In the present work, we study the $Z_{cs}^{+}$ exotic state production in the $B^{+}$ meson decays through the meson loop mechanism, where the $B^{+}$ meson decays into an anticharmed meson and a charmed-strange meson pair, and consequently couples to $Z_{cs}$ and a light meson ($\varphi ,{\rho }^0,\omega ,\eta ,{\eta }^{\prime }$, and ${\pi }^0$) via exchanging a proper charmed or charmed-strange meson. Using the effective Lagrangian approach, we estimate the branching fractions of different channels, finding them to be of the order of ${10}^{-4}$, and their ratios are almost independent of the model parameter. The fit fractions of $Z_{cs}^{+}$ in different $B^{+}$ decay processes are also estimated, and we propose searching for $Z_{cs}^{+}$ in the $B^{+}\to J/\psi K^{+}{\eta }^{\prime }$ process, which should be accessible to both Belle II and LHCb Collaborations.

In this work, we analyze the energy density and the stress distribution inside the pion derived from gravitational form factors in top-down holographic QCD. In particular, we show that the dominance of the scale anomaly in the confining pressure, previously observed in the instant form for the nucleon, also holds for the pion in the light-front form. Furthermore, we find that in large-$N_c$ QCD described by this approach, the scalar glueball plays a mediating role in transmitting the confining pressure. These findings support the universal role of the scale anomaly in the stability of hadrons.

An exploratory study of the exclusive toponium production in $pp$, $pPb$, and $PbPb$ collisions at the center-of-mass energies of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) and Future Circular Collider (FCC) is performed. Assuming that the toponium is a pseudoscalar $t\overline{t}$ state, we consider its exclusive production by photon and gluon-induced interactions. Results for the total cross sections and associated rapidity distributions are presented, and the number of events at the LHC and FCC are estimated.

Based on $e^{+}{e}^{-}$ annihilation data collected with the BESIII detector at the BEPCII collider, searches for the $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to {\mathrm{\Sigma }}_c{\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}}_c$ (${\mathrm{\Sigma }}_c^{+}{\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}}_c^{-}$, ${\mathrm{\Sigma }}_c^0{\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}}_c^0$, and ${\mathrm{\Sigma }}_c^{++}{\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}}_c^{--}$) processes, as well as for the process $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to {\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c^{+}{\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}}_c^{-}$, are conducted for the first time at $\sqrt{s}=4.750$, 4.781, 4.843, 4.918, and 4.951 GeV. As no signals are observed for all the above channels, the upper limits on their Born cross sections at the 90% confidence level are reported. The obtained upper limits of cross sections for $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to {\mathrm{\Sigma }}_c{\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}}_c$ are more than 2 orders of magnitude smaller than those for $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to {\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c^{+}{\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}}_c^{-}$ near the threshold. In contrast, such suppression is absent in hyperon pair production ($e^{+}{e}^{-}\to \mathrm{\Lambda }\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}$ and $\mathrm{\Sigma }\overline{\mathrm{\Sigma }}$), suggesting distinct underlying dynamics in charmed baryon production.

We propose an Abelian mirror dual for the $\mathcal{N}=2$ ${\mathrm{SQCD}}_3$ that we obtain as real mass deformation of known $\mathcal{N}=4$ mirror pairs. We match the superconformal index and the ${\mathbf{S}}_b^3$ partition function, discuss the agreement of the moduli spaces, and provide a map of the gauge invariant operators and the global symmetries as evidence of this duality.

The study of cross sections in the threshold limit at next-to-leading power has been a subject of sustained interest for many years. We demonstrate the universality of leading logarithms at next-to-leading power for the production of arbitrary massive colorless particles in association with a jet, contingent upon the identification of appropriate combination of helicity configurations.

Using the multipoint Padé approach, we locate Lee-Yang edge singularities of the quantum chromodynamics (QCD) pressure in the complex baryon chemical potential plane. These singularities are extracted from singularities in the net baryon-number density calculated in $N_f=2+1$ lattice QCD at physical quark mass and purely imaginary chemical potential. Taking an appropriate scaling ansatz in the vicinity of the conjectured QCD critical end point, we extrapolate the singularities on $N_{\tau }=6$ lattices to pure real baryon chemical potential to estimate the position of the critical end point (CEP). We find $T^{\mathrm{CEP}}=102_{-23}^{+11}\mathrm{MeV}$ and ${\mu }_B^{\mathrm{CEP}}=428_{-74}^{+162}\mathrm{MeV}$, which compares well with recent estimates in the literature. For the slope of the transition line at the critical point we find $-0.16(20)$.

