In this work, we explore the charmed pentaquarks, where the relativistic five-quark equations are obtained by the dispersion relation technique. By solving these equations with the method based on the extraction of the leading singularities of the amplitudes, we predict the mass spectrum of charmed pentaquarks with $J^P=1/2^{\pm }$ and $3/2^{\pm }$, which is valuable to further experimental study of charmed pentaquarks.

The observed Higgs mass $M_H=125.9\pm 0.4\mathrm{GeV}$ leads to the criticality of the standard model, that is, the Higgs potential becomes flat around the scale $10^{17–18}\mathrm{GeV}$ for the top mass 171.3 GeV. Earlier we proposed a Higgs inflation scenario in which this criticality plays a crucial role. In this paper, we investigate the detailed cosmological predictions of this scenario in light of the latest Planck and BICEP2 results. We also consider the Higgs portal scalar dark matter model, and compute the Higgs one-loop effective potential with the two-loop renormalization group improvement. We find a constraint on the coupling between the Higgs boson and dark matter which depends on the inflationary parameters.

Lepton family number violation is tested by searching for ${\mu }^{+}\to e^{+}{X}^0$ decays among the $5.8\times {10}^8$ positive muon decay events analyzed by the TWIST collaboration. Limits are set on the production of both massless and massive $X^0$ bosons. The large angular acceptance of this experiment allows limits to be placed on anisotropic ${\mu }^{+}\to e^{+}{X}^0$ decays, which can arise from interactions violating both lepton flavor and parity conservation. Branching ratio limits of order ${10}^{-5}$ are obtained for bosons with masses of $13–80\mathrm{MeV}/{\mathrm{c}}^2$ and with different decay asymmetries. For bosons with masses less than $13\mathrm{MeV}/{\mathrm{c}}^2$ the asymmetry dependence is much stronger and the 90% limit on the branching ratio varies up to $5.8\times {10}^{-5}$. This is the first study that explicitly evaluates the limits for anisotropic two body muon decays.

The chameleon mechanism enables a long-range fifth force to be screened in dense environments when nontrivial self-interactions of the field cause its mass to increase with the local density. To date, chameleon fifth forces have mainly been studied for spherically symmetric sources; however, the nonlinear self-interactions mean that the chameleon responds to changes in the shape of the source differently to gravity. In this work we focus on ellipsoidal departures from spherical symmetry and compute the full form of the chameleon force, comparing its shape dependence to that of gravity. Enhancement of the chameleon force by up to 40% is possible when deforming a sphere to an ellipsoid of the same mass, with an ellipticity $\sim 0.99$.

We present results on the effect of the stiffness of the equation of state on the dynamical bar-mode instability in rapidly rotating polytropic models of neutron stars in full general relativity. We determine the change in the threshold for the emergence of the instability for a range of the adiabatic $\mathrm{\Gamma }$ index from 2.0 to 3.0, including two values chosen to mimic more realistic equations of state at high densities.

We derive the effect of the Schrödinger-Newton equation, which can be considered as a nonrelativistic limit of classical gravity, for a composite quantum system in the regime of high energies. Such meson-antimeson systems exhibit very unique properties, e.g., distinct masses due to strong and electroweak interactions. This raises an immediate question: what does one mean by mass in gravity for a state that is a superposition of mass eigenstates due to strong and electroweak interactions? We find conceptually different physical scenarios due to lacking of a clear physical guiding principle to explain which mass is the relevant one and due to the fact that it is not clear how the flavor wave function relates to the spatial wave function. There seems to be no principal contradiction. However, a nonlinear extension of the Schrödinger equation in this manner strongly depends on the relation between the flavor wave function and spatial wave function and its particular shape. In opposition to the continuous spontaneous localization collapse models we find a change in the oscillating behavior and not in the damping of the flavor oscillation.

A grand unified field ${\mathcal{M}}^{\mu \nu }$ is constructed from Maxwell’s field tensor and an appropriately modified flow field, both nonminimally coupled to gravity, to analyze the dynamics of hot charged fluids in curved background space-time. With a suitable $3+1$ decomposition, this new formalism of the hot fluid is then applied to investigate the vortical dynamics of the system. Finally, the equilibrium state for plasma with nonminimal coupling through Ricci scalar $R$ to gravity is investigated to derive a double Beltrami equation in curved space-time.

The observed galaxy power spectrum acquires relativistic corrections from light-cone effects, and these corrections grow on very large scales. Future galaxy surveys in optical, infrared and radio bands will probe increasingly large wavelength modes and reach higher redshifts. In order to exploit the new data on large scales, an accurate analysis requires inclusion of the relativistic effects. This is especially the case for primordial non-Gaussianity and for extending tests of dark energy models to horizon scales. Here we investigate the latter, focusing on models where the dark energy interacts nongravitationally with dark matter. Interaction in the dark sector can also lead to large-scale deviations in the power spectrum. If the relativistic effects are ignored, the imprint of interacting dark energy will be incorrectly identified and thus lead to a bias in constraints on interacting dark energy on very large scales.

