Dark matter may consist of axionlike particles (ALPs). When polarized electromagnetic radiation passes through the dark-matter media, interaction with background ALPs affects the polarization of photons. The condensate of axionic dark matter experiences periodic oscillations, and the period of the oscillations is of the order of years for ultralight dark matter. This would result in observable periodic changes in the polarization plane, determined by the phases of the ALP field at the Earth and at the source. In this paper, we use recent polarimetric observations of the HL Tauri protoplanetary disk performed in different years to demonstrate the lack of changes of polarization angles, and hence to constrain masses and photon couplings of the hypothetical axionlike ultralight dark matter.

Precision space inertial sensors are imperative for Earth geodesy missions, gravitational wave observations, and fundamental physics experiments in space. In these missions, the residual acceleration noise of a test mass (TM) caused by the forces generated from inertial sensor components and the environment must be maintained below a specific level. Several forces contributing to residual acceleration are related to the actuation system. Hence, developing a precise actuation system is crucial to eliminate erroneous forces and achieve highly accurate measurements of TM acceleration noise. However, obtaining a “free-fall” status of the TM to perform sensitive ground tests for the actuation system poses significant challenges. In this study, a torsion pendulum was employed to analyze the impact of the actuation system on TM torque noise. A closed-loop control system integrating the torsion pendulum with components of the actuation modules was designed to assess the performance of the actuation control algorithm. Experimental findings indicate that certain parameters, such as the maximum torques and DC bias voltages in an actuation system, contribute to additional torque noise, with the peak noise level reaching up to ${10}^{-13}\mathrm{Nm}/{\mathrm{Hz}}^{1/2}$ at 1 mHz. The closed-loop system demonstrates a stable tracking error of approximately ${10}^{-7}$, indicating the robust tracking performance and robustness of the integrated system for TM rotation control in varying inertial sensor conditions. The proposed method serves as a reference for advancing actuation systems in diverse space gravitational missions.

In space-based gravitational wave detection, the interferometer noise caused by angular jitter is referred to as tilt-to-length (TTL) noise. Tilt-to-length noise is a significant obstacle in space-based gravitational wave detection, with tilt-to-length noise due to far-field phase errors being the most difficult to manage. By using Zernike polynomial random aberrations and diffraction calculations, a tilt-to-length noise generation model for far-field phase errors is established. 200 Monte Carlo simulations were performed, in which 87% of the simulation results had TTL noise exceeding $10\mathrm{pm}/\sqrt{\mathrm{Hz}}$. Based on the characteristics of far-field phase errors, a comparative study was conducted on the post-processing methods using the first-order estimation model and the second-order estimation model. The first-order estimation model post-processing results in an average residual TTL noise of 17.0%, while the second-order estimation model post-processing results in an average residual TTL noise of 8.2%. Further research indicates that spacecraft pointing jitter and noise from differential wave front sensing systems significantly impact post-processing performance.

Quantum computers can efficiently simulate highly entangled quantum systems, offering a solution to challenges facing classical simulation of quantum field theories (QFTs). This paper presents an alternative to traditional methods for simulating the real-time evolution in QFTs by leveraging Hamiltonian truncation (HT). As a use case, we study the Schwinger model, systematically reducing the complexity of the Hamiltonian via HT while preserving essential physical properties. For the observables studied in this paper, the HT approach converges quickly with the number of qubits, allowing for the interesting physics processes to be captured without needing many qubits. Identifying the truncated free Hamiltonian’s eigenbasis with the quantum device’s computational basis avoids the need for complicated and costly state preparation routines, reducing the algorithm’s overall circuit depth and required coherence time. As a result, the HT approach to simulating QFTs on a quantum device is well suited to noisy-intermediate scale quantum devices, which have a limited number of qubits and short coherence times. We validate our approach by running simulations on a noisy-intermediate scale quantum device, showcasing strong agreement with theoretical predictions. We highlight the potential of HT for simulating QFTs on quantum hardware.

