We propose a new type of radiative neutrino model with a local dark $U(1)$ symmetry, where neutrino masses are induced at the three-loop level, and discuss the muon anomalous magnetic moment and dark matter candidates therein. By allowing hypercharges larger than $3/2$ for new fields that contribute to the neutrino masses and making them decay into the standard-model fields appropriately, we introduce a lot of new particles with multiple electrical charges in a natural manner. As a byproduct, we can accommodate the 750 GeV diphoton excess depending on the hypercharge quantum numbers of new fields responsible for the neutrino masses at the three-loop level.

Production of $K^{+}$ mesons in charged-current ${\nu }_{\mu }$ interactions on plastic scintillator (CH) is measured using MINERvA exposed to the low-energy NuMI beam at Fermilab. Timing information is used to isolate a sample of 885 charged-current events containing a stopping $K^{+}$ which decays at rest. The differential cross section in $K^{+}$ kinetic energy, $d\sigma /d{T}_K$, is observed to be relatively flat between 0 and 500 MeV. Its shape is in good agreement with the prediction by the genie neutrino event generator when final-state interactions are included, however the data rate is lower than the prediction by 15%.

We consider charged black holes in four-dimensional anti–de Sitter space, in the presence of a Weyl correction. We obtain the solution including the effect of backreaction, perturbatively up to first order in the Weyl coupling, and study its thermodynamic properties. This is complemented by a calculation of the holographic entanglement entropy of the boundary theory. The consistency of results obtained from both computations is established.

We consider phase transitions and their contributions to vacuum energy in the manifestly local theory of vacuum energy sequestering. We demonstrate that the absence of instabilities imposes constraints on the couplings of gravitating and nongravitating sectors, which can be satisfied in a large class of models. We further show by explicit construction that the vacuum energy contributions to the effective cosmological constant in the descendant vacua are generically strongly suppressed by the ratios of space-time volumes of parent and descendant geometries. This means that the cosmological constant in de Sitter descendant vacua remains insensitive to phase transitions which may have occurred in the course of its cosmic history.

We present new regular solutions of Einstein-charged-scalar-field theory in a cavity. The system is enclosed inside a reflecting mirrorlike boundary, on which the scalar field vanishes. The mirror is placed at the zero of the scalar field closest to the origin, and inside this boundary our solutions are regular. We study the stability of these solitons under linear, spherically symmetric perturbations of the metric, scalar and electromagnetic fields. If the radius of the mirror is sufficiently large, we present numerical evidence for the stability of the solitons. For small mirror radius, some of the solitons are unstable. We discuss the physical interpretation of this instability.

We study a particular exact solution to the Born-Infeld determinantal gravity consisting of a cosmological model which undergoes a “brusque bounce.” The latter consists of an event characterized by a non-null (but finite) value of the squared Hubble rate $H^2$ occurring at a minimum (non-null) scale factor. The energy density and pressure of the fluid covering the whole manifold are perfectly well behaved in such an event, but the curvature invariants turn out to be undefined there because of the undefined character of $\dot{H}$. It is shown that the spacetime that results is geodesically complete and singularity free, and that it corresponds to a picture of an eternal Universe in which a (somewhat unconventional) bounce replaces the standard big bang singularity. This example tends to asize that, beyond Einstein’s theory of general relativity, and in the context of extended theories of gravity formulated by purely torsional means, the criterion of a singularity based on pathologies of scalars constructed upon the Riemann curvature tensor becomes objectionable.

In this work we study the statistical and thermodynamic properties of the horizon fluid corresponding to the Boulware-Deser (BD) black hole of Einstein-Gauss-Bonnet gravity. Using mean field theory, we show explicitly that the BD fluid exhibits the coexistence of two phases, a BEC (Bose Einstein Condensate) and a noncondensed phase corresponding to the Einstein term and the Gauss-Bonnet term in the gravity action, respectively. In the fluid description, the high-energy corrections associated to Gauss-Bonnet gravity are modeled as excitations of the fluid medium. We provide statistical modeling of the excited part of the fluid and explicitly show that it is characterized by a generalized dispersion relation which in $D=6$ dimensions corresponds to a nonrelativistic fluid. We also shed light on the ambiguity found in the literature regarding the expression of the entropy of the horizon fluid. We provide a general prescription to obtain the entropy and show that it is indeed given by Wald entropy.

