We detect weak gravitational lensing of the cosmic microwave background at the location of the $WISE\times \mathrm{SuperCOSMOS}$ ($WISE\times \mathrm{SCOS}$) galaxies using the publicly available Planck lensing convergence map. By stacking the lensing convergence map at the position of 12.4 million galaxies in the redshift range $0.1\le z\le 0.345$, we find the average mass of the galaxies to be ${\mathrm{M}}_{200_{\mathrm{crit}}}=6.25\pm 0.6\times {10}^{12}{M}_{\odot }$. The null hypothesis of no lensing is rejected at a significance of $17\sigma$. We split the galaxy sample into three redshift slices, each containing $\sim 4.1$ million objects, and obtain lensing masses in each slice of $4.18\pm 0.8$, $6.93\pm 0.9$, and $18.84\pm 1.2\times {10}^{12}{M}_{\odot }$. Our results suggest a redshift evolution of the galaxy sample masses, but this apparent increase might be due to the preferential selection of intrinsically luminous sources at high redshifts. The recovered mass of the stacked sample is reduced by 28% when we remove the galaxies in the vicinity of galaxy clusters with mass ${\mathrm{M}}_{200_{\mathrm{crit}}}=2\times {10}^{14}{M}_{\odot }$. We forecast that upcoming CMB surveys can achieve 5% galaxy mass constraints over sets of 12.4 million galaxies with ${\mathrm{M}}_{200_{\mathrm{crit}}}=1\times {10}^{12}{M}_{\odot }$ at $z=1$.

We consider an inflationary model motivated by quantum effects of gravitational and matter fields near the Planck scale. Our Lagrangian is a resummed version of the effective Lagrangian recently obtained by Demmel, Saueressig, and Zanusso [A proper fixed functional for four-dimensional quantum Einstein gravity, J. High Energy Phys. 08 (2015) 113.] in the context of gravity as an asymptotically safe theory. It represents a refined Starobinsky model, ${\mathcal{L}}_{\mathrm{eff}}=M_{\mathrm{P}}^{2}R/2+(a/2)R^2/[1+b\ln (R/{\mu }^2)]$, where $R$ is the Ricci scalar, $a$ and $b$ are constants, and $\mu$ is an energy scale. By implementing the COBE normalization and the Planck constraint on the scalar spectrum, we show that increasing $b$ leads to an increased value of both the scalar spectral index $n_s$ and the tensor-to-scalar ratio $r$. Requiring $n_s$ to be consistent with the Planck Collaboration upper limit, we find that $r$ can be as large as $r\simeq 0.01$, the value possibly measurable by Stage IV CMB ground experiments and certainly from future dedicated space missions. The predicted running of the scalar spectral index $\alpha =d{n}_s/d\ln (k)$ is still of the order $-5\times {10}^{-4}$ (as in the Starobinsky model), about 1 order of magnitude smaller than the current observational bound.

Observations by the High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Observatory indicate that many young pulsars (including Geminga and Monogem) are surrounded by spatially extended, multi-TeV emitting regions. It is not currently known, however, whether TeV emission is also produced by recycled, millisecond pulsars (MSPs). In this study, we perform a stacked analysis of 24 MSPs within HAWC’s field of-view, finding between $2.6–3.1\sigma$ evidence that these sources are, in fact, surrounded by TeV halos. The efficiency with which these MSPs produce TeV halos is similar to that exhibited by young pulsars. This result suggests that several dozen MSPs will ultimately be detectable by HAWC, including many “invisible” pulsars without radio beams oriented in our direction. The TeV halos of unresolved MSPs could also dominate the TeV-scale diffuse emission observed at high galactic latitudes. We also discuss the possibility that TeV and radio observations could be used to constrain the population of MSPs that is present in the inner Milky Way, thereby providing us with a new way to test the hypothesis that MSPs are responsible for the Galactic Center GeV excess.