We identify the maximum cross sections probed by single-scatter weakly interacting massive particle (WIMP) searches in dark matter direct detection. Owing to Poisson fluctuations in scatter multiplicity, these ceilings scale logarithmically with mass for heavy dark matter and often lie in regions probed by multiscatter searches. Using a generalized formula for single-scatter event rates we recast WIMP searches by the quintal-to-tonne scale detectors XENON1T, XENONnT, LZ, PANDAX-II, PANDAX-4T, DarkSide-50, and DEAP-3600 to obtain ceilings and floors up to a few ${10}^{17}\mathrm{GeV}$ mass and ${10}^{-22}{\mathrm{cm}}^2$ per nucleus cross section. We do this for coherent, geometric, isospin-violating xenophobic and argophobic spin-independent scattering, and neutron-only and proton-only spin-dependent scattering. Future large-exposure detectors would register an almost irreducible background of atmospheric neutrinos that would determine a dark matter sensitivity ceiling that we call the “neutrino roof,” in analogy with the well-studied “neutrino floor.” Accounting for this background, we estimate the reaches of the 10–100 tonne scale DarkSide-20k, DARWIN/XLZD, PANDAX-xT, and Argo, which would probe many decades of unconstrained parameter space up to the Planck mass, as well as of ${10}^3–{10}^4\mathrm{tonne}$ scale noble liquid detectors that have been proposed in synergy with neutrino experiments.

We consider a simple setup with a dark sector containing dark electrons charged under an Abelian $U(1{)}_D$ gauge symmetry. We show that, if the massless dark photon associated to the $U(1{)}_D$ is produced during inflation in such a way as to form a classical dark electric field, then dark electron-positron pairs are also produced close to the end of inflation via the Schwinger effect even if they are very massive. For large enough dark electric force, dark electrons with masses larger than the Hubble scale can be produced which are nonrelativistic at production and throughout their cosmic evolution. They can account for the dark matter abundance today for masses in the range $\sim 100\mathrm{GeV}$ to ${10}^{17}\mathrm{GeV}$ and up to 6 orders of magnitude larger than the Hubble scale at the end of inflation where purely gravitational production is exponentially suppressed. We examine the regime where the dark electrons do not thermalize with the dark photons throughout their cosmic history and assume negligible kinetic mixing with the visible $U(1)$ so they remain decoupled from the Standard Model thermal bath as well. Thus, the final dark matter relic abundance is determined only by the initial inflationary Schwinger production and redshifting after reheating.

We study the effects of a finite mass for the photon on its propagation in a weak gravitational field. In particular, we analyze the gravitational time delay, also known as the Shapiro effect. We work in isotropic coordinates in the weak-field limit and find that the mass-dependent corrections enhance the gravitational time delay. Doppler-tracking data from the Cassini mission allow us to set an upper bound on the photon mass, namely $m_{\gamma }<4.9\times {10}^{-7}\mathrm{eV}/{\mathrm{c}}^2$ at 95% CL. We also discuss next-generation solar-system tests of general relativity that could improve this upper limit, potentially by a factor of ten. Though not competitive with the currently best limits, our bound is at the ballpark of earlier ones based on the gravitational bending of light by the Sun.

We compute the overlap Dirac spectrum on three gauge ensembles generated using $2+1$-flavor domain wall fermions. The three ensembles have different lattice spacings, and two of them have quark masses tuned to the physical point. The spectral density is determined up to $\lambda \sim 100\mathrm{MeV}$ with subpercentage statistical uncertainty. We find that the density is close to a constant below $\lambda \sim 20\mathrm{MeV}$ as predicted by chiral perturbative theory ($\chi \mathrm{PT}$) and then increases linearly due to the strange quark mass. By fitting to the next-to-leading order $\chi \mathrm{PT}$ form and using the nonperturbative renormalization using the regularization independent momentum subtraction scheme, the SU(2) (keeping the strange quark mass at the physical point) and SU(3) chiral condensates at $\overline{\mathrm{MS}}$ 2 GeV are determined to be $\mathrm{\Sigma }=(265.4(0.5)(4.2)\mathrm{MeV}{)}^3$ and ${\mathrm{\Sigma }}_0=(234.3(0.5)(25.8)\mathrm{MeV}{)}^3$, respectively. The pion decay constants are also determined to be $F=84.1(1.9)(8.0)$ and $F_0=58.6(0.5)(10.0)\mathrm{MeV}$. The systematic errors are carefully estimated including the effects of fitting ranges and the uncertainty of low-energy constant $L_6$. We also show that one can resolve the sea flavor content of the sea quarks and constrain their masses with $\sim 10\%–20\%$ statistical uncertainties using the Dirac spectral density.

