Heavy neutron stars may contain solid quark cores as motivated by, e.g., the crystalline color superconducting phase, forming elastic hybrid stars (HSs). Many previous studies assumed an elastic core to be unsheared for the background, static and spherically symmetric configuration, and introduced shear deformation only at a perturbative level. This study relaxes this assumption and explores the influence of nonlinear elasticity on the static, spherically symmetric structure of elastic HSs within a fully relativistic elasticity framework. Such a framework effectively introduces anisotropic pressure within the quark matter core due to elasticity. The quark core is modeled using a quasi-Hookean equation of state (EOS) with shear contributions, while the nuclear matter envelope is treated as a perfect fluid. We find that including elasticity increases the maximum mass of HSs by several percent. This enhancement allows some soft EOSs to satisfy current observational constraints. However, since the effects of elasticity are primarily concentrated in the high-mass regime, the current observational constraints are insufficient to distinguish whether an elastic anisotropic quark core exists within these stars. Additionally, we show that the compactness of stable stars can exceed the critical value of $1/3$ due to the inclusion of elasticity, making them potential candidates for black hole mimickers. Furthermore, we found that common phenomenological anisotropy models fail to accurately describe the anisotropy of the elastic core and propose a new parametrized anisotropy model that can accurately capture physically motivated profiles with an error of 10% across a wide parameter space. This work not only bridges the gap between elastic EOSs and parametrized anisotropic models but also provides a foundation for interesting applications such as studying nonradial perturbations, tidal deformability, and pulsation modes for elastic HSs.

Modified Newtonian dynamics (MOND) has long been known to fail in galaxy clusters, implying a residual missing mass problem for clusters in this context. Here, using mass profiles derived from strong- and weak-lensing shear, as well as magnification data, for a sample of clusters from the CLASH survey, we characterize the density profile of this residual MOND missing mass in the central megaparsec of galaxy clusters. In line with results obtained in the literature from the hydrostatic equilibrium of hot gas, we find that an inner constant density core and an outer power-law slope sharper than $-3.5$ provide a good description within $\sim 1\mathrm{Mpc}$. We also show that the data in the central parts of clusters can be even better represented by a “dark-mass-follows-gas” profile with an exponential cutoff. Clusters in the sample display a remarkable uniformity for the missing-to-hot-gas density ratio in the inner parts, of order $\sim 10$, as well as for the exponential cutoff radius, of order $\sim 400\mathrm{kpc}$. These lensing results can in principle serve as a crucible for relativistic theories of MOND in galaxy clusters or for any other tentative hypothesis regarding the nature of the clusters residual missing mass in the MOND context.

CubeSat technology is an emerging alternative to large-scale space telescopes due to its short development time and cost effectiveness. MeVCube is a proposed CubeSat mission to study the least explored MeV gamma-ray sky, also known as the “MeV gap.” Besides being sensitive to a plethora of astrophysical phenomena, MeVCube can also be important in the hunt for dark matter. If dark matter is made up of evaporating primordial black holes, then it can produce photons in the sensitivity range of MeVCube. Besides, particle dark matter can also decay or annihilate to produce final state gamma-ray photons. We perform the first comprehensive study of dark matter discovery potential of a near-future MeVCube CubeSat mission. In all cases, we find that MeVCube will have much better discovery reach compared to existing limits in the parameter space. This may be an important step towards discovering dark matter through its nongravitational interactions.

Recent observations with ground-based telescopes have measured the spectra of a large number of gamma-ray sources in the TeV and PeV energy ranges. Photons of such high energies are strongly absorbed as they propagate over extragalactic distances, and most of these sources are Galactic. Combining these new results with those obtained by Fermi-LAT at lower energies it is possible to study the ensemble of the Galactic gamma-ray sources in a very large energy range extending for seven decades from 0.1 GeV to ${10}^6\mathrm{GeV}$. An interesting quantity is the cumulative spectrum obtained summing the fluxes of all resolved Galactic sources. This spectrum is not a simple power-law, but has a smooth shape that softens gradually with energy. This spectral shape can be used as a first approximation for the shape of the flux of the ensemble of the unresolved Galactic gamma-ray sources, that must be subtracted from the observations to obtain the diffuse gamma-ray flux produced in the collisions of cosmic rays with interstellar gas. The shape of cumulative Galactic sources spectrum emerges from the sum of contributions that can have very different spectral shapes, and cannot be considered as a good model for the emission of any individual source. Understanding the origin of the spectral shapes of the Galactic gamma-ray sources remains a crucial challenge for high-energy astrophysics.

