We investigate the impact of gravitational wave (GW) dephasing due to gas accretion on the subtraction of massive black hole (MBH) binary signals over 4 yr of LISA data in the context of the global fit. Based on state-of-the-art predictions for the population of merging MBHs, we show that imperfect subtraction with vacuum waveform templates leaves a GW residual with an SNR of ${3.2}_{-1.9}^{+5.4}\times \sqrt{f_{\text{Edd}}⟨\dot{n}⟩/(20{\mathrm{yr}}^{-1})}$, where $f_{\text{Edd}}$ is the typical Eddington ratio and $⟨\dot{n}⟩$ is the mean merger rate of LISA MBH binaries. We characterize the dependence of the residual on key population hyperparameters and provide a simple fitting function. Finally, we consider the distinguishability of the residual as a stochastic signal by comparing with Bayesian power-law sensitivity curves, while discussing several additional detection and mitigation strategies. Overall, our analysis indicates that the residual is unlikely to be confidently distinguishable from instrumental noise, while nevertheless being likely to bias the inference of other signals.

Shocks in astrophysical transients are key sites of particle acceleration. If the shock upstream is optically thick, radiation smoothens the velocity discontinuity at the shock (radiation-mediated shocks). However, in mildly magnetized outflows, a collisionless subshock can form, enhancing the efficiency of particle acceleration. We solve the hydrodynamic equations of a steady-state, radiation-mediated shock together with the radiative transfer equations accounting for electron and proton acceleration. Our goal is to explore the impact of the magnetic field and nonthermal radiation on the shock structure and the resulting spectral distribution of photons. To this purpose, we assume a relativistic upstream fluid velocity (${\mathrm{\Gamma }}_u=10$) and investigate shock configurations with variable upstream magnetization (${\sigma }_u=0$, ${10}^{-8}$, ${10}^{-4}$, 0.1, and 0.3). We find that synchrotron self-absorption alters the shock profile for ${\sigma }_u\gtrsim {10}^{-8}$, with resulting changes up to 100% in the bulk Lorentz factor at the shock; for ${\sigma }_u\gtrsim 0.1$, a prominent subshock forms. The spectral energy distributions of upstream- and downstream-going photons are also altered. Radiative processes linked to accelerated protons are responsible for a high-energy ($\gtrsim 10\mathrm{GeV}$) tail in the photon spectrum; however, the radiation flux and pressure are negligibly affected with consequent minor impact on the shock structure. Our work highlights the importance of coupling the shock hydrodynamics to the transport of photons, electrons, protons, and intermediate particles to forecast the multimessenger emission from astrophysical transients.

We study the effects of dark matter on the properties of hybrid neutron stars, in particular the influence on the mass-radius relation, the value of the maximum mass, and the hadron-quark phase transition. To single out the equilibrium configurations of dark-matter-admixed hybrid neutron stars (DHSs), we also study their radial oscillations. Both the stellar structure equations and the radial oscillation equations are solved for the two-fluid system, where the ordinary matter component and dark matter component couple only through gravity. For the ordinary matter components, we adopt the Brueckner-Hartree-Fock method for nuclear matter, and the Dyson-Schwinger or the field correlator model for quark matter. For the dark matter component, we use a nonself-annihilating self-interacting fermionic model. We find that the presence of dark matter in DHSs leads to a decrease of the critical mass of the hadron-quark phase transition, a related possible onset of quark matter in dark matter accreting stars, and a significant reduction of radial oscillation frequencies.