Following an earlier study regarding Gauss-Bonnet-Maxwell black holes in the presence of gravity’s rainbow [S. H. Hendi and M. Faizal, Phys. Rev. D 92, 044027 (2015)], in this paper, we consider all constants as energy dependent ones. The geometrical and thermodynamical properties of this generalization is studied and the validation of the first law of thermodynamics is examined. Next, through the use of proportionality between the cosmological constant and the thermodynamical pressure, van der Waals–like behavior of these black holes in extended phase space is investigated. An interesting critical behavior for sets of rainbow functions in this case is reported. Also, the critical behavior of uncharged and charged solutions is analyzed and it is shown that the generalization to a charged case puts an energy dependent restriction on values of different parameters.

We propose a novel model to produce ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays (UHECRs) in gamma-ray burst jets. After the prompt gamma-ray emission, hydrodynamical turbulence is excited in the GRB jets at or before the afterglow phase. The mildly relativistic turbulence stochastically accelerates protons. The acceleration rate is much slower than the usual first-order shock acceleration rate, but in this case it can be energy independent. The resultant UHECR spectrum is so hard that the bulk energy is concentrated in the highest energy range, resulting in a moderate requirement for the typical cosmic-ray luminosity of $\sim 10^{53.5}\text{erg}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}$. In this model, the secondary gamma-ray and neutrino emissions initiated by photopion production are significantly suppressed. Although the UHECR spectrum at injection shows a curved feature, this does not conflict with the observed UHECR spectral shape. The cosmogenic neutrino spectrum in the ${10}^{17}–{10}^{18}\mathrm{eV}$ range becomes distinctively hard in this model, which may be verified by future observations.

We discuss the Aharonov-Bohm effect in the presence of hidden photons kinetically mixed with the ordinary electromagnetic photons. The hidden photon field causes a slight phase shift in the observable interference pattern. It is then shown how the limited sensitivity of this experiment can be largely improved. The key observation is that the hidden photon field causes a leakage of the ordinary magnetic field into the supposedly field-free region. The direct measurement of this magnetic field can provide a sensitive experiment with a good discovery potential, particularly below the $\sim \mathrm{meV}$ mass range for hidden photons.

We propose that the sbino, the scalar partner of a Dirac bino, can explain the 750 GeV diphoton excess observed by the ATLAS and CMS Collaborations. We first argue for the existence of couplings between sbino to pairs of Standard Model gauge bosons using effective operator analysis. We then analyze the minimal completion of the effective operator model in which the sbino couples to pairs of gauge bosons through loops of heavy sfermions, with the sfermion-bino coupling originating from scalar potential D-terms. We find that the sbino model may be fit the 750 GeV excess by considering gluon fusion processes with decay to diphotons.

We show that in the Higgs triplet model, after the Higgs discovery, the mixing angle in the $CP$-even sector can be strongly constrained from unitarity. We also discuss how large quantum effects in $h\to \gamma \gamma$ may arise in a Standard-Model-like scenario and a certain part of the parameter space can be ruled out from the diphoton signal strength. Using $T$-parameter and diphoton signal strength measurements, we update the bounds on the nonstandard scalar masses.

Working within the context of the minimal supersymmetric standard model, we compare current bounds from quark flavor changing processes with current and upcoming bounds on lepton flavor violation. We assume supersymmetry breaking approximately respects $CP$ invariance. Under the further assumption that flavor violating insertions in the quark and lepton scalar masses are comparable, we explore when lepton flavor violation provides the strongest probe of new physics. We quote results both for spectra with all superpartners near the TeV scale and where scalars are multi-TeV. Constraints from quark flavor changing neutral currents are in many cases already stronger than those expected from future lepton flavor violation bounds, but large regions of parameter space remain where the latter could provide a discovery mode for supersymmetry.

