Global, symmetry-breaking phase transitions in the early universe can generate scaling seed networks which lead to metric perturbations. The acoustic waves in the photon-baryon plasma sourced by these metric perturbations, when Silk damped, generate spectral distortions of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). In this work, the chemical potential distortion ($\mu$) due to scaling seed networks is computed and the accompanying Compton $y$-type distortion is estimated. The specific model of choice is the $O(N)$ nonlinear $\sigma$-model for $N\gg 1$, but the results remain the same order of magnitude for other scaling seeds. If CMB anisotropy constraints to the $O(N)$ model are saturated, the resulting chemical potential distortion $\mu \lesssim 2\times 10^{-9}$.

The dynamics at the end of inflation can generate an asymmetry between particles and antiparticles of the inflaton field. This asymmetry can be transferred to baryons via decays, generating a baryon asymmetry in our Universe. We explore this idea in detail for a complex inflaton governed by an observationally consistent—“flatter than quadratic”—potential with a weakly broken global $U(1)$ symmetry. We find that most of the inflaton asymmetry is locked in nontopological soliton-like configurations (oscillons) produced copiously at the end of inflation. These solitons eventually decay into baryons and generate the observed matter-antimatter asymmetry for a range of model parameters. Through a combination of three dimensional lattice simulations and a detailed linearized analysis, we show how the inflaton asymmetry depends on the fragmentation, the magnitude of the symmetry breaking term and initial conditions at the end of inflation. We discuss the final decay into baryons, but leave a detailed analysis of the inhomogeneous annihilation, reheating and thermalization to future work. As part of our work, we pay particular attention to generating multifield initial conditions for the field fluctuations (including metric perturbations) at the end of inflation for lattice simulations.

Using relatively complete observational data concerning four angular diameter distance (ADD) measurements and combined $\mathrm{SN}+\mathrm{GRB}$ observations representing current luminosity distance (LD) data, this paper investigates the compatibility of these two cosmological distances considering three classes of dark energy equation of state (EoS) reconstruction. In particular, we use strongly gravitationally lensed systems from various large systematic gravitational lens surveys and galaxy clusters, which yield the Hubble constant independent ratio between two angular diameter distances $D_{ls}/D_s$ data. Our results demonstrate that, with more general categories of standard ruler data, ADD and LD data are compatible at $1\sigma$ level. Second, we note that consistency between ADD and LD data is maintained irrespective of the EoS parametrizations: there is a good match between the universally explored Chevalier-Polarski-Linder model and other formulations of cosmic equation of state. Especially for the truncated generalized equation of state (GEoS) model with $\beta =-2$, the conclusions obtained with ADD and LD are almost the same. Finally, statistical analysis of generalized dark energy equation of state performed on four classes of ADD data provides stringent constraints on the EoS parameters $w_0$, $w_{\beta }$, and $\beta$, which suggest that dark energy was a subdominant component at early times. Moreover, the GEoS parametrization with $\beta \simeq 1$ seems to be a more favorable two-parameter model to characterize the cosmic equation of state, because the combined angular diameter distance data ($\mathrm{SGL}+\mathrm{CBF}+\mathrm{BAO}+\mathrm{WMAP}9$) provide the best-fit value $\beta =0.751_{-0.480}^{+0.465}$.

We study a three-loop-induced radiative neutrino model with global $U(1)$ symmetry at the TeV scale, in which we consider two-component dark matter particles. We explain the x-ray line signal at about 3.55 keV recently reported by the XMM-Newton X-ray Observatory using the data of various galaxy clusters and the Andromeda Galaxy. Subsequently, we also discuss and show that a sizable muon anomalous magnetic moment, a discrepancy of the effective number of neutrino species $\mathrm{\Delta }{N}_{\text{eff}}\approx 0.39$, and a scattering cross section detected by direct detection searches can be derived.

We show that inconsistency between background field methods, which are relevant for lattice QCD spectroscopy, and effective field theory matching conditions, which are obtained from scattering amplitudes, can be resolved by augmenting nonrelativistic QED with operators related by the equations of motion. To determine the coefficients of such operators, we perform the nonrelativistic expansion of QED for a spin-half hadron including nonminimal electromagnetic couplings. As an effective field theory framework could provide a valuable tool to analyze lattice QCD correlation functions in external fields, we investigate whether nonrelativistic QED can be used to this end. We argue, however, that the most desirable approach is a hybrid one, which combines a relativistic hadron theory with operator selection based on nonrelativistic QED power counting. In this hybrid framework, new results are obtained for charged spin-half hadrons in uniform magnetic fields, including a proper treatment of Landau levels both in infinite volume and on a torus.