Core-collapse supernovae (SNe) are sources of gravitational waves (GWs) produced by hydrodynamical instabilities and highly time-dependent anisotropies of the neutrino radiation. In this work, we analyze both contributions to the GW signal for two state-of-the-art three-dimensional (3D) SN models computed with the prometheus-vertex neutrino hydrodynamics code. In contrast to the great majority of models analyzed for GWs so far, our core-collapse simulations were started with $12.28M_{\odot }$ ($18.88M_{\odot }$) progenitors, whose final hour (7 min) of convective oxygen shell burning was computed in 3D and featured a vigorous oxygen-neon shell merger. The corresponding large-scale asymmetries in the oxygen layer are conducive to buoyancy-aided, neutrino-driven explosions. The models were continuously evolved in 3D from the precollapse evolution until 5.11 s (1.68 s) after the core bounce. The GW signals result from well-known dynamical phenomena in the SN core such as prompt postshock convection, neutrino-driven convection, the standing accretion shock instability, proto–neutron star oscillations, and anisotropic ejecta expansion. They do not exhibit any new or specific features that can be unambiguously connected to the powerful precollapse activity in the progenitors, but we identify interesting differences compared to results in the literature. We also discuss measurement prospects by interferometers, confirming that GW signals from future Galactic SNe will be detectable with existing and next-generation experiments working in the frequency range $f\sim 1–2000\mathrm{Hz}$.

We investigate the phenomenological implications of the bosons associated with the $SU(2{)}_F$ subgroup in a simple and realistic $U(2{)}_F$ flavor model. While the Nambu-Goldstone boson of the $U(1{)}_F$ factor behaves as a standard QCD axion (an axiflavon) with suppressed flavor-violating couplings, the three degrees of freedom from $SU(2{)}_F$ have not been studied before. This work focuses on these states, considering both the case where $SU(2{)}_F$ is a global symmetry, yielding pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone bosons (PNGBs), and the case where it is a gauge symmetry with a potentially small coupling, yielding a triplet of (possibly) light gauge bosons. In both scenarios, these new bosons naturally feature unsuppressed flavor-violating couplings to Standard Model fermions in the mass basis. We derive the resulting predictions for flavor-changing neutral currents and lepton flavor violation, including exotic decays of mesons and leptons. Our analysis shows that processes like $K\to \pi X$ and $\mu \to eX$ place the most stringent constraints, probing the flavor symmetry breaking scale $v_{\varphi }$ up to ${10}^{11}–{10}^{12}\mathrm{GeV}$ for light bosons, while heavier states are tested in $B$ and $\tau$ decays, as well as by $K\text{−}\overline{K}$ mixing and $\mu \to e\gamma$. We demonstrate that low-energy flavor experiments provide a powerful probe of this framework, capable of testing ultrahigh symmetry breaking scales that surpass the limits set by astrophysical observations.

We analyze the vacuum structure of the Babu-Nandi-Tavartkiladze (BNT) model of neutrino mass generation, in which the Standard Model is extended by an $SU(2{)}_L$ scalar quadruplet with hypercharge $Y=3/2$ and a vectorlike $SU(2{)}_L$ triplet fermion with $Y=1$, generating neutrino masses via an effective dimension-seven operator. We delineate the theoretical constraints on the model, requiring the scalar potential to be bounded from below in all field directions, ensuring perturbative unitarity of scattering amplitudes, and demanding that the electroweak vacuum corresponds to the global minimum of the potential. We find that the electroweak vacuum is not generically guaranteed to be the global minimum: several charge-breaking stationary points may coexist with—and potentially lie below—it in potential depth. For the electroweak-like vacuum with vanishing quadruplet expectation value, the condition of global stability reduces to two simple mass inequalities involving the doubly and triply charged scalars. In contrast, for the general electroweak vacuum with nonzero doublet and quadruplet expectation values—compatible with neutrino-mass generation—no comparably simple analytic condition emerges, and the stability must in general be assessed for specific choices of scalar couplings. In the special case where the interaction responsible for neutrino-mass generation vanishes, both electroweak configurations coexist, and the bounded-from-below conditions ensure a definite ordering between them. In this limit, the mass inequalities alone are sufficient to guarantee that the general electroweak vacuum is the global minimum. In the physically relevant regime, the results provide practical sufficient criteria and a systematic framework for assessing vacuum stability in the BNT model.