Our results demonstrate that vortex lines in Bose-Einstein condensate dark matter (BECDM) can act as gravitational seeds that induce the condensation of baryonic matter, leading to localized gas accumulation even in the absence of imposed symmetries or rotation. Our analysis is based on the numerical solution of the system of equations for the BECDM gravitationally coupled to Euler equations for a compressible ideal gas (IG) that we use as a model of baryonic matter. Numerical simulations are constructed for various scenarios that start with a vortex solution for the BECDM and a randomly distributed ideal gas, with the aim of investigating whether the matter distribution and dynamics of the vortex influences the dynamics and distribution of the gas. We find that the gas condensation process is most efficient when the IG mass dominates over the BECDM and when the IG has low initial velocity dispersion. We also find that strong bosonic self-interaction does not guarantee the vortex stability. Instead, it can trigger dynamical instabilities that disrupt both the vortex structure and the surrounding gas. An interesting finding is that the vortex drives a persistent morphological signature on the gas, often in the form of ring-like features visible in projected density maps. These patterns survive nonlinear evolution and may serve as indirect tracers of vortex structures in BECDM halos, potentially offering a novel and testable observational probe of the model.

The double-pass interferometer scheme was proposed in Danilishin et al. [A new quantum speed-meter interferometer: Measuring speed to search for intermediate mass black holes, Light Sci. Appl. 7, 11 (2018)] as the method of implementation of the quantum speed meter concept in future laser gravitational-wave (GW) detectors. Later it was shown in Khalili [New double-pass type of the optical spring, Phys. Rev. D 110, 062006 (2024)] that it allows us to implement the new type of the optical spring that does not require detuning of the interferometer. Here we show that both these regimes can coexist, combining the speed meter type broadband sensitivity gain with the additional lows-frequency minimum in the quantum noise originated from the optical spring. We show that the location of this minimum can be varied without affecting the core optics of the interferometer, allowing to tune the quantum noise shape in real time to follow the “chirp” GW signals.

We use the recently proposed supersymmetric expansion algorithm to obtain a complete analytical solution to the Schrödinger equation with the Cornell potential. We find that the energy levels $E_{nl}(\lambda )$ depend on $n^2$ and $L^2=l(l+1)$. For a given $n$, the energy decreases with $l$ and the radial probabilities have the Coulomb shape but their peaks are shifted toward smaller radius. We study the heavy quarkonium structure on the light of these results, showing that the measured $\overline{b}b$ and $\overline{c}c$ meson masses follow the inverted spectrum pattern predicted by the Cornell potential. Details of the structure of heavy quarkonium like the mean inverse radius and mean squared velocity for the different quarkonium configurations can be obtained from our solution. These details point to significant relativistic corrections for all the configurations of real heavy quarkonium. We calculate relativistic corrections using perturbation theory finding an expansion in ${\alpha }_s^2$ for the heavy quarkonium masses. The mass hierarchies in the fine splittings can be qualitatively understood from this expansion. The quantitative analysis of the Bohr-like levels and of the fine splittings in the $l=0$ sector allow us to make well-defined predictions for the masses of some of the missing heavy quarkonium states, to identify the $\psi (4040)$ as the $3^3{S}_1$ $\overline{c}c$ state and the $\psi (3842)$, $\psi (3823)$ and $\psi (3770)$ as the $3^3{D}_3$, $3^3{D}_2$, and $3^3{D}_1$ $\overline{c}c$ states, respectively.