We perform parametric tests of the consistency of the standard $w\mathrm{CDM}$ model in the framework of general relativity by carefully separating information between the geometry and growth of structure. We replace each late-Universe parameter that describes the behavior of dark energy with two parameters: one describing geometrical information in cosmological probes, and the other controlling the growth of structure. We use data from all principal cosmological probes; of these, Type Ia supernovae, baryon acoustic oscillations, and the peak locations in the cosmic microwave background angular power spectrum constrain the geometry, while the redshift space distortions, weak gravitational lensing, and abundance of galaxy clusters constrain both geometry and growth. Both geometry and growth separately favor the $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ cosmology with the matter density relative to critical ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_M\simeq 0.3$. When the equation of state is allowed to vary separately for probes of growth and geometry, we find again a good agreement with the $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ value ($w\simeq -1$), with the major exception of redshift-space distortions which favor less growth than in $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ at $3\text{−}\sigma$ confidence, favoring the equation of state $w^{\text{grow}}\simeq -0.8$. The anomalous growth favored by redshift space distortions has been noted earlier, and is common to all Redshift space distortions data sets, but may well be caused by systematics, or be explained by the sum of the neutrino masses higher than that expected from the simplest mass hierarchies, $m_{\nu }\simeq 0.45\mathrm{eV}$. On the whole, the constraints are tight even in the new, larger parameter space due to impressive complementarity of different cosmological probes.

We discuss the dispersion relations of Nambu-Goldstone (NG) modes associated with spontaneous breaking of internal symmetries at finite temperature and/or density. We show that the dispersion relations of type-A (I) and type-B (II) NG modes are linear and quadratic in momentum, whose imaginary parts are quadratic and quartic, respectively. In both cases, the real parts of the dispersion relations are larger than the imaginary parts when the momentum is small, so that the NG modes can propagate far away. We derive the gap formula for NG modes in the presence of a small explicit breaking term. We also discuss the gapped partners of type-B NG modes, when the expectation values of a charge density and a local operator that break the same symmetry coexist.

We study constraints on new physics from Higgs production at the LHC in the context of an effective field theory (EFT), focusing on Higgs searches in $HV$ ($V=W,Z$) associated production which are particularly sensitive to the high-energy behavior of certain dimension-six operators. We show that analyses of these searches are generally dominated by a kinematic region where the generic EFT expansion breaks down, and we establish under which conditions they can nevertheless be meaningful. For example, constraints from these searches on the Wilson coefficients of operators whose effects grow with energy can be established in scenarios where a particular combination of fermions and the Higgs are composite and strongly coupled: then, bounds from Higgs physics at high energy are complementary to LEP1 and competitive with LEP2.

We consider a scenario, within the framework of the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model, in which dark matter is binolike and dark matter-nucleon spin-independent scattering occurs via the exchange of light squarks which exhibit left-right mixing. We show that direct detection experiments such as LUX and SuperCDMS will be sensitive to a wide class of such models through spin-independent scattering. Moreover, these models exhibit properties, such as isospin violation, that are not typically observed for the minimal supersymmetric Standard Model lightest supersymmetric particle if scattering occurs primarily through Higgs exchange. The dominant nuclear physics uncertainty is the quark content of the nucleon, particularly the strangeness content.

We discuss the proton lifetime in pure gravity mediation models with nonuniversal Higgs soft masses. Pure gravity mediation offers a simple framework for studying SU(5) grand unified theories with a split supersymmetrylike spectra. We find that for much of the parameter space gauge coupling unification is quite good leading to rather long lifetimes for the proton. However, for $m_{3/2}\sim 60\mathrm{TeV}$ and $\tan \beta \sim 4$, for which gauge coupling unification is also good, the proton lifetime is short enough that it could be in reach of future experiments.

The trinification model is an interesting extension of the Standard Model (SM) based on the gauge group $SU(3{)}_C\times SU(3{)}_L\times SU(3{)}_R$. We study its low-energy phenomenology by constructing a low-energy effective field theory, thereby reducing the number of particles and free parameters that need to be studied. The resulting model predicts that several new scalar particles have masses in the $\mathcal{O}(100\mathrm{GeV})$ range. We study a few of the interesting phenomenological scenarios, such as the presence of a light fermiophobic scalar in addition to a SM-like Higgs, or a degenerate (twin) Higgs state at 126 GeV. We point out regions of the parameter space that lead to measurable deviations from SM predictions of the Higgs couplings. Hence, the trinification model awaits crucial tests at the Large Hadron Collider in the coming years.

We investigate the properties of $S$- and $P$-wave bottomonium states in the vicinity of the deconfinement transition temperature. The light degrees of freedom are represented by dynamical lattice quantum chromodynamics (QCD) configurations of the HotQCD collaboration with $N_f=2+1$ flavors. Bottomonium correlators are obtained from bottom quark propagators, computed in nonrelativistic QCD under the background of these gauge field configurations. The spectral functions for the ${{}^{3}S}_1$ ($\mathrm{\Upsilon }$) and ${{}^{3}P}_1$ (${\chi }_{b1}$) channel are extracted from the Euclidean time correlators using a novel Bayesian approach in the temperature region $140\mathrm{MeV}\le T\le 249\mathrm{MeV}$ and the results are contrasted to those from the standard maximum entropy method. We find that the new Bayesian approach is far superior to the maximum entropy method. It enables us to study reliably the presence or absence of the lowest state signal in the spectral function of a certain channel, even under the limitations present in the finite temperature setup. We find that ${\chi }_{b1}$ survives up to $T=249\mathrm{MeV}$, the highest temperature considered in our study, and put stringent constraints on the size of the medium modification of $\mathrm{\Upsilon }$ and ${\chi }_{b1}$ states.