We extend an earlier lattice QCD analysis of heavy-quark current-current correlators to obtain new values for the $\overline{\mathrm{MS}}$ masses of the $b$, $c$, and $s$ quarks. The analysis uses gluon configurations from the MILC Collaboration with vacuum polarization contributions from $u$, $d$, $s$, and $c$ quarks ($n_f=4$), and lattice spacings down to 0.032 fm. We find that ${\overline{m}}_b({\overline{m}}_b,n_f=5)=4.1923(63)\mathrm{GeV}$, ${\overline{m}}_c(3\mathrm{GeV},n_f=4)=0.9813(34)\mathrm{GeV}$, and ${\overline{m}}_s(3\mathrm{GeV},n_f=4)=83.39(26)\mathrm{MeV}$. These results are corrected for QED by including (quenched) QED in the simulations. They are among the most accurate values by any method to date. We give a detailed analysis of finite-lattice-spacing errors that shows why the highly improved staggered quark discretization of the quark action is particularly useful for $b$-quark simulations even for lattices where $a{m}_b\approx 1$. We also calculate QED and isospin corrections to the (fictitious) ${\eta }_s$-meson mass, which is used to tune $s$-quark masses in lattice simulations.

We investigate the in-medium modification and dissociation of heavy quarkonium in a hot QCD medium at finite quark chemical potential and in the weak magnetic-field regime. Starting from the one-loop resummed gluon propagator in the imaginary-time formalism, and incorporating nonperturbative effects through a phenomenological correction to the hard thermal loop description, we compute the real and imaginary parts of the dielectric permittivity. This, in turn, leads to a complex heavy-quark potential: The real part is used to determine binding energies by solving the nonrelativistic Schrödinger equation, while the imaginary part generates thermal decay widths dominated by Landau damping. Within the explored parameter range, the temperature has the greatest control over Debye screening, potential modification, and quarkonium stability, whereas finite density and weak magnetic fields introduce comparatively smaller quantitative changes. As the temperature increases, binding energies decrease and thermal widths grow, giving rise to the expected hierarchy between ground and excited states and a sequential suppression pattern in the dissociation temperatures. Overall, our results indicate that while finite chemical potential and weak magnetic fields can shift quarkonium properties in a measurable way, thermal effects remain the primary driver of dissociation, with direct relevance for heavy-ion collision phenomenology.

Over the past two decades, numerous exotic hadron states have been discovered, yet their underlying nature remains unclear. It is widely acknowledged that understanding hadron-hadron interactions is essential to unraveling their properties. Hadron spectroscopy is a powerful tool for this endeavor, providing rich experimental data that can shed light on exotic systems. Recently, the LHCb experiment analyzed the process $B^{-}\to J/\psi \mathrm{\Lambda }\overline{p}$ and observed a narrow peak in the $J/\psi \mathrm{\Lambda }$ invariant mass spectrum, regarding it as a candidate for a pentaquark. In this work, we extract the coupled-channel $J/\psi \mathrm{\Lambda }-\overline{D}{\mathrm{\Xi }}_c-{\overline{D}}_s{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c$ potential based on the $J/\psi \mathrm{\Lambda }$ invariant mass spectrum. Our results indicate the existence of a bound state below the $\overline{D}{\mathrm{\Xi }}_c$ mass threshold, corresponding to the experimentally measured state $P_{cs}(4338)$. Furthermore, we predict the scattering lengths and momentum correlation functions for the $J/\psi \mathrm{\Lambda }$ and $\overline{D}{\mathrm{\Xi }}_c$ channels, which serve as theoretical references for future femtoscopy experiments.

