Extreme mass-ratio inspirals (EMRIs) offer a promising avenue to test extradimensional physics through gravitational wave observations. In this work, we study equatorial eccentric EMRIs around a spherically symmetric braneworld black hole, focusing on the influence of a tidal charge parameter arising from extra dimensions. Using the fact of $tr$-symmetry of the spacetime under consideration, we implement the modified Teukolsky equation (MTE) framework, incorporating the non-Ricci-flat nature of the spacetime. We compute the relevant observables and perform a comparative analysis with the results obtained from the Dudley-Finley (DF) approximation. Our findings indicate that the constraint on the tidal charge remains nearly the same in both approaches—MTE and DF—thus supporting previous studies on EMRIs in braneworld scenarios within the DF approximation. Furthermore, the difference in the mismatch between the two formulations exhibits deviations as the orbital eccentricity increases. Therefore, these findings highlight not only the observational potential of future low-frequency detectors like the Laser Interferometer Space Antenna but also bring out the effectiveness of the DF approximation as well as the importance of the MTE framework for accurately modeling binaries in theories beyond general relativity.

The three-point correlation function (3PCF) of a weak lensing shear field contains information that is complementary to that in the two-point correlation function, which can help improve the cosmological parameters and calibrate astrophysical and observational systematics parameters. However, the application of the 3PCF to observed data has been limited due to the computational challenges of calculating theoretical predictions of the 3PCF from a bispectrum model. In this paper, we present a new method to compute the shear 3PCF efficiently and accurately. We employ the multipole expansion of the bispectrum to compute the shear 3PCF, and show that the method is substantially more efficient than direct numerical integration. We found that the multipole-based method can compute the shear 3PCF with 5% accuracy in 10 (40) seconds for the single (four) source redshift bin setup. The multipole-based method can also be used to compute the third-order aperture mass statistics quickly and accurately, accounting for the bin-averaging effect on the shear 3PCF. Our method provides a fast and robust tool for probing the underlying cosmological model with third-order statistics of weak lensing shear.

We establish an off-shell commutativity theorem in 4D parity-even quadratic gravity that the Hubbard–Stratonovich/Legendre lifts, algebraic elimination of auxiliaries, including the torsionless Palatini connection, and Jordan-Einstein Weyl rescalings commute at the action level up to boundary terms. This yields a frame-independent characterization of the propagating degrees of freedom and isolates a universal scalaron EFT in the metric branch, while clarifying the algebraic nature of the Palatini $f(\mathcal{R})$ scalar. We obtain, as a result, a frame-universal matching from the generic nonminimal couplings to a positive $R^2$ sector and a quantitative single-field attractor bound, enhanced by a $1/\mathrm{\Delta }N$ selection term, providing sharp and falsifiable CMB targets.

We present a method to test the impact of ad hoc modifications of some of the generic parameters of hadronic interactions—cross section, elasticity, and multiplicity—on any observable quantity using full three-dimensional simulations of extensive air showers induced by ultrahigh-energy cosmic rays. Our approach not only extends the existing one-dimensional tools to three dimensions, but also introduces more flexible features to better respond to the needs of both theory and experiment. We first thoroughly validate the conex 3d framework for the simulation of both longitudinal and lateral features of air showers, in particular, for a nonstandard configuration of the framework in which different energy thresholds for modifications are applied. Moreover, we show that the implementations of the ad hoc modifications in this configuration are consistent with the previous one-dimensional simulations. Finally, we discuss the importance of studying the interaction modifications in three dimensions and the effects of parallel modifications of multiple parameters.

