Publications

Order by: publication date number of citations

• Breaking Standard Model global symmetries with the tau lepton

  Jorge Portolés

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 16, 010 (2025) · published 14 July 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Properties of the dynamics of the Standard Model processes such as lepton flavour preservation and lepton, or baryon, number conservation, are usually taken for granted. The only reason is that it seems that these non-gauge accidental symmetries of the Standard Model seem to be conserved in Nature with great accuracy. In addition, the coupling of lepton doublets to the electroweak gauge bosons is universal and does not depend on the flavour. The discovery of the non-zero mass of the neutrinos and, maybe, the hints coming from the B-anomalies at LHCb, point out to a different scenario. I will briefly summarize some aspects of these contingent symmetries as seen from tau lepton processes.

• Cryptographic tests of the python’s lunch conjecture

  Alex May, Sabrina Pasterski, Chris Waddell, Michelle Xu

  SciPost Phys. 19, 084 (2025) · published 2 October 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In the AdS/CFT correspondence, a subregion of the CFT allows for the recovery of a corresponding subregion of the bulk known as its entanglement wedge. In some cases, an entanglement wedge contains a locally but not globally minimal surface homologous to the CFT subregion, in which case it is said to contain a python's lunch. It has been proposed that python's lunch geometries should be modelled by tensor networks that feature projective operations where the wedge narrows. This model leads to the python's lunch (PL) conjecture, which asserts that reconstructing information from past the locally minimal surface is computationally difficult. In this work, we use cryptographic tools related to a primitive known as the Conditional Disclosure of Secrets (CDS) to develop consequences of the projective tensor network model that can be checked directly in AdS/CFT. We argue from the tensor network picture that the mutual information between appropriate CFT subregions is lower bounded linearly by an area difference associated with the geometry of the lunch. Recalling that the mutual information is also computed by bulk extremal surfaces, this gives a checkable geometrical consequence of the tensor network model. We prove weakened versions of this geometrical statement in asymptotically AdS$_{2+1}$ spacetimes satisfying the null energy condition, and confirm it in some example geometries, supporting the tensor network model and by proxy the PL conjecture.

• Magnetic, electronic, and structural investigation of the strongly correlated Y$_{1-x}$Sm$_{x}$Co$_5$ system

  F. Passos, D. Cornejo, G. J. Nilsen, V. Martelli, J. Larrea Jiménez

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 11, 021 (2023) · published 6 June 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  SmCo$_5$ and YCo$_5$ are isostructural compounds both showing large magnetocrystalline anisotropy, where the former originates mainly from the crystal-electric field and magnetic interactions. We investigate the contribution of both interactions by partially substituting Y by Sm in as-cast polycrystalline Y$_{1-x}$Sm$_{x}$Co$_5$ (with $x$=0.00, 0.12, 0.18, 0.31, and 0.40) and measuring their structural, magnetic, and electrical properties through X-ray diffraction, magnetization, and electrical transport measurements. Our results suggest an interplay between microstructure strain in as-cast samples and the electronic and magnetic interactions.

• An overview of lattice results for parton distribution functions

  Luigi Del Debbio

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 15, 028 (2024) · published 3 April 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  Following a ground-breaking proposal by Ji [Phys. Rev. Lett. 110, 262002 (2013)], numerical simulations of Quantum Chromo Dynamics (QCD) on a Euclidean lattice have provided new, valuable information on the structure of hadrons. In this talk, we briefly review the lattice approach to the reconstruction of parton densities, highlighting the connection between lattice observables and parton densities, with a focus on theoretical issues. Since parton distributions are extracted from lattice data by solving an inverse problem, we discuss some of the difficulties that affect these determinations and how they can be formulated in a Bayesian framework.

• Can one hear the full nonlinearity of a PDE from its small excitations?

  Maxim Olshanii, Danshyl Boodhoo

  SciPost Phys. Core 8, 055 (2025) · published 25 August 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  In this article, we show how one can restore an unknown nonlinear partial differential equation of a sine-Gordon type from its linearization around an unknown stationary kink. The key idea is to regard the ground state of the linear problem as the translation-related Goldstone mode of the nonlinear PDE sought after.

• How the blast-wave model describes PID hadron spectra from 5 TeV p-Pb collisions

  Thomas A. Trainor

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 15, 025 (2024) · published 3 April 2024 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  The blast-wave (BW) spectrum model has been applied extensively to nucleus-nucleus collision data with the intention to demonstrate formation of a quark-gluon plasma (QGP) in more-central A-A collisions. More recently the BW model has been applied to p-p, d-Au and p-Pb collisions. Such results are interpreted to indicate that "collectivity" (flows) and QGP appear in smaller systems. In this talk I review BW analysis of identified-hadron spectra from 5 TeV p-Pb collisions and examine the shape evolution of model spectra with collision centrality. I evaluate data-model fit quality using conventional statistical measures. I conclude that the BW model is not a valid data model.