We investigate the consistency between the collinear twist-3 factorization and the transverse-momentum-dependent (TMD) factorization for the transversely polarized hyperon production in semi-inclusive deep inelastic scattering, $ep\to e{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^{\uparrow }X$. In particular, we focus on the contributions from the twist-3 fragmentation functions (FFs) and the TMD polarizing FF in the region of the hyperon’s intermediate transverse momentum $P_T$, ${\mathrm{\Lambda }}_{\mathrm{QCD}}\ll P_T\ll Q$, where both frameworks are valid. In this region the polarizing FF can be expressed in terms of the twist-3 FFs including the purely gluonic ones, and the resulting TMD factorization formula in the Ji-Ma-Yuan scheme for $ep\to e{\mathrm{\Lambda }}^{\uparrow }X$ agrees with the small-$P_T$ limit of the corresponding twist-3 cross section. This matching of the two calculations indicates that the two frameworks describe the same effect in quantum chromodynamics (QCD) and provide complementary frameworks for the process in different kinematic regions.

The LUX-ZEPLIN (LZ) experiment aims to detect rare interactions between dark matter particles and xenon. Although the detector is designed to be the most sensitive to $\mathrm{GeV}/c^2–\mathrm{TeV}/c^2$ weakly interacting massive particles (WIMPs), it is also capable of measuring low-energy ionization signals down to a single electron that may be produced by scatters of sub-$\mathrm{GeV}/c^2$ dark matter. The major challenge in exploiting this sensitivity is to understand and suppress the ionization background in the few-electron regime. We report a characterization of the delayed electron backgrounds following energy depositions in the LZ detector under different detector conditions. In addition, we quantify the probability for photons to be emitted in coincidence with electron emission from the high voltage grids. We then demonstrate that spontaneous grid electron emission can be identified and rejected with a high efficiency using a coincident photon tag, which provides a tool to improve the sensitivity of future dark matter searches.

Using $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ collision data collected with the BESIII detector corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $44.2{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$, we measure the Born cross sections for the process $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to \mathrm{\Xi }(1530{)}^0{\overline{\mathrm{\Xi }}}^0+\mathrm{c}.\mathrm{c}.$ at 48 center-of-mass energies between 3.51 and 4.95 GeV. The potential signal from non-$D\overline{D}$ decays for $\psi (3770)$, i.e., $\psi (3770)\to \mathrm{\Xi }(1530{)}^0{\overline{\mathrm{\Xi }}}^0+c.c$., is investigated by fitting the dressed cross section, no obvious signal is found. The upper limit of $\mathcal{B}(\psi (3770)\to \mathrm{\Xi }(1530{)}^0{\overline{\mathrm{\Xi }}}^0$) at 90% confidence level is given.

We study the $N=3$ case of the $C{P}^{N-1}$ model, which is a field theory of $N$ complex scalars in $3d$ coupled to an Abelian gauge field with $SU(N)\times U(1)$ global symmetry. Recent evidence suggests the $N=2$ theory is not critical, which makes the $N=3$ theory the simplest possibility of deconfined quantum criticality. We apply the conformal bootstrap to correlators of charge $q=0$, 1, 2 scalar operators under the $U(1)$ symmetry, which gives us access also to $q=3$, 4 operators. After imposing that only the lowest $q=0$, 1, 2 scalar operators are relevant, we find that the bootstrap bounds are saturated by the large $N$ prediction for $q=1$, 2, 3, 4 scalar monopole operator scaling dimensions, which were shown earlier to be accurate even for small $N$, as well as a lattice prediction for the $q=0$ non-monopole scalar operator. We also predict the scaling dimensions of the lowest spinning monopole operators, which we match to the large charge prediction for spinning operators. This suggests that the critical $C{P}^2$ model is described by this bootstrap bound.

Using the coefficient-frame freedom of the $\mathcal{O}({\alpha }^{\prime })$ heterotic metric-dilaton effective action and incorporating it into Kaluza-Klein reduction with different reduction Ansätze and maximally symmetric internal spaces, we derive two distinct reduced five-dimensional scalar-tensor branches: a Lovelock-Horndeski-type theory and, for a special coefficient choice, an Einstein-dilaton-Gauss-Bonnet theory. We present a novel derivation of the full holographic conformal anomaly for these two reduced five-dimensional scalar-tensor theories. In the Lovelock-Horndeski case, we also construct exact asymptotically anti–de Sitter (AdS) solutions with linear-dilaton profiles and establish a holographic a-theorem. Our findings show that AdS/CFT remains sound in the presence of nonminimal scalars and higher-curvature terms, with string corrections fixing the conformal anomaly and the dual RG flow.