It has been recently demonstrated that light cone distribution amplitudes (LCDAs) for a heavy meson, defined in the heavy quark limit, can be extracted by simulating quasidistribution amplitudes on the lattice with a large meson momentum $P^z$. This extraction involves a two-step procedure. In the first step, the quasidistribution amplitudes are matched onto the QCD LCDAs in the large $P^z$ limit. In the second step, the QCD LCDAs are matched onto the desired LCDAs defined in heavy quark effective theory. In this work, we present the $m_H^{2n}/(P^z{)}^{2n}$ and ${\mathrm{\Lambda }}_{\mathrm{QCD}}^2/(x{P}^z{)}^2$ and ${\mathrm{\Lambda }}_{\mathrm{QCD}}^2/((1-x)P^z{)}^2$ corrections in the first step with $m_H$ being the heavy meson mass and $x$ being the momentum fraction of the light quark. To account for $m_H^{2n}/(P^z{)}^{2n}$ corrections, we employ two methods: the moment relation that can provide mass corrections to all orders, and a leading-twist projector that gives the leading-order mass corrections. For the ${\mathrm{\Lambda }}_{\mathrm{QCD}}^2/(P^z{)}^2$ corrections, we employ a renormalon model that addresses the renormalon ambiguity stemming from the divergence of the perturbative series. We adopt two parametrizations for QCD LCDAs to conduct a numerical analysis. The results suggest that these corrections are typically smaller than 20% in the region $0.2<x<0.8$, and should be included in a precision analysis. These findings will serve as a valuable guide for future studies on heavy meson LCDAs, particularly in the context of lattice QCD, where accounting for such corrections is crucial for improving the accuracy and reliability of the results.

We study the mass spectra and radiative decays of $D_{s0}^{*}(2317)$ and $D_{s1}^{\prime }(2460)$ in an unquenched framework. In addition to coupled channel effects between the $c\overline{s}$ cores and $D^{(*)}K$ channels, $D^{(*)}K\text{−}{D}^{(*)}K$ self-interactions are also considered in this work and we succeed to reproduce their mass spectra. Furthermore, we study the radiative decays of the $D_{s0}^{*}(2317)$ and $D_{s1}^{\prime }(2460)$ by simultaneously including the compound structures of conventional $c\overline{s}$ cores and $D^{(*)}K$ components. We also calculate their bottom analogs with heavy quark symmetry. Our study offers useful insights into the important unquenched effects in the formation of $D_{s0}^{*}(2317)$, $D_{s1}^{\prime }(2460)$, and the bottom counterparts.

Magnetic fields in heavy-ion collisions are pivotal and subject to diverse factors. In this study, we quantitatively investigate the impact of fluid vorticity on the evolution of magnetic fields in the 20%–50% centrality class in $\mathrm{Au}+\mathrm{Au}$ collisions, with collision energies of $\sqrt{s_{NN}}=(7.7,14.5,19.6,27,39,62.4,200)\mathrm{GeV}$. Our results indicate that fluid vorticity leads to a delay in the evolution of the magnetic field, in which this effect becomes more pronounced as the collision energy decreases. Additionally, we have calculated the mean magnetic field values on the freeze-out hypersurface for various collision energies. Our simulation results align with the values inferred from experimental data of $\overline{\mathrm{\Lambda }}-\mathrm{\Lambda }$, within the error margins.

We present a measurement of neutral pion production in charged-current interactions using data recorded with the MicroBooNE detector exposed to Fermilab’s booster neutrino beam. The signal comprises one muon, one neutral pion, any number of nucleons, and no charged pions. Studying neutral pion production in the MicroBooNE detector provides an opportunity to better understand neutrino-argon interactions, and is crucial for future accelerator-based neutrino oscillation experiments. Using a dataset corresponding to $6.86\times {10}^{20}$ protons on target, we present single-differential cross sections in muon and neutral pion momenta, scattering angles with respect to the beam for the outgoing muon and neutral pion, as well as the opening angle between the muon and neutral pion. Data extracted cross sections are compared to generator predictions. We report good agreement between the data and the models for scattering angles, except for an over-prediction by generators at muon forward angles. Similarly, the agreement between data and the models as a function of momentum is good, except for an underprediction by generators in the medium momentum ranges, 200–400 MeV for muons and 100–200 MeV for pions.