We investigate dark matter (DM) interactions via spectroscopic signatures of energy injection in planetary environments. We develop a general framework to account for how DM energy injection signals depend on the DM spatial distribution, planetary structure, and DM energy deposition profile. We combine UV airglow data on the Solar System’s gas giants from the Voyager and New Horizons flybys and ionospheric measurements from AMS-02 and ELFIN CubeSat on Earth, with internal heat flow data from Cassini, Voyager, and terrestrial boreholes, to constrain DM-nucleon scattering across both heavy and light mediator scenarios. We show that Earth, gas giants, and ice giants probe complementary DM masses and mediator properties and forecast the reach of a free-floating Super-Jupiter. These results establish planetary spectroscopy as a powerful and versatile probe of the dark sector, complementary to direct detection, cosmology, and collider searches.

Technical and environmental noise in ground-based laser interferometers designed for gravitational-wave observations like Advanced LIGO, Advanced Virgo and KAGRA, can manifest as narrow ($<1\mathrm{Hz}$) or broadband (${10}^{\prime }\mathrm{s}$ or even ${100}^{\prime }\mathrm{s}$ of Hz) spectral lines and features in the instruments’ strain amplitude spectral density. When the sources of this noise cannot be identified or removed, in cases where there are witness sensors sensitive to this noise source, denoising of the gravitational-wave strain channel can be performed in software, enabling recovery of instrument sensitivity over the affected frequency bands. This noise hunting and removal process can be particularly challenging due to the wealth of auxiliary channels monitoring the interferometry and the environment and the nonlinear couplings that may be present. In this work, we present a comprehensive analysis approach and corresponding cyberinfrastructure to promptly identify and remove noise in software using machine learning techniques. The approach builds on earlier work (referred to as deepclean) in using machine learning methods for linear and nonlinear regression of noise. We demonstrate how this procedure can be operated and optimized in a tandem fashion close to online data taking; it starts off with a coherence monitoring analysis that first singles out and prioritizes witness channels that can then be used by deepclean. The resulting denoised strain by deepclean reflects a 1.4% improvement in the binary neutron star range, which can translate into a 4.3% increase in the sensitive astrophysical volume. This cyberinfrastructure that we refer to as coherence deepclean, or CDC, is a significant step toward autonomous operations of noise subtraction for ground-based interferometers.

We study the rates of two-body charmed-anticharmed baryonic $\overline{B}\to {\mathcal{B}}_c{\overline{\mathcal{B}}}_c$ decays using the topological amplitude approach. All amplitudes of $\overline{B}\to {\mathcal{B}}_c({\overline{\mathbf{3}}}_{\mathbf{f}}){\overline{\mathcal{B}}}_c({\mathbf{3}}_{\mathbf{f}})$, ${\mathcal{B}}_c({\mathbf{6}}_{\mathbf{f}}){\overline{\mathcal{B}}}_c({\mathbf{3}}_{\mathbf{f}})$, ${\mathcal{B}}_c({\overline{\mathbf{3}}}_{\mathbf{f}}){\overline{\mathcal{B}}}_c({\overline{\mathbf{6}}}_{\mathbf{f}})$, and ${\mathcal{B}}_c({\mathbf{6}}_{\mathbf{f}}){\overline{\mathcal{B}}}_c({\overline{\mathbf{6}}}_{\mathbf{f}})$ decays are decomposed topologically. SU(3) breaking effects on these amplitudes, depending on the position of the $s$-quark line, are modeled. Using existing data as input, we obtained the following results: (i) In the low-lying $\overline{B}\to {\mathcal{B}}_c({\overline{\mathbf{3}}}_{\mathbf{f}}){\overline{\mathcal{B}}}_c({\mathbf{3}}_{\mathbf{f}})$ decays, we find that the exchange diagram is sizable. Furthermore, there is a large cancellation between internal $W$-tree and exchange-$W$-tree amplitudes. The SU(3) breaking is sizable, 35% SU(3) breaking effects are needed, and they work differently in different amplitudes. Namely, the internal $W$-tree amplitude is enlarged, while the exchange-$W$-tree amplitude is reduced. The rates of $\overline{B}\to {\mathcal{B}}_c({\overline{\mathbf{3}}}_{\mathbf{f}}){\overline{\mathcal{B}}}_c({\mathbf{3}}_{\mathbf{f}})$ decays with excited ${\mathcal{B}}_c({\overline{\mathbf{3}}}_{\mathbf{f}})$, such as ${\mathrm{\Lambda }}_c(2595{)}^{+}$, ${\mathrm{\Xi }}_c(2790{)}^{+,0}$, are also studied. (ii) The $\overline{B}\to {\mathcal{B}}_c({\mathbf{6}}_{\mathbf{f}}){\overline{\mathcal{B}}}_c({\mathbf{3}}_{\mathbf{f}})$ decays, with low-lying ${\overline{\mathcal{B}}}_c({\mathbf{3}}_{\mathbf{f}})$ and low-lying and excited ${\mathcal{B}}_c({\mathbf{6}}_{\mathbf{f}})$ baryons, such as ${\mathrm{\Sigma }}_c(2520{)}^{+,0}$, ${\mathrm{\Xi }}_c(2645{)}^{+,0}$, ${\mathrm{\Omega }}_c(2770{)}^0$, are studied with some predictions on rates obtained. Furthermore, as the excited states are spin-$3/2$ states, some of their rates are highly suppressed by the kinematic factor. (iii) The $\overline{B}\to {\mathcal{B}}_c({\overline{\mathbf{3}}}_{\mathbf{f}}){\overline{\mathcal{B}}}_c({\overline{\mathbf{6}}}_{\mathbf{f}})$ decays with low-lying charmed-anticharmed baryons are studied with some predictions on rates obtained. (iv) Uncertainties in most predicted rates are large, reflecting our current poor understanding of the related SU(3) breaking effects. Measuring these rates can provide very useful information about these effects.

