experiments.

We demonstrate that electron electric dipole moment (eEDM) experiments with molecules in a paramagnetic state are sensitive to $P$, $T$-violating nuclear forces and other $CP$-violating parameters in the hadronic sector. These experiments, in particular, measure the coupling constant $C_{SP}$ of the $CP$-odd contact semileptonic interaction. We establish relations between $C_{SP}$ and different $CP$-violating hadronic parameters including strength constants of the $CP$-odd nuclear potentials, $CP$-odd pion-nucleon interactions, quark-chromo EDM, and QCD vacuum angle. These relations allow us to find limits on various $CP$-odd hadronic parameters.

We show that inclusion of a single generation of vectorlike leptons in the two-Higgs doublet Models significantly enlarges the allowed parameter space consistent with the muon anomalous magnetic moment, as well as with other theoretical and experimental constraints. While previously $(g-2{)}_{\mu }$ could only be resolved in type-X scenario by requiring a light pseudoscalar Higgs boson and large $\tan \beta$, contributions of vectorlike leptons via two-loop Barr Zee diagrams broaden the allowed parameter space, allowing $\tan \beta$ as low as 10 and pseudoscalar masses as large as $\mathcal{O}(1\mathrm{TeV})$, while fulfilling the stringent constraints from precision and flavor observable. Similar results are obtained for type-II scenarios, but there the parameter space is more restricted by flavor observables.

Two-neutrino double-$\beta$ decay of certain nuclear isotopes is one of the rarest Standard Model processes observed in nature. Its neutrinoless counterpart is an exotic lepton-number nonconserving process that is widely searched to determine if the neutrinos are Majorana fermions. In order to connect the rate of these processes to the Standard Model and beyond the Standard Model interactions, it is essential that the corresponding nuclear matrix elements are constrained reliably from theory. Lattice quantum chromodynamics (LQCD) and low-energy effective field theories (EFTs) are expected to play an essential role in constraining the matrix element of the two-nucleon subprocess, which could in turn provide the input into ab initio nuclear-structure calculations in larger isotopes. Focusing on the two-neutrino process $nn\to pp(ee{\overline{\nu }}_e{\overline{\nu }}_e)$, the amplitude is constructed in this work in pionless EFT at next-to-leading order, demonstrating the emergence of a renormalization-scale independent amplitude and the absence of any new low-energy constant at this order beyond those present in the single-weak process. Most importantly, it is shown how a LQCD four-point correlation function in Euclidean and finite-volume spacetime can be used to constrain the Minkowski infinite-volume amplitude in the EFT. The same formalism is provided for the related single-weak process, which is an input to the double-$\beta$ decay formalism. The LQCD-EFT matching procedure outlined for the double-weak amplitude paves the road toward constraining the two-nucleon matrix element entering the neutrinoless double-$\beta$ decay amplitude with a light Majorana neutrino.

It was recently proposed that the $X(3872)$ binding energy, the difference between the $D^0{\overline{D}}^{*0}$ threshold and the $X(3872)$ mass, can be precisely determined by measuring the $\gamma X(3872)$ line shape from a short-distance $D^{*0}{\overline{D}}^{*0}$ source produced at high-energy experiments. Here, we investigate the feasibility of such a proposal by estimating the cross sections for the $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to {\pi }^0\gamma X(3872)$ and $p\overline{p}\to \gamma X(3872)$ processes considering the $D^{*0}{\overline{D}}^{*0}{D}^0/{\overline{D}}^{*0}{D}^{*0}{\overline{D}}^0$ triangle loops. These loops can produce a triangle singularity slightly above the $D^{*0}{\overline{D}}^{*0}$ threshold. It is found that the peak structures originating from the $D^{*0}{\overline{D}}^{*0}$ threshold cusp and the triangle singularity are not altered much by the energy dependence introduced by the $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to {\pi }^0{D}^{*0}{\overline{D}}^{*0}$ and $p\overline{p}\to {\overline{D}}^{*0}{D}^{*0}$ production parts or by considering a finite width for the $X(3872)$. We find that $\sigma (e^{+}{e}^{-}\to {\pi }^0\gamma X(3872))\times \mathrm{Br}(X(3872)\to {\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{-}J/\psi )$ is $\mathcal{O}(0.1\mathrm{fb})$ with the $\gamma X(3872)$ invariant mass integrated from 4.01 to 4.02 GeV and the c.m. energy of the $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ pair fixed at 4.23 GeV. The cross section $\sigma (p\overline{p}\to \gamma X(3872))\times \mathrm{Br}(X(3872)\to {\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{-}J/\psi )$ is estimated to be of $\mathcal{O}(10\mathrm{pb})$. Our results suggest that a precise measurement of the $X(3872)$ binding energy can be done at PANDA.

