The recent observations of the coherent neutrino- and antineutrino-nucleus scattering have opened up a plethora of opportunities to probe physics within standard and non-standard theories of the electroweak interactions. In the present article, our goal is to explore the possibility of using the molybdenum material as detection medium for coherent and incoherent antineutrino- and neutrino-Mo scattering in the ongoing and future coherent elastic neutrino-nucleus scattering ($\mathrm{CE}\nu \mathrm{NS}$) experiments by using relevant (anti-)neutrino beams as, e.g., stopped pion-decay neutrino beams, reactor antineutrino beams, astrophysical (solar or supernova) (anti)neutrino beams, etc. Our present coherent and incoherent scattering cross sections of Mo isotopes with neutrinos and antineutrinos are based on the deformed shell model (DSM) that has been previously employed for studying similar processes. On the other hand, in the past, $\mathrm{CE}\nu \mathrm{NS}$ events obtained with this model provided us with better fits to experimental data of COHERENT experimental data compared to phenomenological form factors.

A general search is presented for supersymmetric particles (sparticles) in scenarios featuring compressed mass spectra using proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, recorded with the CMS detector at the LHC. The analyzed data sample corresponds to an integrated luminosity of $138{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$. A wide range of potential sparticle signatures are targeted, including pair production of electroweakinos, sleptons, and top squarks. The search focuses on events with a high transverse momentum system from initial-state-radiation jets recoiling against a potential sparticle system with significant missing transverse momentum. Events are categorized based on their lepton multiplicity, jet multiplicity, number of $b$-tagged jets, and kinematic variables sensitive to the sparticle masses and mass splittings. The sensitivity extends to higher parent sparticle masses than previously probed at the LHC for production of pairs of electroweakinos, sleptons, and top squarks with mass spectra featuring small mass splittings (compressed mass spectra). The observed results demonstrate agreement with the predictions of the background-only model. Lower mass limits are set at 95% confidence level on production of pairs of electroweakinos, sleptons, and top squarks that extend to 325, 275, and 780 GeV, respectively, for the most favorable compressed mass regime cases.

We develop a machine learning assisted holographic model that consistently describes both the equation of state and glueball spectrum of pure Yang-Mills theory, achieved through neural network reconstruction of Einstein-dilaton gravity. Our framework incorporates key nonperturbative constraints of lattice QCD data: The ground ($0^{++}$) and first-excited ($0^{++*}$) scalar glueball masses pins down the infrared (IR) geometry, while entropy density data anchors the ultraviolet (UV) behavior of the metric. A multistage neural network optimization then yields the full gravitational dual—warp factor $A(z)$ and dilaton field $\mathrm{\Phi }(z)$—that satisfies both spectroscopic and thermodynamic constraints. The resulting model accurately reproduces the deconfinement phase transition thermodynamics (pressure, energy density, trace anomaly) and predicts higher glueball excitations ($0^{++**}$, $0^{++***}$) consistent with available lattice calculations. This work establishes a new paradigm for data-driven holographic reconstruction, solving the long-standing challenge of unified description of confinement thermodynamics and spectroscopy.

Recent works [D. Buccio et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 133, 021604 (2024)and D. Buccio et al., Phys. Rev. D 111, 065022 (2025)] have argued that improved one-loop beta-functions capturing the physical momentum dependence of one-loop corrected higher-derivative gravity theories are the most suitable to describe their high-energy behavior. This work critically tests the validity of this claim. We compute the explicit gauge dependence of the one-loop momentum running of curvature-squared operators in quadratic gravity and conformal gravity using the background field method. We find them to be gauge dependent, and we discuss the implications of this result for the theory and its physical predictivity.

Matrix theories exhibit the phenomenon of spacetime emergence in certain regimes of their dynamics. In this work, I posit that the key to this emergence is a hierarchy between two timescales; very slow modes that an observer measures plus a chaotic cloud of very fast modes. This then leads to a natural operator algebra for measurements for the slow modes and an associated density matrix for the full system. I show that this density matrix implies the same gravitational potential energy that has been identified previously in the literature; furthermore, I show that the corresponding emergent gravitational force is nothing but the entropic force associated with the entropy of the fast modes of the system. I also demonstrate that the posited regime corresponds to distances being super-Planckian in the dual 11-dimensional supergravity.