Motivated by neutrino astronomy, we consider a plane wave of coupled and massive flavors, scattered by a static black hole, and describe analytically and numerically the corresponding oscillation probability in the surrounding space. Both the interpretation as particles traveling along geodesics and as scattered waves are studied, and consistently show a nontrivial and potentially long range interference pattern, in contrast to the spatially uniform transition probability in a flat spacetime. We introduce a numerical method for studying the oscillations around black holes, which accounts for the full curved geometry and flavor wave mixing. Whilst limited to the region immediately around the black hole, this numerical approach has the potential to be used in more general contexts, revealing the complex interference patterns which defy analytic methods.

The observation of the diffuse Galactic gamma-ray flux is the most powerful tool to study cosmic rays in different regions of the Galaxy, because the energy and angular distributions of the photons encode information about the density and spectral shape of relativistic particles in the entire Milky Way. An open problem of fundamental importance is whether cosmic rays in distant regions of the Milky Way have the same spectral shape observed at the Earth or not. If the spectral shape of protons and nuclei is equal in all the Galaxy, the dominant, hadronic component of the diffuse gamma-ray flux must have an angular distribution that, after correcting for absorption effects, is energy independent. To study experimentally the validity of this factorization of the energy and angular dependence of the diffuse flux it is necessary to compare observations in a very broad energy range. The extension of the observations to energies $E_{\gamma }\simeq 0.1–10\mathrm{PeV}$ is of great interest, because it allows the study of the cosmic ray spectra around the feature known as the “knee.” The absorption probability for photons in this energy range is not negligible, and distorts the energy and angular distributions of the diffuse flux, therefore a precise calculation of the absorption effects is necessary for the interpretation of the data. In this work we present predictions of the diffuse gamma-ray flux at very high energy, constructed under different hypothesis for the space dependence of the cosmic ray energy spectra, and discuss the potential of the observations for present and future detectors.

A LHAASO-KM2A prototype array, which is about 1% of the full one, had been in stable operation for about 3 years from 2014 to 2016. This work presents a combined measurement of shower muons and electromagnetic particles using its data. Benefiting from the wide dynamic range of the muon detectors and the surrounding electromagnetic detector array, the muon content was studied in detail for showers with energies from tens of TeV to tens of PeV. The results are compatible with the prediction of Monte Carlo simulation and no obvious excess is observed when taking into account that the mass composition increases above 1 PeV. The results also support a transition from light to heavy elements for cosmic rays in the “knee” region.

We perform a study of the $B^{(*)}$, $D^{(*)}$ semileptonic decays, using a different method than in conventional approaches, where the matrix elements of the weak operators are evaluated and a detailed spin-angular momentum algebra is performed to obtain very simple expressions at the end for the different decay modes. Using only one experimental decay rate in the $B$ or $D$ sectors, the rates for the rest of decay modes are predicted and they are in good agreement with experiment. Some discrepancies are observed in the $\tau$ decay mode for which we find an explanation. We perform evaluations for $B^{*}$ and $D^{*}$ decay rates that can be used in future measurements, now possible in the LHCb Collaboration.

Clock-comparison experiments are among the sharpest existing tests of Lorentz symmetry in matter. We characterize signals in these experiments arising from modifications to electron or nucleon propagators and involving Lorentz- and $CPT$-violating operators of arbitrary mass dimension. The spectral frequencies of the atoms or ions used as clocks exhibit perturbative shifts that can depend on the constituent-particle properties and can display sidereal and annual variations in time. Adopting an independent-particle model for the electronic structure and the Schmidt model for the nucleus, we determine observables for a variety of clock-comparison experiments involving fountain clocks, comagnetometers, ion traps, lattice clocks, entangled states, and antimatter. The treatment demonstrates the complementarity of sensitivities to Lorentz and $CPT$ violation among these different experimental techniques. It also permits the interpretation of some prior results in terms of bounds on nonminimal coefficients for Lorentz violation, including first constraints on nonminimal coefficients in the neutron sector. Estimates of attainable sensitivities in future analyses are provided. Two technical appendices collect relationships between spherical and Cartesian coefficients for Lorentz violation and provide explicit transformations converting Cartesian coefficients in a laboratory frame to the canonical Sun-centered frame.