We investigate the static scaling behavior of the chiral condensate near the two-flavor critical point within the framework of the soft-wall AdS/QCD. The scaling functions are extracted from the chiral order parameters and are found to precisely match those obtained through mean-field calculations. Additionally, it is also checked that the scaling functions are independent of the specific construction of the holographic model. Furthermore, we develop the formalism for calculating the chiral susceptibility and demonstrate that the pseudocritical temperatures obey the scaling law for moderate quark masses. It is shown that the temperature scaling could be comparable with those obtained from Dyson-Schwinger equations and lattice simulations. While the soft-wall AdS/QCD framework predicts mean-field critical exponents that are universal, the critical coefficients and the crossover dynamics are model dependent and provide quantitative constraints for phenomenological model building. These findings could help improve the effectiveness of the soft-wall AdS/QCD.

We investigate the interplay between genuine entanglement harvesting and communication-mediated correlations for local particle detectors in expanding cosmological spacetimes. Focusing on a conformally coupled scalar field in de Sitter spacetime, we analyze how spacetime expansion induces interference between these two sources of entanglement when the detectors are in causal contact. We compare two physically distinct detector models: detectors whose spatial profile expands with the Universe and detectors whose proper size remains fixed despite cosmological expansion. We find that the lack of time-reversal symmetry in cosmological settings generically leads to constructive or destructive interference between communication-mediated correlations and harvested field correlations, dramatically affecting the entanglement that detectors can acquire. In particular, rapid expansion can suppress entanglement entirely for expanding detectors through destructive interference, even when both communication and field correlations are individually large, whereas detectors that maintain a fixed proper size remain capable of acquiring significant entanglement. Our results show that cosmological expansion qualitatively reshapes the balance between communication and harvesting and that the detector’s internal cohesion (whether it expands with the Universe or not) plays a crucial role in determining whether detectors’ entanglement can survive in rapidly expanding universes.

We investigate abelian Chern-Simons gauge theory on a strip geometry with two spatial boundaries. In the presence of boundaries, gauge invariance is broken by boundary conditions, leading to physical edge excitations. By deriving the most general local boundary conditions consistent with power counting in the sense of Symanzik, we show that the bulk equations of motion determine the boundary degrees of freedom through a broken gauge Ward identity, yielding boundary Kac-Moody current algebras with opposite central charges on the two edges. The corresponding two-dimensional boundary actions are of Tomonaga-Luttinger type and describe chiral bosons propagating in opposite directions along the two boundaries. A consistency condition, interpreted as a holographic-like bulk-boundary matching, relates the Chern-Simons coupling constant and the boundary parameters to the physical edge velocities. Within this framework, the equality and opposite sign of the two velocities in a symmetric setup follow directly from the boundary structure rather than from model-dependent assumptions about confining potentials, and the velocities are independent of the strip width. Our analysis provides a fully field-theoretic realization of bulk-boundary correspondence in Chern-Simons theory with two boundaries, with direct applications to edge physics in quantum Hall systems and related topological/hydrodynamic settings.

Emergent modified gravity has shown that the canonical formulation of general relativity gives rise to a larger class of covariant modifications than action-based approaches, so far in symmetry-reduced models. This outcome is made possible by distinguishing between the spacetime metric on a given solution, and the basic field degrees of freedom in which equations of motion are formulated. In this general treatment, the metric is no longer fundamental but emerges after field equations and covariance conditions are solved. Here, the results are extended to perturbative inhomogeneity on a spatially flat cosmological background, showing that new modifications are possible while maintaining the classical derivative order and setting the stage for dynamical equations suitable for detailed studies of early-universe models.