Excited-state contamination remains one of the leading sources of systematic uncertainty in the precise determination of hadron structure observables from lattice QCD. In this letter, we present a general argument, inspired by meson dominance ideas and implemented through the variational method, to identify which excited states are enhanced by the choice of the inserted current and kinematics. The argument is supported by numerical evidence across multiple hadronic channels and provides both a conceptual understanding and practical guidance to account for excited-state effects in hadron three-point function analyses.

The dimensional reduction of M-theory couplings at order ${\ell }_p^6$ is known to produce one-loop ${\alpha }^{\prime 3}$ corrections in type IIA string theory. In this paper, we perform the Kaluza-Klein reduction of the M-theory Chern-Simons coupling $t_8{\epsilon }_{11}A{R}^4$ at this order. By meticulously accounting for nongauge-invariant total derivative terms, we derive the complete set of corresponding one-loop, gauge-invariant couplings in the type IIA effective action. Our results not only reproduce the standard Chern-Simons term $t_8{\epsilon }_{10}B{R}^4$—which is gauge invariant up to total derivatives—but also unveil a new set of gauge-invariant couplings involving Ramond-Ramond and Neveu-Schwarz–Neveu-Schwarz field strengths. To validate our findings, we test their consistency under string dualities. We dimensionally reduce the derived type IIA couplings on a K3 manifold and show that the resulting one-loop ${\alpha }^{\prime }$ corrections in six dimensions transform under S-duality into the dimensional reduction of the tree-level heterotic string Chern-Simons coupling $H_{\mu \nu \alpha }{\mathrm{\Omega }}^{\mu \nu \alpha }$ on $T^4$. This nontrivial agreement provides strong evidence for the correctness of both the M-theory Chern-Simons term and its reduction to type IIA.

We investigate the $q=2$ SYK model with $R$-para-particles ($R\text{−}{\mathrm{PSYK}}_2$), analyzing its thermodynamics and spectral form factor (SFF) using random matrix theory. The Hamiltonian is quadratic, with coupling coefficients randomly drawn from the Gaussian unitary ensemble. The model displays self-averaging behavior and exhibits an exponential ramp in its SFF dynamics: $\mathcal{K}(t)\sim e^{C_{0}t}$. The growth rate $C_0$ tends toward either a constant or infinity in the $N\to \infty$ limit, depending on specific statistics of the model. These results provide novel perspectives on quantum systems with unconventional statistics.

It has long been known that superpotential couplings in heterotic theories often vanish despite the absence of any known symmetry that would forbid them. We show that such structure is also exhibited by the matter field Kähler potential of these compactifications. We give an analytical analysis which provides some simple conditions under which certain terms, which would be expected to be present in the Kähler potential, vanish. Explicit examples of this phenomenon are provided, some of which are verifiable by other methods and some of which can only currently be accessed by these techniques. By studying the interplay of the structure we find with Higgsing transitions, we are able to show that this vanishing of Kähler potential terms can extend to all orders in a perturbative expansion in the matter fields.

We propose an embedding of the symmetry topological field theory (symTFT) construction in (finite cutoff) holography. The proposal passes several nontrivial consistency checks reproducing the expected symTFTs in various cases, including the recently discussed symTFT for the 1-form symmetry of 4D $\mathcal{N}=4$ super Yang-Mills (SYM). Moreover, we comment on the possibility of unifying the symTFT and the symmetry theory (symTh) descriptions via the democratic formulation of supergravity, using the 4d $\mathcal{N}=4$ SYM theory as an example.

Quantum gravity is expected to impose constraints on the moduli spaces of massless fields that can arise in effective quantum field theories. A recent proposal asserts that the asymptotic volume growth of these spaces is severely restricted, and related to the existence of duality symmetries. In this work we link this proposal to a tameness criterion, by suggesting that any consistent moduli space should admit a tame isometric embedding into Euclidean space. This allows us to promote the volume growth constraint to a local condition, and give the growth coefficient a geometric interpretation in terms of complexity. We study the implications of this proposal for the emergence of dualities, as well as for the curvature and infinite distance limits of moduli spaces.

This paper investigates the normal modes of a probe scalar field in a five-dimensional AdS-Schwarzschild black hole with the brick wall boundary condition near the horizon. We employ various techniques to compute the spectrum and analyze its properties. Our results reveal a linear dependence of the spectrum on the principal quantum number while demonstrating a nontrivial dependence on the angular momentum quantum number. We compute the spectral form factor (SFF) and find a dip-ramp-plateau structure, with the slope of the ramp approaching unity as the brick wall nears the horizon. This feature appears to vanish when the horizon size becomes much larger compared to the anti–de Sitter length. We also observe that as the brick wall approaches the horizon, the poles of the retarded Green’s function condense on the real line, leading to an emergent thermal behavior in the boundary theory. This work extends previous studies on lower-dimensional black holes to higher dimensions, providing insights into the connection between black hole microstate models and boundary chaos. Our findings contribute to the ongoing discussions on the information paradox and the nature of black hole interiors in the context of anti–de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence.

