In order to understand the possible $q\overline{q}$ quark-model assignments of the $B_J(5840)$ and $B_J(5960)$ recently reported by the LHCb Collaboration, we evaluate mass spectra, strong decays, and radiative decays of bottom and bottom-strange mesons in a nonrelativistic quark model. Comparing these predictions with the relevant experimental results, we suggest that the $B_J(5840)$ and $B_J(5960)$ can be identified as the $B(2{{}^{1}S}_0)$ and $B(1{{}^{3}D}_3)$, respectively, and the $B(5970)$ reported by the CDF Collaboration can be interpreted as the $B(2{{}^{3}S}_1)$ or $B(1{{}^{3}D}_3)$. Further precise measurements of the width, spin and decay modes of the $B(5970)$ are needed to distinguish these two assignments. These predictions of bottom and bottom-strange mesons can provide useful information to further experimental investigations.

We show how a scheme of rewriting a divergent momentum integral can conciliate results obtained with the Nambu–Jona-Lasinio model and recent lattice results for the chiral transition in the presence of a chiral imbalance in quark matter. Purely vacuum contributions are separated from medium-dependent regularized momentum integrals in such a way that one is left with ultraviolet divergent momentum integrals that depend on vacuum quantities only. The scheme is applicable to other commonly used effective models to study quark matter with a chiral imbalance, it allows us to identify the source of their difficulties in reproducing the qualitative features of lattice results, and enhances their predictability and uses in other applications.

It is argued that the charged $Z_c^{+}(3885)$ resonance, treated as a “molecular” state of charmed $D$ and $D^{*}$ mesons, is likely to consist of two peaks unequally coupled to the $D^{*+}{\overline{D}}^0$ and $D^{+}{\overline{D}}^{*0}$ channels. The peaks should be split in mass by at least approximately 1.5 MeV. This behavior arises from an enhancement of the effect of isospin violation in the masses of the $D$ and $D^{*}$ mesons due to apparent suppression of forces between the mesons depending on the spins of the heavy as well as the light quarks. The suggested double-peak structure can be studied either by direct shape measurement in the channels with heavy mesons, or by isospin-violating transitions from $Z_c^{\pm }(3885)$ to the states of charmonium plus a light meson.

We develop a way of improving complex Langevin dynamics motivated by the Lefschetz-thimble decomposition of integrals. In our method, arbitrary observables of an original model with multiple Lefschetz thimbles are computed by a modified model with a single thimble. We apply our modification method to a one-dimensional integral in which the naive implementation of the complex Langevin dynamics fails to reproduce the exact results due to the severe sign problem. We show that the toy model can be modified so that the new model consists of a single Lefschetz thimble. We find that correct results can be obtained by the improved complex Langevin dynamics.

We consider the influence of photon-initiated processes on high-mass particle production. We discuss in detail the photon parton distribution function (PDF) at relatively high parton $x$, relevant to such processes, and evaluate its uncertainties. In particular we show that, as the dominant contribution to the input photon distribution is due to coherent photon emission, at phenomenologically relevant scales the photon PDF is already well determined in this region, with the corresponding uncertainties under good control. We then demonstrate the implications of this result for the example processes of high-mass lepton and $W$ boson pair production at the LHC and FCC. While for the former process the photon-initiated contribution is expected to be small, in the latter case we find that it is potentially significant, in particular at larger masses.

In this paper we study the Nielsen identity for the supersymmetric Chern-Simons-matter model in the superfield formalism, in three spacetime dimensions. The Nielsen identity is essential to understand the gauge invariance of the symmetry breaking mechanism, and it is obtained by using the Becchi-Rouet-Stora-Tyutin invariance of the model. We discuss the technical difficulties in applying this identity to the complete effective superpotential, but we show how we can study in detail the gauge independence of one part of the effective superpotential, $K_{\mathrm{eff}}$. We calculate the renormalization group functions of the model for an arbitrary gauge-fixing parameter, finding them to be independent of the gauge choice. This result can be used to argue that $K_{\mathrm{eff}}$ also does not depend on the gauge parameter. We discuss the possibility of the extension of these results to the complete effective superpotential.

The study of generic, nonlinear, deformations of special relativity parametrized by a high-energy scale $M$, which was carried out at first order in $1/M$ in J. M. Carmona, J. L. Cortés, and F. Mercati, Phys. Rev. D 86, 084032 (2012), is extended to second order. This can be done systematically through a (“generalized”) change of variables from momentum variables that transform linearly. We discuss the different perspectives on the meaning of the change of variables, obtain the coefficients of modified composition laws and Lorentz transformations at second order, and work out how $\kappa$-Poincaré, the most commonly used example in the literature, is reproduced as a particular case of the generic framework exposed here.