Electromagnetic probes of neutrinos can provide insights into physics beyond the Standard Model. Among the possible electromagnetic interactions of neutrinos is neutrino polarizability, a dimension-7 effective operator that couples two neutrinos to two photons. In this manuscript, we study a realization of the neutrino polarizability operator in which one of the active neutrinos is replaced by a sterile neutrino. We derive new constraints on this active-sterile neutrino polarizability from its contribution to neutrino-nucleus scattering with a single photon in the final state at neutrino experiments. We show that a realization of this operator via a light mediator can explain the MiniBooNE low-energy excess while remaining consistent with other experimental constraints. Finally, we comment on additional model realizations of this higher-dimensional operator.

We perform dimensional reduction of the dimension-6 standard model effective field theory (SMEFT) to order $g^4$ in coupling constants $g$. This analysis includes one-loop contributions to kinetic terms and quartic couplings, as well as two-loop contributions, where operators such as four-fermion interactions first appear, to squared mass terms. Using lattice data, we provide evidence that, in contrast with previous statements in the literature, the SMEFT may undergo a first-order phase transition even for null $|\varphi {|}^6$ at zero temperature—where $\varphi$ is the Higgs doublet—opening the door to entirely unexplored directions in model building. In such case, however, our analysis implies that the phase transition is not sufficiently strong, narrowing down the new physics that allows for electroweak baryogenesis.

We propose a method for solving the Jalilian-Marian-Iancu-McLerran-Weigert-Leonidov-Kovner (JIMWLK) evolution equation on quantum computers. Our approach exploits the reformulation of the JIMWLK equation as a Lindblad master equation governing the rapidity evolution of the hadronic density matrix, as established in prior work. To render the problem tractable for quantum simulation, we introduce several approximations: the two-dimensional transverse plane is reduced to a one-dimensional radial lattice by assuming azimuthal symmetry of the jump operators; the gauge group is restricted to SU(2); and the infinite Wilson lines of the JIMWLK equation are replaced by finite Wilson links along the light-cone direction. The resulting bosonic Hilbert space is truncated using the electric field basis familiar from Hamiltonian lattice gauge theory, with states restricted to angular momenta $j\le j_{\max }$. We derive the matrix elements of the JIMWLK Lindblad jump operators in this basis. As a benchmark, we demonstrate rapid convergence of the fundamental dipole expectation value with $j_{\max }$ for both pure and mixed Gaussian initial density matrices. For the simplest truncation, $j_{\max }=1/2$, we implement the Lindblad evolution using a quantum simulation algorithm verified with the Qiskit statevector simulator by decomposing the non-unitary evolution operator into a linear combination of unitaries. This work establishes a concrete pathway toward quantum simulation of high-energy quantum chromodynamics evolution equations, with direct relevance to the physics program of the Electron-Ion Collider.