The electroweak interactions of a strongly coupled gauge theory are discussed with an outlook beyond the Standard Model (BSM) under global and gauge anomaly constraints. The theory is built on a minimal massless fermion doublet of the SU(2) BSM flavor group (bsm-flavor) with a confining gauge force at the TeV scale in the two-index symmetric (sextet) representation of the BSM SU(3) color gauge group (bsm-color). The intriguing possibility of near-conformal sextet gauge dynamics could lead to the minimal realization of the composite Higgs mechanism with a light $0^{++}$ scalar, far separated from strongly coupled resonances of the confining gauge force in the 2–3 TeV range, distinct from Higgsless technicolor. In previous publications we have presented results for the meson spectrum of the theory, including the light composite scalar, which is perhaps the emergent Higgs impostor. Here we discuss the critically important role of the baryon spectrum in the sextet model investigating its compatibility with what we know about thermal evolution of the early Universe including its galactic and terrestrial relics. For an important application, we report the first numerical results on the baryon spectrum of this theory from nonperturbative lattice simulations with baryon correlators in the staggered fermion implementation of the strongly coupled gauge sector. The quantum numbers of composite baryons and their spectroscopy from lattice simulations are required inputs for exploring dark matter contributions of the sextet BSM model, as outlined for future work.

We revisit the estimate of the charm particle contribution to the atmospheric neutrino flux that is expected to dominate at high energies because long-lived high-energy pions and kaons interact in the atmosphere before decaying into neutrinos. We focus on the production of forward charm particles which carry a large fraction of the momentum of the incident proton. In the case of strange particles, such a component is familiar from the abundant production of $K^{+}\mathrm{\Lambda }$ pairs. These forward charm particles can dominate the high-energy atmospheric neutrino flux in underground experiments. Modern collider experiments have no coverage in the very large rapidity region where charm forward pair production dominates. Using archival accelerator data as well as IceCube measurements of atmospheric electron and muon neutrino fluxes, we obtain an upper limit on forward ${\overline{D}}^0{\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c$ pair production and on the associated flux of high-energy atmospheric neutrinos. We conclude that the prompt flux may dominate the much-studied central component and represent a significant contribution to the TeV atmospheric neutrino flux. Importantly, it cannot accommodate the PeV flux of high-energy cosmic neutrinos, or the excess of events observed by IceCube in the 30–200 TeV energy range indicating either structure in the flux of cosmic accelerators, or a presence of more than one component in the cosmic flux observed.

We derive formalism for determining $\mathbf{2}+\mathcal{J}\to \mathbf{2}$ infinite-volume transition amplitudes from finite-volume matrix elements. Specifically, we present a relativistic, model-independent relation between finite-volume matrix elements of external currents and the physically observable infinite-volume matrix elements involving two-particle asymptotic states. The result presented holds for states composed of two scalar bosons. These can be identical or nonidentical and, in the latter case, can be either degenerate or nondegenerate. We further accommodate any number of strongly coupled two-scalar channels. This formalism will, for example, allow future lattice QCD calculations of the $\rho$-meson form factor, in which the unstable nature of the $\rho$ is rigorously accommodated.