The residence time of cosmic rays (CRs) in the Galaxy is usually inferred from the measurement of the ratio of secondary-to-primary nuclei, for instance the boron (B)/carbon (C) ratio, which provides an estimate of the amount of matter traversed by CRs during their propagation, the so-called CR grammage. However, after being released by their parent sources, for instance, supernova remnants, CRs must cross the disc of the Galaxy, before entering the much lower density halo, in which they are believed to spend most of their time before eventually escaping the Galaxy. In the near-source region, the CR propagation is shown to be dominated by the nonlinear self-generation of waves. Here we show that due to this effect, the time that CRs with energies up to $\sim 10\mathrm{TeV}$ spend within a distance $L_c\sim 100\mathrm{pc}$ from the sources is much larger than naive estimates would suggest. Depending on the level of ionization of the medium surrounding the source, the grammage accumulated in the source vicinity may be a non-negligible fraction of the total grammage traversed throughout the whole Galaxy. Moreover, there is an irreducible grammage that CRs traverse while trapped downstream of the shock that accelerated them, though this contribution is rather uncertain. We conclude that some caution should be used in inferring parameters of Galactic CR propagation from measurements of the B/C ratio.

Vortex electron beams are freely propagating electron waves carrying adjustable orbital angular momentum with respect to the propagation direction. Such beams were experimentally realized just a few years ago and are now used to probe various electromagnetic processes. So far, these experiments used the single vortex electron beams, either propagating in external fields or impacting a target. Here, we investigate the elastic scattering of two such aligned vortex electron beams and demonstrate that this process allows one to experimentally measure features which are impossible to detect in the usual plane-wave scattering. The scattering amplitude of this process is well approximated by two plane-wave scattering amplitudes with different momentum transfers, which interfere and give direct experimental access to the Coulomb phase. This phase (shift) affects the scattering of all charged particles and has thus received significant theoretical attention but was never probed experimentally. We show that a properly defined azimuthal asymmetry, which has no counterpart in plane-wave scattering, allows one to directly measure the Coulomb phase as function of the scattering angle.

We explore a “partial unification” model that a new strong gauge group is combined with the ordinary color and hypercharge gauge groups. The VEV responsible for the combination is of the order of the $SU(2)\times U(1)$ breaking scale, but the coupling of the new physics to standard model particles is suppressed by the strong interaction of the new gauge group. This simple extension of the standard model has a rich phenomenology, including composite particles of the new confining gauge interaction, a coloron and a $Z^{\prime }$ which are rather weakly coupled to standard model particles, and massive vector bosons charged under both the ordinary color and hypercharge gauge groups and the new strong gauge group. The new scalar glueball could be produced by gluon fusion and decay into two photons, both through loops of the new massive vector bosons. The simplest version of the model has some issues: the massive vector bosons are stable and the coloron and the $Z^{\prime }$ are strongly constrained by search data. An extension of the model to include additional fermions with the new gauge coupling, though not as simple and elegant, can address both issues and more. It allows the massive vector boson to decay into a colorless, neutral state that could be a candidate of the dark matter. And the coloron and $Z^{\prime }$ can decay dominantly into the new fermions, completely changing the search bounds. If the massive vector bosons are still long lived, they could form new bound states, “vector bosoniums” with additional interesting phenomenology. The model is an explicit example of how new physics at small scales could be hidden by strong interactions.

The diphoton excesses at 750 GeV seen in the LHC data may be the first hint of new physics at the TeV scale. We discuss variations of the model considered earlier, in which one or more diphoton excesses arise from composite pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone bosons (hidden pions) associated with new strong dynamics at the TeV scale. We study the case in which the 750 GeV excess arises from a unique hidden pion leading to a diphoton final state as well as the case in which it arises from one of the hidden pions decaying into diphotons. We consider $SU(N)$, $SO(N)$, and $Sp(N)$ gauge groups for the strong dynamics and find that $SO(N)$ and $Sp(N)$ models give extra hidden pions beyond those in the $SU(N)$ models, which can be used to discriminate among models.

The three gluon one particle irreducible function is investigated using lattice QCD simulations over a large region of momentum in the Landau gauge for four-dimensional pure Yang-Mills equations and the SU(3) gauge group. The results favor a zero crossing of the gluon form factor for momenta in the range 220–260 MeV. This zero crossing is required to happen in order to have a properly defined set of Dyson-Schwinger equations. It is also shown that in the high momentum region the lattice results are compatible with the predictions of renormalization group improved perturbation theory.

