We present a new estimator for the cross-correlation signal between line-intensity maps to probe the epoch of reionization. The proposed estimator is the hitherto neglected antisymmetric component of the cross-correlation, under the exchange of line-of-sight positions. We consider the cross-correlation between neutral hydrogen and carbon monoxide fluctuations and forecast the improvement in precision on reionization parameters when the antisymmetric contribution is accounted for. As a way to break the degeneracy between astrophysics and cosmology in the intensity mapping power spectrum, we study the ratio between the antisymmetric and symmetric components. While our results depend on the highly uncertain astrophysical modeling, we show that in most standard scenarios including the antisymmetric contribution as a complementary probe can lead to a significant gain in information.

We predict the $\mathcal{V}\to \mathcal{P}\gamma$ decay widths and the $\mathcal{V}\to \mathcal{P}{\gamma }^{*}$ transition form factors, where $\mathcal{V}=(\rho ,\omega ,K^{*},\varphi )$ and $\mathcal{P}=(\pi ,K,\eta ,{\eta }^{\prime })$, using spin-improved holographic light-front wave functions for the mesons. We find excellent agreement with the available data for both the decay widths and the timelike transition form factors extracted from the leptonic conversion decays $\mathcal{V}\to \mathcal{P}{l}^{+}{l}^{-}$.

We discuss the deconfinement and the $\mathcal{C}\mathcal{P}$-breaking phase transitions at $\theta =\pi$ in Yang-Mills theories. The ’t Hooft anomaly matching prohibits the confined phase with $\mathcal{C}\mathcal{P}$ symmetry and requires $T_{\mathrm{dec}}(\theta =\pi )\le T_{\mathrm{CP}}$, where $T_{\mathrm{dec}}(\theta =\pi )$ and $T_{\mathrm{CP}}$ denote the deconfinement and the $\mathcal{C}\mathcal{P}$-restoration temperatures, respectively, at $\theta =\pi$. We analytically study these two phase transitions in softly broken $\mathcal{N}=1$ supersymmetric Yang-Mills theories on small ${\mathbb{R}}^3\times S^1$ with the periodic boundary condition for gluinos. For most gauge groups except SU(2) in this model, we find that the inequality is saturated, so deconfinement and $\mathcal{C}\mathcal{P}$ restoration occur simultaneously. We demonstrate special features of the SU(2) gauge theory: there is a finite window of two temperatures, $T_{\mathrm{dec}}(\pi )<T_{\mathrm{CP}}$, which indicates the existence of a novel $\mathcal{C}\mathcal{P}$-broken deconfined phase. We also discuss an implication of the novel phase for domain walls and their junctions.

Ratios of cross sections, $\sigma (Z+c\text{jets})/\sigma (Z+\text{jets})$, $\sigma (Z+b\text{jets})/\sigma (Z+\text{jets})$, and $\sigma (Z+c\text{jets})/\sigma (Z+b\text{jets})$ in the associated production of a $Z$ boson with at least one charm or bottom quark jet are measured in proton-proton collisions at $\sqrt{s}=13\mathrm{TeV}$. The data sample, collected by the CMS experiment at the CERN LHC, corresponds to an integrated luminosity of $35.9{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$, with a fiducial volume of $p_{\mathrm{T}}>30\mathrm{GeV}$ and $|\eta |<2.4$ for the jets, where $p_{\mathrm{T}}$ and $\eta$ represent transverse momentum and pseudorapidity, respectively. The $Z$ boson candidates come from leptonic decays into electrons or muons with $p_{\mathrm{T}}>25\mathrm{GeV}$ and $|\eta |<2.4$, and the dilepton mass satisfies $71<m_Z<111\mathrm{GeV}$. The measured values are $\sigma (Z+c\text{jets})/\sigma (Z+\text{jets})=0.102\pm 0.002\pm 0.009$, $\sigma (Z+b\text{jets})/\sigma (Z+\text{jets})=0.0633\pm 0.0004\pm 0.0015$, and $\sigma (Z+c\text{jets})/\sigma (Z+b\text{jets})=1.62\pm 0.03\pm 0.15$. Results on the inclusive and differential cross section ratios as functions of jet and $Z$ boson transverse momentum are compared with predictions from leading and next-to-leading order perturbative quantum chromodynamics calculations. These are the first measurements of the cross section ratios at 13 TeV.