The lightest supersymmetric particle (LSP) is generally regarded as a Higgsino in focus point supersymmetry (SUSY). Under such a circumstance, it leads to a bileptino LSP when the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model (MSSM) is extended by the $U(1{)}_{B-L}$ gauge group within the framework of double focus point (DFP) supersymmetry. The bileptino is a copy of a Higgsino whose partner, the bilepton, is used to break $U(1{)}_{B-L}$ gauge symmetry spontaneously. Such a scenario, however, is not favored by direct detection since it leads to an unacceptable spin-independent cross section when one requires a correct self-scattering cross section. We point out that is not necessarily the case even in the presence of light $Z^{\prime }$. The right-handed sneutrino in this model acts as the LSP in most of the parameter space for nonvanishing soft trilinear coupling $T_{\eta }$. It is thus consistent with the requirement of DFP SUSY without involving any direct detection issue. The corrected relic abundance could be achieved via a sneutrino annihilating into a pair of bileptons, which also serve as a light mediator in self-interacting dark matter (SIDM). Moreover, the stringent constraint that comes from cosmic microwave background anisotropies can be evaded by considering the retarded decay of right-handed neutrinos. We further stress the need for a large soft trilinear term $T_{\eta }$ in order to generate a desirable self-scattering cross section $\sigma /m_{{\tilde{\nu }}_R}$ with moderate Yukawa coupling $Y_{\eta }$. The numerical calculation illustrates that SIDM is reliable in our model from the scales of a dwarf galaxy to a galaxy cluster.

Within the framework of the $U(3)$ chiral perturbation theory, we revisit the masses, decay constants, and the mixing parameters of the light pseudoscalar mesons $\pi$, $K$, $\eta$, and ${\eta }^{\prime }$. The low energy constants up to next-to-next-to-leading order are determined by including the light-quark mass dependences of the various quantities from different lattice QCD simulations and relevant phenomenological inputs. Then we study the finite-temperature behaviors of the masses of the light pseudoscalar mesons. The thermal behaviors of the $\eta \text{−}{\eta }^{\prime }$ mixing angles in singlet-octet and quark-flavor bases are also explored. While the masses of the $\pi$, $K$, and $\eta$ are increased when increasing the temperatures, the mass of the ${\eta }^{\prime }$ turns out to be slightly decreased in the low-temperature region.

The net-baryon number fluctuations for three-flavor quark matter are computed within the Polyakov extended Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model. Two models with vanishing and nonvanishing vector interactions are considered. While the former predicts a critical endpoint (CEP) in the phase diagram, the latter predicts no CEP. We show that the nonmonotonic behavior of the susceptibilities in the phase diagram is still present even in the absence of a CEP. Therefore, from the nonmonotonic behavior of the susceptibilities solely, one cannot assume the existence of a CEP. We analyze other possible properties that may distinguish the two scenarios, and determine the behavior of the net-baryon number fluctuations and the velocity of sound along several isentropes, with moderate and small values. It is shown that the value of the susceptibilities ratios and the velocity of sound at two or three isentropic lines could possibly allow to distinguish both scenarios, a phase diagram with or without CEP. Smoother behaviors of these quantities may indicate the nonexistence of a CEP. We also discuss the critical behavior of the strange sector.

We investigate the $\mathcal{O}({\alpha }_s)$ correction to $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to J/\psi +{\eta }_{c2}$ in the NRQCD factorization approach. A detailed comparative study between $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to J/\psi +{\eta }_{c2}$ and $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to J/\psi +{\chi }_{c1}^{\prime }$ at the $B$ factory energy is also carried out. After incorporating the $\mathcal{O}({\alpha }_s)$ correction, we predict the cross section for the former process to be around 0.3 fb, while that of the latter is about 6 times greater. The outgoing $J/\psi$ is found to be dominantly transversely polarized in the former process, while longitudinally polarized in the latter. These features may provide valuable guidance for the Belle 2 experiment to establish the ${\chi }_{c1}^{\prime }$ or ${\eta }_{c2}$ states. In the Appendix, we also identify the coefficients of the double logarithms of form ${\ln }^2(s/m_c^2)$ associated with all the relevant next-to-leading-order Feynman diagrams, for the helicity-suppressed double-charmonium production channels $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to J/\psi +{\eta }_{c2}$ and $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to J/\psi +{\chi }_{c0,1,2}$.