The Dalitz plot analysis technique is used to study the resonant substructures of $B^{-}\to D^{+}{\pi }^{-}{\pi }^{-}$ decays in a data sample corresponding to $3.0{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$ of $pp$ collision data recorded by the LHCb experiment during 2011 and 2012. A model-independent analysis of the angular moments demonstrates the presence of resonances with spins 1, 2 and 3 at high $D^{+}{\pi }^{-}$ mass. The data are fitted with an amplitude model composed of a quasi-model-independent function to describe the $D^{+}{\pi }^{-}$ S wave together with virtual contributions from the $D^{*}(2007{)}^0$ and $B^{*0}$ states, and components corresponding to the $D_2^{*}(2460{)}^0$, $D_1^{*}(2680{)}^0$, $D_3^{*}(2760{)}^0$ and $D_2^{*}(3000{)}^0$ resonances. The masses and widths of these resonances are determined together with the branching fractions for their production in $B^{-}\to D^{+}{\pi }^{-}{\pi }^{-}$ decays. The $D^{+}{\pi }^{-}$ S wave has phase motion consistent with that expected due to the presence of the $D_0^{*}(2400{)}^0$ state. These results constitute the first observations of the $D_3^{*}(2760{)}^0$ and $D_2^{*}(3000{)}^0$ resonances, with significances of $10\sigma$ and $6.6\sigma$, respectively.

We calculate the chameleon field profile, confined between two parallel plates, filled with air at pressure $P={10}^{-4}\mathrm{mbar}$ and room temperature and separated by the distance $L$, in the chameleon field theory with Ratra–Peebles self-interaction potential with index $n=1$. We give the exact analytical solution in terms of Jacobian elliptic functions, depending on the mass density of the ambient matter. The obtained analytical solution can be used in qBounce experiments, measuring transition frequencies between quantum gravitational states of ultracold neutrons and also for the calculation of the chameleon field induced Casimir force for the CANNEX experiment. We show that the chameleon-matter interactions with coupling constants $\beta \le 10^4$ can be probed by qBounce experiments with sensitivities $\mathrm{\Delta }E\le {10}^{-18}\mathrm{eV}$. At $L=30.1\mu \mathrm{m}$ we reproduce the result $\beta <5.8\times 10^8$, obtained by Jenke et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 151105 (2014)] at sensitivity $\mathrm{\Delta }E\sim {10}^{-14}\mathrm{eV}$. In the vicinity of one of the plates our solution coincides with the solution, obtained by Brax and Pignol [Phys. Rev. Lett. 107, 111301 (2011)] [see also Ivanov et al. Phys. Rev. D 87, 105013 (2013)] above a plate at zero density of the ambient matter.

The strong equivalence principle (SEP) states that the description of a physical system in a gravitational field is indistinguishable from the description of the same system at rest in an accelerating frame. While this statement holds true in both general relativity and ordinary quantum mechanics, one expects it to fail when quantum gravity corrections are taken into account. In this paper we investigate the possible failure of the SEP in two quantum gravity inspired modifications of quantum mechanics—polymer quantum mechanics and deformed Heisenberg algebra. We find that the SEP fails to hold in both these theories. We estimate the deviation from SEP and find in both cases that it is too small to be measured in present day experiments.

In this paper, we employ the results of a previous paper on the late-time decay of scalar-field perturbations of an extreme Reissner-Nordstrom black hole, in order to find the late-time decay of coupled electromagnetic and gravitational perturbations of this black hole. We explicitly write the late-time tails of Moncrief’s gauge invariant variables and of the perturbations of the metric tensor and the electromagnetic field tensor in the Regge-Wheeler gauge. We discuss some of the consequences of the results and relations to previous works.

We derive the flow equation for the gravitational effective average action in an $f(R)$ truncation on hyperbolic spacetimes using the exponential parametrization of the metric. In contrast to previous works on compact spaces, we are able to evaluate traces exactly using the optimized cutoff. This reveals in particular that all modes can be integrated out for a finite value of the cutoff due to a gap in the spectrum of the Laplacian, leading to the effective action. Studying polynomial solutions, we find poorer convergence than has been found on compact spacetimes even though at small curvature the equations only differ in the treatment of certain modes. In the vicinity of an asymptotically free fixed point, we find the universal beta function for the $R^2$ coupling and compute the corresponding effective action which involves an $R^2\log (R^2)$ quantum correction.

We compute the gravitational waveform from a binary system in scalar-tensor gravity at 2PN relative order. We restrict our calculation to nonspinning binary systems on quasicircular orbits and compute the spin-weighted spherical modes of the radiation. The evolution of the phase of the waveform is computed in the time and frequency domains. The emission of dipolar radiation is the lowest-order dissipative process in scalar-tensor gravity. However, stringent constraints set by current astrophysical observations indicate that this effect is subdominant to quadrupolar radiation for most prospective gravitational-wave sources. We compute the waveform for systems whose inspiral is driven by: (a) dipolar radiation (e.g., binary pulsars or spontaneously scalarized systems) and (b) quadrupolar radiation (e.g., typical sources for space-based and ground-based detectors). For case (a), we provide complete results at 2PN, whereas for case (b), we must introduce unknown terms in the 2PN flux; these unknown terms are suppressed by constraints on scalar-tensor gravity.