Long-baseline neutrino oscillation experiments require external constraints on ${\sin }^2{\theta }_{12}$ and $\mathrm{\Delta }{m}_{21}^2$ to make precision measurements of the leptonic mixing matrix. These constraints come from measurements of the Mikheyev-Smirnov-Wolfenstein (MSW) mixing in solar neutrinos. Here we develop an adiabatic MSW approximation in the presence of heavy neutral leptons; it adds, to leading order, a single new parameter (${\alpha }_{11}$) representing the magnitude of the mixing between the ${\nu }_e$ state and the heavy sector. We use data from the Borexino, SNO, and KamLAND Collaborations to find a solar constraint appropriate for heavy neutral lepton searches in long-baseline oscillation experiments. Solar data yields a strongly correlated constraint on the solar mass splitting and the magnitude of ${\nu }_e$ nonunitary mixing, limiting the magnitude of the nonunitary parameter to $(1-{\alpha }_{11})<0.046$ at the 99% credible region.

Using data samples with a total integrated luminosity of $22.1{\mathrm{fb}}^{-1}$ at center-of-mass energies between 4.008 and 4.951 GeV collected with the BESIII detector, the cross sections of $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to {\pi }^0{\pi }^0\psi (3686)$ process are measured. The obtained cross sections are found to be approximately one-half of those of $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to {\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{-}\psi (3686)$, consistent with the isospin symmetry expectation. A coherent fit to the dressed cross sections is performed, with the $Y(4230)$ parameters fixed at the values measured in $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to {\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{-}\psi (3686)$. The significances of the $Y(4390)$ and $Y(4660)$ are both larger than $5\sigma$, and their masses and widths are consistent with the previous measurement in the $e^{+}{e}^{-}\to {\pi }^{+}{\pi }^{-}\psi (3686)$ process.

We study extremal, rotating black holes in four-dimensional Einstein-Maxwell-axion (EMA) theory through a combined near-horizon and bulk analysis. At the level of the near-horizon extremal geometry (NHEG), using the entropy-function formalism, we prove that regular rotating attractors with axionic hair exist only for configurations that are purely electrically or purely magnetically charged; regular rotating dyonic attractors are excluded by the axion equation of motion, a result that we established perturbatively and nonperturbatively within the NHEG system. On the global side, we construct families of asymptotically flat, rotating extremal EMA black holes that interpolate to the electric NHEG branch, confirming that horizon data are fixed by extremization of the entropy function and decoupled from asymptotic moduli in line with the attractor mechanism.