• Rigorous reconstruction of gluon propagator in the presence of complex singularities

  Yui Hayashi, Kei-Ichi Kondo

  SciPost Phys. Proc. 6, 017 (2022) · published 31 May 2022 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  It has been suggested that the Landau-gauge gluon propagator has complex singularities, which invalidates the K\"all\'en-Lehmann spectral representation. Since such singularities are beyond the standard formalism of quantum field theory, the reconstruction of Minkowski propagators from Euclidean propagators has to be carefully examined for their interpretation. In this talk, we present rigorous results on this reconstruction in the presence of complex singularities. As a result, the analytically continued Wightman function is holomorphic in the usual tube, and the Lorentz symmetry and locality are kept valid. On the other hand, the Wightman function on the Minkowski spacetime is a non-tempered distribution and violates the positivity condition. Finally, we discuss an interpretation and implications of complex singularities in quantum theories, arguing that complex singularities correspond to zero-norm confined states.

• $\beta$-function of the level-zero Gross-Neveu model

  Dmitri Bykov

  SciPost Phys. 15, 127 (2023) · published 2 October 2023 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We explain that the supersymmetric $\mathbb{CP}^{n-1}$ sigma model is directly related to the level-zero chiral Gross-Neveu (cGN) model. In particular, beta functions of the two theories should coincide. This is consistent with the one-loop-exactness of the $\mathbb{CP}^{n-1}$ beta function and a conjectured all-loop beta function of cGN models. We perform an explicit four-loop calculation on the cGN side and discuss the renormalization scheme dependence that arises.

• Non-stabilizerness of Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev model

  Surajit Bera, Marco Schirò

  SciPost Phys. 19, 159 (2025) · published 18 December 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We study the non-stabilizerness or quantum magic of the Sachdev-Ye-Kitaev ($\mathrm{SYK}$) model, a prototype example of maximally chaotic quantum matter. We show that the Majorana spectrum of its ground state, encoding the spreading of the state in the Majorana basis, displays a Gaussian distribution as expected for chaotic quantum many-body systems. We compare our results with the case of the $\mathrm{SYK_2}$ model, describing non-chaotic random free fermions, and show that the Majorana spectrum is qualitatively different in the two cases, featuring an exponential Laplace distribution for the $\mathrm{SYK_2}$ model rather than a Gaussian. From the spectrum we extract the Stabilizer Renyi Entropy (SRE) and show that for both models it displays a linear scaling with system size, with a prefactor that is larger for the SYK model, which has therefore higher magic. Finally, we discuss the spreading of quantun magic under unitary dynamics, as described by the evolution of the Majorana spectrum and the Stabilizer Renyi Entropy starting from a stabilizer state. We show that the SRE for the $\mathrm{SYK_2}$ model equilibrates rapidly, but that in the steady-state the interacting chaotic SYK model has more magic than the simple $\mathrm{SYK_2}$. Our results suggest that the Majorana spectrum is qualitatively distinct in chaotic and non-chaotic many-body systems.

• Lifted TASEP: Long-time dynamics, generalizations, and continuum limit

  Fabian H. L. Essler, Jeanne Gipouloux, Werner Krauth

  SciPost Phys. Core 8, 063 (2025) · published 2 October 2025 | Toggle abstract · pdf

  We investigate the lifted TASEP and its generalization, the GL-TASEP. We analyze the spectral properties of the transition matrix of the lifted TASEP using its Bethe ansatz solution, and use them to determine the scaling of the relaxation time (the inverse spectral gap) with particle number. The observed scaling with particle number was previously found to disagree with Monte Carlo simulations of the equilibrium autocorrelation times of the structure factor and of other large-scale density correlators for a particular value of the pullback $\alpha_{\rm crit}$. We explain this discrepancy. We then construct the continuum limit of the lifted TASEP, which remains integrable, and connect it to the event-chain Monte Carlo algorithm. The critical pullback $\alpha_{\rm crit}$ then equals the system pressure. We generalize the lifted TASEP to a large class of nearest-neighbour interactions, which lead to stationary states characterized by non-trivial Boltzmann distributions. By tuning the pullback parameter in the GL-TASEP to a particular value we can again achieve a polynomial speedup in the time required to converge to the steady state. We comment on the possible integrability of the GL-TASEP.