We study the experimental signatures of top flavored dark matter (top FDM) in direct detection searches and at the LHC. We show that for a dark matter mass above 200 GeV, top FDM can be consistent with current bounds from direct detection experiments and relic abundance constraints. We also show that next generation direct detection experiments will be able to exclude the entire perturbative parameter region for top FDM. For regions of parameter space where the flavor partners of top FDM are not readily produced, the LHC signatures of top FDM are similar to those of other models previously studied in the literature. For the case when the flavor partners are produced at the LHC, we study their impact on a search based on transverse mass variables and find that they diminish the signal significance. However, when the DM flavor partners are split in mass by less than 120–130 GeV, the LHC phenomenology becomes very distinctive through the appearance of displaced vertices. We also propose a strategy by which all parameters of the underlying model can be experimentally determined when the flavor partners can be observed.

We present a quantitative analysis of chiral symmetry breaking in two-flavor continuum QCD in the quenched limit. The theory is set up at perturbative momenta, where asymptotic freedom leads to precise results. The evolution of QCD towards the hadronic phase is achieved by means of dynamical hadronization in the nonperturbative functional renormalization group approach. We use a vertex expansion scheme based on gauge-invariant operators and discuss its convergence properties and the remaining systematic errors. In particular, we present results for the quark propagator, the full tensor structure and momentum dependence of the quark-gluon vertex, and the four-Fermi scatterings.

We study the $P$-wave charmed baryons using the method of QCD sum rule in the framework of heavy quark effective theory. We consider systematically all possible baryon currents with a derivative for internal $\rho$- and $\lambda$-mode excitations. We have found a good working window for the currents corresponding to the $\rho$-mode excitations for ${\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c(2595)$, ${\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c(2625)$, ${\mathrm{\Xi }}_c(2790)$, and ${\mathrm{\Xi }}_c(2815)$ that complete two $SU(3)$ ${\overline{\mathbf{3}}}_F$ multiplets of $J^P=1/2^{-}$ and $3/2^{-}$, while the currents corresponding to the $\lambda$-mode excitations seem also consistent with the data. Our results also suggest that there are two ${\mathrm{\Sigma }}_c(2800)$ states of $J^P=1/2^{-}$ and $3/2^{-}$ whose mass splitting is $14\pm 7\mathrm{MeV}$, and two ${\mathrm{\Xi }}_c(2980)$ states whose mass splitting is $12\pm 7\mathrm{MeV}$. They have two ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_c$ partners of $J^P=1/2^{-}$ and $3/2^{-}$, whose masses are around $3.25\pm 0.20\mathrm{GeV}$ with mass splitting $10\pm 6\mathrm{MeV}$. All of them together complete two $SU(3)$ ${\mathbf{6}}_F$ multiplets of $J^P=1/2^{-}$ and $3/2^{-}$. They may also have $J^P=5/2^{-}$ partners. ${\mathrm{\Xi }}_c(3080)$ may be one of them, and the other two are ${\mathrm{\Sigma }}_c(5/2^{-})$ and ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_c(5/2^{-})$, whose masses are $85\pm 23\mathrm{MeV}$ and $50\pm 27\mathrm{MeV}$ larger.

We reexamine the branching fractions, $CP$ asymmetries, and other observables in a large number of $B_q\to VV(q=u,d,s)$ decays in the perturbative QCD approach, where $V$ denotes a light vector meson $(\rho ,K^{*},\omega ,\varphi )$. The essential difference between this work and earlier similar works is of parametric origin and in the estimates of the power corrections related to the ratio $r_i^2=m_{V_i}^2/m_B^2(i=2,3)$ ($m_V$ and $m_B$ denote the masses of the vector and $B$ meson, respectively). In particular, we use up-to-date distribution amplitudes for the final state mesons and keep the terms proportional to the ratio $r_i^2$ in our calculations. Our updated calculations are in agreement with the experimental data, except for a limited number of decays which we discuss. We emphasize that the penguin annihilation and the hard-scattering emission contributions are essential to understanding the polarization anomaly, such as in the $B\to \varphi K^{*}$ and $B_s\to \varphi \varphi$ decay modes. We also compare our results with those obtained in the QCD factorization approach and comment on the similarities and differences, which can be used to discriminate between these approaches in future experiments.

We develop a technique to present Higgs coupling measurements, which decouple the poorly defined theoretical uncertainties associated to inclusive and exclusive cross section predictions. The technique simplifies the combination of multiple measurements and can be used in a more general setting. We illustrate the approach with toy LHC Higgs coupling measurements and a collection of new physics models.