We investigate the absorption of massless scalar waves by three distinct hairy black hole solutions obtained through the gravitational decoupling method, considering the weak, the strong or the dominant energy conditions. Remarkably, in certain configurations of hairy black holes associated with the fulfillment of the weak energy condition, quasibound states may appear, resulting in Breit-Wigner-like resonances in their absorption profile. These quasibound states (and consequently the spectral lines in the absorption spectrum) can be related to stable light rings in the spacetime, a structure often associated with horizonless exotic compact objects, such as wormholes. We investigate how the gravitational decoupling method introduces novel light ring structures in hairy black holes and influences the absorption spectra through its deformation parameters. Our numerical results show excellent agreement with well-known approximations.

We propose an extension of basic Kaluza-Klein theory in which the higher-dimensional Lorentzian manifold develops a Cauchy horizon rather than remaining globally hyperbolic as in the conventional framework. In this setting, the $U(1)$-generating Killing field, assumed to exist in Kaluza-Klein theory, undergoes a transition in its causal character, from spacelike in the globally hyperbolic region to timelike in an acausal extension through a horizon. This yields a (lower-dimensional) quotient manifold whose metric changes signature from Lorentzian to Riemannian. In this way, one observes a singular, signature changing transition emerging rather naturally from the projection of a globally smooth, even analytic, Lorentzian geometry “up in the bundle.” This reveals a “signature change without signature change” scenario—a phrasing inspired by John Wheeler—and extends the usual Kaluza-Klein framework in a conceptually natural direction.

We explore the gravitational-wave emission from head-on collisions of equal-mass solitonic boson-star binaries from simulations spanning a two-dimensional parameter space, consisting of the central scalar-field amplitude of the stars and the solitonic potential parameter. We report the gravitational-wave energies emitted by boson-star binaries which, due to their combination of moderately high compactness with significant deformability, we often find to be louder by up to an order of magnitude than analogous black-hole collisions. The dependence of the radiated energy on the boson-star parameters exhibits striking needle-sharp features and discontinuous jumps to the value emitted by black-hole binaries. We explain these features in terms of the solitonic potential and the stability properties of the respective individual stars.

The Taub-NUT spacetime offers many curious insights into the solutions of Einstein’s equation of general relativity. In the Bonnor interpretation, this spacetime possesses so-called Misner strings, which induce phenomena strikingly analogous to Dirac strings in the context of magnetic monopoles. The study of scattering in the latter case leads to a quantization of the product of electric charge and magnetic moment, sometimes called the Dirac condition. To enable a thorough discussion of scattering on the Taub-NUT spacetime, linear perturbations are considered in the Newman-Penrose formalism. From the resulting Teukolsky master equation angular and radial equations are derived by a separation ansatz. Here, our focus was limited to the scalar angular Teukolsky equation. We discussed it in detail, and derived the eigenvalues, subsequently solving the differential equation in terms of solutions to the confluent Heun equation. In the Bonnor interpretation of the Taub-NUT spacetime, there is no analog property to the Dirac condition. The choice of spacetime parameters remains unconstrained. However, in the Misner condition, one can rederive the well-known “Misner” condition, in which a product of frequency and NUT charge is of integer value. The results of this work will allow us to solve analytically for wave-optical scattering in order to, e.g., examine wave-optical images in the Taub-NUT spacetime.