We propose the possibility of using the near detector at reactor neutrino experiments to probe the renormalization group (RG) running effect on the leptonic Dirac $CP$ phase ${\delta }_D$. Although the reactor neutrino oscillation cannot directly measure ${\delta }_D$, it can probe the deviation $\mathrm{\Delta }\delta \equiv {\delta }_D(Q_d^2)-{\delta }_D(Q_p^2)$ caused by the RG running. Being a key element, the mismatched momentum transfers at neutrino production ($Q_p^2$) and detection ($Q_d^2$) processes can differ by two orders. We illustrate this concept with the upcoming Taishan Antineutrino Observatory (TAO, also known as JUNO-TAO) experiment and obtain the projected sensitivity to the $CP$ RG running beta function ${\beta }_{\delta }$.

We consider constraints on the axion-photon coupling by superradiance due to a plasma instability in the magnetospheres of millisecond pulsars. We compute the growth rate of a superradiant axion cloud in a dipole magnetic field, and give a semianalytical formula for the superradiance rate for the lowest state. By requiring the associated instability time to be longer than the characteristic age of the supermassive black-widow millisecond pulsar PSR J0952-0607, we examine the pulsar-timing array constraints on axions of mass $\sim {10}^{-12}\mathrm{eV}$. We find that competitive axion bounds from plasma instabilities are unlikely unless a new high spin pulsar is discovered.

We point out a new effect on the freeze-out process of heavy particles induced by density perturbations in the early Universe, which we call “acoustically driven freeze-out.” This beyond-linear effect is caused by the exponential decoupling of heavy particles from the thermal bath in the presence of density perturbations, and already at moderately large values $\delta T/\overline{T}=\mathcal{O}({10}^{-2})$, it cannot be captured by linear perturbation theory. We illustrate this effect with leptogenesis taking the decay and inverse decay of heavy neutrinos into account and discuss its phenomenological implications. We found that perturbations always enhance the (spatially averaged) values of the final lepton asymmetry, and as a result, constraints on the mass of heavy neutrinos are found to be relaxed in the presence of perturbations.

The main goal of modern experiments in the high-energy physics area is to find deviations from the Standard Model, the theoretical framework which describes data well but is expected to be extended to a more general theory. The anomalous coupling approach provides an opportunity to look for a wide range of new physics effects in different experimental signatures thanks to its model independence. In this work, the neutral triple gauge couplings are considered in $Z(\ell \ell )\gamma$ channel, and an effective field theory is used to parametrize these couplings in the Lagrangian. Neutral triple gauge couplings are triple interactions between $Z$ bosons and photons, and some of them violate $CP$ symmetry. This work presents a study of $CP$-sensitive variables in the aforementioned channel using special angular variables and matrix-element-based optimal observables. Based on these variables, expected limits on the coupling parameters are set for the conditions of Run II and Run III at LHC experiments, demonstrating the possibility of studying the $CP$-violation using a neutral triple gauge coupling approach and special $CP$-sensitive variables.

We study the impact of the non-holomorphic (NH) soft supersymmetry-breaking terms $T_{33}^{\prime D}$ and ${\mu }^{\prime }$, which introduce additional supersymmetry-breaking effects beyond the holomorphic structure of the superpotential, on the Higgs boson mass spectrum in the NH Minimal Supersymmetric Standard Model. The term $T_{33}^{\prime D}$ modifies the scalar bottom-quark mass matrix and Higgs couplings, while ${\mu }^{\prime }$ affects the mass matrices of charginos and neutralinos. In our analysis, we incorporate constraints from charge- and color-breaking minima where we find that a portion of the parameter space is excluded by these constraints. Focusing on the allowed parameter space, the NH contributions to the light $\mathcal{C}\mathcal{P}$-even Higgs boson mass $M_h$ from ${\mu }^{\prime }$ and $T_{33}^{\prime D}$ can reach up to 1.4 GeV and 90 MeV, respectively. For the heavy $\mathcal{C}\mathcal{P}$-even Higgs boson mass $M_H$ and the charged Higgs boson mass $M_{H^{\pm }}$, these contributions can be substantially larger in certain regions of the parameter space, reaching up to 44 GeV for $M_H$ and 42 GeV for $M_{H^{\pm }}$ due to ${\mu }^{\prime }$ and up to 60 GeV due to $T_{33}^{\prime D}$ for both $M_H$ and $M_{H^{\pm }}$. These corrections are significantly larger than the expected future experimental precision for Higgs boson masses and should therefore be considered in precision analyses for future experiments.