We provide semi-analytic expressions for quasinormal mode frequencies of slowly rotating Kerr black holes to the quadratic order in the rotation parameter. We apply the parametrized black hole quasinormal mode ringdown formalism to the Chandrasekhar-Detweiler equation and the Sasaki-Nakamura equation instead of the Teukolsky equation, and compare our result with the previous numerical calculations.

The interior of a Schwarzschild black hole is quantized by the method of loop quantum gravity. The Hamiltonian constraint is solved and the physical Hilbert space is obtained in the model. The properties of a Dirac observable corresponding to the Arnowitt-Deser-Misner mass of the Schwarzschild black hole are studied by both analytical and numerical techniques. It turns out that zero is not in the discrete spectrum of this Dirac observable. This supports the existence of a stable remnant after the evaporation of a black hole. Our conclusion is valid for a general class of schemes adopted for loop quantization of the model.

We examine the possibility that the light companion in the highly asymmetric binary compact object coalescence event GW190814 is a hypernuclear star. We use density functional theory with functionals that have been tuned to the properties of $\mathrm{\Lambda }$ hypernuclei as well as astrophysical constraints placed by the masses of the most massive millisecond pulsars, the mass-radius range inferred from the NICER experiment, and the binary neutron star merger event GW170817. We compute general-relativistic static and maximally rotating Keplerian configurations of purely nucleonic and hypernuclear stars. We find that while nucleonic stars are broadly consistent with a neutron star being involved in GW190814, this would imply no new degrees of freedom in the dense matter up to 6.5 times the nuclear saturation density. Allowing for hyperonization of dense matter, we find that the maximal masses of hypernuclear stars, even for maximal rapidly rotating configurations, are inconsistent with a stellar nature interpretation of the light companion in GW190814, implying that this event involved two black holes rather than a neutron star and a black hole.

We clarify open issues in relating low- and high-energy observables, at next-to-leading order accuracy, in models with a massive leptoquark embedded in a flavor nonuniversal $SU(4)\times SU(3)\times SU(2)\times U(1)$ gauge group. Extending previous work on this subject, we present a complete analysis of the $\mathcal{O}({\alpha }_s)$ corrections to the matching conditions of semileptonic operators at the high scale. These corrections are not negligible, but they do not exceed the 10% level and are subleading compared to the $\mathcal{O}({\alpha }_4)$ corrections proportional to the leading leptoquark coupling, which is expected to be much larger than the QCD coupling in the parameter space region of phenomenological interest. We further analyze the impact of radial modes, both at $\mathcal{O}({\alpha }_4)$ and at $\mathcal{O}({\alpha }_s)$ accuracies, highlighting their role in the renormalization of the theory.

The holographic duals of entanglement of purification (EoP) through the entanglement wedge cross section (EWCS) have been a well-discussed topic in the literature recently. More general entanglement measures involving multipartite information and their holographic duals have also been proposed. On the other hand, the recent program reproducing the Page curve in black hole entropy with the notion of islands has also been an intriguing area of interest. A toy model involving multiboundary wormholes in ${\mathrm{AdS}}_3$ was able to capture many interesting facts about such calculations. In such a toy model, the notion of islands was intuitively connected to quantum error correction. We try to bridge the ideas of the two programs, especially in ${\mathrm{AdS}}_3/{\mathrm{CFT}}_2$, and give a description of the islands in terms of multipartite entanglement of purification. This clarifies a few simplified assumptions made while describing the toy model and also enables us to understand the familiar information paradox within the framework of the same model.

In order to study the rotating strongly coupled Bose-Einstein condensations (BEC), a holographic model defined in an anti–de Sitter black hole that duals to a coupled two-component condensations in global $U(1)$ symmetry broken phase with intercomponent coupling $\eta$ and internal coherent coupling $\epsilon$ is proposed. By solving the dynamics of the model, we study the process of vortex formation and also the crossover from fractional to integer vortex phases. With changing only $\eta$ from zero to a finite value, fractional vortex lattices undergo a transition from hexagon to square lattice and finally to vortex sheets. By continuing to turn on $\epsilon$, we find that two fractional vortices in different components constitute dimers, and when $\eta$ transcends a critical value, multidimer like hexamer or tetramer made up of two and three dimers appears. As $\epsilon$ keeps increasing, some dimers rotate to adjust themselves and then constitute the lattice of integer vortices. Under an initial condition similar to a spinor BEC vortices dynamics experiment, the appearance of disordered turbulence is found in the process of fractional vortex generation, which matches the experimental observation. While in the formation process of integer vortices, the appearance of grooves is predicted.