Using the recent six loop renormalization group functions for Lee-Yang and percolation theory constructed by Schnetz from a scalar cubic Lagrangian, we deduce the $\epsilon$ expansion of the critical exponents for both cases. Estimates for the exponents in three, four, and five dimensions are extracted using two-sided Padé approximants and shown to be compatible with values from other approaches.

We study the multicollinear behavior of tree amplitudes in the six-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=(1,1)$ super Yang-Mills theory (sYM). A generalized dimensional reduction of the latter yields the four-dimensional $\mathcal{N}=4$ sYM on the Coulomb branch, which is of interest for considerations of massive or off-shell scattering. To this end, we revisit the calculation of tree scattering in the former theory employing the collinear bootstrap and known massless limits. Assuming the universality of the double-collinear asymptotics, the result for six-leg superamplitudes differs from the one available in the literature. We further extract the triple-collinear splitting superamplitudes from these.

We study dissipative effects for a system consisting of a massless real scalar field satisfying Neumann boundary conditions on a space and time-dependent surface, in $d+1$ dimensions. We focus on the comparison of the results for this system with the ones corresponding to Dirichlet conditions, and the same surface spacetime geometry. We show that, in $d=1$, the effects are equal up to second order for rather arbitrary surfaces, and up to fourth order for wavelike surfaces. For $d>1$, we find general expressions for their difference.

We compute the renormalized stress-energy tensor for a massless quantum scalar field in the background of the horizonless Bardeen spacetime. Within the weak-field approximation, we show that the vacuum fluctuations differ significantly between conformally and nonconformally coupled fields, both in magnitude and in their behavior at short and intermediate distances. At large distances, we recover the universal asymptotic behavior previously observed in black hole and Newtonian star backgrounds. Going beyond the weak-field regime, we find that, for certain parameter ranges, the modes of the field can develop imaginary frequencies, leading to instabilities and an exponential growth of vacuum fluctuations. We also discuss critically the applicability of the anomaly-induced effective action for computing the renormalized stress-energy tensor in the conformally coupled case.

The parameter estimation (PE) for gravitational wave (GW) merger events relies on a waveform model calibrated using numerical simulations. Within the Bayesian framework, this waveform model represents the GW signal produced during the merger and is crucial for estimating the likelihood function. However, these waveform models may possess systematic errors that can differ across the parameter space. Addressing these errors in the current data analysis pipeline is an active area of research. We introduce parametrizations for the uncertainties in the amplitude and phase of the reference waveform model. When the error budget in the amplitude and phase of the waveform model, as a function of frequency, is known, it can be used as a prior distribution in the Bayesian framework. We also show that conservative priors can be used to quantify uncertainties in waveform modeling without any knowledge of waveform uncertainty error budgets. Through zero-noise injections and PE recoveries, we demonstrate that even 1%–2% of errors in relative phase to the actual waveform model, for a GW150914-like signal and advanced LIGO detector sensitivity, can introduce biases in the recovered parameters. These biases can be corrected when we account for waveform uncertainties within the PE framework. By analyzing a series of simulated signals from mergers with precessing orbits and recovering them using a nonspinning waveform model, we demonstrate that we can reduce the ratio of systematic errors to statistical errors. This approach allows us to address scenarios where specific physical effects are missing in waveform modeling. The code that implements our parametrization for performing PE is available as a Python package “pycbc_wferrors_plugin”, compatible with the PyCBC open source GW analysis library.

According to general relativity (GR), gravitational waves (GWs) should travel at the speed of light $c$. However, some theories beyond GR predict deviations of the velocity of GWs $c_{\mathrm{gw}}$ from $c$, and some of those expect vacuum dispersion. Therefore, probing the propagation effects of GWs by comparing the wave format detectors against the one at emission excepted from GR. Since such propagation effects accumulate through larger distance, it is expected that supermassive black holes binary (SMBHB) mergers serve as better targets than their stellarmass equivalent. In this paper, we study with simulations on how observations on a population of SMBHs can help to study this topic. We simulate LISA observations on three possible SMBHB merger populations, namely PopIII, Q3-nod, and Q3-d over a 5-year mission. The resulting constraints on the graviton mass are 9.50, 9.33, and $9.05\times {10}^{-27}\mathrm{eV}/c^2$, respectively. We also obtain the corresponding constraints on the dispersion coefficients assuming different dispersion scenarios. If the electromagnetic wave counterparts of SMBHB merger can be detected simultaneously, the $c_{\mathrm{gw}}$ can be constrained waveform-independently to $\mathrm{\Delta }c/c$ to ${10}^{-13}–{10}^{-12}$, corresponding to graviton mass constraints of ${10}^{-26}–{10}^{-24}\mathrm{eV}/c^2$.