We explore the influence of heavy quarks on the deconfinement phase transition in an effective model for gluons interacting with dynamical quarks in color SU(3). With decreasing quark mass, the strength of the explicit breaking of the Z(3) symmetry grows, and the first-order transition ends in a critical end point. The nature of the critical end point is examined by studying the longitudinal and transverse fluctuations of the Polyakov loop, quantified by the corresponding susceptibilities. The longitudinal susceptibility is enhanced in the critical region, while the transverse susceptibility shows a monotonic behavior across the transition point. We investigate the dependence of the critical end point on the number of quark flavors at vanishing and finite quark density and relate these results to lattice findings.

We present a measurement of the forward–backward asymmetry in top quark–antiquark production using the full Tevatron Run II data set collected by the D0 experiment at Fermilab. The measurement is performed in $\text{lepton}+\mathrm{jets}$ final states using a new kinematic fitting algorithm for events with four or more jets and a new partial reconstruction algorithm for events with only three jets. Corrected for detector acceptance and resolution effects, the asymmetry is evaluated to be $A_{\mathrm{FB}}=(10.6\pm 3.0)\%$. Results are consistent with the standard model predictions which range from 5.0% to 8.8%. We also present the dependence of the asymmetry on the invariant mass of the top quark–antiquark system and the difference in rapidities of the top quark and antiquark.

We study gravity duals of the minimal $N=2$ super Yang-Mills gauge theories in five dimensions using the matter coupled $F(4)$ gauged supergravity in six dimensions. The $F(4)$ gauged supergravity coupled to $n$ vector multiplets contains $4n+1$ scalar fields, parametrized by ${\mathbb{R}}^{+}\times SO(4,n)/SO(4)\times SO(n)$ coset manifold. Maximally supersymmetric vacua of the gauged supergravity with $SU(2)\times G$ gauge group, with $G$ being an $n$-dimensional subgroup of $SO(n)$, correspond to five-dimensional superconformal field theories (SCFTs) with $SU(2{)}_R$ $R$ symmetry and $G$ global symmetry. Deformations of the UV SCFTs for $G=SU(2)$ and $G=U(2)\sim SU(2)\times U(1)$ symmetries that lead to nonconformal $N=2$ super Yang-Mills with various unbroken global symmetries are studied holographically.

We use a derivative expansion for gently curved surfaces to compute the leading and the next-to-leading curvature corrections to the Casimir-Polder interaction between a polarizable small particle and a nonplanar surface. While our methods apply to any homogeneous and isotropic surface, explicit results are presented here for perfect conductors. We show that the derivative expansion of the Casimir-Polder potential follows from a resummation of its perturbative series, for small in-plane momenta. We consider the retarded, nonretarded and classical high-temperature limits.

We investigate the compatibility of pure gravity mediation (or minimal split supersymmetry) with chaotic inflation models in supergravity. We find that an approximate $Z_2$ parity of the inflaton is useful to suppress gravitino production from the thermal bath and to obtain consistent inflation dynamics. We discuss the production of the lightest supersymmetric particle through the decay of the inflaton with approximate $Z_2$ symmetry, and we find that a large gravitino mass is favored in order to avoid overproduction of the lightest supersymmetric particle, while a lower gravitino mass requires the tuning of parameters. This may explain why a gravitino mass of $O(100)\mathrm{TeV}$ rather than $O(100)\mathrm{GeV}$ may be natural.

We apply a phenomenological Lagrangian approach to the radiative decay $Y(4260)\to X(3872)+\gamma$. The $Y(4260)$ and $X(3872)$ resonances are considered as composite states containing both molecular hadronic and charmonium components. Having a leading molecular component in the $X(3872)$ and a sole molecular configuration for the $Y(4260)$ results in a prediction compatible with present data.

In this work we study the spatial-momentum dependence of mesonic spectral functions obtained from the quark-meson model using a recently proposed method to calculate real-time observables at finite temperature and density from the functional renormalization group. This nonperturbative method is thermodynamically consistent, symmetry preserving and based on an analytic continuation from imaginary to real time on the level of the flow equations for two-point functions. Results on the spatial-momentum dependence of the pion and sigma spectral function are presented at different temperatures and densities, in particular near the critical endpoint in the phase diagram of the quark-meson model.