The computational intensity of detector simulation and event reconstruction poses a significant difficulty for data analysis in collider experiments. This challenge inspires the continued development of machine learning techniques to serve as efficient surrogate models. We propose a fast emulation approach that combines simulation and reconstruction. In other words, a neural network generates a set of reconstructed objects conditioned on input particle sets. To make this possible, we advance set-conditional set generation with diffusion models. Using a realistic, generic, and public detector simulation and reconstruction package (COCOA), we show how diffusion models can accurately model the complex spectrum of reconstructed particles inside jets.

The Migdal effect is a key inelastic signal channel which could be used to detect low-mass dark matter, but it has never been observed experimentally using Standard Model probes. Here we propose a conceptual design for an experiment which could detect the Migdal effect in diatomic molecules through low-energy neutron scattering, and we provide the requirements on the beam spectrum and reducible backgrounds such that a detection may be achieved. The enhancement of the Migdal rate through non-adiabatic couplings, which are absent in isolated atoms, combined with the distinctive photon energies of electronic transitions in CO, suggest that a positive detection of the molecular Migdal effect may be possible with modest beam times at existing neutron facilities.

We introduce a new parametrization of $B\to D\pi \ell \nu$ form factors using a partial-wave expansion and derive bounds on the series coefficients using analyticity and unitarity. This is the first generalization of the model-independent formalism developed by Boyd, Grinstein, and Lebed for $B\to D\ell \nu$ to semileptonic decays with multihadron final states, and enables data-driven form-factor determinations with robust, systematically improvable uncertainties. Using this formalism, we extract the form-factor parameters for $B\to D_2^{*}(\to D\pi )\ell \nu$ decays in a model-independent way from fits of data from the Belle Experiment. We find that the semileptonic data are compatible with the presence of two poles in the $D\pi$ S-wave channel, which is the scenario preferred by nonleptonic decays and unitarized chiral perturbation theory.

In this work the Liouville-von Neumann (LvN) quantization of the type IIB superstring is carried on in a time dependent plane wave background with a constant self-dual Ramond-Ramond 5-form and a linear dilaton in the lightlike direction. Such an endeavor allows us to define an invariant density matrix and study important issues in real time string thermodynamics. In particular, a transcendental equation that determines the Hagedorn temperature as a function of the thermalization time is derived. It is shown that the Hagedorn temperature increases as the string approaches the singularity.

We study the interplay of the trans-Planckian censorship conjecture (TCC) and the swampland distance conjecture (SDC) in the context of multifield dark energy in a curved field space. In this scenario, the phase of accelerated expansion is realized as nongeodesic motion in a highly curved field space, reminiscent of models developed in the context of inflation. The model features a stable attractor solution with near constant equation of state $w\simeq -1$, and predicts that the current era of accelerated expansion is eternal. The latter implies an eventual conflict with the TCC, which holds that the duration of any epoch of cosmic acceleration is bounded by the requirement that the large-scale observable universe is blind to Planck-scale early universe physics. This tension can be resolved by an interplay with the distance conjecture: for suitable parameter values, the apparent violation of the TCC occurs well after the fields have traversed a Planckian distance. The SDC then predicts a breakdown of the effective field theory before the TCC can be violated. We derive the constraints on the model arising from the $\mathrm{SDC}+\mathrm{TCC}$ and the de Sitter conjecture. We demonstrate that the model can be consistent with both swampland conjectures and observational data from Planck 2018 and the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument.

We revisit the possibility of constructing noninvertible topological defects for the axial symmetry of massless quantum electrodynamics (QED), despite its Adler-Bell-Jackiw anomaly. Dressing the defects with a topological quantum field theory with mixed $U(1)$ and $\mathbb{R}$-valued gauge fields, we are able to describe axial rotations of any rational or irrational angle. We confront our results with the existing proposals, in particular those that concern rational angles. We also provide the symmetry topological field theory that reproduces the action of all such symmetry defects of QED. Finally, we discuss how similar techniques allow the study of condensation defects for a $\mathbb{R}$ global symmetry.

We use different methods to calculate the imaginary part of the gravitational effective action due to a massless scalar field, with a view on perturbative vs nonpertubative and the results of Wondrak et al. [Gravitational pair production and black hole evaporation, Phys. Rev. Lett. 130, 221502 (2023)].