We study the geodesic structure and observable properties of asymptotically flat regular black holes sourced by a phantom scalar field characterized by a scalar charge $A$. This parameter removes the central singularity and continuously deforms the Schwarzschild geometry. The equations of motion for test particles and photons are derived, and the resulting null geodesics are analyzed, including the deflection of light, gravitational time delay, and redshift, in order to constrain $A$ using classical Solar System tests. These observations impose stringent limits on the scalar charge, confirming that $A$ must remain extremely small in the weak-field regime to ensure full consistency with general relativity. In the strong-field regime, we compute the Lyapunov exponent $\lambda$ associated with the photon sphere and establish its exact relations with the critical impact parameter ${\mathcal{B}}_u$ and the angular size of the shadow ${\alpha }_{\mathrm{sh}}$, given by ${\mathcal{B}}_u=1/|\lambda |$ and ${\alpha }_{\mathrm{sh}}=1/(r_0|\lambda |)$. These correspondences reveal that the dynamical instability of null circular orbits governs the optical appearance of the black hole. Our results show that increasing $A$ reduces the instability of photon trajectories and enlarges the angular size of the shadow, indicating that the regularization scale leaves a distinct observational imprint on the geometry of regular black holes. In addition, constraints derived from Event Horizon Telescope observations of M87* and Sgr A* further restrict the allowed range of the scalar charge, reinforcing the consistency of the model with current astrophysical observations.

A Reissner–Nordström black hole (RNBH) enclosed in a cavity is known to be superradiantly unstable to charged scalar perturbations below a critical frequency. Inspired by the emergence of the QCD axion as a prominent dark matter candidate, we construct a model featuring an axion field coupled to an electromagnetic field that undergoes superradiant growth around an RNBH. Utilizing numerical relativity, we achieve stable, long-term evolution of this system and perform a comparative analysis across various parameter spaces. Our comprehensive investigation reveals the formation of a “hairy” black hole, whose final state is governed by a diverse set of physical parameters. Notably, the decay constant in the axion potential—representing nonlinear interactions—bifurcates the superradiant instability into two distinct behavioral regimes, leading to more significant dynamical shifts than previously reported. Furthermore, we examine the influence of the scalar field’s charge and mass, as well as the mirror’s position. We investigate the axionic bosenova process and observe a long-term beating pattern of the axion field induced by nonlinear interactions. By fine-tuning these parameter combinations, we demonstrate that the system can evolve toward a variety of distinct physical end points.

In this work, we propose a model of warm inflation driven by axionlike particles interacting with $U(1)$ gauge fields, with implications for the early Universe’s thermal evolution. By extending traditional warm inflation models, we introduce a dissipation mechanism through the thermal fluctuations of electromagnetic fields, leading to a nontrivial backreaction on the inflaton’s dynamics. Our results are consistent with CMB observations, even for a natural sub-Plankian axion decay constant $f\le M_p$. We present precise constraints on the model’s free parameters, using camb and cosmomc codes. These findings offer new insights into the thermal history of the Universe and the nature of inflationary dynamics.

The impact of the most recent cosmic microwave background (CMB) data from the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) is studied for a model of cosmic inflation which predicts a nonzero vacuum expectation value $M$ for a large-field regime. Since lower values of $M$ are compatible with the higher spectral index $n_s$ provided by the $\mathrm{ACT}+\mathrm{Planck}$ joint analysis, we establish new limits on this parameter while also considering further CMB data from the latest BICEP/Keck Array release for CMB polarization modes. We find ${\log }_{10}M/M_{\mathrm{Pl}}=-{2.5}_{-1.3}^{+1.1}$ at 68% confidence level, compatible with $M/M_{\mathrm{Pl}}\simeq 0.003$, which is interesting for postinflationary processes, such as preheating. We conduct a lattice simulation for the inflaton field for the first few e-folds, as the model is compatible with the production of relics such as oscillons, which are possible candidates as sources of gravitational waves and primordial black holes. We find that the model indeed produces localized, quasispherical structures compatible with oscillons, which might lead to signatures detectable by future experiments. However, in agreement with recent works, we find that although the abundance of gravitational waves that could be generated in this regime has an amplitude well within the sensitivities of these detectors, the frequency range is on the GHz limit, away from the expected frequencies. Finally, we estimate the impact of a coupling of the type $y\varphi {\chi }^2$ to the inflaton, in the realization of perturbative reheating, directly impacting the predictions of the model, as lower values of $M$ are consistent with both the entire allowed temperature range, and the limits imposed by BICEP/Keck $\mathrm{Array}+\mathrm{Planck}+\mathrm{ACT}$.