We study the self-consistency of the first-order formulation of quantum gravity, which may be attained by introducing, apart from the graviton field, another auxiliary quantum field. By comparing the forms of the generating functional $Z$ before and after integrating out the additional field, we derive a set of structural identities, which must be satisfied by the Green’s functions at all orders. These are distinct from the usual Ward identities, being necessary for the self-consistency of the first-order formalism. They relate the Green’s functions involving the additional quantum field to those containing a certain composite graviton field, which corresponds to its classical value. Thereby, the structural identities lead to a simple interpretation of the auxiliary field.

We study the open and closed axisymmetric marginally outer trapped surfaces contained in leaves of constant Painlevé-Gullstrand time for Schwarzschild spacetimes. We identify a family of closed marginally outer trapped surface (MOTS) in the black hole interior characterized by an arbitrary number of self-intersections. This suggests that the self-intersecting behavior reported by Pook-Kolb et al. [Phys. Rev. D 100, 084044 (2019)] may be a far more generic phenomenon than expected. We also consider open surfaces, finding that their behavior is highly constrained but includes surfaces with multiple self-intersections inside the horizon. We argue that the behavior of open MOTS identifies and constrains the possible local behavior of MOTS during extreme mass ratio mergers.

We study the phenomena of mass inflation using the Ori model for a rotating Bañados-Teitelboim-Zanelli (BTZ) black hole that is sufficiently far from extremality, and show that the right Cauchy horizon (${\mathcal{CH}}_R^{+}$) of the BTZ black hole becomes singular. Motivated by the recent analysis of Dias, Reall, Santos [J. High Energy Phys. 12 (2019) 097], we choose the retrograde quasinormal modes to govern the decay of perturbations exterior to the black hole. The resulting model captures the violation of the strong cosmic censorship conjecture near extremality. On the other hand, far from extremality, the ${\mathcal{CH}}_R^{+}$ of a BTZ black hole develops a weak null singularity. Our analysis shows a slowly rotating BTZ black hole will respect strong cosmic censorship.

With a scalar field nonminimally coupled to curvature, the underlying geometry and variational principle of gravity—metric or Palatini—becomes important and makes a difference, as the field dynamics and observational predictions generally depend on this choice. In the present paper, we describe a classification principle which encompasses both metric and Palatini models of inflation, employing the fact that inflationary observables can be neatly expressed in terms of certain quantities which remain invariant under conformal transformations and scalar field redefinitions. This allows us to elucidate the specific conditions when a model yields equivalent phenomenology in the metric and Palatini formalisms and also to outline a method how to systematically construct different models in both formulations that produce the same observables.

We investigate the gravitational particle production in the bounce phase of loop quantum cosmology (LQC). We perform both analytical and numerical analysis of the particle production process in a LQC scenario with a Bunch-Davies vacuum initial condition in the contracting phase. We obtain that if we extend the validity of the dressed metric approach beyond the limit of small backreaction in which it is well justified, this process would lead to a radiation dominated phase in the preinflationary phase of LQC. Our results indicate that the test field approximation, which is required in the truncation scheme used in the dressed metric approach, might not be a valid assumption in a LQC scenario with such initial conditions.