The $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ model faces significant challenges, including an incomplete understanding of the dark sector and persistent tensions in the Hubble constant and the clustering amplitude. To address these issues, we propose a general disformal coupling between dark energy (DE) and dark matter from a field-theoretic action which can generate a rich variety of interactions, including conformal and pure-momentum coupling scenarios. Our analysis reveals that a pure disformal coupling naturally produces a unique interacting early dark sector, wherein the interactions with dark matter suppress the Hubble friction on the DE scalar field leading to a kinetic-driven cosmological-constant-like behavior at early times followed by its dilution as $a^{-6}$ and eventually leading to a potential-driven epoch characteristic of late-time dark energy. In contrast to existing early dark energy (EDE) models that rely on finely tuned potentials, the EDE-like behavior, in our framework, is purely a consequence of the disformal coupling paired with the dilution of dark matter, offering a more fundamental and less ad hoc solution to cosmological tensions. This framework also predicts a suppression of power in the CMB temperature spectrum on large angular scales, offering a potential physical explanation for the observed low-$\ell$ anomaly. By deriving these effects from a fundamental action, our work provides a unified, testable alternative to $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ that can be constrained by next-generation cosmological surveys and gravitational wave observations.

We show that superrotations can be described using the geometric conformal completion method of Penrose. In particular, superrotation charges and fluxes can be described and calculated using the linkage method of Geroch and Winicour. Whether superrotation charges are calculated using the coordinate based Bondi formalism or the geometric Penrose formalism, the fact that the superrotation blows up at a point makes the superrotation charge formally ill-defined. Nonetheless, we show that it can be made well-defined through a regularization procedure devised by Flanagan and Nichols.

Using the worldline quantum field theory approach, we derive solutions to the equations of motion for spinning massive bodies up to quadratic order in spins. At leading post-Minkowskian (PM) order, these trajectories are obtained in the time domain, and at subleading order, they are obtained in the frequency domain. Our approach incorporates diagrammatic techniques and modern Feynman integration technologies and includes a family of loop integrals different to those seen in asymptotic PM calculations. Our results provide a new mechanism for computing the radiated angular momentum involved in gravitational scattering, which we reproduce at 2PM order up to linear spins. We have established a framework for computing higher-order effects to further extend the high-precision frontier in analytical gravitational wave physics and push predictions for the radiated angular momentum to higher perturbative orders.

The longitudinal mode of a massive vector field, generated during inflation, offers a well-motivated and phenomenologically rich candidate for dark matter. We show that a rapid variation in the mass of the vector boson, occurring during a brief phase of non-slow-roll inflationary evolution, can naturally give rise to extremely small vector masses after inflation ends, corresponding to an ultralight dark matter candidate. This mechanism predicts a stochastic gravitational-wave background, generated at second order by nonadiabatic longitudinal vector fluctuations and amplified at very low frequencies, yielding a distinctive observational signature of the scenario. By leveraging a brief departure from slow-roll dynamics during inflation—commonly invoked in scenarios that produce primordial black holes—our framework establishes a novel connection between ultralight vector dark matter and primordial black hole physics, suggesting a possible unified setting for mixed dark matter scenarios.

We study the trispectrum in a two-phase ultraslow-roll–slow-roll setup of inflation in which the ultraslow-roll stage is extended in the initial phase of inflation while the second stage of inflation proceeds via a slow-roll phase. A key role is played by the sharpness parameter which controls how quickly the system reaches the final attractor phase after the ultraslow-roll stage. We employ both $\delta N$ and in-in formalisms and calculate trispectrum and the corresponding dimensionless parameters $g_{NL}$ and ${\tau }_{NL}$. We show that both approaches yield the same results and study the shapes of trispectrum in various configurations. It is shown that the maximum value of trispectrum occurs in the setup with an infinitely sharp transition to the attractor phase while much of trispectrum is washed out in the opposite limit of a mild transition.

We demonstrate that general relativistic corrections to the accretion of relativistic matter onto primordial black holes (PBHs) can significantly enhance their mass growth during the early Universe. Contrary to previous Newtonian treatments, our analysis reveals that PBH masses can increase by an order of magnitude before evaporation, leading to substantial modifications to their lifetime and cosmological imprints. We quantify the resulting shifts in the minimum PBH mass constrained by big bang nucleosynthesis (BBN), the revised lower bound for PBHs surviving today, and the dark matter parameter space allowed by PBH evaporation. Furthermore, we show that the enhanced accretion alters the high-frequency gravitational wave spectrum from PBH evaporation, potentially within the reach of future detectors. Our results provide a comprehensive, relativistically consistent framework to delineate the role of PBHs in early Universe cosmology and dark matter phenomenology.