We study the impact of including the baryonic decay ${\mathrm{\Lambda }}_b\to \mathrm{\Lambda }(\to p{\pi }^{-}){\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$ in a Bayesian analysis of $|\mathrm{\Delta }B|=|\mathrm{\Delta }S|=1$ transitions. We perform fits of the Wilson coefficients ${\mathcal{C}}_9$, ${\mathcal{C}}_{9^{\prime }}$, ${\mathcal{C}}_{10}$ and ${\mathcal{C}}_{10^{\prime }}$, in addition to the relevant nuisance parameters. Our analysis combines data for the differential branching fraction and three angular observables of ${\mathrm{\Lambda }}_b\to \mathrm{\Lambda }(\to p{\pi }^{-}){\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$ with data for the branching ratios of $B_s\to {\mu }^{+}{\mu }^{-}$ and inclusive $b\to s{\ell }^{+}{\ell }^{-}$ decays. Newly available precise lattice QCD results for the full set of ${\mathrm{\Lambda }}_b\to \mathrm{\Lambda }$ form factors are used to evaluate the observables of the baryonic decay. Our fits prefer shifts to ${\mathcal{C}}_9$ that are opposite in sign compared to those found in global fits of only mesonic decays, and the posterior odds show no evidence of physics beyond the Standard Model. We investigate a possible hadronic origin of the observed tensions between theory and experiment.

We use holography to prove the quantum null energy condition (QNEC) at leading order in large $N$ for CFTs and relevant deformations of CFTs in Minkowski space which have Einstein gravity duals. Given any codimension-two surface $\mathrm{\Sigma }$ which is locally stationary under a null deformation in the direction $k$ at the point $p$, the QNEC is a lower bound on the energy-momentum tensor at $p$ in terms of the second variation of the entropy to one side of $\mathrm{\Sigma }$: $⟨T_{kk}⟩\ge S^{\prime \prime }/2\pi \sqrt{h}$. In a CFT, conformal transformations of this inequality give results which apply when $\mathrm{\Sigma }$ is not locally stationary. The QNEC was proven previously for free theories, and taken together with our result this provides strong evidence that the QNEC is a true statement about quantum field theory in general.

Caustic singularity formations in shift-symmetric $k$-essence and Horndeski theories on a fixed Minkowski spacetime were recently argued. In $n$ dimensions, this singularity is the ($n-2$)-dimensional plane in spacetime at which second derivatives of a field diverge and the field loses single-valued description for its evolution. This does not necessarily imply a pathological behavior of the system but rather invalidates the effective description. The effective theory would thus have to be replaced by another to describe the evolution thereafter. In this paper, adopting the planar-symmetric $1+1$-dimensional approach employed in the original analysis, we seek all $k$-essence theories in which generic simple wave solutions are free from such caustic singularities. Contrary to the previous claim, we find that not only the standard canonical scalar but also the DBI scalar are free from caustics, as far as planar-symmetric simple wave solutions are concerned. Addition of shift-symmetric Horndeski terms does not change the conclusion.

We present a novel mathematical formalism that allows us to easily compute the expected kinetic Sunyaev-Zeldovich (kSZ) signal in intensity and polarization due to an anisotropic primordial cosmic microwave background (CMB). We derive the expected intensity and polarization distortions in the direction of nonmoving galaxy clusters, and then we generalize our calculations for nonzero peculiar velocity. We show that, in the direction of moving clusters, low CMB multipoles impose intensity and polarization spectral distortions with different frequency dependences. The polarization signal primarily probes the quadrupole moment of the CMB, with a significant contribution from the primordial dipole and octupole moments. For a typical cluster velocity of $1000\mathrm{km}/\mathrm{s}$, corrections to the quadrupole-induced polarization of a nonmoving cluster are of the order of 2%–10% between 200–600 GHz, and depend on cluster’s position on the sky, velocity magnitude, and direction of motion. We also find that the angular dependence of the signal varies with frequency of observation. The distinct frequency and angular dependences of the polarization induced by the primordial dipole and octupole can be exploited to measure them despite other physical effects and foregrounds. Contrary to polarization, intensity distortions are affected by all the CMB multipoles, so they cannot be readily used to probe the low multipoles at higher redshifts. However, correlations between intensity and polarization signals can be used to enhance the signal to noise ratio for the measurements of the primordial dipole, quadrupole, and octupole. The more general calculation of the aberration kernel presented in this work has applications reaching beyond the SZ cluster science addressed here. For example, it can be exploited to the deboost/deaberrate CMB multipoles as observed in our local frame.