Structure in the di-$J/\psi$ mass spectrum observed by the LHCb experiment around 6.9 and 7.2 GeV is interpreted in terms of $J^{PC}=0^{++}$ and $2^{++}$ resonances between a $cc$ diquark and a $\overline{c}\overline{c}$ antidiquark, using a recently confirmed string-junction picture to calculate tetraquark masses. The main peak around 6.9 GeV is likely dominated by the $0^{++}(2S)$ state, a radial excitation of the $cc-\overline{c}\overline{c}$ tetraquark, which we predict at $6.871\pm 0.025\mathrm{GeV}$. The dip around 6.75 GeV is ascribed to the opening of the $S$-wave di-${\chi }_{c0}$ channel, while the dip around 7.2 GeV could be correlated with the opening of the di-${\eta }_c(2S)$ or ${\mathrm{\Xi }}_{cc}{\overline{\mathrm{\Xi }}}_{cc}$ channel. The low-mass part of the di-$J/\psi$ structure appears to require a broad resonance consistent with a predicted $2^{++}(1S)$ state with invariant mass around $M_{\mathrm{inv}}=6400\mathrm{MeV}$. Implications for $bb\overline{b}\overline{b}$ tetraquarks are discussed.

We compute the magnetic-field-induced modifications to the boson self-coupling and the boson-fermion coupling, in the static limit, using an effective model of QCD, the linear sigma model with quarks. The former is computed for arbitrary field strengths as well as using the strong field approximation. The latter is obtained in the strong field limit. The arbitrary field result for the boson self-coupling depends on the ultraviolet renormalization scale, and this dependence cannot be removed by a simple vacuum subtraction. Using the strong field result as a guide, we find the appropriate choice for this scale and discuss the physical implications. The boson-fermion coupling depends on the Schwinger phase, and we show how this phase can be treated consistently in such a way that the magnetic-field-induced vertex modification is both gauge invariant and can be written with an explicit factor corresponding to energy-momentum conservation for the external particles. Both couplings show a modest decrease with the field strength.

I correct an error that appeared in Sec. II of the published paper.

We study various entanglement measures associated with certain nonconformal field theories. We consider nonconformal $\mathrm{D}p$-brane backgrounds, which are dual to these field theories, for our holographic analysis. Restricting our interests in $p=1$, 2, 4, we explicitly compute properties of holographic entanglement entropy and the entanglement wedge cross section, ${\mathrm{E}}_W$, corresponding to two parallel strip shaped boundary subregions in these setups. We study low and high temperature behaviors of these quantities analytically as well as by using numerical methods. In all cases, the ${\mathrm{E}}_W$ decreases monotonically with temperature. We observe discontinuous jumps in ${\mathrm{E}}_W$, while the width of (as well as the separation between) the subregions reaches critical values in all the cases considered. However, the corresponding holographic mutual information ${\mathtt{I}}_M$ continuously decreases to zero for the aforementioned configurations. We also notice that the conjectured inequality ${\mathrm{E}}_W\ge {\mathtt{I}}_M/2$ still holds for nonconformal field theories as well. We analytically determine the critical separation between these subregions that triggers a phase transition in the holographic mutual information.

We discuss second quantization, discrete symmetry transformations, and inner products in free non-Hermitian scalar quantum field theories with $\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}$ symmetry, focusing on a prototype model of two complex scalar fields with anti-Hermitian mass mixing. Whereas the definition of the inner product is unique for theories described by Hermitian Hamiltonians, its formulation is not unique for non-Hermitian Hamiltonians. Energy eigenstates are not orthogonal with respect to the conventional Dirac inner product, so we must consider additional discrete transformations to define a positive-definite norm. We clarify the relationship between canonical-conjugate operators and introduce the additional discrete symmetry ${\mathcal{C}}^{\prime }$, previously introduced for quantum-mechanical systems, and show that the ${\mathcal{C}}^{\prime }\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}$ inner product does yield a positive-definite norm, and hence is appropriate for defining the Fock space in non-Hermitian models with $\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}$ symmetry in terms of energy eigenstates. We also discuss similarity transformations between $\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}$-symmetric non-Hermitian scalar quantum field theories and Hermitian theories, showing that they would require modification in the presence of interactions. As an illustration of our discussion, we compare particle mixing in a Hermitian theory and in the corresponding non-Hermitian model with $\mathcal{P}\mathcal{T}$ symmetry, showing how the latter maintains unitarity and exhibits mixing between scalar and pseudoscalar bosons.