We study the confining and deconfining phases of pure SU(3) lattice gauge theory with topological data analysis. This provides unique insights into long range correlations of field configurations across the confinement-deconfinement transition. Specifically, we analyze nontrivial structures in electric and magnetic field energy densities as well as Polyakov loop traces and a Polyakov loop-based variant of the topological density. The Betti curves for filtrations based on the electric and magnetic field energy densities reveal signals of electromagnetic dualities. These dualities can be associated with an interchange in the roles of local lumps of electric and magnetic energy densities around the phase transition. Moreover, we show that plaquette susceptibilities can manifest in the geometric features captured by the Betti curves. We also compare these findings against earlier results for SU(2) and elaborate on the significant differences. Our results demonstrate that topological data analysis can identify clear differences between phase transitions of first and second order for non-Abelian lattice gauge theories and provides unprecedented insights into the relevant structures in their vicinity.

Within the framework of the Faddeev equations in configuration space, we examine the ${\mathrm{\Omega }}^{-}np$ system, employing strongly attractive lattice HAL QCD and Yukawa-type meson exchange potentials for the $\mathrm{\Omega }N$ interaction. Our formalism incorporates the attractive Coulomb force between the ${\mathrm{\Omega }}^{-}$ and proton, treating the system as three nonidentical particle pairs (the $ABC$ model). In this study, we assess the impact of the Coulomb interaction on the system and compare our results with recent $\mathrm{\Omega }NN$ ($AAC$ model) calculations, obtained using various approaches. The $ABC$ model yields low-energy characteristics for the $\mathrm{\Omega }NN$ system that differ from previous calculations. The Coulomb potential has a marginal perturbative effect on the $AAC$ system, shifting the three-body binding energy by the Coulomb energy of the two-body $BC$ subsystem, but only slightly deviating the spatial configuration from isosceles triangle symmetry. These effects are primarily driven by the strong $\mathrm{\Omega }N$ interaction. We demonstrate that the large binding energy of the ${\mathrm{\Omega }}^{-}np$ system arises from the short-range behavior of the $\mathrm{\Omega }N$ potentials.

Methods from Quantum Information Theory are used to scrutinize quantum correlations encoded in the two-quark density matrix over light-cone momentum fractions $x_1$ and $x_2$. A nonperturbative three quark model light-cone wavefunction predicts significant nonclassical correlations associated with the “entanglement negativity” measure for asymmetric and small quark momentum fractions. We perform one step of QCD scale evolution of the entire density matrix, not just its diagonal (dPDF), by computing collinearly divergent corrections due to the emission of a gluon. Finally, we present first qualitative numerical results for single-step scale evolution of quantum entanglement correlations in double quark PDFs. At a higher $Q^2$ scale, the nonclassical correlations manifest in the dPDF for nearly symmetric momentum fractions.

A systematic analysis of the $K^{*}\mathrm{\Sigma }$ photoproduction off proton is performed with all the available differential cross section data. We carry out a strategy different from the previous studies of these reactions, where, instead of fixing the parameters of the added resonances from PDG or pentaquark models, we add the resonance with a specific $J^P$ and leave its parameters to be determined from the experimental data. When adding only one resonance, the best result is to add a $N^{*}(3/2^{-})$ around 2097 MeV, which substantially reduces the ${\chi }^2$ per degree of freedom to 1.35. There are two best solutions when adding two resonances, one is to add one $N^{*}(3/2^{-})$ and one $N^{*}(7/2^{-})$, the other is to add one $N^{*}(3/2^{-})$ and one ${\mathrm{\Delta }}^{*}(7/2^{-})$, leading the ${\chi }^2$ per degree of freedom to be 1.10 and 1.09, respectively. The mass values of the $N^{*}(3/2^{-})$ in the two resonance solutions are both near 2070 MeV. Our solutions indicate that the $3/2^{-}$ nucleon resonance around 2080 MeV is strongly coupled with the $K^{*}\mathrm{\Sigma }$ final state and support the molecular picture of $N(2080,3/2^{-})$.