Flavor-changing neutral currents are not present in the Standard Model at tree level and are suppressed in loop processes by the unitarity of the Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa matrix; the corresponding rates for top quark decay processes are experimentally unobservable. Extensions of the Standard Model can generate new flavor-changing neutral current processes, leading to signals which, if observed, would be unambiguous evidence of new interactions. A data set corresponding to an integrated luminosity of $36.1{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$ of $pp$ collisions at a center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}=13\mathrm{TeV}$ recorded with the ATLAS detector at the Large Hadron Collider is used to search for top quarks decaying to up or charm quarks with the emission of a Higgs boson, with subsequent Higgs boson decay to final states with at least one electron or muon. No signal is observed and limits on the branching fractions $\mathcal{B}(t\to Hc)<0.16\%$ and $\mathcal{B}(t\to Hu)<0.19\%$ at 95% confidence level are obtained (with expected limits of 0.15% in both cases).

Geometrically the phase space of a mechanical system involves the cotangent bundle of the configuration space. The phase space of a relativistic field theory is infinite dimensional and can be endowed with a symplectic structure defined in a perfectly covariant manner that is very useful for discussing symmetries and conserved quantities of the system. In general relativity the symplectic structure takes the Darboux form, and it is shown in this work that the presence of a cosmological constant does not change this conclusion. For space-times that admit timelike Killing vectors the formalism can be used to define mass in general relativity, and it is known that, for asymptotically flat black holes, this mass is identical to the usual Arnowitt-Desner-Misner mass while for asymptotically anti–de Sitter Kerr metrics it is the same as the Henneaux-Teitelboim mass. We show that the same formalism can also be used to derive the Brown-York mass and the Bondi mass for stationary space times, in particular the Brown-York mass has a natural interpretation in terms of differential forms on the space of solutions of the theory.

For a field theory that is invariant under diffeomorphisms there is a subtle interplay between symmetries, conservation laws and the phase space of the theory. The natural language for describing these ideas is that of differential forms, and both differential forms on space-time and differential forms on the infinite dimensional space of solutions of the equations of motion of the field theory play an important role. There are exterior derivatives on both spaces, and together they weave a double differential complex which captures the cohomology of the theory. This is important in the definition of invariants in general relativity, such as mass and angular momentum and is also relevant to the study of quantum anomalies in gauge theories. We derive the structure of this double complex and show how it relates to conserved quantities in gravitational theories. One consequence of the construction is that conserved quantities can be calculated exactly at finite distance—e.g., it is not necessary to go to asymptotic regimes to calculate the mass or angular momentum of a stationary solution of Einstein’s equations; they can be obtained exactly by an integration over any sphere outside the mass even at finite radius.

Thermodynamics and thermal stability of novel charged dilaton black holes have been analyzed in the presence of the exponential nonlinear electrodynamics. It has been found that the scalar field can be written as the linear combination of two Liouville-type potentials. Three new classes of nonlinearly charged dilatonic black holes have been obtained as the exact solutions to the coupled scalar, electromagnetic, and gravitational field equations. The impacts of nonlinear electrodynamics on the conserved and thermodynamic quantities of the new black hole solutions have been calculated. It has been illustrated that the first law of black hole thermodynamics is valid for either of the new black hole solutions. A thermal stability or phase transition analysis has been performed making use of the canonical ensemble method. The points of type-1 and type-2 phase transitions as well as the ranges at which the new nonlinearly charged dilatonic black holes are locally stable have been determined.