Can the electromagnetic dipole interactions probed in precision experiments be the same interactions that generated the baryon asymmetry of the Universe? We address this question by formulating low-scale electromagnetic leptogenesis (EMLG) as a gauge-invariant effective field theory (EFT), rather than as a broken-phase dipole ansatz. The point is not only to connect leptogenesis to laboratory dipole observables, but first to test whether the dipole-dominated dynamics itself can satisfy the cosmological viability requirement. Starting from a softly broken $Z_2$ UV completion, we match onto the $\nu \mathrm{SMEFT}$ dipole operators ${\mathcal{O}}_{NB}$ and ${\mathcal{O}}_{NW}$, run their Wilson coefficients to the electroweak scale, and construct the broken-phase dipole couplings to $\gamma$, $Z$, and $W^{\pm }$. The soft breaking keeps the ordinary Yukawa-mediated sector subleading, thereby isolating the electromagnetic mechanism. We find that the nonresonant hierarchical regime is structurally inefficient, while in the quasidegenerate regime the self-energy contribution is resonantly enhanced and dipole-dominated EMLG can reproduce the observed baryon asymmetry for viable TeV-scale parameters. The same EFT pipeline maps the successful EMLG parameter space onto low-energy dipole observables, including charged-lepton flavor violation, electric dipole moments, and anomalous magnetic moments. Precision dipole searches can therefore constrain, discriminate, and potentially falsify an electromagnetic origin of baryogenesis.

We present the first constraints on multipole-dependent cosmic birefringence using CMB polarization data from the BK18 dataset, which combines observations from BICEP2, Keck Array, and BICEP3 at frequencies of 95, 150, and 220 GHz. Photon coupling to an axionlike field leads to the rotation of CMB polarization, inducing nonzero $EB$ cross-correlations. We show that a multipole-dependent rotation $\beta (\ell )$ imprints a distinct signature in the polarization spectra that can be constrained. Specifically, we consider an early dark energy (EDE) scenario in which a pseudoscalar field couples to photons through a Chern-Simons interaction, generating a polarization rotation with multipole dependence. We introduce a phenomenological $\beta (\ell )$ as a step function, obtaining constraints on the step function size consistent with zero, with uncertainties less than $\sim 0.15°$ (68% CL). In addition, using multi-frequency $EE$, $BB$, and $EB$ cross spectra, along with robust BICEP/Keck foreground treatment and likelihood framework, we derive constraints on the axion-photon coupling amplitude $g$ for several choices of EDE parameters. For the baseline best-fit value $f_{\mathrm{EDE}}=0.087$ from the Planck 2018 analysis, we obtain $g=0.11\pm 0.37$ (68% CL), consistent with previous limits.

X-ray interband time lags are key diagnostics of jet physics and are frequently detected in high-frequency-peaked BL Lac (HBL) objects at different epochs with various x-ray telescopes. In this work, we theoretically investigate Fourier lag-frequency spectra using a generic one-zone leptonic model incorporating the stochastic turbulent acceleration (STA), which plays a crucial role in shaping the emitted photon spectra. We demonstrate that the competition between STA, radiative cooling, and escape processes not only gives rise to two well-defined time-lag regimes: hard/positive and soft/negative lags, but also reveals the existence of a transition between the two regimes. Our results indicate that time lags in the transitional and soft-lag regimes can be clearly amplified and modified by STA’s suppression of high-energy electron cooling, and nonlinear synchrotron self-Compton (SSC) cooling can further amplify the emergence of time lags. We conclude that the adopted model offers a unifying quantitative framework for interpreting the diverse time-lag signatures observed in the x-ray flares of HBLs. Additionally, SSC cooling effects can account for the relatively large lags observed in TeV-bright flares, as well as the observed trend between lag amplitude and flare duration: the larger the flare duration, the larger the lag.