We investigate the model of dark matter-dark energy (DM-DE) interaction with coupling strength proportional to the multiplication of dark sector densities with different power indices $Q=\gamma {\rho }_{\mathrm{c}}^{\alpha }{\rho }_{\mathrm{d}}^{\beta }$. We first investigate the modification of the cosmic expansion history, and then further develop the formalism to take into account the cosmological perturbations and dark matter temperature evolution. We then use the latest observational cosmology data, including cosmic microwave background (CMB) data, baryon acoustic oscillations (BAO) data, redshift-space distortion (RSD) data and Type Ia supernovae (SNe) data to constrain the model parameters. We find in the phantom region, a positive $\alpha$ is preferred by the data above $2\sigma$ statistic significance. If we choose the power indices to be integers or half-integers for plausible physics of particle interaction, the allowed values within $1\sigma$ confidence regions are $\alpha =0.5$ and $\beta =0$, 0.5, 1. The inclusion of BAO and RSD data from large-scale structure and SNe data improves the constraints significantly. Our model predicts lower values of $f(z){\sigma }_8(z)$ at $z<1$ comparing to $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ model, which alleviates the tension of $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ with various RSD data from optical galaxy surveys. Overall, the DM-DE interaction model is consistent with the current observational data, especially providing a better fit to the RSD data.

Recent anomalies in ${}^8\mathrm{Be}$ and ${}^4\mathrm{He}$ nuclear decays can be explained by postulating a fifth force mediated by a new boson $X$. The distributions of both transitions are consistent with the same $X$ mass, 17 MeV, providing kinematic evidence for a single new particle explanation. In this work, we examine whether the new results also provide dynamical evidence for a new particle explanation, that is, whether the observed decay rates of both anomalies can be described by a single hypothesis for the $X$ boson’s interactions. We consider the observed ${}^8\mathrm{Be}$ and ${}^4\mathrm{He}$ excited nuclei, as well as a ${}^{12}\mathrm{C}$ excited nucleus; together these span the possible $J^P$ quantum numbers up to spin 1 for excited nuclei. For each transition, we determine whether scalar, pseudoscalar, vector, or axial vector $X$ particles can mediate the decay, and we construct the leading operators in a nuclear physics effective field theory that describes them. Assuming parity conservation, the scalar case is excluded and the pseudoscalar case is highly disfavored. Remarkably, however, the protophobic vector gauge boson, first proposed to explain only the ${}^8\mathrm{Be}$ anomaly, also explains the ${}^4\mathrm{He}$ anomaly within experimental uncertainties. We predict signal rates for other closely related nuclear measurements, which, if confirmed by the ATOMKI group and others, would provide overwhelming evidence that a fifth force has been discovered.

An approach to study a generalization of the classical-quantum transition for general systems is proposed. In order to develop the idea, a deformation of the ladder operators algebra is proposed that contains a realization of the quantum group $SU(2{)}_q$ as a particular case. In this deformation Planck’s constant becomes an operator whose eigenvalues approach $\hslash$ for small values of $n$ (the eigenvalue of the number operator) and zero for large values of $n$ (the system is classicalized).

We discuss type II seesaw models adopting modular $A_4$ symmetry in a supersymmetric framework. In our approach, the models are classified by the assignment of $A_4$ representations and modular weights for leptons and triplet Higgs fields. Then neutrino mass matrix is characterized by modulus $\tau$ and two free parameters. Carrying out numerical analysis, we find allowed parameter sets which can fit the neutrino oscillation data. For the allowed parameter sets, we obtain the predictions in the neutrino sector such as $CP$ violating phases and the lightest neutrino mass. Finally, we also show the predictions for the branching ratios of a doubly charged scalar boson, focusing on the case where the doubly charged scalar boson dominantly decays into charged leptons.

We study the effect of the early kinetic decoupling in a model of fermionic dark matter (DM) that interacts with the standard model particles only by exchanging the Higgs boson. There are two DM-Higgs couplings, namely $CP$-conserving and $CP$-violating couplings. If the mass of the DM is slightly below half of the Higgs boson mass, then the couplings are suppressed to obtain the measured value of the DM energy density by the freeze-out mechanism. In addition, the scattering processes of DM off particles in the thermal bath are suppressed by the small momentum transfer if the $CP$-violating DM-Higgs coupling is larger than the $CP$-conserving one. Due to the suppression, the temperature of the DM can differ from the temperature of the thermal bath. By solving coupled equations for the number density and temperature of the DM, we calculate the DM-Higgs couplings that reproduce the right amount of the DM relic abundance. We find that the couplings have to be larger than the one obtained without taking into account the difference in the temperatures. A consequence of the enhancement of the DM-Higgs couplings is the enhancement of the Higgs invisible decay branching ratio. The enhancement is testable at current and future collider experiments.