We consider the model suggested by Wang and Unruh [Phys. Rev. D 89, 085009 (2014)] for the $1+1$-dimensional mirror moving in the quantum vacuum. We consider the relation of this model to the problem of the polaron—the electron moving in the vacuum of the quantum field of phonons. We introduce the field-theoretical model of such a mirror. It contains the multicomponent spinor field interacting with the scalar field. We discuss the source of the logarithmic divergence in the mirror mass and its relation to the problem of the divergencies in vacuum energy.

We revisit the status of hybrid inflation in the light of Planck and recent BICEP2 results, taking care of possible transient violations of the slow-roll conditions as the field passes from the large field to the vacuum dominated phase. The usual regime where observable scales exit the Hubble radius in the vacuum dominated phase predicts a blue scalar spectrum, which is ruled out. But whereas assuming slow-roll one expects this regime to be generic, by solving the exact dynamics we identify the parameter space for which the small field phase is naturally avoided due to slow-roll violations at the end of the large field phase. When the number of $e$-folds generated at small field is negligible, the model predictions are degenerated with those of a quadratic potential. There exists also a transitory case for which the small field phase is sufficiently long to affect importantly the observable predictions. Interestingly, in this case the spectral index and the tensor to scalar ratio agree respectively with the best fit of Planck and BICEP2. This results in a $\mathrm{\Delta }{\chi }^2\simeq 5.0$ in favor of hybrid inflation for $\text{Planck}+\mathrm{BICEP}2$ ($\mathrm{\Delta }{\chi }^2\simeq 0.9$ for Planck only). The last considered regime is when the critical point at which inflation ends is located in the large field phase. It is constrained to be lower than about ten times the reduced Planck mass. The analysis has been conducted with the use of Markov-chain-Monte-Carlo Bayesian method, in a reheating consistent way, and we present the posterior probability distributions for all the model parameters.

We investigate the observational consequences of the early episodically dominating dark energy on the evolution of cosmological structures. For this aim, we introduce the minimally coupled scalar-field dark energy model with the Albrecht-Skordis potential, which allows a sudden ephemeral domination of a dark energy component during the radiation or early matter era. The conventional cosmological parameters in the presence of such an early dark energy are constrained with WMAP and Planck cosmic microwave background radiation data including other external data sets. It is shown that in the presence of such an early dark energy, the estimated cosmological parameters can deviate substantially from the currently known $\mathrm{\Lambda }$ cold dark matter ($\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$)-based parameters, with best-fit values differing by several percent for WMAP and by a percent level for Planck data. For the latter case, only a limited amount of dark energy with episodic nature is allowed since the Planck data strongly favor the $\mathrm{\Lambda }\mathrm{CDM}$ model. Compared with the conventional dark energy model, the early dark energy dominating near the radiation-matter equality or at the early matter era results in the shorter cosmic age or the presence of tensor-type perturbation, respectively. Our analysis demonstrates that the alternative cosmological parameter estimation is allowed based on the same observations even in Einstein’s gravity.

In this paper, we investigate a $CPT$-even model with a Lorentz-violating mass term. Such a model may present very interesting features like superluminal modes of propagation or even instantaneous long-range interactions. The mass term we investigate can be induced at the classical or quantum level in a scenario with spontaneous gauge symmetry breaking in a gauge-Higgs model without Lorentz symmetry. We analyze the physical consistency of the model by studying the poles of the propagator. By using the Noether dualization method, we obtain a gauge-invariant dual theory for this model. The physical equivalence between the two models is investigated and a general relation between the two propagators is obtained.