The search for the compact limit of multiquark states is a challenging issue. Within the framework of the MIT bag model, we propose an effective limit bag radius of $R_c=5.615{\mathrm{GeV}}^{-1}$ (or 1.11 fm) for bound states. When the bag radius of a hadron falls below this value, the bag binding energy satisfies $E_B<0$, indicating that the system has a compact intention. We consider various combinations of different numbers and ratios of heavy and light quarks, indicating that the bag radius of hadrons depending on the number of quarks is suppressed by the presence of heavy quarks. Focusing on five-quark combinations, we find that the average bag radius of $nncc\overline{c}$ is below the threshold $R_c$. We take into account color-magnetic interactions and calculate the mass, magnetic moment, binding energy, and relative strong decay width for the $nnQQ\overline{Q}$ system. We show that the binding energies of most states in the flavor combination $nncc\overline{c}$ are approximately $-20\mathrm{MeV}$, whereas states involving bottom quarks have binding energies around $-120\mathrm{MeV}$, with some decay widths suppressed by the decay constant. Additionally, the $nQQQ\overline{Q}$ system exhibits even deeper binding. Our results support the compact intention of $nnQQ\overline{Q}$ and suggest that the $nQQQ\overline{Q}$ configuration demonstrates even stronger compactness.

In this work, we expand the scope of the JETSCAPE framework to investigate the dependence of the jet nuclear modification factor, $R_{AA}$, on the jet radius parameter ($R$) for broader area jet cones, going all the way up to $R=1.0$. This study presents a comprehensive analysis of high-$p_T$ inclusive jets extending up to 1 TeV to probe the quark-gluon plasma medium at much shorter distance scales. It focuses on quenching effects observed in the quark-gluon plasma formed during Pb-Pb collisions at $\sqrt{s_{\mathrm{NN}}}=5.02\mathrm{TeV}$, particularly for the most central (0%–10%) collisions. Jet-medium interactions represent a pivotal domain of both theoretical and experimental quark-gluon plasma studies, with various models offering different assumptions to describe these phenomena. To illustrate this modular approach, this work computes the nuclear modification factor for inclusive jets via coupling of the MATTER model (which simulates the high virtuality phase of the parton evolution) with the Linear Boltzmann Transport (LBT) model (which simulates the low virtuality phase of the parton evolution). Additionally, the two successful energy loss models; MARTINI and AdS/CFT are employed to characterize the jet suppression effectively within the JETSCAPE framework. The results are compared with the experimental data from the ATLAS and CMS detectors, covering jet transverse momentum ($p_T$) ranging from 100 GeV to 1 TeV for ATLAS and 300 GeV to 1 TeV for CMS. The predictions made by the JETSCAPE are consistent in the high $p_T$ range as well as for extreme jet cone sizes, showing deviation within 10%–25%. Our major focus is on calculating the double ratio ($R_{\mathrm{AA}}^{\mathrm{R}}/R_{\mathrm{AA}}^{\mathrm{R}=\mathrm{small}}$) as a function of jet-R and jet-$p_T$, where the experimental results align well with predictions from the JETSCAPE framework, which incorporates the multistage evolution of the parton shower and energy loss models.

In this study, we conduct an enhanced investigation of pure annihilation-type charmless hadronic $B$ decays within the framework of the perturbative QCD approach. Specifically, we account for the quark-loop enhanced contribution to various decay processes at the next-to-leading order (NLO) in the strong coupling constant ${\alpha }_s$. The NLO amplitudes possess large imaginary parts that have signs opposite to those of the leading-order amplitudes. This cancellation effect implies that the NLO contribution does not significantly influence the branching ratios of the processes under consideration. However, the NLO effect explored in this work constitutes an important source of the strong phases in the weak-annihilation nonleptonic ${\overline{B}}_q$-meson decay amplitudes. As a result, it can have a substantial impact on $CP$-violating observables such as the direct $CP$ asymmetry ${\mathcal{A}}_{CP}^{\mathrm{dir}}$ and mixing-induced $CP$ asymmetry ${\mathcal{A}}_{CP}^{\mathrm{mix}}$. The numerical result evidently revealed that NLO QCD correction significantly enhances both ${\mathcal{A}}_{CP}^{\mathrm{dir}}$ and ${\mathcal{A}}_{CP}^{\mathrm{mix}}$ of the pure annihilation-type $B$ decay processes.