We present a determination of the Hubble constant ($H_0$) using the latest observational data from multiple cosmological probes, providing an independent geometric calibration of the SN Ia distance scale. By combining baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) measurements from the second data release of the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI DR2), cosmic chronometer $H(z)$ data, and the Pantheon plus type Ia supernova (SN Ia) sample, we reconstruct the cosmic expansion history through Gaussian process regression without assuming a specific cosmological model. Our analysis fully incorporates the complete covariance structure and yields $H_0$ constraints at five distinct redshifts: $65.72\pm 1.99$ ($\mathrm{z}=0.51$), $67.78\pm 1.75$ ($\mathrm{z}=0.706$), $70.74\pm 1.39$ ($\mathrm{z}=0.934$), $71.04\pm 1.93$ ($\mathrm{z}=1.321$), and $68.37\pm 3.95\mathrm{km}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}{\mathrm{Mpc}}^{-1}$ ($\mathrm{z}=1.484$). The Bayesian combination of these measurements gives ${\widehat{H}}_0=69.29\pm 0.81\mathrm{km}{\mathrm{s}}^{-1}{\mathrm{Mpc}}^{-1}$ with 1.2% precision, which occupies an intermediate position between the Planck CMB result and the SH0ES local measurement. While we observe a nonmonotonic pattern in $H_0$ values across redshifts, statistical tests show this apparent evolution is not significant ($\mathrm{p}=0.208$). Our approach delivers independent constraints at multiple redshifts, enabling investigation of potential redshift-dependent systematic effects in the Hubble tension. The results demonstrate that an independent geometric method yields an $H_0$ value consistent with the intermediate range of current measurements, providing a crucial cross-check of distance ladder determinations.

Accretion onto supermassive black holes (BHs) can launch relativistic outflows and jets that inject energy and momentum into their surroundings. Understanding how such feedback shapes large-scale accretion is key to bridging observations from galactic scales (e.g., the Bondi radius, $r_{\mathrm{B}}$) down to event horizon scales ($r_{\mathrm{g}}$), spanning five to six orders of magnitude. To address this challenge directly, we treat the spatial scale separation as a free parameter, varying it across two to four orders of magnitude. We perform a suite of the longest contiguous 3D general relativistic magnetohydrodynamic simulations to date ($t\le 4\times {10}^6{r}_{\mathrm{g}}/c$), modeling Bondi-like accretion of rotating, nonrelativistic gas with weak vertical magnetic fields onto a rapidly spinning BH, achieving inflow equilibrium out to $r\gtrsim {10}^3{r}_{\mathrm{g}}$. We find that, regardless of scale separation or ambient gas rotation, all simulations reach a magnetically arrested disk (MAD) state in which the BH becomes magnetically saturated. In this state, the mass inflow rate follows a universal radial scaling relative to the Bondi rate: ${\dot{M}}_{\mathrm{in}}(r)/{\dot{M}}_{\mathrm{B}}\sim (r/r_{\mathrm{B}}{)}^s$ with $s=0.66\pm 0.03$. The MAD state self-regulates through jets, outflows, and magnetic flux eruptions that can ultimately disrupt coherent angular momentum inflow, giving rise to a rocking accretion disk (RAD) state. This RAD state features chaotically oriented inflows, weak intermittent jets, and a steeper inflow slope of $s=0.87\pm 0.05$, along with significantly weaker outflows. For rapidly spinning BHs, the MAD and RAD BH accretion rates become comparable at typical scale separations, $r_{\mathrm{B}}/r_{\mathrm{g}}\gtrsim {10}^5$. The weaker outflows in the RAD state allow large-scale inflows to resume, eventually restoring the MAD state and enabling a repeating MAD-RAD cycle. We find that the MAD-RAD timescales can last from a few to hundreds of Bondi timescales, $t_{\mathrm{B}}\sim 0.2\mathrm{Myr}\times (r_{\mathrm{B}}/{10}^5{r}_{\mathrm{g}}{)}^{3/2}\times (M_{\mathrm{BH}}/{10}^9{M}_{\odot })$, where $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$ is the BH mass, potentially setting the duty cycle of jetted active galactic nucleus outbursts, like M87*.