47 Tuc was the first globular cluster observed to be $\gamma$-ray bright, with the $\gamma$ rays being attributed to a population of unresolved millisecond pulsars (MSPs). Recent kinematic data combined with detailed simulations appear to be consistent with the presence of an intermediate mass black hole (IMBH) at the center of 47 Tuc. We analyze nine years of Fermi-LAT observations to study the spectral properties of 47 Tuc with unprecedented accuracy and sensitivity. This nine-year $\gamma$-ray spectrum shows that 47 Tuc’s $\gamma$-ray flux cannot be explained by MSPs alone due to a systematic discrepancy between the predicted and observed flux. Rather, we find a significant preference ($\mathrm{TS}=40$) for describing 47 Tuc’s spectrum with a two source population model consisting of an ensemble of MSPs and annihilating dark matter (DM) with an enhanced density around the IMBH when compared to a MSP-only explanation. The best-fit DM mass of 34 GeV is essentially the same as the best-fit DM explanation for the Galactic center “excess” when assuming DM annihilation into $b\overline{b}$ quarks. Our work constitutes the first possible evidence of dark matter within a globular cluster.

A well-motivated class of dark matter candidates, including axions and dark photons, takes the form of coherent oscillations of a light bosonic field. If the dark matter couples to standard model states, it may be possible to detect it via absorptions in a laboratory target. Current experiments of this kind include cavity-based resonators that convert bosonic dark matter to electromagnetic fields, operating at microwave frequencies. We propose a new class of detectors at higher frequencies, from the infrared through the ultraviolet, based on the dielectric haloscope concept. In periodic photonic materials, bosonic dark matter can efficiently convert to detectable single photons. With feasible experimental techniques, these detectors can probe significant new parameter space for axion and dark photon dark matter in the $0.1–10\mathrm{eV}$ mass range.

Inspired by the newly observed $\mathrm{\Omega }(2012)$ state at Belle II, we investigate the two-body strong decays of $\mathrm{\Omega }$ baryons up to $N=2$ shell within the chiral quark model. Our results indicate that (i) the newly observed $\mathrm{\Omega }(2012)$ state could be assigned to the spin-parity $J^P=3/2^{-}$ state $|{70,}^{2}10,1,1,{\frac{3}{2}}^{-}⟩$ and the experimental data can be reasonably described. However, the spin-parity $J^P=1/2^{-}$ state $|{70,}^{2}10,1,1,{\frac{1}{2}}^{-}⟩$ and spin-parity $J^P=3/2^{+}$ state $|{56,}^{4}10,2,0,{\frac{3}{2}}^{+}⟩$ cannot be completely excluded. (ii) The $D$-wave states in the $N=2$ shell are most likely to be narrow states with a width of dozens of MeV and have a good potential to be observed in the $\mathrm{\Xi }K$ and/or $\mathrm{\Xi }(1530)K$ channels in future experiments. The $\mathrm{\Omega }(2250)$ resonance listed in PDG may be a good candidate for the $J^P=5/2^{+}$ $1D$ wave state $|{56,}^{4}10,2,2,5/2^{+}⟩$.

The kurtosis and skewness of net baryon-number fluctuations are studied for the magnetized phase diagram of three-flavor quark matter within the Polyakov extended Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model. Two models with magnetic catalysis and inverse magnetic catalysis are considered. Special attention is given to their behavior in the neighborhood of the light and strange critical end points (CEPs). Several isentropic trajectories that come close the CEPs are studied in order to analyze possible signatures of a CEP in the presence of external magnetic fields. The effect of the magnetic field on the velocity of sound, $v_s^2$, when both the light and strange CEPs are approached from the crossover region is also investigated by calculating their temperature and baryon chemical potential dependencies at fixed distances from these CEPs. Regions with large fluctuations but no CEP in nonmagnetized matter develop a CEP under the action of a strong magnetic field. Besides, the Landau quantization of the quark trajectories may result in the appearance of extra CEPs, in particular, in the strange sector for strong magnetic fields, identifiable by the net baryon-number fluctuations. Stiffer (smoother) fluctuations in the region of the CEP are characteristic of models that do not predict (do predict) the inverse magnetic catalysis at zero chemical potential. Particularly interesting is the ratio ${\chi }_B^4/{\chi }_B^2$ that has a more pronounced peak structure, indicating that it is eventually a more convenient probe for the search of a CEP. The speed of sound shows a much richer structure in magnetized quark matter and allows one to identify both chiral and deconfinement transitions.