In this work we discuss a new $\mathrm{SU}(3{)}_C\otimes \mathrm{SU}(3{)}_L\otimes \mathrm{U}(1{)}_X\otimes \mathrm{U}(1{)}_N$ (3-3-1-1) gauge model that overhauls the theoretical and phenomenological aspects of the known 3-3-1 models. Additionally, we derive the outcome of the 3-3-1-1 model from precise electroweak bounds to dark matter observables. We firstly advocate that if the $B-L$ number is conserved as the electric charge, the extension of the standard model gauge symmetry to the 3-3-1-1 one provides a minimal, self-contained framework that unifies all the weak, electromagnetic, and $B-L$ interactions, apart from the strong interaction. The $W$ parity (similar to the $R$ parity) arises as a remnant subgroup of the broken 3-3-1-1 symmetry. The mass spectra of the scalar and gauge sectors are diagonalized when the scale of the 3-3-1-1 breaking is compatible to that of the ordinary 3-3-1 breaking. All the interactions of the gauge bosons with the fermions and scalars are obtained. The standard model Higgs ($H$) and gauge ($Z$) bosons are realized at the weak scales with consistent masses despite their respective mixings with the heavier particles. The 3-3-1-1 model provides two forms of dark matter that are stabilized by $W$-parity conservation: one fermion which may be either a Majorana or Dirac fermion, and one complex scalar. We conclude that in the fermion dark matter setup the $Z_2$ gauge-boson resonance sets the dark matter observables, whereas in the scalar one the Higgs portal dictates them. The standard model Glashow-Iliopoulos-Maiani mechanism works in the model because of $W$-parity conservation. Hence, the dangerous flavor-changing neutral currents due to the ordinary and exotic quark mixing are suppressed, while those coming from the nonuniversal couplings of the $Z_2$ and $Z_N$ gauge bosons are easily evaded. Indeed, the $K^0-{\overline{K}}^0$ and $B_s^0-{\overline{B}}_s^0$ mixings limit $m_{Z_{2,N}}>2.037\mathrm{TeV}$ and $m_{Z_{2,N}}>2.291\mathrm{TeV}$, respectively, while the LEPII searches provide a rather close bound, $m_{Z_{2,N}}>2.737\mathrm{TeV}$. The violation of Cabibbo-Kobayashi-Maskawa unitarity due to the loop effects of the $Z_2$ and $Z_N$ gauge bosons is negligible.

The strong decay properties of the higher excited heavy-light mesons from the first radially excited states up to the first $F$-wave states are studied in a constituent quark model. It is found that many missing excitations have good potentials to be found in future experiments for their narrow widths, and some of them dominantly decay into the first orbital excitations rather than into ground states. In future observations, one should focus on the decay processes not only into the ground states, but also into the low-lying $P$-wave excitations with $J^P=0^{+},1^{+}$. Furthermore, the nature of the newly observed states $D_J(3000)$, $D_J^{*}(3000)$, and $B(5970)$ is discussed. It is predicted that $D_J(3000)$ seems to be a partner of $D_{sJ}(3040)$, which could be identified as the low-mass mixed state $|2P_1{⟩}_L$ ($J^P=1^{+}$) via the $2{{}^{1}P}_1$-$2{{}^{3}P}_1$ mixing. The $D_J^{*}(3000)$ resonance seems to favor the $1{{}^{3}F}_4$ state; while the quantum numbers $J^P=0^{+}$ and $2^{+}$ cannot be excluded complectly, more experimental observations are needed to determine its $J^P$ values. The $B(5970)$ resonance is most likely to be the $1{{}^{3}D}_3$ with $J^P=3^{-}$.

The $W^{+}{W}^{-}$ production cross section measured at the LHC has been consistently exhibiting a mild excess beyond the Standard Model (SM) prediction, in both the ATLAS and the CMS experiments at both 7 TeV and 8 TeV runs. We provide an explanation of the excess in terms of resummation of large logarithms that arise from a jet-veto condition, i.e., the rejection of high-$p_{\mathrm{T}}$ jets with $p_{\mathrm{T}}>p_{\mathrm{T}}^{\text{veto}}$ that is imposed in the experimental analyses to reduce backgrounds. Jet veto introduces a second mass scale $p_{\mathrm{T}}^{\text{veto}}$ to the problem in addition to the invariant mass of the $W^{+}{W}^{-}$ pair. This gives rise to large logarithms of the ratio of the two scales that need to be resummed. Such resummation may not be properly accounted for by the Monte Carlo simulations used in the ATLAS and CMS studies. Those logarithms are also accompanied by large $O({\pi }^2)$ terms when the standard, positive sign is chosen for the squared renormalization scale, ${\mu }^2$. We analytically resum the large logarithms including the ${\pi }^2$ terms in the framework of soft collinear effective theory (SCET), and demonstrate that the SCET calculation not only reduces the scale uncertainties of the SM prediction significantly but also renders the theory prediction well compatible with the experiment. We find that resummation of the large logarithms and that of the ${\pi }^2$ terms are both comparably important.