We constrain the fundamental-mode ($f$-mode) oscillation frequencies of nonrotating neutron stars using a phenomenological Gaussian process model for the unknown dense-matter equation of state conditioned on a suite of gravitational-wave, radio and x-ray observations. We infer the quadrupolar $f$-mode frequency preferred by the astronomical data as a function of neutron star mass, with error estimates that quantify the impact of equation of state uncertainty, and compare it to the contact frequency for inspiraling neutron-star binaries, finding that resonance with the orbital frequency can be achieved for the coalescences with the most unequal mass ratio. For an optimally configured binary neutron star merger, we estimate the gravitational waveform’s tidal phasing due to $f$-mode dynamical tides as $7_{-3}^{+2}\mathrm{rad}$ at merger. We assess prospects for distinguishing $f$-mode dynamical tides with current and future-generation gravitational-wave observatories.

This study presents a novel multidifferential approach to probe the underlying event (UE) activity in proton–proton collisions at $\sqrt{\mathit{s}}=\mathbf{13}\mathrm{TeV}$ using a combination of transverse spherocity (${\mathit{S}}_{\mathbf{0}}$) and relative transverse multiplicity activity (${\mathit{R}}_{\mathbf{T}}$) event classifiers. These two observables are used in conjunction to disentangle soft and hard quantum chromodynamics (QCD) processes while minimizing autocorrelation effects typically arising in event selection based solely on multiplicity. Events are categoriōzed into isotropic and jetlike topologies via ${\mathit{S}}_{\mathbf{0}}$, and further stratified based on UE activity using ${\mathit{R}}_{\mathbf{T}}$. The study reveals that isotropic events at low ${\mathit{R}}_{\mathbf{T}}$ exhibit enhanced baryon-to-meson ratios, $\mathit{p}/\mathit{\pi }$, $\mathbf{\Lambda }/\mathbf{2}{\mathit{K}}_{\mathit{S}}^{\mathbf{0}}$, and ${\mathbf{\Lambda }}_{\mathbf{c}}^{+}/{\mathit{D}}^{\mathbf{0}}$, with a distinct peak at intermediate $p_{\mathrm{T}}$, indicative of collectivelike effects. In contrast, jetlike events show flatter distributions. The analysis is performed using pythia8.309 with Monash, rope hadronization, and QCD based new color reconnection (newCR) tunes. The rope model increases both strangeness and light baryon yields through amplified string tension, while the QCD based newCR model significantly enhances baryon production including charm baryons via the formation of junctions. Notably, ${\mathbf{\Lambda }}_{\mathbf{c}}^{+}/{\mathit{D}}^{\mathbf{0}}$ shows strong sensitivity to newCR and rope models, highlighting the role of junction dynamics in charm hadronization. Our results show that collectivelike signatures in small systems can arise from initial- and intermediate-state QCD effects such as multiparton interactions and color reconnection without requiring final-state medium formation. This new event classification framework provides a powerful tool to probe nonperturbative QCD dynamics and improve hadronization models for current and future LHC data.

We study a multicomponent $C{P}^N$ model’s scalar electrodynamics. The model contains $Q$-balls and $Q$-shells, which are nontopological compact solitons with time dependency $e^{i\omega t}$. Two coupled $C{P}^N$ models can decouple locally if one of their $C{P}^N$ fields takes the vacuum value. Because of the compacton nature of solutions, $Q$-shells can shelter another compact $Q$-ball or $Q$-shell within their hollow region. Even if compactons do not overlap, they can interact through the electromagnetic field. We investigate how the size of multicompacton formations is affected by electric charge, with a focus on structures with nonzero or zero total net charge.